This Friday, on the first Good Friday of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV entered the Colosseum in Rome to begin the Via Crucis. The new 70-year-old pope decided to carry the cross through all 14 stations of the Way of the Cross, holding it up in front of his face for nearly two hours as he prayed “for victims of war, the defense of human dignity, the despairing, and the lonely.”

A chilling sight, seeing the new Pope walking the Way of the Cross where early Christians were martyred.

Talk about a powerful moment. For Christianity? Humanity?

This marks the first time a pope carried the cross for every station in more than three decades. Pope John Paul II was the last pope to do so, carrying the cross from 1980 to 1994.

When asked about his decision to carry the cross for all 14 stations, Pope Leo told reporters he saw it as a sign the world needed right now:

“I think it will be an important sign because of what the pope represents, a spiritual leader today in the world, for this voice that everyone wants to hear to say that Christ still suffers, and I carry all these sufferings too in my prayer.”

Pope Leo extended an invitation to all people, regardless of faith:

“I would like to invite all people of goodwill, all people of faith, all Christians to walk together, to walk with Christ who suffered for us to give salvation, life, and to seek how we may also be bearers of peace and not of hatred.”

Per OSV News, the meditations for this year’s Via Crucis celebration were written by Father Francesco Patton, who formerly served as custos of the Holy Land and drew on his experience walking the historical Way of the Cross through the narrow streets of Jerusalem’s Old City, describing it in both Jesus’ time and today as “a chaotic, distracting and noisy environment, surrounded by people who share our faith in him, but also by those who deride or insult him.”

Biblical parallel that’s somehow still accepted in 2026.

In this way, Father Patton said, the Via Crucis parallels how every Christian is called to incarnate faith, hope, and charity in the real world “where the believer faces ongoing challenges and must constantly strive to imitate Jesus.”

Do you see where I’m going with this? I mean, it’s Easter Sunday, the text and the context are practically writing themselves.

What kind of believer are you?

Each of the 14 stations of the Via Crucis Pope Leo walked in Rome’s Colosseum included a Scripture reading, a quotation from St. Francis, a meditation by Father Patton, and a short introspective litany.

Meditation for the first station:

“Jesus is condemned to death,” called leaders of every kind to account, with Father Patton writing that every person in authority will answer to God in the Last Judgment for how they exercise power, including “the power to judge; the power to start or end a war; the power to instill violence or peace; the power to fuel the desire for revenge or for reconciliation; the power to use the economy to oppress people or to liberate them from misery.”

The tenth station:

“Jesus is stripped of his garments,” drew a sharp connection between Christ’s humiliation and contemporary violations of human dignity. The meditations cited authoritarian regimes that force prisoners to remain half-naked in bare cells, torturers who tear away not only clothing but skin and flesh, sexual abusers who reduce victims to objects, and an entertainment industry that “exploits nudity for the sake of profit.”

The meditation concluded with a call to conversion, “Remind us, Lord, that each time we fail to recognize the dignity of others, our own dignity is diminished.”

The eleventh station:

“Jesus is nailed to the cross,” offered a meditation on the nature of true power in the eyes of God. “You show that true power is not that of those who use force and violence to impose themselves, but that of those who are capable of taking upon themselves the evil of humanity — ours, mine — and destroying it with the power of love that is manifest in forgiveness.”

The litany prayers that followed each meditation gave voice to a wide range of human suffering.

The eighth station:

“Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem,” the crowd prayed to “weep over the devastation of war” and “for massacres and genocides.”

OSV News reports that, throughout the evening, prayers were offered for political prisoners, for people searching for the ultimate meaning of life, for those suffering from addiction, for children whose childhoods have been stolen, for victims of trafficking, for the poor stripped of their dignity, for migrants and refugees, for the lonely, for mothers who have lost children and for those who die alone.

This was all lovely. In theory.

I’m a Roman Catholic. I don’t really practice my religion. I dabble in it. If you want to read about my (funny-ish) religious journey, check it out below.

Every Easter, for the past three years, I share the same post on social media with the same caption that says:

Wishing you a blessed Good Friday. Today, your horoscope and your Christian faith tell you to commemorate Jesus’ crucifixion by speaking out on the injustices in Gaza and today’s crucifying of an entire group of people at the birthplace of your favorite religious leader, because that’s the best possible way to honor him, your religion & your beliefs.

This year, I added the bombing of the sovereign state of Iran in an illegal war of conquest and the bombing of civilian infrastructures in Southern Lebanon to my yearly Good Friday post.

Every Easter, this post steers some trouble. People feel called out. And that is my intention. Every Easter or Christmas, when people dial up their Christian sentiments online, those sentiments, I feel, should be confronted with the reality of a live-streamed genocide, occupation, invasions of sovereign countries, and illegitimate wars of conquest filling our screens.

But I mostly do it to provoke religious people into translating their beliefs into actual words and tangible actions, especially now, in the times of unimaginable violence and impunity.

Does your God approve of this?

As I’m writing this, I took a short break to check my Instagram, and the first thing that filled my screen was two stories posted by a friend of mine: his favorite uncle, killed by an IDF bomb in a civilian village in southern Lebanon. On Easter morning. Just like that, a life that meant so much to someone, gone within minutes. Because people who already have land need more land. My heart sank.

What do you say to someone directly affected by the biblical prophecy of the cult next door?

Every year, I share my Easter post to see how people respond, how believers react, and whether anything changes — to see whether the scale of carnage we’ve been witnessing will move those who remain unmoved by the annihilation of people far away, people who don’t look like them or pray like them.

I’ve been busting my brain for the past three years trying to understand how a religious person can witness this level of suffering, carnage, death, torture, rape, dehumanization, man-made starvation, and medieval brutality, and remain unmoved. Or worse, justify it.

And I came up with nothing but — exceptionalism.

Religion, at its core, is sold to us as a belief rooted in principles of compassion, humility, and service to the oppressed and the less fortunate. Yet exceptionalism, by its nature, fosters superiority and exclusivity, making it an oxymoron when paired with the teachings of most religious doctrines.

So why do they go hand in hand so seamlessly? Why do so many religious people find themselves caught in a sense of exceptionalism, the belief that their faith or cultural identity places them above others?

A weapon.

This contradiction is precisely what turns a tool for unity into a force of division, and more often than not, into an actual weapon, as we see in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, and across Africa.

Are people too naive to think this tension highlights how religious identity, when warped by exceptionalism, has strayed too far from its intended purpose? Or has this distortion always been a central feature of religion, wielded throughout history as a shield for those who subjugate others?

As I was breaking down the relationship between religion and exceptionalism for this piece, I came across an interview with George Galloway that filled in the gaps for me. George, as always, hits the mark:

“I honestly can’t understand how anyone can look at the pictures and videos that I’m looking at (carnage in Gaza) and come to any other conclusion, unless you believe in exceptionalism, unless you believe that some of us are more exceptional than others, some of us are chosen, therefore some of us by definition are not. I believe that all of us are God’s children, that none of us are exceptional, that none of us are God’s chosen people, that we are all God’s chosen people. We need to make a world that is fair and equitable.”

Exceptionalism is tricky.

It doesn’t reside solely among the privileged, the successful, the affluent, or the well-connected. It manifests in many forms. I’ve seen it among friends from humble beginnings who still believe that their European heritage, Western ideals, and lifestyle represent what the entire world should aspire to.

Arnaud Bertrand once asked himself if religion is either a legitimizing instrument of power — a crown on its head — or a thorn in power's side, standing with the powerless?

Whether we believe in God or not, we embody something greater, and it’s up to us to define that essence. Are we ready to acknowledge that we are all interconnected as part of the human race, and that nothing we hold dear should take precedence over the well-being of others?

Trump and his gang of criminals, driven by their partner — a biblically deranged cult in the Middle East — have pushed us toward a decade of economic uncertainty, and for those less geographically fortunate, toward death. We will all be affected by this war.

The marriage of religion and exceptionalism must be examined and checked daily, and I am not inclined to entertain those who use “their Christianity” to justify racial supremacy or to deflect from the injustices that sustain their privilege.

Everyone who has been paying attention over the past three years can see how often religion is used to legitimize power. Jesus Christ, whose resurrection is being celebrated today, preached humility, compassion, and care for the marginalized — values that stand in direct opposition to the priorities of modern power structures. Yet his teachings are constantly repurposed and commercialized to serve political agendas, including those that justify or accompany imperial wars.

The fact that the entire planet is now at the mercy of economic and geopolitical collapse, mass death and destruction, and even the threat of nuclear warheads, led by Christian Zionists, which contradicts the core teachings of Christianity, is a tragic consequence of bad theology.

Theological crisis.

Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, a Palestinian pastor, laid out this theological crisis forcefully in his sermon, “Christ is Still in the Rubble,” live from Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem in Dec 2024. He touches on what has been weighing on all of us: how can religious, church-going Christians stay silent on a live-streamed genocide in Gaza? And even worse, how can they support it?

Bombing civilian villages in South Lebanon and taking their land? Bombing Iran, a sovereign nation, in the middle of the negotiations, twice? Massacring 168 of their schoolgirls? 20 teenage female Volleyball players in a gymnasium? Does their God approve of this?

Key points from his speech worth pondering on:

“This is the result of an exclusionary mentality. Even God, we have made tribal, exclusionary, and selective — a God of one people at the expense of another, one religion over another, one nation over another. In our human racism, we have made God a racist!”

We have made God a racist. Have you ever heard anything so essential?

“Palestine is a human and moral cause, and for the church, it is a theological crisis. It’s about the credibility of our witness; it’s here that we come face to face with the tragic consequences of bad theology. Actually, this is much more than bad theology or even ideology. Zionism and Christian Zionism are ideologies of supremacy; it is racism.”

“Zionism and Christian Zionism turned God into a racist tribal deity of their own image. So we must call things for what they are, and today we also acknowledge all those who stood on the side of justice and truth. All those who said no to dehumanization, many of whom paid the heavy price.”

“Every Herod will pass, every Caesar will fade, for empires have an expiry date.⁠”

“And let us remember that according to Jesus, it is the meek, not the powerful, who inherit the land. In our pain and oppression, we might feel that death has the final word, that Herod is sovereign. But through the eyes of faith, we see that God has the final word.”

If you’re a Christian, does your God approve of this? Be honest with yourself. You’ve seen it all. How can you still justify this?

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Angelina Jolie, Louis Garrel, and the cast of Couture attended the film’s premiere at Pathé Palace in Paris. Louis and Angelina are rumored to be dating. The comments on social media flooded in: “She could be his mother.” “She’s too old for him.” “He should run.”

Angelina is 50 years old, Louis is 42.

I’ve been seeing this kind of commentary for years on the posts of many famous women over 45 — Kate Beckinsale, Sienna Miller, Heidi Klum, Sam Taylor-Johnson, and others. These comments are usually made by very young women, often sounding angry about how these women dress, how active they are on social media, how playful they are in their posts — but especially when they date younger men.

When I see men leaving these comments, I don’t flinch. They’re so obviously bitter and pathetic — a statistic that doesn’t deserve our time, no matter how ridiculous they sound.

But when women do this, it hurts me.

How can we do this to eachother, given everything that exists on this earth is constantly against us?

Internalized ageism, repackaged as concern.

What’s happening here?

Just take a look at some of these comments directed at Angelina:

I attempted to examine this phenomenon of women behaving this way toward women older than them — check out the post below to understand the response it attracted. 1 million views, over 2,000 comments, over 7,000 shares.

What is happening with this youth panic disguised as morality?

Why does a woman living freely bother other (younger) women so much?

It’s because a woman who ages without apology unsettles the fantasy.

It goes deeper.

As I already said, this youth panic, disguised as morality, is age anxiety projected outward. It’s self-hatred on delay.

The fear isn’t age, it’s freedom. It’s the audacity to be with a younger man.

These are the same young women who insist they’re progressive, liberal, and pro-choice, then suddenly become guardians of who women are allowed to date once they cross an invisible age line.

This isn’t about concern. It’s internalized ageism dressed up as judgment. A belief quietly absorbed early on — that a woman’s value peaks young, and anything after that is embarrassing, predatory, or sad. Seeing an older woman desired and unapologetic about it threatens that narrative.

If women don’t expire on schedule, then youth stops being a guarantee. And that’s unsettling. The real discomfort isn’t her age — it’s her freedom. A woman who keeps living, dating, breathing, and taking up space long past the moment she was supposed to disappear.

Again, why is this happening?

It’s a mix of social conditioning, fear, and competition, and not something innate.

It’s because patriarchy teaches women that their value expires. From a young age, women are told youth = worth. Older women who are visible, confident, desired, or free directly threaten that lie.

It’s because of internalized misogyny. Instead of questioning the system that pits women against time, some younger women turn that anxiety outward and police other women.

It’s the scarcity mindset around men. Culture frames male attention as limited and something women must compete for. An older woman who doesn’t “step aside” disrupts that narrative.

It’s the fear of their own future. Seeing older women living fully forces a confrontation with aging, and many respond with denial or hostility rather than curiosity and reflection.

It’s social media distortion. Algorithms reward youth obsession, mockery, and cruelty. Ageist jokes get likes; empathy doesn’t trend as easily.

The irony?

Ageism toward older women is self-hatred on a delay. Every younger woman who mocks aging is rehearsing how she herself will be treated later, unless she chooses to unlearn it.

Older women aren’t the problem. Or your competition. The system that taught women to fear becoming one is.

For some younger women, ageism becomes a way to enforce the rules and feel temporarily safe within them. The irony is harsh: every ageist insult aimed at older women is a rehearsal for how society may one day treat them.

A woman left an interesting comment on my Instagram post about this subject — something I hadn’t given much thought to before. She said that many of these young women spewing ageist bile toward older women grow up to become older women who resent very young girls. I thought about it and realized I grew up around a few girlfriends who were openly angry in our early twenties when boys they liked chose older women. Today, those same women smirk at very young women.

That cycle of hell sent shivers down my spine. It has to be our mission in life, however hard it may be to contain your emotions or your regret, to never allow yourself to become either of those examples. A woman, at any age, is the only person who understands exactly what you went through and what you will go through.

We simply have to break this cycle.

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Hi, folks. Three weeks into 2026, and wow. Checking in on you, and myself in the process. The first few days of the new year, along with the 2025 holiday season, felt promising.

What a beautiful thing it was to wake up on New Year’s Day and celebrate the inauguration of Mayor Mamdani — the joy, the hope, the inclusivity, the clarity of both the man and the message, all sprinkled with confetti as the final words were spoken, coming right after the high of a Heated Rivalry Christmas.

The year started strong, and we’ll hold on to that hope no matter what. Anything else would be capitulating to power — and we’re not the bending kind. Unless we choose to bend for things far more pleasurable than letting the government fuck us in the ass.

Did anyone truly believe we’d get a whole week into the new year without state violence, lightly seasoned with yet another breach of international law? I did. I was riding the high on my Mayor / Cottage crossover, and I foolishly believed we might have a chance of catching a breath.

And after two years of struggling to find my own sense of meaning, living in a country in perpetual decline, I was determined not to let 2026 be taken from me in the same way.

No can do, said the crime syndicate, pretending to be your government.

Only three days into the new year, and it’s already Grand Theft Venezuela — snatching presidents of foreign, sovereign countries to steal their resources, all in service of attacking another, bigger, badder enemy that threatens the ethnostate we’ve been propping up since 1948.

Only two weeks into the new year, and it’s the Israelization of the U.S. in full swing — IDF, sorry, my bad — ICE shooting citizens on the street, taking out nurses documenting violence and cruelty.

Bearing witness.

There is a particular exhaustion that comes with being a writer today — one that has nothing to do with motivation or creative block. It is the exhaustion of bearing witness. The cost of it.

When you just consume information, you read it, possibly share it — and it leaves you. I take that back: if you have a strong moral compass, it never fully leaves you. But you don’t have to sit inside it the way someone does who has to live in it — who has to stay with it long enough to research it, source it, and write about it.

And bearing witness, in this moment, is not a passive act. It is an active, grinding labor carried out in a world that produces suffering faster than it can be processed.

Frends, I’m exhausted.

This is not the fatigue of consuming news. It is the fatigue of carrying it. Witnessing without pause, of being unable to look away because looking away feels like moral failure, yet looking directly feels like erosion.

By the time you finish researching one atrocity, another one has already replaced it. By the time you shape a sentence to honor the dead, the algorithm has already moved on.

Seven million pieces of information a day. This is the reality of writing now. Not writing as commentary. But writing as moral documentation.

Your anger is needed.

The other day, I received a message from someone I know. She told me she appreciates everything I’ve been doing for the past two years — posting, writing, informing people about the genocide in Palestine, U.S. aggression around the world, and ICE violence at home.

Then she added that I don’t seem as angry as I used to. That it looks like I’m able to enjoy other things too, not just write about constant violence.

I think it’s your turn to be angry — I responded. For the past two years, she never said a word about a livestreamed genocide and shared my story about it twice.

For the past two years, many of us have been saying this clearly — If you stay silent about Palestine, the violence will come home. The same government that funds genocide abroad will use the same tools here.

You didn’t listen.

You thought what was happening to the Palestinian people was far away. Someone else’s problem. Not connected to your life. But now you’re seeing those same tactics used here, at home, in the U.S.

And now you’re angry. Now you want me to be angrier, too.

I already saw the worst things human beings can do to each other. I saw children’s limbs blown apart. I saw suffering that most people chose to scroll past.

You feel angrier than I do right now because you turned away when brown bodies were being destroyed. Now, when violence reaches people who look like you, it feels like the worst thing you’ve ever seen.

For me, it isn’t.

Bearing witness for two years — really bearing witness — cost me my health, my sanity, my sense of self. That’s the price of not looking away.

So yes. It’s your turn to be angry now. Feel it. Sit with it. Carry the weight yourself.

Connection has always been there. Palestine trained us to watch horror, scroll past it, and keep going — so that when violence shows up here, it doesn’t shock us anymore.

Your anger is needed now.

My anger is spent.

Writing in the violent world.

There will always be more suffering than you can document. More injustice than you can expose. More violence than you can contextualize. The work is not to capture everything — it is to refuse the lie that nothing can be captured truthfully.

This is why writing today feels less like creation and more like triage.

And maybe that is what it means to be a writer now: not a commentator on history, but a recorder of its fractures while they are still forming. Not someone who explains the world after the fact, but someone who stands inside it while it burns and refuses to pretend the fire is normal.

Writing in this moment is an act of defiance against erasure.

If this work feels unbearable, it is because it is being done correctly.

Despite all, the work continues. Not because it is rewarded — it often isn’t. Not because it is sustainable — it often isn’t. But because bearing witness is not optional for those who understand what silence protects.

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“My fellow New Yorkers — today begins a new era.

I stand before you moved by the privilege of taking this sacred oath, humbled by the faith that you have placed in me, and honored to serve as either your 111th or 112th Mayor of New York City. But I do not stand alone.

I stand alongside you, the tens of thousands gathered here in Lower Manhattan, warmed against the January chill by the resurgent flame of hope.”

It was a long way to here — a year, to be exact — since I joined the new media team of Mayor Mamdani (I cannot stop saying those two words together), helping him reach this moment, standing in –10°C weather, limbs numb by the time he came out to address us all — and the New Yorkers watching at home.

It’s strange, my mother says, the levels of energy and persistance in the midst of so much exhausting, undersleeping that is what busy life in New York is — that i’m able to find in my body to rally for this man. It’s almost subhuman, all the canwassing and rallying we accomplished, with having full time jobs, so that this city ca finally be led by a man that tryly cares about all new yorkers.

It’s strange, my mother says, the amount of energy and persistence I have, in the middle of so much exhaustion and sleep deprivation — the kind that comes with life in New York — that I’m still able to find it in my body to rally for this man.

It almost feels subhuman, all the canvassing and rallying we managed while working full-time jobs, just so this city can finally be led by a man who truly cares about all New Yorkers.

That same endurance, the kind that keeps you moving through exhaustion, cold, and lack of sleep — didn’t come from nowhere. It was forged in the past year itself.

This past year has felt like a roller coaster — a terrifying one. The kind where one limb feels like it’s hanging out of the carriage, and you’re constantly shifting your weight, trying not to fall, while the whole thing keeps moving anyway. Turn after turn, you manage to stay in. You stay in one piece. Not because you’re fearless, but because you’ve learned how to brace.

Atrocity after atrocity. Your government insisting you didn’t see what you saw. And by the time you reach the next turn, a new form of violence has already replaced the one you were just forced to absorb.

This man kept me sane through all of it. It’s astonishing what a glimmer of hope, embodied in a single person, can do to a body worn down by years of watching children’s limbs blown apart, by a government that funds it, and by a media ecosystem that insists it didn’t happen.

Hope is contagious. Once it appears, it multiplies. It spreads. And that’s precisely why Mayor Mamdani is a threat to those who depend on despair — to those who don’t want you to recognize hope when it shows up, or to believe it could grow into something real.

A era of possible futures

Let’s cling to that hope. The era of possible futures can begin with one man — and metastasize into an unstoppable force. “8 and a half million New Yorkers will speak this new era into existence. It will be loud. It will be different.”

We have to imagine it.

Every minute of this inauguration inspired me, but one thing stood out. A poem “Proof” recited by its author and poet Cornelius Eady. Read it. Cling to it. Let it consume you. You have to imagine it! This is our time.

You have to imagine it.
Who said you were too dark?
Too Large, too Queer, Too Loud? 
Who said you were too poor, too strange, too fat? 
You have to imagine it. 
Who said you must keep quiet? 
Who heard your story then rolled their eyes? 
Who tried to change your name to invisible? 
You’ve got to imagine. 
Who heard your name and refused to pronounce it? 
Who checked their watch and said not now? 
James Baldwin wrote the place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it. 
New York, city of invention, 
Roiling town, refresher
And re-newer,
New York, city of the real,
Where the canyons
Whisper in a hundred
Tongues,
New York,
Where your lucky self
Waits for your
Arrival,
Where there is always soil
For your root.
This is our time.
The taste of us, the spice of us, the hollers and the rhythms and the beats of us and the echo of our ancestors who made certain we know who we are. 
City of insistence, city of resistance. 
You have to imagine an army that wins without firing a bullet. 
A joy that wears down the rock of no. 
Up from insults up from blocked doors, up from trick bags, up from fear, up from shame, up from the way it was done before. 
You have to imagine that space they said wasn’t yours. 
That time they said you’d never own. 
The invisible city lit on its way. 
This moment is our proof.

This moment is our proof.

Let it inspire you. Let Zohran’s inaugural address motivate you into imagining a new world, hopeful world, and let’s speak it into existence.

“Together, we will tell a new story of our city.

This will not be a tale of one city, governed only by the one percent. Nor will it be a tale of two cities, the rich versus the poor.

It will be a tale of 8 and a half million cities, each of them a New Yorker with hopes and fears, each a universe, each of them woven together.

8 and a half million New Yorkers will speak this new era into existence. It will be loud. It will be different. It will feel like the New York we love.

No matter how long you have called this city home, that love has shaped your life. I know that it has shaped mine.

So, standing together with the wind of purpose at our backs, we will do something that New Yorkers do better than anyone else: we will set an example for the world.

If what Sinatra said is true, let us prove that anyone can make it in New York—and anywhere else too.

Let us prove that when a city belongs to the people, there is no need too small to be met, no person too sick to be made healthy, no one too alone to feel like New York is their home.

The work continues, the work endures, the work, my friends, has only just begun.”

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Because she’s a threat to Israel. After more than 800 days, you should be able to see the pattern clearly. None of this is about Jews, and not even really about Zionists. It’s about Israel — preserving the narrative it needs to maintain its legitimacy. “Safety” is the excuse, not the motive.

Think about this for a second. Kanye West manufactured swastika merch and dropped a song titled “Heil Hitler.” If that isn’t the most on-the-nose basis for being labeled an antisemite, what is? And yet he wasn’t even included in the list of the biggest antisemites of the year.

Why?

Kanye West goes around talking about Jews ruining his career, but he doesn’t threaten the existence of Israel. In fact, he doesn’t even speak about Israel. I haven’t heard him mention it once. Zionists don’t have a problem with people talking about Jews, or even talking shit about Jews, as long as they don’t threaten Israel.

Look at this tweet by Ben Shapiro, a foreign agent, shilling for a foreign country, in the heart of the United States:

Read it again. He’s talking about Ann Coulter talking shit about Jews, but she’s pro-Israel, so he doesn’t mind. He won’t lose sleep.

Is it ringing in yet?

How is Israel threatened? By removing a carefully curated, planted narrative that has been served to the American and Western public for eight decades. How is that done? By informing people about what Israel is actually doing in Gaza. By awakening young people to the realities of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people.

This is the equation:

Awakening > truth > physical evidence > changing narratives > reaching young minds > reclaiming reality > lack of support for the ethnostate > US public pressure to the US government > halt on military funding = ethonstate threatened.

By this equation, Ms. Rachel is the most dangerous human being on earth for the Zionist ideology and preservation of an ethnostate, Israel.

I’ll explain this through the example of Charlie Kirk. He was a threat to Israel because he was influencing young conservative men who are the primary pool for US military recruitment and, logically, the soldiers expected to fight Israel’s future wars of conquest. If that demographic withdraws its support, and Kirk’s political ambitions continue, he becomes the largest, most influential obstacle to Israeli interests.

Ms. Rachel is even more dangerous because she reaches an even younger demographic — children. Her “crime” was refusing to restrict empathy only to the children we’re politically permitted to mourn. And she committed the biggest crime of all: she SHOWED a Palestinian child on screen.

If you’ve watched The Occupation of the American Mind, you know how hard Israel has worked to prevent any image, or even the suggestion, that Palestinians are human beings. Ms. Rachel not only showed empathy for Palestinian children; she brought a Palestinian child, a double amputee, onto her show and let the world SEE her.

Actual neo-Nazis are marching through American streets with swastikas, openly threatening Jews and planning real violence. There was no comparable outrage or mobilization from Zionist communities in response — no daily headlines, no frantic influencer posts, no sustained pressure. But Ms. Rachel? She’s framed as the ultimate danger.

Ms. Rachel threatens none of these people. What she threatens is their control of discourse — the ability to monopolize victimhood, to push Palestinian life outside the boundaries of moral concern, and to shape how the youngest generation understands the world.

If toddlers learn empathy for all children, Zionist organizations lose the emotional foundation of their propaganda: the belief that some lives are inherently worth more than others.

This is why Ms. Rachel, and not Kanye West, was targeted. Or even Nick Fuentes. Real antisemitism is being ignored because it’s not politically useful. The logic is simple — accusing Kanye West or Nick Fuentes does not silence criticism of Israel. Accusing Ms. Rachel does. Kanye is not educating children about structural violence. Nick Fuentes is not teaching toddlers about empathy.

Although Nick challenges the enormous Israeli influence on the US government, which is an essential conversation to have from such a large platform, but that’s a subject for another piece.

Neither of the men I mentioned threatens the Zionist narrative that Palestinians are somehow exempt from humanization. Ms. Rachel, by contrast, does exactly that. By teaching empathy early, she disrupts decades of propaganda built on the selective withholding of empathy.

Legitimacy of Israel.

So why are Zionists so worried about anything that challenges the legitimacy of Israel? It’s a phenomenon I’ve been trying to understand for years — this absolute, unbreakable obsession with the state. And it finally clicked for me a few weeks ago, after everything I’ve read and everything I’ve watched unfold online: Zionists don’t truly believe in God as a mythical being, or a powerful spiritual force. They believe in Israel. Israel IS their god.

A few days ago, I saw an interesting post that further expands on my epiphany:

This is why they spiral the moment anyone questions Israel’s existence or legitimacy. People can acknowledge that Jews lived in the Holy Land for millennia and have a historical claim to that land while also saying the land should be shared, as it was before 1948, rather than emptied of the Palestinians who were already there. Yet even that basic truth sends them into emotional freefall. Because Israel isn’t just a state to them. It’s their god.

Anyone who questions it is an instant enemy.

Questioning the narrative.

It’s also important for Zionists who questions their narrative. They always care and react when it’s a person with a lot of influence — doctors, lawyers, entertainers, famous people with large followings. And Ms. Rachel fits this category too, because of the kind of celebrity she is and the influence she has.

Ms. Rachel is gentle, sweet, wholesome, kind. She’s authentic and genuine, and deeply cares about children. And she has an enormous following. That’s the Zionist nightmare: someone who represents goodness seeing depravity in their actions + having a large audience to tell it to.

She brought a child onto her program — a child from Gaza, a double amputee. A Palestinian child wounded by an Israeli bomb. And she showed her to the world. If you understand the basics of what Zionists are, you can easily deduce why they would see such an act as a personal attack.

Ms. Rachel brought a relic of their war crimes on air — proof, evidence of their depravity. In reality, Ms. Rachel simply wanted to provide some joy to a child who has experienced more grief than most people on the planet ever will, all before her fifth birthday. But seeing a Palestinian as a human being, rather than reducing them to a terrorist label, is treated as a direct antisemitic attack against the chosen people who simply can do no wrong.

When Zionists attack Ms. Rachel, they are letting us know — no Palestinian can ever be humanized, not even the Palestinian child. The child’s life is insignificant; it’s only used to smear them. They aren’t even questioning the reason this child has no limbs; they know they are the reason. They are offended by making the child visible, not by what has been done to the child.

It’s not about their war crimes; it’s about the world knowing about their war crimes.

No good for capitalism.

I watched a brilliant assessment of Ms. Rachel/Zionism phenomenon by Israeli-Arab Writer Alon Mizrahi. Alon argues Ms. Rachel represents a woman who is famous, successful, loved, and popular; a woman who seemingly follows all the rules of success in capitalist American Western colonial society.

This is really great stuff:

Why is Ms. Rachel hated so fiercely by Zionists? We need to remember that Zionism and capitalism are married. Zionism, capitalism, and colonialism are different names for basically the same thing. It’s the same camp. The reactionary American camp, the colonial camp. The establishments and Zionism are one. So why do they hate her so much?

Ms. Rachel succeeded as a woman in a capitalist society. Which should be the mark of feminism, right? This is what Western feminism teaches us. But Miss Rachel represents the archetype that goes against everything those people believe in. She’s a successful woman who doesn’t have a corporate personality.

She is not cold, calculated, or controlled. She doesn’t toe the corporate line. She doesn’t repeat the PR messaging that every corporate person in America repeats and never goes off script. You can never make those people go off script. But Ms. Rachel isn’t that. She’s something else. She’s an ancient archetype.

She is all compassion, she is all love, she cares for children. This is not corporate. They have to hate her for it. They cannot have this role model of success. Women who succeed, in terms of the archetype that capitalism wants, that Western society wants, need to be cold. They need to not have actual emotions. They need to be Hillary Clinton.

These are the kind of women that the West celebrates as feminist success. This is the archetype they’re trying to build. And Miss Rachel breaks this stereotype. They don’t want women, and they don’t want people in general who have a soul. They don’t want women who cry over poor children.

This is not good for the plan. This is not good for capitalism. This is not good for corporate America. This breaks the discipline. They don’t want that. So Ms. Rachel’s success as a maternal archetype that goes against the acceptable standards of Western society and Western capitalism isn’t good.

And the fact that she humanizes Palestinian children and dares to criticize Zionism makes her a heretic. An enemy of the established order. And it doesn’t matter how soft, gentle, and kind she is.

She is the kind of woman who, in ancient times, would be declared a saint by the church. Looking after the kids no one wants to look after. Humanize the people, society is trying to dehumanize. And it’s always the poor. It’s almost always the poor. Another race, another religion, but almost always the poor. So they hate her for it. She spoils the plan. She humanizes Palestinians. She criticizes Zionism, and she embodies an ancient archetype of what a woman can be, what a woman has the capability of being.

There’s another, even bigger aspect to it. It’s not only humanizing Palestinians and criticizing Zionism while being a successful woman in ways that Western capitalism hates. We need to look at the big things happening right now and see the common thread.

What connects the Gaza Holocaust, Epstein, the shooting at fishermen in the Caribbean, wanting to go to war with Venezuela, and bombing Iran? I’m connecting all of this to Miss Rachel — all of it is the fundamental, defining element. It’s all organized around abuse and sadism.

What Israel is doing to Palestinians in Gaza is nothing but sadism. What Zionism demands from the world is a license to abuse, torment, and destroy the Palestinians. And what the U.S. is doing to the fishermen in the Caribbean is the same thing. What Epstein did to his victims is the same thing.

And what is capitalism? It’s the same thing. If Zionism has the license to use the international legitimacy, power, money, and connections to abuse and torture and destroy another group of people, then capitalism is the license of people who have a lot of money to abuse people who don’t. Capitalism is not an economic theory. It’s just an ideology that says that very rich people can do whatever they want to poor people. This is all capitalism is.

And in Capitalism we trust! It’s an American religion that must never, ever be challenged.

When Empathy Becomes a Crime.

The nomination of Ms. Rachel as “Antisemite of the Year” is not a story about her; rather, it’s a story about an ideology losing its moral vocabulary. When real antisemites go unchallenged while educators who advocate for universal safety are condemned, the word antisemitism no longer names hatred — it names dissent.

And that transition is dishonest, and it’s dangerous.

When a word designed to protect people is repurposed to protect power, both truth and safety collapse. Clowns who “nominated” Ms. Rachel are petty and insignificant, but her nomination is a warning about what our culture is becoming.

The message is clear: there is a higher cause out there — Zionism, and for that cause, you can disregard all the normal rules of morality.

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There’s no greater paradox on earth than the week(end) of Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday in America. It’s an unparalleled showcase of the nation’s essence, steeped in hypocrisy, morbidity, and violence. Nowhere else does the contradiction emerge more starkly than on a day meant for giving thanks and reflecting on gratitude, only to give way, as the weekend comes, to a chaotic celebration of consumerism and excess.

This year’s Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday feel especially jarring in the shadow of two years of genocide, displacement, and deliberate starvation unfolding on our phones — followed by a fake “ceasefire” and a mainstream media apparatus actively creating cover so those violations can continue.

We’re celebrating a day, a weekend, a holiday rooted in deliberate misinformation and the genocide of Native Americans — right after witnessing two years of a livestreamed genocide unfold on our phones, followed by a so-called “ceasefire” that ceased no fire, during which 342 Palestinians were killed, including 67 children, and 875 were wounded.

It’s hard to watch the Thanksgiving parade, and all the attempts to rewrite history with gratitude lists or “land acknowledgments” over turkey — the “friendly feast” narrative, designed to whitewash colonization, violence, and mass murder into a peaceful, benign story.

As if that weren’t enough, while the compassionate, clear-minded world supports the BDS, Thanksgiving is followed by Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This consumerist frenzy stands in stark contrast to Native American spirituality, reverence for creation, environmental stewardship, and our basic human need for communion with nature and with one another.

Colonial damage is far greater than Thanksgiving.

But it endures as a symbol of colonialism, nauseatingly romanticized, yet rooted in the very foundations of settler colonialism. It’s not the primary act of colonialism, but it perpetuates a distorted view of history, obscuring the true scope of colonial violence.

The American settler-colonial model has served as a blueprint for other colonial powers. Its unprecedented success in establishing a settler society while marginalizing Indigenous populations is unmatched in scale. Now, Israel, in a cynical attempt to avoid scrutiny, argues that if America could do it, why can’t they?

We’ve witnessed two years of the first livestreamed genocide unfolding before our eyes, as ICE raids and state-sponsored terror crept into our reality. Our Western governments and their propagandists lie, fund, support, and justify atrocities at home and overseas. The history told by the West, from its very beginning, is a series of distorted, whitewashed, and romanticized lies.

We have to keep telling these truths.

Whether it’s the past or present, the only path forward is through unapologetic, radical truth, repeated relentlessly. We must expose lies, share them, and open as many eyes as possible. The education system is rigged in favor of the establishment, and history books reflect the bias of the victors. As Julian Assange warned, social media has the power to change these narratives, which we have proven with our relentless posting about Palestine:

“Working against corrupt, powerful organizations who are producing a distorted perspective through mainstream media vehicle — has been the internet. It has allowed one person with one truth to speak to every single person who wants to hear that truth.”

The livestreamed genocide in Gaza and the unspeakable horrors inflicted on a civilian population, funded and justified by the entire West, have laid bare the corruption, insincerity, and manipulation of our governments. The situation is so dire that we no longer resemble a functioning society, but a “transnational security elite that is busy carving up the world using our tax money” — another classic Julian.

Today, we are WikiLeaks.

Instead of living in a humane, civilized, and democratic society, we find ourselves forced to take on the responsibilities of our government, police, and media, much like the people of Amsterdam, exactly a year ago, who had to step in and defend themselves from Israeli football thugs rampaging around their city — while Dutch authorities failed to protect their own citizens.

Julian, again, explains this concept:

“To combat the elite we must not petition, we must take it over, we must form our own networks of strength and mutual value which can challenge those strengths and self-interested values of the warmongers.

When we understand that wars come about as a result of lies peddled to the British public the American public and the public all over Europe and other countries, then who are the war criminals? It is not just leaders, it is not just soldiers, it is journalists.

Journalists are war criminals. While one might think that should lead us to a state of despair, that the reality around us is constructed by liars; it should also lead us to an optimistic understanding — because if wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by the truth.

So that is our task, and it is your task — go and get the truth, get into the ballpark, get the ball, and give it to us, and we’ll spread it all over the world.”

Let’s start with debunking Thanksgiving myths.

Children in schools have been taught a Thanksgiving myth: friendly Indians, unidentified by tribe, welcome the Pilgrims to America, teach them how to live in this new place, share a meal with them, and then disappear. They handed off America to white people so they could create a great nation dedicated to liberty, opportunity, and Christianity for the rest of the world to profit.

That’s the story — a tale of Native people quietly conceding to colonialism. It’s a bloodless narrative and an extension of Manifest Destiny, the belief that white Americans were divinely ordained to expand across North America. This ideology justified westward expansion and fueled policies like the Trail of Tears, forced relocations, violent conflicts, and the systematic destruction of Native cultures, all cloaked in the language of destiny and divine right.

Manifest Destiny / We Are The Chosen People?

In 200-300 years, when all of us eyewitnesses are gone, along with our children to whom we’ll pass down the stories of the first live-streamed genocide in history, will Israelis invent warm, fuzzy tales about sharing falafels with Indigenous Palestinians in Gaza, before the latter peacefully decided to leave, so Israelis could create a great nation dedicated to liberty, opportunity, and Zionism, for the rest of the world to profit?

The history of the West repeats itself, over and over. And it continues to do so, even in 2025, because we’ve grown complacent. We don’t confront power as fiercely or as consistently as we should; we’ve absorbed their gaslighting, their narratives, and the consumerism designed to keep us compliant. Instead of speaking radical truths whenever and wherever they’re needed, we’ve let ourselves be muted.

The people of Palestine have woken us up from this propaganda-induced coma, a term coined by Caitlin Johnstone, a much-needed voice tirelessly working to lead us out of the matrix. She also chose these apt, albeit fighting, words:

“The deck is stacked so heavily against truth, peace, and justice. You will watch powerlessly as your government backs genocides, starts wars, and unleashes nightmare after nightmare upon the global south.

We live in a tyrannical dystopia that’s driving humanity to its doom, and we need to wake up from the propaganda indoctrination and egoic delusions which keep us complying with the status quo so that we can use the power of our numbers to overthrow our oppressors and create a healthy world.”

A radical truth at every turn must become everyone’s mission.

The “First Thanksgiving” didn’t unfold as history tells you. The Wampanoag tribe taught the English settlers (Pilgrims) how to grow crops, leading to a successful harvest. However, the Wampanoag weren’t invited to a “peaceful feast”, otherwise known as the First Thanksgiving. In fact, 90 armed Wampanoag warriors arrived at the feast after hearing gunshots, coming not to celebrate but to protect their people.

This occurred only months after the Pilgrims had robbed their graves and stolen food meant for Native families. The so-called “First Thanksgiving” marked the beginning of violent conflicts, with the colonists later seizing land and imprisoning, enslaving, and executing Native people.

While the legacy of colonialism spans centuries, Thanksgiving perpetuates a narrative that oversimplifies and sanitizes the violence and dispossession endured by Indigenous peoples. Are you even aware of the scale of devastation the European settlers inflicted on Native American populations? It’s one of the most depraved, evil, and violent crimes in history. And what stings the most — it worked. It was successful.

Look at the numbers:

While Americans celebrate and indulge in turkey feasts, Native Americans mourn this day. Since 1970, many Native Americans have participated in the National Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving Day, often held at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, to commemorate their ancestors and advocate for indigenous rights.

For many Native Americans, Thanksgiving marks the beginning of their oppression, the loss of their land, and the erasure of their culture.

Witnessing a livestreamed genocide for two years, with daily massacres landing on your phone as soon as you open your eyes in the morning, and the reality that America’s past violence mirrors what Israel is currently attempting, makes Thanksgiving and its associated history feel even more nauseating to participate in.

I saw Native Americans at every anti-genocide protest I attended. I’ve seen pictures of them standing in solidarity, in other cities across America. There is a unique bond between Native Americans and Indigenous Palestinians. They understand the pain of cultural erasure, having witnessed it firsthand, while the same attempt is now being made against Palestinians. The parallels are unavoidable, especially since the erasure of Native Americans succeeded, whereas, for 77 years, Palestinians have miraculously resisted erasure.

“We are not Red Indians.”

In his last interview in 2004, Yasser Arafat reflected upon his achievements. Among them was the fact that “the Palestine case was the biggest problem in the world” and that Israel had “failed to wipe us out.” As a final mark of that success, he added the declarative, comparative, and final point of distinction: “We are not the Red Indians, we will not go into the museum. We are a live people with a live cause, that we will carry with us until the end, until victory.”

Twenty years later, Palestine is still the moral center of the world.

For 77 years and counting, the plight of the Palestinian people has remained at a standstill, and that’s purposeful, as maintaining the status quo is necessary for the existence of the state of Israel.

But what’s truly fascinating is that Yasser Arafat got his wish: “For our movement, armed struggle means waging a mass revolutionary war. Therefore, the first stage of our work is to attract the masses. The first thing is to attract the masses of our people and make them live in a revolutionary atmosphere.”

As The Guardian pointed out ten years ago, on the 10th anniversary of Yasser Arafat’s death: “He saw himself as part of a global movement and as a member of an international revolutionary fraternity against injustice — part of the global struggle of oppressed peoples for freedom and liberation.”

Keffiyeh Arafat wore came to symbolize revolution, not just the Palestinian struggle.

And it’s up to us, the global community, to never let the Palestinian people go into the museum. The struggle for Palestinian liberation is a fight against all forms of oppression.

Just as Thanksgiving has been rebranded into a “friendly feast” narrative, whitewashing colonization, violence, and mass murder into a benign story, Israel has spent 77 years attempting the same erasure of the Palestinian people, their culture, identity, sovereignty, and their land. We must resist the distorted version of history that allows Israel to claim the mantle of the “only democracy in the Middle East” and the “most moral army in the world,” obscuring the full scope of their shocking, barbaric violence toward the entire group of people whose land they covet.

We are a live people with a live cause, that we will carry with us until the end, until victory.” — Yasser Arafat

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You need to know three essential truths. Your government cares more about Israel than about its own people. Your government prioritizes Israel over its own citizens. Your government stands with Israel, not with you.

Now that almost all of the Global Sumud Flotilla humanitarians have been released from Israeli dungeons, let’s unpack what transpired and truly grasp the intricacies of this moment. These people embarked on this mission and risked their lives so that we could reach these conclusions — and conclude we must.

Let’s recap.

Israel rolled up to the international waters and snatched people. Sprayed them with skunk water, held them at gunpoint. Took them to dungeons, detained them, gave them no water for 48 hours, gave them infested food, and mattresses. Made them drink toilet water. Made them kneel with zip ties behind their backs for 15 hours. Refused them essential medicine. Foreigners. In international waters. Europeans, Americans, Australians, Brits, Canadians. Taken, snatched, detained.

I watched a live stream from the airport in Athens and Madrid last night and saw a group of recently released detainees arrive — without bras or underpants, dressed in white t-shirts, gray sweatpants, and sweatshirts. They looked visibly disheveled, yet determined not to speak about what they had endured, choosing to redirect the focus to the Palestinian people and the genocide still ongoing.

Something about their clothes was so unsettling. Why are they all dressed in grey sweats? Why did all the women walk out without bras? Men dangling without underpants? What in the Jim Jones is going on here? It quite literally looked like they had all just been rescued from a cult about to catapult them to a semi-voluntary death.

Meanwhile, no countries reacted.

No countries took any action for their own citizens. This means that if you were on one of these Flotillas and were kidnapped by an aggressive, vindictive, trigger-happy “army” currently committing genocide, your country wouldn’t do anything for you. Your embassy wouldn’t rescue you or even inquire about you. The country of your birth or citizenship — the one you pay taxes to, whose government is supposed to work for you — would leave you stranded and unprotected, for Israel.

What an unbelievably tough pill to swallow! Realizing there are simply no adults here. The people who rule you, the ruling class, or as I endearingly call them, the Epstein class, are simply all compromised.

Performative actions?

Meanwhile, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said on Monday that the country will file a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) regarding the events of the Global Sumud Flotilla: “Any attack on persons in international waters constitutes a deprivation of liberty under domestic and international law.”

Will they actually do anything? Or will they send a warship to “help” the Flotilla and then pull it back from the international waters at the moment they actually needed the protection?

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard also let out some words and said that the allegations regarding the abusive treatment of climate activist Greta Thunberg are “very serious” if confirmed. ⁠

Investigative journalist Max Blumenthal gives us another indication of where the US government stands, and who’s actually in control:

“Passengers from the Sumud Freedom flotilla, including Greta Thunberg, have been led out after being abused for a week. Mike Huckabee, the supposed US ambassador to Israel, has mocked Greta Thunberg on his Twitter account. Other American citizens are due to be kidnapped by Israel, and what Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador, is saying is: we will not provide consular representation to US citizens because I actually represent Israel.” American citizens attempting to bring aid to Gaza, being kidnapped on the high seas by Israel, will not receive consular representation as they’re abused by Israeli foreign police and security personnel. That is disgusting.”

While none of the Global Sumud Flotilla vessels reached Gaza to deliver aid to the starving population, having been illegally intercepted by the Israeli regime in international waters, the mission was nonetheless a great success. It achieved exactly what its organizers intended: pressing the record button and aiming it at the many illegal actions of the Israeli regime.

This is precisely why Western governments are working overtime to shield Israel instead of protecting their own citizens — because the only way to make Israel’s crimes appear acceptable to the public is through political power, media control, and diplomatic protection that make the illegitimate seem legitimate.

We are here to remind them, it won’t work.

People are coming! The Global Sumud Flotilla stands as the most successful mission to break the naval siege of Gaza to date — crossing Gaza’s maritime borders, entering Palestinian territorial waters, and reaching 42.5 nautical miles from the Strip before being intercepted.

After decades of the Israeli genocidal regime controlling the narrative and portraying itself as a victim surrounded by radical terrorists, humanitarians on the Flotillas revealed the true face of the occupation, backed by the entire West, showing the world what the Palestinian people have endured for decades.

Israel has been pouring millions into censoring voices and manufacturing propaganda. Palestinians simply pressed the record button. They didn’t need PR firms or celebrity endorsements — all they needed was a phone. And the humanitarians aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla carried their phones on a mission to break the naval siege of Gaza, exposing the occupation from the opposite side of the border.

The power of the people, united in the absence of functioning governments, rules, and laws, becomes all the more dangerous to the ruling class.

Your governments know this.

Israel knows this.

The people are coming!

And we have only just begun.

Before you go, check out the picture of Greta Thunberg and Tiago Avila after being intercepted by Israel. Look at Thiago, one of the coordinators of the Global Freedom Flotilla, look at his smile, in the face of what’s to come — detention, torture, and starvation. The calm on his face, the fearless conviction, and the unwavering resolve speak louder than any words.

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While none of the Global Sumud Flotilla vessels reached Gaza to deliver aid to the starving population, having been illegally intercepted by the Israeli regime in international waters, the mission was nonetheless a great success. It achieved exactly what its organizers intended: pressing the record button and aiming it at the many illegal actions of the Israeli regime.

You should feel good about this mission.

Here’s why:

Sumud stands as the most successful Flotilla mission to date, technically breaking the naval siege, crossing Gaza’s maritime borders, and entering Palestinian territorial waters, reaching 42.5 nautical miles from the Strip, before interception.

After decades of the Israeli genocidal regime controlling the narrative and portraying itself as a victim surrounded by radical terrorists, humanitarians on the Flotillas revealed the true face of the occupation, backed by the entire West, showing the world what the Palestinian people have endured for decades.

Israel has been pouring millions into censoring voices and manufacturing propaganda. Palestinians simply pressed the record button. They didn’t need PR firms or celebrity endorsements — all they needed was a phone. And the humanitarians aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla carried their phones on a mission to break the naval siege of Gaza, exposing the occupation from the opposite side of the border.

The occupation pays influencers, curates photo ops, silences dissent, and manipulates headlines. Flotilla missions expose the fallacies of the Israeli narrative with every trip to Gaza. Israel claims it has the right to kidnap humanitarians at sea because they “illegally entered Israeli waters,” while simultaneously insisting they do not occupy Gaza. If Israel does not occupy Gaza, and humanitarians are sailing toward a people whom Israel claims not to occupy, how can Israel legally intercept a peaceful international aid mission heading toward a territory it does not occupy?

Imagine how fragile the illusion Israel and its allies have built, if just a few phones pointed at their actions are enough to dismantle it. Global Sumud Flotilla showed the world that Israeli illusions and lies require constant upkeep, endless throwing money at it, and sailing to Gaza simply ruins their business plan. This is why all the Flotilla missions are despised by Israel.

Itamar Ben-Gvir came out of his dungeon to yell at humanitarians, calling them terrorists; imagine an actual convicted terrorist calling humanitarians — terrorists, his anger and foaming at the mouth expose how pressed and worried he is about their narrative crumbling down in real time. Why would he be so pressed if the Flotilla’s actions are insignificant?

Everything you ever knew about Israel was a controlled narrative. The only reason the truth managed to come out is because they did not count on the fact that most people did not get convinced, regardless of their decades-long efforts, to see Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians as lesser people, deserving of death. And because one little owned by China, which did not control the algorithm, and allowed the truth to be spread.

That is why all Flotilla missions are essential in exposing the reality of Palestinian suffering. It’s a chip in the narrative, it’s exposing to the world a genocidal regime that is claiming not to starve the population they are holding under siege, refusing to allow a drop of help and humanity, dignity, and support to reach the people they claim not to hate.

It’s a win.

This week’s investigative report taught us that Israel is paying influencers $7,000 to post their controlled narrative in the service of upholding the genocidal campaign in Gaza. Since they intercepted all the Flotillas, Israel has been tripping over their own feet to make these propaganda explainer videos, claiming no aid was on the vessels. And all that the pro-Palestinian side has to do — is turn our phones on.

Humanitarians on the Flotilla crushed all their narratives and propaganda with a simple record button.

Justice moves slowly, yet this is a win.

The empire is relentless, but so are we.

Next time? 400 ships!

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We all saw that video this morning — a child with a charred face, taking their last breath, intestines spilling out of their tiny body. I instinctively said her, though it could just as easily have been him. I was so distraught I didn’t even check; the body was so destroyed I couldn’t tell the child’s sex.

I think the sight of intestines spilling from a tiny human body is the moment to say — ENOUGH. Ostracize everyone who still has the gall to claim, or who keeps convincing themselves, that Palestinian children are merely “collateral damage” in some gruesome “war” between “Israel and Hamas.” There is no war. This is the annihilation of a people whose land you want to seize, a biblical need to erase the Palestinians, or, as they prefer to call them, Arabs — from existence.

Children are a demographic threat to that goal, to Zionism, and to the ethnostate upheld through relentless violence.

If you haven’t seen the video, I advise you to see it, however gruesome. We have to bear witness, and we absolutely CANNOT normalize seeing this level of medieval violence being done to CHILDREN, women, and men of Palestine.

I want to make you all aware of the speech by the great Naomi Klein, in April of 2004, at the public Seder, and a protest in New York City, against Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Naomi Klein is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses; support of ecofeminism, organized labour, and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism, and capitalism. Naomi Klein is Jewish.

A Seder is a ceremonial Passover meal celebrated on the first one or two nights of the Passover holiday, involving a specific order of rituals, symbolic foods like bitter herbs and matzah, and the retelling of the biblical story of the Exodus from Egypt.

This is the transcript of Naomi Klein’s speech, also published at The Guardian:

We need an exodus from Zionism

This Passover, we don’t need or want the false idol of Zionism. We want freedom from the project that commits genocide in our name

Published on Wed, April 24th, 2004.

By Naomi Klein

I’ve been thinking about Moses, and his rage when he came down from the mount to find the Israelites worshipping a golden calf.

The ecofeminist in me was always uneasy about this story: what kind of God is jealous of animals? What kind of God wants to hoard all the sacredness of the Earth for himself?

But there is a less literal way of understanding this story. It is about false idols. About the human tendency to worship the profane and shiny, to look to the small and material rather than the large and transcendent.

What I want to say to you tonight at this revolutionary and historic Seder in the Streets is that too many of our people are worshipping a false idol once again. They are enraptured by it. Drunk on it. Profaned by it.

That false idol is called Zionism.

Zionism is a false idol that has taken the idea of the promised land and turned it into a deed of sale for a militaristic ethnostate.

It is a false idol that takes our most profound biblical stories of justice and emancipation from slavery – the story of Passover itself – and turns them into brutalist weapons of colonial land theft, roadmaps for ethnic cleansing and genocide.

It is a false idol that has taken the transcendent idea of the promised land – a metaphor for human liberation that has traveled across multiple faiths to every corner of this globe – and dared to turn it into a deed of sale for a militaristic ethnostate.

Political Zionism’s version of liberation is itself profane. From the start, it required the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and ancestral lands in the Nakba.

From the start it has been at war with dreams of liberation. At a Seder it is worth remembering that this includes the dreams of liberation and self-determination of the Egyptian people. This false idol of Zionism equates Israeli safety with Egyptian dictatorship and client states.

From the start it has produced an ugly kind of freedom that saw Palestinian children not as human beings but as demographic threats – much as the pharaoh in the Book of Exodus feared the growing population of Israelites, and thus ordered the death of their sons.

Zionism has brought us to our present moment of cataclysm and it is time that we said clearly: it has always been leading us here.

It is a false idol that has led far too many of our own people down a deeply immoral path that now has them justifying the shredding of core commandments: thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet.

We, in these streets for months and months, are the exodus. The exodus from Zionism.

It is a false idol that equates Jewish freedom with cluster bombs that kill and maim Palestinian children.

Zionism is a false idol that has betrayed every Jewish value, including the value we place on questioning – a practice embedded in the Seder with its four questions asked by the youngest child.

Including the love we have as a people for text and for education.

Today, this false idol justifies the bombing of every university in Gaza; the destruction of countless schools, of archives, of printing presses; the killing of hundreds of academics, of journalists, of poets – this is what Palestinians call scholasticide, the killing of the means of education.

Meanwhile, in this city, the universities call in the NYPD and barricade themselves against the grave threat posed by their own students daring to ask them basic questions, such as: how can you claim to believe in anything at all, least of all us, while you enable, invest in and collaborate with this genocide?

The false idol of Zionism has been allowed to grow unchecked for far too long.

So tonight we say: it ends here.

Our Judaism cannot be contained by an ethnostate, for our Judaism is internationalist by nature.

Our Judaism cannot be protected by the rampaging military of that state, for all that military does is sow sorrow and reap hatred – including against us as Jews.

Our Judaism is not threatened by people raising their voices in solidarity with Palestine across lines of race, ethnicity, physical ability, gender identity and generations.

Our Judaism is one of those voices and knows that in that chorus lies both our safety and our collective liberation.

Our Judaism is the Judaism of the Passover Seder: the gathering in ceremony to share food and wine with loved ones and strangers alike, the ritual that is inherently portable, light enough to carry on our backs, in need of nothing but each other: no walls, no temple, no rabbi, a role for everyone, even – especially – the smallest child. The Seder is a diaspora technology if ever there was one, made for collective grieving, contemplation, questioning, remembering and reviving the revolutionary spirit.

So look around. This, here, is our Judaism. As waters rise and forests burn and nothing is certain, we pray at the altar of solidarity and mutual aid, no matter the cost.

We don’t need or want the false idol of Zionism. We want freedom from the project that commits genocide in our name. Freedom from an ideology that has no plan for peace other than deals with murderous theocratic petrostates next door, while selling the technologies of robo-assassinations to the world.

We seek to liberate Judaism from an ethnostate that wants Jews to be perennially afraid, that wants our children to be afraid, that wants us to believe the world is against us so that we go running to its fortress and beneath its iron dome, or at least keep the weapons and donations flowing.

That is the false idol.

And it’s not just Netanyahu, it’s the world he made and that made him – it’s Zionism.

What are we? We, in these streets for months and months, are the exodus. The exodus from Zionism.

And to the Chuck Schumers of this world, we do not say: “Let our people go.”

We say: “We have already gone. And your kids? They’re with us now.

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Happy 4th of July! Let’s celebrate America’s independence from mad King George’s subjugation by subjugating the Native Americans. United, free, and independent, it’s our motto; it only applies to us.

The full circle is poetic, from Mad King George, to senile puppet Biden, to the weakest strongmen on Earth, Trump — the populist, fighter of deep states, only to be purchased by its highest bidder.

Hey, there are fireworks tonight!

We are battling depression daily, seeing genocides on our screens, funded by our hard-won, united, free, and independent state — thanks, Founding Fathers.

Is it really depression, or just the emotional weight of surviving capitalism? Our basic needs neglected, billions funneled into foreign wars, free speech silenced to protect the sensibilities of donors, posing as patriots — pledging allegiance to a foreign cult, posing as a state?

America is an extremist oligarchy whose citizens have zero influence on public policy, Matt Cooke once told me.

Happy Independence Day!

Didn’t you hear? A cute, hot Muslim who eats rice with his fingers might become the mayor of Gotham City, a radical who isn’t radical enough for our Founding Fathers, who don’t like a regular Muslim who looks just like them. Their brand of Islamophobia is all photo ops at the Qatar World Cup, shopping sprees in Dubai, and flying home on a plane they gifted you, to lecture us about Arab terrorism.

A systematic mass slaughter, live on your screen, didn’t move you. What’s your red line?

They are coming for you, they say. Who’s coming? Those who warn you are the ones coming, and they are already here.

They are coming for you.

Gays are coming for you to ruin your family, trans are coming for you to assault you, non-binaries are coming for you to confuse your kids, Arabs are coming for you to kill you, Muslims are coming to convert you, immigrants are coming for your jobs.

The only one coming for you, your freedoms, and your quality of life — is your government.

America, the mascot of freedom and opportunity that the world is instructed to envy, doesn’t want global stability if it means empowering a competitor. It still clings to the fading echoes of imperial hubris, relentlessly chasing growth, dominance, and expansion.

Your government convinced you that Zionist feelings are more important than small limbs in Gaza being severed from tiny, motionless bodies.

Your government convinced you that chants about deaf deaf to the Gestapo are more problematic than the government with access to weapons, funding the Gestapo.

You cannot celebrate Independence Day today if you aren’t supportive of the Palestinian plight for independence.

The US House voted to conceal the death toll in Gaza, while your future is being decided by 80-year-olds without a future.

We have been emotionally manipulated, time and again, to believe we are under immediate danger from the crazed other. They would kill you and your family too, a bizarre argument that is supposed to make you atrocity-friendly — Alon Mizrahi told me.

There are fireworks tonight!

Who’s the independent party here?

The state of Israel was not created for the salvation of Jews; it was created for the salvation of Western interests. Palestinians are just paying a perpetual price for it — James Baldwin told me.

The empire’s interests are not your interests.

Is the freedom in the room with us?

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My biggest internal struggle over the past twenty months has been finding the words to explain to those silent about the livestreamed genocide in Gaza just how dangerous their silence is. The collection sounds something like this:

• “But I don’t have many followers, who would I inform?”

• “I don’t talk about politics, I can’t start now.”

• “I’m not posting or talking about this genocide, but I’m doing things for Gaza behind closed doors” (they aren’t).

• “I’m a mother, so watching kids being blown up to pieces is too much for me. I just can’t deal with it, emotionally.”

My response is usually embarrassingly naive: “Well, isn’t that the biggest reason on earth to actually care and do more for someone else’s kids being blown to…?”

Forget it.

They never listen, and my cortisol spikes every time I try to explain that their silence isn’t just inaction—it’s dangerous. When enough people choose not to speak, those of us who do are left exposed, outnumbered, and easy to target—doxxed, threatened, stripped of opportunities. That stubborn silence has built an undisturbed little nest right in our collective living room—a comfortable kind of consent that allowed genocide to unfold.

And we watched it unfold. In real time. A genocide, livestreamed on one side of the screen, and on the other, people who just aren’t that bothered by non-Westerners being bombed.

What happened next is quite extraordinary, an event that will be remembered for generations to come. Greta Thunberg, a 22-year-old Westerner who could have easily cruised around the world for the rest of her life, chatting about climate change while pocketing billions; unbothered, adored—instead, she chose to school your friends, your family, the UN, politicians, governments, and international courts on courage and what’s left of humanity by quietly rolling up onto the Gaza Freedom Flotilla sailboat.

But before she did, she addressed the world—especially those questioning whether she was afraid, given that Israel had killed nine activists aboard the Mavi Marmara in 2010 and had struck the previous Freedom Flotilla vessel, Conscience, with a drone in international waters near Malta just a month ago.

Greta’s words are clear and unadorned—the cadence of neurodivergence, and impossible to ignore:

"No matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s not even near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the livestreamed genocide.”

If you’ve never felt shame for your lack of rage as an entire people were exterminated before your eyes, unmoved to share and amplify their plight to force governments to stop gunning them down with your tax dollars, now is the time.

Muhammad Shehada explains why talking publicly and protesting about this genocide is paramount in stopping it. He lays out ways the people who refused to stay silent and inactive moved the needle and ultimately changed the tide on support for Israel, a perpetrator:

“Western governments expected that the anti-genocide movement and the protest would die out, counting on our fatigue due to the repetition of atrocities and no end in sight, as well as a mix of police crackdown and suppressive tactics.

What we see now that is draconian unraveling everything that Europe is supposed to stand for in terms of suppression going after individuals to intimidate terrorize and and kill a movement in its butt. But that didn't work. They expected this movement to fade away to become quiet, and disappear. But the opposite happened.”

Our speaking out and relentless protesting, risking jobs, diplomas, careers, freedoms, and futures—is why the tide changed. Those who rule us could no longer excuse the sheer number of war crimes or the unwavering efforts of people continuing to expose them.

This is how impactful and damaging your silence is.

So much so that Greta Thunberg fears your silence more than stepping onto a Freedom Flotilla—despite one of its boats being hit by a drone just a month ago, and another attacked in 2010, when nine humanitarians were killed.

I think it’s time you did the bare minimum—speak out, share, and amplify their mission; it’s imperative for their safety.

What is the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, and why is it an IMPERATIVE that you support it?

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) is a grassroots people-to-people solidarity movement composed of campaigns and initiatives from different parts of the world, working together to end the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza. It’s a non-violent, direct action to challenge Israel's illegal siege and escalating war crimes.

In FCC's own words:

“We Challenge the Blockade – By sailing vessels to Gaza, we confront Israel’s illegal siege and demonstrate that this blockade constitutes collective punishment of a civilian population, violating internationally recognized rights, including the right to freedom of movement.

We Expose the Nature of the Occupation – Through peaceful, civilian-led missions, we reveal the violent and unlawful behavior of Israeli occupation forces. These include hijacking our vessels and forcibly transporting them to occupied Palestine, assaulting unarmed volunteers, seizing personal belongings, and medical supplies bound for Palestinians in Gaza. Israel’s hostile responses to our missions reflect a wider, ongoing brutality inflicted upon civilians in Gaza on a daily basis.”

Mavi Marmara.

Why did Israel stop the Gaza Flotilla in 2010, a vessel carrying 10,000 tonnes of goods, including school supplies, building materials, and two large electricity generators for people in Gaza, under blockade? Check out this mind-boggling feature by the BBC, trying to convince the public that the Israeli commandos who descended on a ship on ropes from helicopters came to contain the “terrorists on board” and executed nine activists in “self-defence”.

In September 2010, a UN Human Rights Council report said Israel's military broke international laws, that the action by commandos, which left nine dead, was "disproportionate" and "betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality". Israel rejected the report as "biased" and "one-sided".

Commandos who are also victims.

If you are stunned by the journalistic malpractice of the New York Times and the Washington Post today in reporting about the genocide in Gaza, take a look at what kind of nonsense the BBC printed 15 years ago:

“The Israeli commandos faced significant, organised, and violent resistance.”

Israeli commandos executed 9 people with multiple bullets to their heads and chest—activists, on board to deliver aid. The 10th person died a few years later due to the sustained injuries. Then, as today, bringing aid to the starving population under the blockade is an act Israel finds offensive and something it should defend itself from.

Madleen.

The unfortunate mistake the crew and activists on the Mavi Marmara made was embarking on a mission to break the blockade of Gaza and deliver aid to a besieged population—without letting the world know. They didn’t have support on the outside. Israel, known to commit atrocities and war crimes while counting on the world’s unawareness, never allows international journalists to report independently on its actions. But 15 years later, with smartphones in hand and social media as a megaphone, the crew aboard the Madleen, now sailing toward Gaza, is better prepared.

And most importantly—they have us.

The 12 people aboard, the support team on the outside, and all of us amplifying their location, progress, and message are actively ensuring their literal, physical safety.

Greta Thunberg boarded that ship, knowing her high profile and celebrity would strengthen the mission's safety. She quite literally put her life on the line to deliver aid to a starving population and draw the world’s attention to Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza.

People on the board of Madleen vessel are:

Baptiste Andre 🇫🇷, Greta Thunberg 🇸🇪, Şuayb Ordu 🇹🇷, Mark van Rennes 🇳🇱, Omar Faiad 🇫🇷, Pascal Maurieras 🇫🇷, Reva Viard 🇫🇷, Rima Hassan 🇫🇷, Sergio Toribio 🇪🇸, Thiago Ávila 🇧🇷, Yanis Mhamdi 🇫🇷, and Yasemin Acar 🇩🇪.

People on the board of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition, and the outside support, are:

Alana Hadid, Susan Sarandon, Daniel Machover, Abby Martin, Brian Eno, Max Porter, Aiysha Hart, Greta Thunberg, Liam Cunningham, Indya Moore, Guy Pearce, Rahma Zein, Maxine Peake, Melissa Barrera, Lisa Moorish, Nicole Jenes, Juliet Stevenson, Misan Harriman, Khalid Abdalla, Nan Goldin, Susan Abulhawa, Del Naja, and Carice Van Houten.

Follow @gazafreedomflotilla coalition for updates. You can track the boat here.

SHARE. SPEAK. AMPLIFY. FOLLOW.

Wake up!

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They even stole my writing from me. I haven’t written in months—I don’t have the words. They took the one thing I’ve always relied on to make sense of the world. This isn’t writer’s block, and it’s not about having time. It’s that no words feel accurate anymore.

I say they, and you instantly know who they are; I don’t have to name them. They who commit it, and they who fund it. They who justify it and lie about what they’ve done.

It’s far beyond what we once thought would be too much. A new category needs to be invented, and I can’t find the proper words for it. Every single day brings another atrocity, worse than the last. You brace yourself to write about one, and another pings your phone before finishing the first paragraph.

BREAKING! Another death, another massacre. Another body, dismembered in the name of self-defense. The third, the fifth, the seventeenth. Another hospital or a school bombed by the people who don’t bomb hospitals or schools. Another lie, another denial about what we just saw on our screens.

It. Doesn’t. Stop.

I’m not blocked—I’m emptied. There are no words brutal enough to hold this depravity. For the past 19 months, I’ve exhausted every word in my vocabulary: horrific, gruesome, apocalyptic, grotesque. None of them feel strong enough anymore. None of them come close to capturing the glee with which an entire people is being destroyed.

My mind is leaving me.

I wake up every morning afraid to touch my phone; it holds death, blood, breathless babies who barely tasted this world’s air, and children’s feet severed from their legs.

I no longer have the words to describe the depravity of legacy media, scrambling to find the softest, most palatable language for the most grotesque atrocity of our lived experience, all while the world remains complicit in silence. The scenes so harrowing, they make you question your place in this reality.

How do you continue living among those who attempt to justify the mutilation of innocent children, because… Stop giving us your because. We do not accept your because. Your because is not our because.

I cannot take the occupier and their supporters working overtime to flip the reality on its head. Telling us this carnage has a reason, that it must happen, that there is no way to avoid small lifeless bodies lying on a cold hospital floor, lucky to just be dead, and not charred to death, and if we refuse to accept it, then we just hate all Jewish people.

Humanity isn’t built to witness this much carnage—at least not the sane world, the one that wasn’t raised in a cult of supremacy and doesn’t feed on hatred of Arab people. This isn’t even just about land; it’s as if that hatred fuels their entire existence and gives them meaning.

How did we not catch this before?

I feel ashamed that the Palestinian people had to wait this long for the world to finally see them, hear them, and even now, with all this awareness, it’s still not enough. Not even close.

I have no more words; I have said it all. I repeated it all, over and over. The Palestinian people have told you, shown you, it’s on your screens. They’ve done everything humanly possible to make you understand what’s happening to them. They’ve shoved their dead, headless, charred children into your feed. They’ve written their wills for you to read after being blown to pieces by the latest weapons designed to be tested on them, possibly used on us all—if we step out of line.

Scenes from Gaza feel even more harrowing than Auschwitz—this time, they’re livestreamed to our phones, accompanied by the perpetrators’ glee. Nothing, literally nothing, can stop the biblical pain these people have been subjected to: lives erased, childhoods denied. They aren’t allowed to have lives, careers, successes, or accomplishments; their sole purpose is escaping the biblically deranged cult hunting them down.

We’re not even pretending anymore. Biblically deranged cult, helped by the equally deranged US empire, doesn’t even bother to explain anymore—they used to offer us the days of the week written in Arabic as proof of terrorist command centers under the hospitals; now, they don’t even bother.

Today, they execute medical workers point-blank, bury their bodies and ambulances casually, with no effort to hide it. They don’t even bother to destroy their victim’s phones, knowing that getting caught will make no difference—they can simply say, OOPSIES, MY BAD and the world will accept it.

The world won’t, the people won’t, but your politicians will, and they will hunt you down, Gestapo style, and deport you for interfering with the deviance of their Western values.

They started with illegal immigrants. Moved on to legal immigrants. To residents and green card holders. Soon on to naturalized citizens. Then you, the citizen. No one will survive this, not even those watching from afar. — @PoetsGaza

The Empire, finally exposed to what they have always been, you just didn’t have the phones—completely divorced from reality, thinking they are exceptional, fighting everyone on the planet, whether its the tarrif wars, trade battles, sanctions they impose to everyone fighting their hegemony—giving the world lessons in morality while sending bombs to Israel to mutilate kids in Gaza.

Blabbering about the crimes of Saddam, Gaddafi, Assad, and Putin with such nauseating hypocrisy; Marandi — The United States is so sinister and so evil because it has a murderous culture they are blaming on other nations, but with much more hypocrisy. The West kills, and then they expect you to thank them and to acknowledge their moral superiority.

Homogeny, choosing war over diplomacy, arrogance, corruption. Do you not see how quickly it escalated—from Gaza to unconstitutional human rights violations, to First Amendment rights violations?

Galloway - Why are we doing all this? Bending the entire shape of our society, disfiguring the face of society, why are we doing it? For Israel?

Everything and everyone are exposed.

The entire civilized social order is being dismantled. The international humanitarian organizations do not exist in reality. They are the same as Instagram influencers. The UN is a content creator with no actual power to implement change. The UN is just rules, with no tools. The international law isn’t built to protect Palestine, it was built to contain it.

The International Court of Justice granted Israel a 6-month delay in the genocide case. Six months? An order extending Israel’s time to respond to South Africa’s genocide claims against it for its conduct in Gaza from the original July 28 deadline to January 12, 2026. Do you know what 6 months mean while 150-200 people are being killed daily?

Democrats provoking Russia, Republicans provoking China, both alternately provoking Iran, and everyone they deem a threat to their hegemony—this is why your eggs are $15, and your giving birth bill totals $39,000. This is why New York looks like it’s in the 1970s with the number of homeless, drugged-up people lying on the streets and pissing in subways.

Your government doesn’t reflect your interests; they don’t care about you, a voter in your respective district. Your representatives do the bidding of a foreign nation and reflect the interests of those who funded their elections: Israel and the Israel lobby.

Israel, that “only democracy in the Middle East” and “the most moral army in the world”—imagine the offensiveness, the utter disrespect to our shared humanity, of trying to pin these words to the most depraved cult on earth and expecting us to accept it. To threaten to ruin our lives if we don’t, using evidence they themselves provide, on our own phones?

What is this timeline we’re stuck in? It feels like a Marvel movie where we’ve accidentally been thrown into the wrong reality—surrounded by horrors on every side, with no way out.

Assassinating photojournalists alongside her entire family, just for spite, to hide the truth, after her documentary was announced to premiere at Cannes. Bombing a humanitarian ship in international waters, nearly striking Great Thunberg who was about to board that ship, carrying aid to Gaza. Drone bombing a ship in the middle of Europe, and you still don’t see the audacity these lunatics operate with as a threat to all of humanity?

Do you realize we live in a timeline where Israel could assassinate Greta Thunberg on a humanitarian ship, then say OOPSIES MY BAD, it was a mistake, and the world would accept it, without holding them accountable?

It just doesn’t stop with depravity, those who are committing it, those who fund it, and then try to gaslight you into what you just saw.

Johnstone—"Israel and its western backers understand that truth and support for Israel are mutually exclusive. Those who support Israel are not interested in the truth, and those who are interested in the truth don’t support Israel.”

And as you already know, it’s going to get a lot worse. These 19 months since the genocide in Gaza was launched were just a prep, training your eyes for what you’re about to see. Netanyahu announced to the world that his cabinet approved an expanded military operation, described as a plan to “conquer Gaza”. You know what’s coming. Zionists know they won’t get another chance to do what they are doing now. It’s the least push, now-or-never moment for Zionist aspirations, as Alon Mizrahi expertly says.

A few days ago, Mileikowsky also stood in front of the camera to declare to the world that “Free Palestine is just today’s Heil Hitler.” As Alon Mizrahi rightly points out—”This is not about historical perspective. This is future-facing and indicative of policy.

He explains further:

“What Netanyahu is saying here - the true bone-chilling core of it - is that he is using all his power and influence around the globe to make your government treat you like a nazi. Which only means total annihilation. Netanyahu is letting the entire world know that he and his people, and all the organizations he owns and controls, are going for humanity's throat.”

The aim is not to destroy Palestine: this Netanyahu already takes for granted. The aim now is to destroy human society - or at least Western society, for starters (Israel is deeply involved in lobbying against China in the US).

This is Netanyahu announcing the beginning of Phase II of his war against the West. It is no longer 'defending Israel', or even defending the genocide. It is destroying the fabric of life, and using his power, influence, and control over Western establishments to drive humanity over the abyss and into extreme violence and terror.”

The future is truly anti-zionist, or apocalyptic. Sadly, it’s probably both.

Where do we go from here?

Above all, the real work is within you. You will start seeing the Muslim and Arab countries in the same way you see yourself. You will be conscious of your lifelong learning about Western values being superior to the rest of the planet. You will start reacting to the bombing of children in the Middle East with the same horror you would react if the bomb fell in Rome and slaughtered Italian toddlers, or if a whole building in Midtown Manhattan was struck and a dozen American children were charred to death on 6th Avenue.

Our resistance is changing these mindsets. We aren’t helpless. We can reset this world. YOU can reset this world. You will learn about the people of the Middle East—learn their customs, their culture, learn about Ramadan, learn to honor their holidays the way they honor your fucking Christmases and Easters. And you will raise your children to respect other cultures, religions, and understand that being born in the West does not warrant superiority.

“And the good news is we have truth on our side. The propaganda is deceitful, and the truth is getting more and more exposure. Humans are getting better and better at sharing ideas and information about what’s really happening in our world. We just need to open our eyes. We just need to let truth get a word in edgewise. That’s all that needs to happen.” — Johnstone

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I wrote a poem yesterday about mothers who do not blink an eye at the sight of children, starved, shattered, mauled, and bombed by design.

I wrote a poem about all the mothers who sit in silence, undisturbed by the most televised genocide in history, because it's complicated, because it’s nuanced, because it’s far away.

I wrote a poem yesterday about mothers who feed their children at night; scroll past images of the unfed, dried lips, ash-covered limbs, someone else’s children thirsting for mercy; then slip beneath warm sheets, plotting tomorrow’s plate, undisturbed.

I wrote a poem about mothers who are bold when it’s trendy, vocal when it’s safe, and who believe that motherhood worth praising belongs to a passport, a race, a nation, a faith.

I wrote a poem yesterday about mothers who juice and meditate each day, whose well-being excludes the well-being of others, blind to their privilege, cowardly in spirit.

I wrote a poem about mothers who hold their children tight at night, yet feel no tremor in their bones for mothers who’ve lost every child, who don't shiver at the words: "Wounded child, no surviving family."

I wrote a poem yesterday about mothers who sit in silence, turning away from the worst atrocity humanity inflicts, convincing themselves that guarding their inner peace is an act of love, not complicity.

“Hey, I would love to connect”—a woman, a mother, commented below my poem, sending me a link to her Substack where she talks about signals and frequencies, traumas and unresolved fear; she never talked about Gaza, not once, not one article was devoted to children being blown to bits, daily, on our phones. But she talked about her problems that led to her “digging and release of trauma.”

Her silence doesn’t offend me anymore. Mothers I know and love have already broken my heart into a thousand pieces with their casual disregard for ash-covered limbs, small, grey, motionless.

But it was her choice of that particular poem under which to promote her writing that sent me into a tailspin—a poem about women like her, mothers who remain silent while small bodies thirst for mercy, just moments before another precision strike blows them into another building or splits them in two.

She read those lines, about women and mothers being silent, and she, a silent woman and a mother chose that instance to share reflections on motherhood and trauma, skipping the part where outrage was due—children being mutilated because those in power decided an entire people must be erased for another to take their place.

I called her out; comments are below, in the comment section. I left it there, as a reminder, an alarm to what this world has become, and for you to read it.

She responded that my poem was beautifully written. That she didn’t take it as a bash against women like her who have had a chronic disease and s stroke, which has led to doing the digging and release of trauma. She didn’t realize that was so trivial, but she thanked me for my perspective and education. She said she took my poem as an invitation to open the conversation up and shed light on the importance of celebrating all of humanity on Mother’s Day, and also noted I have a very unkind approach to someone reaching out to me.

Why are women who are not mothers mothering the whole world?

Why is it my duty to tell a mother her trauma means nothing in the eyes of the livestreamed holocaust happening in our lifetime?

Why does it fall on me to teach a woman, a mother, that her writings about expressing deep love, undeniable connection, personal growth, and unwavering commitment despite distance and challenges mean absolutely nothing if she’s unwilling to gift her talent of words to those suffering an immeasurable pain?

Why am I expected to be kind to a woman so self-absorbed she can’t recognize that enduring hardship in a safe, well-fed home is a form of privilege many are denied?

Why is kindness demanded of me in the face of women and mothers whose silence is a form of complicity, while they deny that my anger stems from their role in sustaining war crimes?

I wrote a poem yesterday, about all the mothers who sit in silence at the worst atrocity, livestreamed, daily, for nineteen months, and all she could muster is this.

Rache Brand:

“You have an incredible approach, creating another war on the inside of this platform instead of instilling tenderness and ushering information in a way that meaningfully shifts conversation. I want to connect to your frequency and learn from you.

Why are you so angry at me? I can feel seething tension which is exactly why wars begin in the first place.

You are right, I am a white woman who grew up privileged. I can’t help my beginning. What I can do is be willing to learn and be more aware / open to inclusion and conversation. I would like to learn from you and grow.”

A woman and a mother who never once spoke out about a live genocide unfolding in our lifetime told me that my rage at her complicity is exactly why wars begin. What could be more offensive than those who enable genocide through silence, who uphold the status quo to preserve their own comfort, and then blame our anger, not their apathy, for the dehumanization of an entire people?

You don’t get to learn from me and grow.

You don’t get to use my emotional labor; the information, images, videos, and statistics of mass extermination are all around you — if you cared to see.

You don’t get to be open to the conversation.

There is no conversation to be had, no debate to be made—only you: a woman and a mother, unaware, unmoved, and undisturbed by the pain, destruction, and suffering of small, innocent bodies born on the wrong side of the world.

I wrote a poem yesterday.

To all mothers 
who do not blink an eye
at the sight of children—
starved, shattered, and bombed by design.

To mothers who sit in silence,
undisturbed by the most televised
genocide in history,
because "it's complicated,"
because "it’s nuanced,"
because "it’s far away."

To mothers who feed their children at night,
scroll past images of unfed, dried lips, 
ash-covered limbs,
someone else's children thirsting for mercy,
then slip beneath warm sheets—
plotting for tomorrow's plate,
undisturbed.

To mothers who are always loud for
right kind of mothers,
right kind of children,
lighter in skin—
bold only when it's trendy,
vocal when it's safe.

To mothers who believe
motherhood wears a passport,
belongs to a race,
a nation,
a faith.

To mothers who drink all the juice,
practice yoga, meditate each day,
whose well-being excludes the well-being of others—
blind to their privilege,
cowardly in spirit.

To mothers who hold their children 
tight at night,
yet feel no tremor in their bones
for mothers who’ve lost every child—
who don't shiver at the words:
"Wounded child, no surviving family."

To mothers who sit in silence, 
turning away  from the worst atrocities 
humanity inflicts,
convincing themselves that 
guarding their inner peace is an act of love, 
not complicity.

Happy Mother's Day.

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To the feminists and mothers
who do not blink an eye
at the sight of children—
starved, shattered, and bombed by design.

To the women who sit in silence,
undisturbed by the most televised
genocide in history,
because "it's complicated,"
because "it’s nuanced,"
because "it’s far away."

But always so loud for
the western, girlboss,
Barbie-brand of feminism—
bold only when it's trendy,
vocal when it's safe.

To women who believe
feminism wears a passport,
belongs to a race,
a nation,
a faith.

To women who turn away
from the worst atrocities humanity endures,
choosing silence over justice,
while preaching self-love,
mindfulness,
and the art of inner peace.

Happy International Women’s Day 🌹

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Nothing like waking up to find Western philosophy’s finest relics tastefully scattered across the ruins of Gaza—courtesy of artificial intelligence—right there on your screen. Golden statues, cash raining from the sky, gluttony—nothing says civilization like dropping symbols of excess onto the ground zero of a genocide you funded and committed.

That video.

Trump shared this AI-generated art piece, but you just know a Zionist made it. They tag-teamed this one. Just as they tag-teamed the genocide.

Caitlin Johnstone summed up this collaboration from hell in the simplest, yet winning words:

“This video is simultaneously the most American thing that has ever happened and the most Israeli thing that has ever happened.”

And she expands:

“Fake. Gaudy. Sociopathic. Genocidal. Emblematic of all the ugliest values that both dystopian civilizations have come to embody.”

If we had paid any attention to what has happened over the past 16 months, you'd know this AI music video embodies the entire premise of Zionism. Flaunting. Laughing on top of dead bodies. Disrespecting other cultures, religions, customs.

They’ve spent the entirety of the genocide they imposed filming videos of themselves mocking the Palestinian people’s lack of water, food, electricity, and basic human needs. Look at what we have! And yet they try to steal everything from the people they claim have nothing.

This constant need to flaunt what we have and you don’t, and who supports us and not you, this overwhelming drive to be superior, is the clearest proof of the very supremacy they’re desperately trying to convince you they don’t have.

This video is their finest display yet—gold, cash, the shiny Riviera, gluttony—all artificially dropped into the ruins of Gaza; the poorest people on Earth, who overcame a century of billion-dollar hasbara and won over the entire world with more heart than all the gold in existence ever could.

The world can’t be deceived anymore.

Have you ever seen people who have nothing yet have absolutely everything? Take a look at Gaza. Take a look at those people who just survived a genocide that’s probably coming their way again—decorating the debris with graffiti, art, flowers, and balloons for the upcoming Ramadan. Happy. Content. Kind. Loved by their community.

And Israel? Israel has everything, but really, it has nothing. They have machines, drones, and hi-tech weaponry, yet their whole lives are dedicated to “explaining Israel”. What a sad life, your entire existence being in the service of a biblical derangement that kills people on both sides of the aisle.

I often wonder—do any Israelis ever ask themselves why Israel always needs to be explained? I’m Croatian, and I’ve never had to explain Croatia to anyone. If anyone from my government, or my teachers, or my parents would tell me to do it, the first thing I would ask would be: Why? What have you done? Why would something righteous need an explanation?

I know that video made you nauseated. But an American-Israeli tandem flaunting their depravity serves as a reminder to all of us appalled by their orgies on top of Palestinian bodies. It’s good to see them for what they are, in all their glory. We knew it, but having a visual of this depravity only reaffirms our steadfastness to fix this world and reject the one the video suggests could be.

Caitlin again came up with the collection of words that need a literary award:

“It doesn’t get any more American than this, and it doesn’t get any more Israeli. This soulless, artless, conscienceless expression of egotistic masturbation lubricated with the blood of dead children is the empire at its most honest. This is the very best this globe-dominating power structure has to offer our world.”

I mean, what artistry—read these words again:

This soulless, artless, conscienceless expression of egotistic masturbation lubricated with the blood of dead children is the empire at its most honest.

Yesterday, I spoke to some people who voted for Trump, and the first thing they told me was: “Omg, did you see that video?”. And continued, “This is the most appealing, nauseated thing I have ever seen, and the detail—men in beards, dressed as women, twerking—why are they disrespecting and mocking Muslim culture and religion”—I did not vote for this.

I know what you’re thinking right now. Boo hoo, let’s give them an award for expressing some humane thoughts, I get it. I get your emotion. But please stay focused on the main thing, the premise, the foundation of what created this carnage in the Middle East. A decades-long project of gaslighting you into hating Muslims and Arabs—invented by Israel, executed by the entire West.

This is why all the wars are allowed to happen. This is why America and the West are justified to terrorize the world for their financial gain.

To have these myths debunked is to start healing this world, and if the staunchest right-wing supporters of Trump get appalled with that video and call me to tell me about men twerking naked being an insult to the Muslim religion—people, we are healing this world.

More and more people are waking up to the West’s depravity, while gaining a deeper appreciation for the richness of other cultures—their traditions, values, and hospitality. The West’s hegemony isn’t just collapsing politically; it’s losing its grip on our minds and hearts. Are you the same person you were 16 months ago? I’m not. Do you still care about the same things you did back then? I don’t. And isn’t your life fuller now, surrounded by thoughtful, compassionate people you’ve connected with while witnessing a genocide unfold in real time?

The battle is here, between the two worlds laid before you.

Caitlin:

“This entire civilization is diseased. Not just the United States and Israel but every nation on earth that is subject to the metastases of their cancerous influence. They’re making us all dumber, sicker, nastier, crueler. Less creative. Less artful. Less caring. Less insightful. They are poisoning our minds and turning our hearts into shit.”

Don’t you see it? This abomination of a video, shared by the sitting American president, lays out exactly what you’re fighting against. They showed you gold statues standing in the ruins their bombs created, cash raining down on bodies buried beneath the rubble, and Elon Musk gorging himself at ground zero of a famine that has claimed lives just as their bombs did. They showed you just how out of touch—and out of mind—they truly are.

I’ll repeat this for you: “This entire civilization is diseased. Not just the United States and Israel but every nation on earth that is subject to the metastases of their cancerous influence. They’re making us all dumber, sicker, nastier, crueler. Less creative. Less artful. Less caring. Less insightful. They are poisoning our minds and turning our hearts into shit.”

This video clearly shows you the worlds that clash here. A white savior complex, bringing cash, gold, and orgies of excess to the poorest land on Earth, right? But why do the richest people on Earth covet this small, poor land?

“A country that has a GDP per capita 20 times that of its neighbor and is backed by the world’s richest country and an endless array of billionaires and tycoons cannot stop stealing from its poor neighbor and cannot stop destroying the little livelihood and success its neighbor has.”

“It cannot stop burning its neighbor’s olive trees, killing and stealing its sheep and cattle, taking over water sources, and gobbling up more and more of the tiny stretch of land its neighbor still owns after decades of incessant armed robbery.’

— Alon Mizrahi

Alon captures the entire nuance of that video in the article he wrote in November of last year:

“The war effort that Western establishments and corporations muster against humanity’s conscience and consciousness is gargantuan. But, for all their money and power, they can’t accomplish their devilish take. Why do they fail so miserably? What do the people get about Palestine, and won’t relinquish?”

Check out this poetry right there:

“Israel is the hi-tech: the big data, the cloud, and AI; Palestine is the family olive tree that has passed from one generation to another for hundreds of years, with its DNA probably mingled with that of the people who have lovingly cultivated and harvested it, grandparents, children and grandchildren, and all over again.”

“Israel is the quadcopter with its machine guns and cutting-edge photography equipment; Palestine is the two brothers dying in each others’ arms, barefoot and pure-hearted, and sacred as life was on the first day it appeared on earth.”

“Israel is the stealth pilot with his million-dollar helmet; Palestine is the makeshift rescue teams of anonymous people who risk their lives, or whatever remains of them, to save a stranger.”

Do you see it? Do you hear it? Do you understand?

“If Israel is allowed to win, humanity may never have another chance. We will all be chased by robodogs, quadcopters, and AI cameras for the rest of our lives, and our children will not even hear of autonomy unless spoken of in the context of machines.”

Israel is the real estate; Palestine is the ancestral piece of land that can never be commodified and holds the spirit and honor of a family and a community.

Can it be any clearer what worlds clash here?

Humanity gets it.

“The architects of the robotic, avaricious theft and murder know the people get it, and they panic: a free Palestine, the very longing for a free Palestine, threatens to derail their entire technologically advanced slaughterhouse plan. They know they cannot stop it - no force on earth can stop a crowd galvanized, electrified, by unshakable morality and justice.”

“They will be defeated. The US and Israel will be defeated. And Palestine will be free and will continue to live in humanity’s minds and hearts as an inspiration and a lesson - a grand, painful, memorable, sweet lesson - that the people can triumph over the bankers, the professional deceivers, and the robodogs.”

Free Palestine will be a triumph for all of humanity and all of history.

And people get it.

Remember the feeling of nausea you experienced watching the Trump Gaza, 2025 video? Now, compare it with the feeling of watching the video the youth of Gaza created as a clapback.

See that feeling? Free Palestine will be a triumph for all of humanity and all of history. And the people get it.

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It’s the inequality that kills me. Watching it daily, how did I not notice it before Gaza? Or was it not egregious enough to break through our perception? Watching Palestinian people be so worthless in the eyes of the entire world, watching the Israeli Armed Forces dump their bodies, excavate their bodies, drive over them, steal their organs—bodies of people they tortured with glee, before turning them into lifeless bodies.

Watching Hamas hand over the small bodies of the Bibas children, small bodies that were never supposed to be taken in the first place; how desperate you have to be to steal small children, to have a bargaining chip, to force the world to pay attention to your decades-long plight, acknowledge your existence—how desperate you have to be to resort to war crimes to bargain for your human rights that should have been inherent?

I don’t want to hear judgments from the warm sofas in your living rooms, all of you who bark at strangers on the street who bump into you and invade your personal space by accident, or cut you off in traffic—how dare you decide what’s morally righteous when someone takes your house, snipes your children in the head and uses your parents as human shields.

I mourn these children. My heart dropped when their death was confirmed! Why are children paying our tabs with their lives?

Their small bodies, handed over in the casket, with white gloves on those who carried them. White gloves, a sign of respect; these kids weren’t supposed to be taken. I mourn these children. Red Cross was there, present, to hand them over. Where was Red Cross when the Palestinian bodies were dumped like cattle, stolen four times, excavated, and dumped again, wrapped in blue plastic bags?

Where was Red Cross when children carried the small bodies of their younger siblings in grocery bags?

I cannot take the sight of lifeless small bodies, I cannot take the inequality of some bodies being more important than other bodies. I cannot take the sight of thousands of small bodies being mauled to death, shredded to pieces; small bodies are small bodies, wherever they come from.

Those children weren’t supposed to be taken.

Those children weren’t supposed to be shredded to pieces.

I cannot take legacy media talking about one set of small bodies while ignoring the enormous amount of other small bodies that just happened to be born on the other side of the wall.

I cannot take the occupier and their supporters working overtime to flip the reality on our heads.

We have phones, and you like to brag.

When will this cycle of violence ever end? Violence begets violence; when will the legacy media start talking about the violence that begot all this violence?

Have you ever heard of an occupation that wasn’t violent? Why is the violence that occupies legitimate and self-defense, while resisting the violence is just—violence?

Why is one set of small bodies being unalived intolerable to the world, but unaliving the entire population for decades is tolerated and encouraged? It’s like the world’s entire balance depends on harming these 2.2 million souls in that small, remarkable strip of land.

Sorry, 1.8 million, the president told us when he planned their luxury move. Where is the missing 400,000? Dust on their own land?

Land.

There is so much land in this world, and so many resources—enough for every breathing soul. It’s the inequality that kills me, how some people hoard everything while others must suffer for the basics.

What is about this small remarkable strip of land that everyone covets?

We know what it is.

Only one set of small bodies unalived is important to this world. Other small bodies with 355 bullet wounds riddled into their small body aren’t important to this world.

It’s the inequality that kills me. Rage is justified, handing over small bodies in caskets is seen as a spectacle. Meanwhile, boat tours are offered to Israeli families to watch small bodies in Gaza burn to death, and it barely registers in the Western conscience.

Those children weren’t supposed to be taken.

But they were.

Killed by their own government.

Handed over in the white gloves.

It isn’t complicated.

It’s only complicated when you want to stake something from someone, Ta-Nehisi Coates once said.

Land. Resources.

There’s nothing complicated about decades-long, brutally oppressed people bursting for liberation.

These people have repeatedly told you, begged you—they want liberation.

There came a moment when they stopped asking nicely.

By any means necessary, Malcolm X once said.

It’s exactly in the violence where we come to the biggest injustice. One side is allowed by the world and morally justified to violate the other side, and the other side isn’t allowed, Aaron Mate once said.

I cannot take the sight of small bodies unalived anymore.

I hate myself; I spent an hour looking for a pretty picture of lifeless small bodies for this article.

Or is this a poem of my rage?

Those children weren’t supposed to be taken.

Why aren’t any Palestinian voices allowed in mainstream spaces to plead their case? Must they plead it by means of violence and by taking small children?

This inequality is killing me.

Selective rage is killing me.

And I cannot take one set of small bodies being more important than the thousands of other small bodies on the other side of the wall.

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Every article I’ve written over the past year is essentially a version of summarizing how fucked this world is, listing a few things to be hopeful about, then lifting you up (and myself in the process) by convincing us it will get better! All my pieces are basically a 1,000 to 3,000 word pep talk, equal parts despair and defiance. Call it a depressive cheer, if you will—a rallying cry wrapped in the weight of reality and hope.

Rinse! Repeat.

You survived 2024. Congratulations! You also made it through January. And not just any January—the one that came after 15 months of absolute dystopian mindfuck.

I commend you if you’ve managed to stay a sane, empathetic human being who cares about this world beyond ego and selfish pleasures. And I congratulate you if you’ve evolved enough to realize that nothing good comes from individualism—that our well-being depends on community. Togetherness. Being there for one another. Lending your voice to those struggling beyond your comprehension, even at the risk of your own prospects. Using your privilege for something bigger than yourself.

The world needs you right now—people just like you. You are the glue holding us all together.

“Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?” — Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote.

We go chaos AND community, friends.

I'm so proud of you. Over the past fifteen months, we've felt defeated and thought we couldn't go on—yet we keep moving forward. Every day, we believe we've seen the worst society can throw at us—yet we endure. We keep finding a way. And when we're on the verge of losing all hope, a way finds us.

I’m proud of us for finding ways to live with the built-in pain of realizing what this world truly is. We protest, we advocate, we post relentlessly—and it’s no longer just something we do; it has become our routine, and part of who we are.

Class consciousness has finally hit us, curing us of nationalistic tendencies, party affiliations, and tribalism. There is one world and one struggle. Our fellow human, whether from a different political party, religion, or nation—is not our enemy.

Do you realize your power yet?

We are trained from an early age not to realize our own power. Before we even form our own thoughts, carefully planted foundations of disinformation have already taken root in the corners of our minds. Caitlin Johnstone laid them out well:

• Elections are a real thing where we get to choose our government that will work for the betterment of our lives.

• A democratically elected government is the only power structure calling the shots in our country.

• There are official channels through which the powerful can be held to account and real changes can be advanced.

• We aren’t actually ruled by unelected plutocrats and empire managers who often have no position in the official government.

• We live in a free country with a free press where the news media doesn’t function as the propaganda services of our rulers.

• Western power structure is imperfect and might make mistakes here and there, it must never stop killing and tyrannizing foreigners, because if it does, the bad guys might win.

These deceptions have been ingrained in our minds since childhood. Those in power have spent decades conditioning us to accept a limited worldview—West is good, East is bad; who cares about the suffering of people far away? What’s the latest bag you bought? But the world no longer accepts this. The world is rising. Students are protesting worldwide, from Columbia University to Serbia to Romania to Georgia to Slovakia—people are fed up, angry, and tired.

We aren’t afraid of the police anymore, or military units to keep us in order—we don’t fear anything. The Global South no longer fears America. The poorest people of Yemen do not fear the mighty American military wrath. We simply do not care anymore. We have nothing to lose.

“We are giants who have been tricked into thinking we are insects.”

January also gave America and the free world a new president, but don’t fret—he puts an ugly face and a crass voice on Imperialism—“making the US empire a less effective evil because of how much less hidden he keeps the inner workings of the machine. The hood stays popped open the entire time, showing the whole world how the imperial sausage gets made.” — Caitlin Johnstone.

This is a good thing, believe me. The hood to be open, machinery to be exposed—it’s easier to take it out. We see much better, with the hood open.

“Nowhere is it inscribed upon the fabric of reality that control of the world must be ceded to the dumbest, crudest and cruelest among us.”

Are you aware of the historic moment you’re currently in?

Students around the world are a force to be reckoned with. Did you see what Columbia University students started last year? A historic wave of activism demanding universities disclose and divest from financial ties to Israel, and end the support for the occupation and apartheid. Their movement was so powerful that bills and task forces were introduced to suppress it. Congress fears them. Western governments fear them.

Did you hear about Serbia’s student-led anti-corruption demonstrations, already dubbed “the Balkan country’s greatest ever protest movement”? These protests escalated after a fatal railway station collapse linked to government corruption. Tens of thousands have taken to the streets, demanding accountability from the president's authoritarian regime. Read more about the significance of these protests.

Why are the student protests in Serbia so significant with all that’s been happening in the world? Because these students are not affiliated with any political party. They are self-organized through student committees, without leaders. This makes them the most democratic and progressive self-organized movement, and a threat to any corrupt governments if this spreads throughout Europe.

The world has had enough.

Having your corrupt, totalitarian governments steal your money to fund foreign wars, treat you as an afterthought, and force you to witness a live-streamed genocide for fifteen months, while those in power justify it at every turn—it tends to radicalize people.

“What radicalized you?”

Reality, friend. Reality radicalized me.

Donald Trump signing an executive order targeting pro-Palestinian, anti-war students for deportation, yet they keep protesting. German citizens getting beaten, arrested, and abused, yet they still take to the streets. Citizens of Romania, Georgia, and Slovakia rising in large-scale protests over their political, social, and economic issues.

Mass demonstrations erupting in American cities against Trump's proposal to convert Gaza into a luxury resort managed by the US. Nationwide protests challenging Trump's immigration policies. Thousands flooding the streets in front of the Treasury, demanding action against Elon Musk’s government takeover.

I don’t think a day passed when I walked by The New York Times building, and there wasn’t a protest demanding an investigation of anti-Palestinian bias within its newsroom.

To all of you showing up every day, in the dead of winter—you are the glue holding us together. You understand that chaos AND community matter more than individual ambition. You put your privilege and prospects aside for the sake of a better tomorrow.

The world has been waiting for the people like you!

We are giants who have been tricked into thinking we are insects.

You are a giant, and so much more. Governments fear you. The laws are being passed to stop you.

Caitlin Johnstone:

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Nowhere is it inscribed upon the fabric of reality that control of the world must be ceded to the dumbest, crudest, and cruelest among us.

We are giants who have been tricked into thinking we are insects.

We are a dragon wearing a name tag being yelled at in a cubicle by a short man with a receding hairline whose wife is about to leave him.

We could bite him in half at any time, or light him on fire like a child’s marshmallow on a stick, but instead, we sit there taking it while his spittle frosts our cheeks, silently hoping that we are making the expected level of eye contact.

There is a hungry wolf inside every wagging dog.

Every tiger in every cage remembers the natural order of things and reminds us now and then right when we are in the middle of our favorite sequined Vegas routine.

We have galaxies and sorcery roiling within us.

We have barbed wire wings beneath our sundresses waiting to be unfurled.

The tiger show is over when we decide it is over.

They can lock up Luigi, but they can’t lock up everyone.

There is one world and one struggle. Know your power.

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When I saw the flames engulf the city of Los Angeles last night, the first thing that came to mind, after recognizing all the familiar spots I used to hop around, was a Serbian movie that loses its impact when translated: Pretty Village, Pretty Flame (Lepa Sela Lepo Gore). It’s a film about the war in Bosnia—morbid, comical in its tragedy, and brilliant in its own way—and not just for its title. Pretty places burn so beautifully, don’t they? All those iconic California landmarks—it’s a tragedy, but, man, do they burn spectacularly!

I’m not trying to enrage or shock you.

Is the California inferno in the first week of 2025 truly shocking to you, after everything you’ve witnessed over the past 15 months? I’m speaking with morbidity, I can’t help it, because it’s a continuation of the same morbidity that’s been unfolding for over a year now. Pretty places burn beautifully—but what about the tents in Gaza? Does Gaza burn as beautifully? Small, beautiful children brought to hospitals, with their beautiful wide eyes and long eyelashes, burned to bits—they burn from the same ignitor as the stunning California coastline.

This is the theme here. Whodunit? The wind? Please.

Know thy enemy.

This is not a comparison. It’s the continuation. Pretty Villages burn beautifully while those who rule us line their pockets. And they don’t care if Palestine or Palisades burn.

Just look at Joe Biden’s statement yesterday on the Los Angeles wildfires:

“They got notifications yesterday that their homes probably burned to the ground, but the good news is, I’m a great-grandfather as of today.”

End press briefing, exit stage. That is all statement.

And if you’re one of those people thinking well I don’t give a fuck about a bunch of Hollywood celebrities and their houses burning down, think again—the whole of Altadena burned, and the people there aren’t rich or celebrities. Residents of Altadena didn’t have a single fire truck come to their aid last night. People lost houses and businesses they had built over 40 years.

Another President gemstone:

Only days away from the end of the worst presidency in history, Joe Biden approved another $8 billion in weapons to Israel as his parting gift, to ensure Israel can continue burning people alive in Gaza—while his own citizens in Los Angeles fight flames devouring their homes.

In a particularly morbid instance—sorry, it’s the theme today—the White House released an estimate: the State of California has suffered $800 billion in damages from wildfires so far.

On his way out, Joe Biden also approved $500 million in weapons to Ukraine, allowing Zelenskyy and Klitschko to continue killing citizens in a futile quest to maintain their mafia-structured power.

Sorry American citizens, your government couldn’t afford the water for fire hydrants, or firefighting planes—they have to give billions of tax dollars to Israel and Ukraine, to maintain their imperial pursuits.

As long as brutal, heartless capitalism persists, the planet cannot be saved. We cannot separate ourselves from the legacy of colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism, nor the responsibility for the ongoing environmental genocide.

Victims? Empire doesn’t discriminate.

The American people are just as much victims of the Western Empire as the nations whose resources are pillaged and cities bombed to uphold imperialist dominance.

And people around the world understand this and differentiate the American people from their government. It was heartening to see some tweets today from the people of Yemen:

Did you know the American government puts a price on its own citizen’s safety? Shocker, I know. A Californian reported yesterday online—“The first three LA fire evacuation maps I checked were all paywalled.”

Did you know that the insurance company State Farm dropped 70% of its customers in the Pacific Palisades last year? Most of the people that lost their homes and all their belongings, won’t get a dime back.

O Luigi, where art thou?

Another Californian reported on Twitter that the insurance companies that dropped homeowners’ fire coverage in California are simultaneously offering coverage to fossil fuel companies that are creating the climate-crisis conditions for ever larger and more destructive wildfires.

By James Ray (@goodvibepolitik):

“Palestine and Palisades are burning for the same reason: the prioritization of advancing capitalist and colonial interests over the lives and well-being of millions. We are witnessing the brutal effects of capitalism and settler colonialism in real time. This can’t continue.”

Then there’s the beautiful Gavin Newsom, god, he’s so pretty right? All things pretty burning today! The infamous Governor of California who, when asked about not having water in its fire hydrants, said, hey, not my job!

Ok fine, the longer version: “Local folks are going to have to figure that out,” he told Anderson Cooper as he put his hands up when questioned about the lack of water to fight the fires.”But, again, that's going to be determined by the local authorities. I mean, when you have a system where it's not dissimilar to what we've seen in other extraordinarily large-scale fires ... those hydrants are typically for two or three fires, maybe one fire, not something of this scale.”

And who should be in charge of that, Gavy?

Democracy?

Western media’s mouths are full of “big bad Communist China”, while the CPC takes full responsibility for its citizens. Meanwhile, Western politicians enjoy all the perks of their power positions while claiming no responsibility—and have the audacity to lash out at anyone who demands their accountability.

This hits hard, by @DavidLeftyMA:

Kurt Vonnegut said - “We’ll go down in history s the first society that wouldn’t save itself because it wasn’t cost effective” and damn if that isn’t exactly how this is all played out.

What better example of capitalism's absurdity than prioritizing extinguishing flames at shopping malls and McDonald's over saving people's homes?

What about using inmates to fight fires, paying them $2 per hour (a total of $27 for a full 24-hour shift), yet denying them the opportunity to continue in the role for full pay once they’ve served their sentence?

“The world doesn’t have to look like this, we are being held hostage by the fossil fuel industry and its chokehold on our politics and planet.”

— @willowonearth

Someone posted how climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you’re the one filming it—and I ask myself, what more needs to happen for us to stop politely asking the ruling class to end this destruction carried out solely to further enrich a few who are already obscenely wealthy?

Years of corruption and mismanagement led to Los Angeles running out of water in the middle of the Palisades wildfire. 2900 acres had been burned; 80,000 people had to evacuate, and so many lost their homes. The tragedy in LA proves that homelessness can happen to anyone at any time

The Resnicks.

Did you know that one Beverly Hills billionaire couple owns almost all the water in California?

If you are concerned about the California wildfires, and the genocide and ecocide in Gaza, you need to know about the Resnick family, a long dubbed the climate criminals who are ravaging California, while being big fans of the Israeli occupation regime.

This family’s connection to the wildfires you witnessed last night is crucial. Please inhale this info and all the research behind it.

In 1994, Lynda and Stewart Resnick, the owners of The Wonderful Company, POM Wonderful, Fiji Water, Wonderful Pistachios and Almonds, Wonderful Halos, Wonderful Seedless Lemons, JUSTIN Wines, Landmark Wines, JNSQ Wines, and Teleflora floral wire service company secretly seized, (read—stole) control of California’s public water supply.

Today, their company uses 150 billion gallons every year while working-class people suffer under drought conditions.

Lynda and Stewart Resnick are also known for funding the Israeli occupation regime. The same billionaire family controlling vast amounts of California water is actively funneling money to Israeli occupational forces through charities and other means of support. Based on tax records from their foundation they have given $2.4 million to the Israeli military every year just between 2015-2022, through an outfit called the American Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Yasha Levine did a great research piece on Resnicks — California Pistachio Billionaires Helping Israel's Occupation Regime. I implore you to read the article.

I want to highlight these parts for you.

Besides stealing the water in California, Resnick’s pistachio monopoly has a very specific geopolitical dimension. It’s based on the U.S. meddling in the Middle East; specifically, on America’s overthrow of democracy in Iran and the backing of the Shah—meddling that spectacularly blowback in the form of Iran taking 52 American hostages from the U.S. Embassy in 1979.

The result of this blowback was more aggression against Iran: the imposition of crippling sanctions. It is these sanctions that for the first time in history began to cut Iran’s pistachio industry off from global trade and allowed the Resnicks to get into the pistachio business in California.

Except for a brief partial respite under Barak Obama’s presidency, economic sanctions against Iran have been renewed and intensified under every single president after Carter, making Iran one of the most sanctioned countries on the planet and allowing Resnicks to create an American pistachio industry from scratch—an industry that went from producing nothing to double what Iran does.

Despite all these sanctions, Iran has still been a major competitor to the Resnicks and the American pistachio industry that they pioneered. So constantly fighting Iran for international market share; whether in Europe, China, South Korea, Russia, or India—has been a prime objective of the Resnicks.

They have waged this fight by backing politicians and lobbies that take hardline positions on Iran—whether it’s through supporting sanctions, increasing foreign tariffs, or arguing for attacks and straight-up war.

It’s painfully obvious how connected all this is.

You know that war is coming to the agenda under Trump’s administration. It’s inevitable. And realize why so many people will die, again—for the pistachio monopoly, military-industrial complex, testing of war technology, Israel’s land grab, and maintaining imperial pursuits.

Wake up to the fact that your Western countries aren’t just fighting people in the Middle East—they’re fighting you too. You bear the cost of corporate greed just as much as the citizens of the countries targeted by their wrath.

By Collecteurs:

Keep thinking it’s all disconnected. Keep thinking “What happens over there has nothing to do with what happens over here.” Impunity is not immunity. We pay for the greed of the corporate and ruling class in more ways than one.

Or yeah, blame the wind.

The fate of all mankind is in the hands of fools.

Aren’t you glad we have a “Space Force” instead of Climate Force?

My dear friends, nobody is coming to save us.

No one is in charge, there are no sane adults in charge of this planet. No one is coming. Our safety is in our own hands.

Our government sends billions of our tax dollars to Israel and Ukraine but can’t get water to California. Our government sends billions of our tax dollars to Israel and Ukraine but gives $750 to its citizens who lost everything they own in Hurricane Helene.

The future is not at all what the powerful promised us it would be. But do not let this lead you to despair—let it radicalize you. Build community, and spread class consciousness. There are way more of us than of them. There are way more of us than of them. There are way more of us than of them.

I want to finish with the brilliant Viet Thanh Nguyen:

“LA is wast. It’s a city and a county. It is a global place, a Pacific Rim space, A ‘Third World’ metropolis. It has all the contradictions of the world and all the world is condensed in it. The homes of rich, poor, middle class, Black, white, Asian, Latino have burned. Fire is coming for all of us.”

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I was never one of those people who enjoyed this day. New Year’s Eve, what is it for? I don’t even recall what I did last year, did I go somewhere, did I do anything, or stayed home — this is not a new thing for me. I’ve never been one for joiner activities or organized cheer. I like to be joyful when I want to be, not when someone tells me I should be; Palm Leaves by Bukowski always felt like my New Year’s Eve manifesto.

I’d gone to bed at 9 p.m.
turned out the lights
pulled up the covers –
their gaiety, their happiness
their screams, their paper hats,
their automobiles, their women,
their amateur drunks…

New Year’s Eve always terrifies
me

New Year’s Eve doesn’t terrify me like Charles, but people who see today as anything else but the 452nd day of genocide terrify me. I tried to wake up today and give you some hopeful words, but they just escape me. There’s a reason no one sane posted any plans, wishes, goals, or aspirations for 2025; what can we expect from an incoming year when the one we’re leaving behind gave us a million heartbreaks?

I have nothing for you today, but this, I don’t know how to be in this world anymore. I don’t know how to handle the world when even babies frozen to death cannot draw any sympathy from the people who are trying to make space for their own children; over small, white, frozen wraps of someone else’s children. That is if they even find the wrap to tie them in, or if there’s anyone left to wrap them. What does it matter, they already froze?

How do you live in the world where the notoriously Zionist Twitter account writes —“Also, it’s in the 50/60 degrees in Gaza, not exactly freezing weather” below pictures of a frozen baby?

I read someone saying today - “Most days it feels like as though Earth began spinning on a different axis and I’m the only one who noticed and when I turn to the person next to me and ask if they too felt the weight of the planet shift, they reply what planet?” — I don’t know how to be in this world anymore, I don’t know how to look at people, I don’t know how to get out of my house and face them, hear them, I’m afraid of what they might tell me and I’m not ready for a thousand new heartbreaks.

I read someone saying today “Everything I thought I knew about the world and everyone in it was a mirage”—how do we do it, how do we step into 2025?

Every time I walk out of my house that’s not my house I look at the faces of people and wonder if they know what’s happening, do they care, do they wake up every day like me and scroll into the abyss, numb, angry, hopeful for the tiny instances of time, but defeated the rest, waiting to see anyone who could stop this; why do I still feel like a child who’s waiting for an adult to stop this?

There are no adults, we are the adults, and that makes this world even scarier, it’s us, we are in charge; what are we doing? No one to blame. I go through the motions every day, trying to find the smallest instances of happiness, joy; any meaning, just any, give me any meaning—and there isn’t any; waking up is hard, what is the point of all—then I see a one decent person saying something, seeing what I see and I feel a glimpse of hope that only cheats me into surviving each day.

My friend asks me “Why are you so involved in this, why do you care about the Middle East, are you planning to get an Arab husband” and I say no, I haven’t gotten any such plans, I just don’t want them to die, and the sigh of relief when he heard me say it sends me into a tailspin.

Who are these people, and how did they come to be my friends? I blame myself. I’m repulsed for ever thinking these people are more than what they are; I read someone saying today “The greatest contempt of all I reserve for myself for ever thinking we were anything more than we are, for ever believing in even an ounce of the mythology we drench ourselves in. What a dumb bitch.”

What a dumb bitch.

I call my family and all I can talk about is the politics of a geocode, I make them tired, worn out from my constant rhetoric that just cannot let this go, so I pretend to care about things I don’t care about, and pretend I do things I haven’t done in 15 months; I tell them about a piece of clothing I bought, trying to mask as a normal, superficial human who’s not intense, so I tell them about a new sweatshirt I bought, it’s 100 % Cotton Terry, extremely hard to find, while thinking to myself if that sweatshirt is “the appropriate item of clothing to wear when the world is crumbling”?

I go through the motions of life, all that’s required, pretending for people who need me to be a functional human being. It comes easy for me, my neurodiversity trained me to mask every single day; I do it so well, it’s like a choreography I got down to the tee.

I can’t remember many details about my life, or the last names, sometimes even the first names of the people I know. But Hind Rajab, Sidra Hassouna, Shaban al-Dalou, Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, Refaat Alareer, Khalad Nabhan, and Reem, a soul of his soul—why are these names engraved in my mind? Will I ever in my life again sit down for food and not think about these names, will I be able to stretch in the morning and not see the images of their shredded limbs while I stretch mine?

I read someone saying today they feel “Contempt for all of the institutions for whom ethnic cleansing is the second-worst thing that could happen; the worst thing is controversy”. Controversy, what a peculiar word. People who slaughter children in Gaza, then travel to New York to stroll around 5th Avenue are less controversial than me who can’t ever walk down the same avenue without looking at all the faces passing me by, thinking which one blew people up with his or her iPad, while passing me by.

I’m contemplating going to a movie theater today, I haven’t been in a long while, they say Babygirl is good, a story about someone played by Nicole Kidman who falls for a much younger guy; hardcore they say, very steamy, soft porn like even, and I feel like I should go and see it, rather than endure small talk about a prosperous 2025 from people who, when you say the planet feels off its axis, ask what planet?

Love is the only thing that makes sense to me in this screwed-up world, people have always said this—it’s the only thing that truly makes sense and I didn’t believe them; I have a strange rapport with love. Lust is what keeps me going, what is love exactly? No one I had asked ever knew how to define it properly; I love my sister, that’s love, I love a few people, that’s also love—but how is it the same feeling as entering a room with a hundred people and seeing that one person in the sea of others, just that one person among all those on earth who alters you?

Lust is a pathway, it’s how I measure love. We've all experienced lust and passion beyond reason, where you know you can't, but you absolutely have to. It demands from you. It militates you.

This world didn’t become screwed up now, overnight, we just see it now. Nothing is new about the establishment exploiting people who go to wars for the ruling class, billionaires, and oligarchs; we always did, only before they were called Monarchs, Dukes, and the aristocracy. Regular people always bleed for someone else’s causes and money—we just didn’t see it on our phones, and we believed all the myths.

What a dumb bitch, we all were.

“The greatest contempt of all I reserve for myself for ever thinking we were anything more than we are, for ever believing in even an ounce of the mythology we drench ourselves in. What a dumb bitch.”

I don’t know how to be in this world, seeing what we have seen. I have no answers. I only find hope in history; this is what the world has always been, and being in the dark about or knowing about it doesn’t change what the world has always been. Just our awareness of it.

I don’t know how to be in this world right now.

But what I do know is that 2025 is the year when the phrase “new year, new you” finally holds meaning. You've said it countless times before, but you weren’t the new you. You did the same shit as the year prior. Nothing about you was new.

This year, after everything you’ve witnessed over the past 15 months, and that feeling you experienced during this holiday season, is quite literally you shedding your skin. The horror you feel when you see the images on your phone, the realization of a world that tolerates it, and the sensation that you’re going insane—have altered you. You can’t ever go back to who you were.

That feeling you have today, the one we all share, the gut-wrenching nausea—it’s the new you being born. A new you who isn’t naive anymore, no longer consumed by myths about the people around you, your friends, or the world in general. You get it now. Embrace the terrors and horrors you feel.

Let them change you. Be that new you in 2025.

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I’m not a particularly religious person. I dabble in it, like most of the "there’s definitely something out there" folks who walk the walk—right up until they’d have to give it a human form and call it God.

My parents were born five years after WWII, and their God were the Yugoslav Partisans. They had a good life under the socialist self-governance, a unique brand of socialism developed by their leader who managed to run a European country while famously associating himself with the recently decolonized countries of the so-called Third World.

Tough act to follow, for any God, if you ask me.

My family never went to church, despite being born and raised in what is likely one of the most Catholic places on Earth. One of my two nephews is the only member of our family who got christened in the Catholic Church. This decision was influenced (read, bullied) by my mother, who, in her older age, became increasingly fearful of her own shadow and believed a person needs a little extra, divine protection in an uncertain, scary world. That, and she couldn’t bully anyone else into it.

“Miranda, you should see my priest.”

My friend kept repeating this sentence on a particularly humid summer day two years ago, as I kept muttering to myself, “Why does everyone always seem to want a piece of me?” over ice cream. I don’t claim any responsibility; it was an intense summer, and I was jet lagged. I thought, what the hell (pun intended), it can’t hurt.

Can it hurt?

Can we make it painless?

We cannot.

As it turns out, her priest is a celebrity in the holy world, with a six-month waiting list to see him in the confessional. I’m not joking. Don Petar is a hard-core celeb. Foreign tourists line up to get a one-on-one with him. Getting into a Manhattan membership club is easier than entering Don Petar’s confessional.

She then casually says, “I’ll send him a Facebook message, ask if he can see you sooner”. A celeb priest on Facebook! This is getting good. I told her, “Tell him I’m a non-believer”, thinking that would put me at the top of his queue, priest or not, men like a project. All men like a project they can decipher, solve, fix, and shape into what they want it to become (it never does).

It worked.

Don Petar was baited with the—"She is a non-believer."

"Come on Saturday," he responded. Still, it wasn’t easy. We arrived at the church around 2 pm, and I didn’t see Don Petar until 10 pm. There were hordes of people waiting. Apparently, many folks claim their lives completely changed after meeting him. Still not there. In the meantime, I sat through the mass, the collective prayer, and a very moving half-song, half-speech about the devil among us.

My turn finally came up.

I saw Don Petar at about 10 pm. I walked into his office, and the first thing out of my mouth was - “Just so you know, I don’t believe in any of this”. I expected a pushback, but Don Petar was effortlessly chill. He told me, “Miranda that’s totally okay. I believe in God, and you don’t. But we can both agree there is something out there that we can't explain in words or logic, right?"

I wanted to respond to him, “Yes, it’s called random circumstance”, but I decided to pause my trademark snark during our time together. After all, I waited all day, might as well use this time to at least learn something new, or get writing material.

There was nothing particularly heavenly in the air around him, just the way he truly listened and understood what I was telling him. Don Petar is a smart man, he has one tone of voice when talking about the dangers of devils around us during a Mass, and another tone of voice for a very sober talk with me, in his confessional.

At the end, he asked me, “Can I do a prayer for you?”. Respecting I might not want more than just a conversation, and I liked that. Don Petar won me over. I said yes. “Can I put my hand on your forehead?”. Always asking, careful not to overstep, and never once trying to push me into becoming a churchgoer on Sundays. His prayer was like a finely tuned instrument, each note resonating with the specific chords of my concerns, a melody of understanding woven from the very words I had shared with him.

Don Petar got to me.

What I realized during my time with Don Petar is that it all boils down to us. Whether we believe in God or not, we embody something greater, and it’s up to us to define that essence. Are we ready to acknowledge that we are all interconnected as part of the human race, and that nothing we hold dear should take precedence over the well-being of others?

I hadn't thought about Don Petar in quite some time, but for the past 14 months, he’s been on my mind often. I ponder what his insights would be regarding the current state of the world. His way with words is so nuanced; I wonder how he would articulate it all and whether his perspective would bring me any clarity—or offer a bit of solace for my soul.

What would he say about the land of Christ's birth being decimated, a Holy Land being pounded with robot bombs on Christmas Eve? Would he explain it one way to his churchgoers at the Mass, and differently to me in the confessional?

I think about Don Petar extensively on Easter and Christmas, when people dial up their Christian sentiments online. This past Easter, I decided to test those sentiments against the backdrop of a live-streamed genocide occurring in the birthplace of Jesus. I posted an image on my Instagram with the caption that said:

“Wishing you a blessed Good Friday. Today, your horoscope and your Christian faith tell you to commemorate Jesus’ crucifixion by speaking out on the injustices in Gaza and today’s crucifying of an entire group of people at the birthplace of your favorite religious leader, because that’s the best possible way to honor him, your religion & your beliefs.”

I dabble in Christianity.

Mostly to provoke religious people into translating their beliefs into tangible actions, especially now, when the world desperately needs it. I’m still finding my way, barely scratching the surface, but those who’ve held a lifelong faith have a remarkable opportunity to put their teachings into practice in the here and now.

What a blessing, isn’t it? To be able to honor your faith by embodying its principles and making a difference in the lives of people being bombed into oblivion today.

My post didn’t have many converters; people who have been speaking about the medieval violence and human rights violations in Gaza for the past 14 months reacted to it, naturally, as they always do.

It did however draw a lone response from a Croatian or possibly a Bosnian woman living in Tel Aviv who commented the following pile:

“Every normal human being is for life, against death, against evil. In your post, you do not mention the currently elected government of Gaza - Hamas. Being pro-Palestine means condemning Hamas and at least 12 other terrorist organizations. This trend where people like you, who know so little about the history of the area and the current situation, and from a position of privilege and in the name of the trend dare to mercilessly push your "Christian" principles is really scary.”

Why this one?

Why am I singling out this particular comment? Because she’s using religion as a tool of subjugation, and a religious principle she doesn’t even know I have, to justify her racial supremacy and deflect attention from the war crimes and injustices that perpetuate her privilege.

Because she reminded me why I always frowned upon religion: a main source of all wars throughout history. The actual reasons for wars are, of course, land grabs, money, power, and plundering of resources—but all that is made possible by stoking religious differences.

As a Catholic in training who is, with the help of Don Petar, still coming to terms with maybe there’s something out there, the genocide in Gaza threw me straight into the politics of Christianity. I busted my brain for the past 14 months thinking how a religious human being could possibly see all this suffering, carnage, death, torture, rape, dehumanization, man-made starvation, medieval, barbaric violence and find ways to justify it enough to support the side inflicting all that pain. And I came up with nothing but—exceptionalism.

Religion, at its core, is sold to us as a belief rooted in principles of compassion, humility, and service to the oppressed and less fortunate. Yet exceptionalism, by its nature, fosters superiority and exclusivity, making it an oxymoron when paired with the teachings of most religious doctrines. So why do they go hand in hand so seamlessly? Why do so many religious people find themselves ensnared by a sense of exceptionalism—the belief that their faith or cultural identity places them above others?

This contradiction is precisely what transforms a tool for unity into a weapon of division, and more often than not—into an actual weapon. As we see in Gaza, every day.

I wish I could pick Don Petar’s brain on this.

Are people too naive to think this tension highlights how religious identity, when warped by exceptionalism, has strayed too far from its intended purpose? Or has this distortion always been a central feature of religion, wielded throughout history as a shield for those who wish to subjugate others?

As I was breaking down the relationship between religion and exceptionalism for this piece, I came across an interview with George Galloway that filled in the gaps for me. George, as always, hits the mark:

“I honestly can’t understand how anyone can look at the pictures and videos that I’m looking at (carnage in Gaza) and come to any other conclusion, unless you believe in exceptionalism, unless you believe that some of us are more exceptional than others, some of us are chosen, therefore some of us by definition are not. If you believe that, then you believe that the inferior would have to bow down to the superior, the unexceptional to bowing down to the exceptional.

I’m religiously forbidden to believe such things, as well as politically disinclined to do so. It’s the issue of exceptionalism. This is where my religion and my politics merge. Because I believe that all of us are God’s children, that none of us are exceptional, that none of us are God's chosen people, that we are all God’s chosen people. We need to make the world that is fair and equitable. It won’t happen overnight.”

Exceptionalism is tricky.

It doesn't solely reside within the realms of the privileged, successful, affluent, or well-connected. It manifests in various guises. I've witnessed it among friends who come from humble beginnings, yet harbor the belief that their European heritage, Western ideals, and lifestyle choices represent the epitome of what the entire world should emulate.

Many of them, scattered throughout Europe as immigrants themselves, still message me to air their grievances about “these Muslims who just cannot assimilate to Western life in the countries they move to.” To this day, not a word about the 14-month-long, live-streamed genocide in Gaza. Reluctance to confront the contradiction of criticizing mass immigration while expressing disdain for “those people who aren’t like me” coming to their countries, all the while supporting military “interventions” by their Western nations, which ultimately drive these very people to seek refuge elsewhere.

The Pope.

A couple of weeks ago, in Rome, at the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, the Pope unveiled a Nativity scene crafted by Palestinian artisans from Bethlehem. He used the occasion to issue a heartfelt appeal: “Enough with wars! Enough of violence! Do you know that one of the most profitable industries is the arms trade? Profit made for the purpose of killing; how can this be? Enough with wars!” —he voiced his strong condemnation of the arms industry that thrives on war and death.

At the same time, in Paris, the world leaders who are funding and supporting the genocide of the Palestinian people gathered at Notre Dame for its reopening ceremony. I’m not sure how it didn’t ignite in flames again due to sheer blasphemy. In the words of Arnaud Bertrand—”The same people responsible for the very wars Francis was decrying.”

Arnaud’s observation stopped me in my track:

“Religion either as a legitimizing instrument of power—a crown on its head—or religion as a thorn in power's side, standing with the powerless.

It's not even a religious matter, it's a contradiction intrinsic to our humanity: do you fight for what's right and confront uncomfortable truths, or do you comfortably align with power?

My Bible reading might be rusty, but I seem to remember Jesus having some pretty clear opinions about this particular matter.”

Religion as a legitimizing instrument of power: Jesus Christ, whose birth we’re celebrating today—Western powers took his teachings and commercialized his birth, everything the man stood against.

Christ is still in the rubble.

The best thing you could do for yourself, your heart, and your soul today is listen to Rev. Munther Isaac’s Christmas sermon, “Christ is Still in the Rubble,” live from Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. He touches on that precise thing that has been weighing on us all for the past 14 months: How can religious, church-going people stay silent on a live-streamed genocide? How does their God approve of this? How did this profound theological crisis creep up, exposed by Palestine for us all?

Just look at some talking points from his sermon:

“This is also the result of an exclusionary mentality. Even God, we have made tribal, exclusionary, and selective—a God of one people at the expense of another, one religion over another, one nation over another. In our human racism, we have made God a racist!”

We have made God a racist. Have you ever heard anything so essential?

A God of War.

“We weep, we are crushed, we suffer. And we cry out: How long, O Lord? Why do You allow this, and why do You remain silent? Humanity has chosen Herod’s path. Humanity glorified power and cruelty. It glorified domination, greed, weapons, and even the annihilation of others. Herod is neither the first nor the last. This is the logic of the Empire. And we have fashioned God in this image, turning Him into a god of war!”

Take a look at the excerpts below, where he breaks down this theological crisis:

“The genocide will end one day, soon we hope and plead, but history will remember where people stood. History will remember what they said. They cannot claim they did not know, and this is why we insist—this is more than Gaza or Palestine. It's much more than that. In Palestine, we find the intersection of colonialism, supremacy, the logic of might is right, militarism, racism, and religious fundamentalism. All of these come together in Palestine.”

“Palestine is a human and moral cause, and for the church—it is a theological crisis. It’s about the credibility of our witness, it’s here that we come face to face with the tragic consequences of bad theology. Actually, this is much more than bad theology, or even ideology. Zionism and Christian Zionism are ideologies of supremacy, it is racism.”

“Zionism and Christian Zionism turned God into a racist tribal deity of their own image. So we must call things for what they are, and today we also acknowledge all those who stood on the side of justice and truth. All those who said no to dehumanization, many of whom paid the heavy price.”

Acknowledging all of us:

“We salute you. Solidarity by definition is costly, and over the last 440 days, we have heard you in churches, in mosques, in synagogues, in the streets, in universities, in governmental buildings, and in front of armed factories—protesting, organizing, lobbying. And we have heard you.”

And the following sentence is far too monumental for me to even preface it:

"Every Herod will pass, every Caesar will fade, for empires have an expiry date.⁠”

“And let us remember that according to Jesus, it is the meek, not the powerful, who inherit the land. In our pain and oppression, we might feel that death has the final word, that Herod is sovereign. But through the eyes of faith, we see that God has the final word.”

A must-watch. Hear it for the consequences, trust, resentment, credibility, hope, resilience. You can also read the transcript of the sermon.

Does your God approve of this? “It is the meek, not the powerful, who inherit the land.” Merry Christmas!

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