No Flags, No Slogans
Sorting the intricacies of an impossible debate.
Is Palestine a “Muslim” issue? I regularly see some variation of the question these days—with predictably passionate, and sometimes acrimonious, responses.
In short: yes, it is.
Continue reading “Is Palestine a Muslim Issue?”Dispossessing Palestinians is Zionism’s primary function.
This article was originally published in Arabic at Awan.
Western journalists, always mindful of the limits imposed by the ruling class, have a million ways of minimizing or mystifying Israeli brutality in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where several Palestinian families are set to be expelled to make way for Jewish settlers.
Continue reading “Sheikh Jarrah: Zionism Distilled to Its Purest Expression”Don’t wonder how so many useless people got good academic jobs. Their uselessness was the attraction all along.
You know the type. Drenched in white-collar affectations. Never skips a social event. Enamored of minor accomplishments. Considers fastidiousness a form of rebellion. Eggheaded, but in an arrogant rather than endearing way. Talks a lot while saying nothing at all.
This person is likely a professor at a prestigious university.
Continue reading “The Utility of Uselessness”A close reading of “Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living under Israeli Military Occupation Act”
Betty McCollum (D-MN) recently introduced legislation, with (thus far) thirteen cosponsors and dozens of organizational endorsements, that has generated significant interest. The main gist of the legislation is to condition U.S. aid to Israel on Israeli adherence to international human rights standards. The interest derives in part from the fact that what can be considered “pro-Palestine” legislation is a rarity in the U.S. Congress. McCollum is bucking the near-complete fealty to Israel customary among her House and Senate colleagues.
Continue reading “Betty McCollum Takes on the Israel Lobby”The metaphors that attempt to render Palestine complicated obscure the simple brutality of Zionist colonization.
Palestine is not a minefield. Palestine is not complicated. Palestine is not a morass. Palestine is not tricky. Palestine is not a quagmire.
Palestine is not almost impossible to navigate.
Continue reading “Palestine is not a Quagmire”A generation of compradors has learned that Palestinians are valuable raw material for careerism.
A few days ago, I finally managed to synthesize an observation that has bothered me for decades: “Being an asshole to Palestinians is an excellent way to launch a media career in the United States.” From Martin Peretz to Bari Weiss, the strategy has rarely failed writers seeking bylines in prestigious newspapers.
Continue reading “The Muslim Zionists”The unfreedom we often fear is real, and it’s visible everywhere
Back in November, I had to drop off my bus at one of the county garages for a minor repair. On the way, I radioed dispatch and said I’d need a ride back to the lot where my car was parked. I dallied outside the garage office, on the clock, until my ride ambled along and scooped me up.
The driver was inquisitive and after learning that I was relatively new asked if I enjoy my work. Not wanting to reveal too much about myself—I hate mixing politics with chitchat—I started joke-complaining about how goddamn hard it is to find the garage. The gambit worked. My new friend told me a funny story about his first year on the job.
Continue reading “The Architecture of Surveillance in Northern Virginia”Who are they? And why do they never speak for themselves?
Regular people. Normal people. Ordinary people. Average people. Everyday people. (No, not the song whose chorus is likely stuck in your head right now.)
The masses. Salt of the earth. The working class.
Continue reading “Regular People”A personal reckoning with the dialectic between pain and pleasure.
Without looking it up, I know exactly when lockdown got serious: Friday, March 13. The entire day felt off. I remember parking my bus in the evening—the lot was uncharacteristically quiet—and thinking, “Yeah, I won’t be doing this again for a while.”
Later that evening, the county I work for closed down all the schools. The closure would last until the end of the term. My child’s school, in Maryland, would shutter the following Monday.
Continue reading “A Dispatch from Month Four of Quarantine”Let’s figure out what we’re talking about first.
Note: This essay is the third part of a three-part series on social media. Click here for part one and here for part two.
Many champions of free speech are less into civil liberties than the preservation of a certain view of modernity. “Free speech,” in its discursive form (the form it takes as a rhetorical ideal), can be a mechanism to discipline people who have long been voiceless. Beyond its legal dynamics, the term often reifies capitalist principles of free-marketeering and accumulation. It also enables social media luminaries to deflect criticism when they share ghoulish opinions. Above all, the discourse of free speech preserves a vision of Americana implicated in an unacknowledged colonial origin. Harmful politics, logic has it, are a necessary feature of democracy.
Continue reading “Should We Cancel Cancel Culture?”
