Author Credits
From the Editor
“Vichy on the Hudson.” That’s how emeritus historian Rashid Khalidi recently described the situation at his Upper West Side academic home of several decades, Columbia University.
Whether under Biden or Trump, the past few years haven’t shown Columbia in the most flattering light. 2024 saw NYPD’s campus takeover and the militarized night raid of Hamilton Hall, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s grandstanding on the Low Library steps, and Congresswoman Elise Stefanik’s faux rage about campuses riven by antisemitism, and her takedown of President Minouche Shafik. Onlookers and alumni watched as Columbia’s stock drooped.
With 2025, Trump nudged Columbia further down slope, cornering the university in a lose-lose trade of academic sovereignty for fiscal safety. But the defining moment came when the university collaborated with ICE agents in the late-night abduction of Mahmoud Khalil– the lawful permanent resident and recent graduate who had mediated during the height of Gaza unrest. Viral video showed Khalil being zip-tied and taken away, as his American wife was made to stand by powerless, and eight months pregnant. Overnight, Columbia became the face for the rash of campus disappearances that followed, each one more shameful than the next and all utterly unconstitutional. It recalled a time not so long ago when Japanese Americans were rounded up in concertina wire pens.
Readers of this publication know that context matters more and more each day, as Americans try and understand what Palestine says about the health of our democracy. As Mahmoud Khalil languishes in a far-off detention cell, for the act of decrying genocide and U.S. involvement, understanding where this lawlessness and cruelty come from is critically important. Why did Columbia choose this path? And how did America get to this point? where the Constitution and its separation of powers are shunted aside and the targeting of an ethnic group becomes normalized? Some of the answers to these questions are hidden in the Heritage Foundation’s latest roadmap, “Project Esther: A National Strategy to Combat Anti-Semitism.”
Project Esther is a long and fearful screed about a new [old] bogeyman poised to destroy American democracy: “HSN”, or Hamas Support Network. Variously and repeatedly described as “highly organized,” “virulently anti-American,” and with influence “extending into the highest levels of US government,” HSN is the new catchall bête noire for neocons. With a tone alternating between juvenile and paranoid, Project Esther’s preoccupations are existential: “HSN poses a threat not simply to American Jewry, but to America itself… Extirpating the influence of the HSN from our society will not be easy, but extirpate we must…” Like DHS’ deportee target lists, the Project Esther document was likely informed by the more execrable among rightwing Israeli proxies, like Betar and Canary Mission.
Project Esther’s blind spots are mammoth, and belie her true intentions. Nowhere in the endless, monotonous paragraphs about Hamas does she betray real concern about antisemitism’s most reliable and pernicious threat, white supremacy. There’s nothing about the pathos that shoots up Pittsburgh synagogues or populates Trump’s cabinets; nothing about January 6th Camp Auschwitz apparel; nothing about President Trump’s tropes on loyalty and Elon Musk’s fascist sign language. Somehow, rather than call out the deadliest forms of American antisemitism, whether at Columbia or in the White House, Esther prefers to throttle free speech, whatever the cost, Founders and their First Amendment be damned.
This issue of the Link explores some of the ever-changing implications of Trump’s second coming. We appreciate the patience of our readers and writers, even as the noose of Constitutional crisis draws tighter. We close by celebrating the 20th anniversary of the “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” (BDS) movement, which reminds us that within the law powerful tools exist to combat injustice. The images in this issue commemorate that theme and are reproduced courtesy of the Palestine Poster Project Archive.
–Nicholas Griffin
A Liberation Theology Reflection on Power, Values, and Justice under the New American Administration
by Omar Haramy
As we consider the second Trump administration, I must begin with a reminder that as those in Gaza reel from 15 months of genocide, in the West Bank militant settlers joined by the Israeli Occupation Forces attack vulnerable villages, schools, and civilians. We have no protection and at times it feels like the world has abandoned us to a vicious Israeli regime whose goal is to liquidate us and take our land. And it continues because the United States and European powers finance and give cover to Israel, day in and day out. We know this history very well because we have lived it. Zionism is a settler colonial ideology of racial supremacy, and it will not be satisfied until Palestinians have been erased, one way or another. This can feel very overwhelming.
At the same time, we at Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem and many others know that there is another dimension to our reality. We see it in the people of Gaza, whether Muslim or Christian, who still pray, hope, and hold on to their belief that there is a God who is present in these utterly evil and godless times. We often wonder why God allows this to continue and we have no answers, but we still hold onto our hope that this too will end. Politicians and empires come and go. They are temporary and can perform the vilest of crimes, and I need not list them here. But we have been forced to reach very deep in our souls to hold onto God in this time of trial and realize we do not have the luxury of giving up on God or each other. So we search and hold onto hope as we resist this evil regime and all that sustains it.
This past year one source of this hope has been our friends from around the world who have traveled to be with us in solidarity visits to simply bear witness to what is happening here in Palestine, and to pray and stand together and remind us that we are not abandoned. These are people who care and return to their countries to do what we are doing: to get up each day and reclaim our faith, to ask how we can resist and expose the evils of this death-dealing system and find the inspiration not to surrender to the false reality of death, but rather to choose life, equality, justice, and hope.
As the new administration settles in, the United States must be confronted with the truth: it is itself an obstacle to global justice, peace, and freedom. While President Trump’s rhetoric and actions exacerbate this, the problem goes far beyond one individual or administration. American legislators who may be deeply divided on countless issues unite around the US’ “Israel First” policy. The American electorate must assume responsibility for its role in maintaining the injustices that follow the Palestinian people everywhere.
The Bible and international law share a common moral thread: the belief that no one should be above accountability. The United States has shown a consistent disregard for international law, abusing its power. International law, which proclaims a global standard for justice, frequently finds itself at odds with Washington. The rights of Palestinians, including their right to self-determination, are disregarded. Despite international condemnation, Israel continues to expand settlements in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem, effectively erasing the possibility of a two-state solution. Unconditional financial support for Israel grows annually, with billions in military aid provided regardless of who is in the Oval Office. Israel to date is the largest recipient of US foreign aid, having received more than $300 billion since 1948.
Many Americans remain unaware of or unconcerned about global issues, yet they support a worldview in which the United States must lead unchallenged. This mindset is deeply hypocritical, despite conventional American media warnings against imperial overreach and prizing the rule of law. Several powerful forces shape US policy. One of these is Christian Zionism, which interprets false biblical so-called prophecies as a divine mandate to support Israel unconditionally. Modern Christian Zionism serves as the continuation of Manifest Destiny, broadening the Empire under a false sense of God-given right to a land. Yet this interpretation ignores the teachings of the Bible, which in fact emphasize justice, mercy, and compassion for all people. The prophet Micah declares: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)
Another force is Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism, perpetuated by media narratives that cast Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians as enemies of the United States. This creates a false dichotomy in which the enemy of my enemy is my friend, despite billions being spent shaping public opinion to support policies that prioritize Israel over justice itself.
Additionally, organizations like AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) wield enormous influence, pouring money into US elections to protect and perpetuate Israel-centric policies. In the 2022 mid-term election, 365 candidates received AIPAC funding, as well as every single Democratic and Republican leading member of Congress. This raises ethical concerns about the health and integrity of American democracy, as policy is shaped by the interests of a foreign state. Finally, the military-industrial complex thrives on prolonged conflict, with arms manufacturers (and their shareholders) standing to reap profits from war and losses from peace. The United States claims to be a nation guided by Christian values, but as Jesus himself said, “No one can serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and money” (Matthew 6:24). Money and profit have always been the United States’ greater gods; empire and faith remain incompatible, with the former asserting dominion while the latter calls for humility and service.
Palestine is just one example of how US policies are antithetical to both religious tenets and Constitutional ideals, and lays bare the nation’s damaged state. These are the traits of an empire, rather than a just nation fulfilling “divine prophecy.” Donald Trump becomes the latest expression – perhaps the most blatant – of the root of the problem, which is the United States’ ongoing colonial history. The colonial project of Israel falls under the same colonial project that murdered and displaced Indigenous Americans; until the Empire falls, no US president can lead in a moral fashion.
At Sabeel, we believe in Palestinian Liberation Theology through applied understanding and connection to the Bible, and to indigenous Christian roots. Just as Christ was born under occupation, Palestinian Christians are born under occupation, and they are empowered and encouraged by the legacy of his life. The Christian Zionist narrative does not represent Christ’s message, and witnessing the destruction of his homeland is the first step to understanding this reality.
Isaiah 1:17 tells us, “Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed.” We must all bear witness to injustice and stand on the side of peace as Christians and as human beings. Solidarity delegations see, hear, and experience the daily realities of Palestine and Israel. They have the unique capacity to encourage others to question the illusion of Israel as a perfect and a moral state, as promoted in Western colonial media, and to seek to understand the truth and complexity of the injustice that strangles this land. For American delegations, one of the most important takeaways is how integral American involvement is to the continuation of Israeli apartheid and occupation.
The American public bears great responsibility in forging the Palestinian path toward freedom. While the US government fuels the continuation of Palestinians’ daily struggles and oppression, the solidarity between Palestinians and Americans, as well as other foreigners, is key to liberating all peoples. To cross borders, checkpoints, and lines together is to resist the status quo. To be present is to humanize and to seek peace and knowledge. This experience creates a chain reaction of hope for both Palestinians and supporters, a network of action for a better future: “From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Ephesians 4:16). •
Omar Haramy is Director of Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Jerusalem.
Normalization: The Real End Game
by Jeff Halper
Trump’s disability – narcissism, mixed perhaps with a dose of aphasia and the general insensitivity to human suffering embedded in the profession of slumlord – has one advantage in the political arena: unlike practiced politicians like Biden, who mask their true intent in diplo-speak, Trump seems incapable of lying or covering up. (For a narcissistic person, the truth is what you perceive it to be, even if a lie is demonstrable.) And so he states flatly – like, duh! – what past presidents have always denied: first, that the United States could not care less about Palestinians or their national rights; and second, that allowing Israel to replace Palestine is fine, whether out of reasons of realpolitik – the role Israel plays militarily in protecting Western hegemony over the Middle East – or out of some perception that Israel is “us,” part of the “Judeo-Christian”/Western world, and is on our side in the War of Civilizations. Like the region’s “moderate” Arab governments, Trump simply wants the pesky and disruptive Palestinian issue to disappear and, in his transactional America First worldview, sees no political, legal, or moral impediment to making that happen.
That Trump vision dovetails perfectly with Zionism’s 130-year project of Judaizing Palestine. Carried out through a militarized settler colonialism, Zionism has already accomplished two of the four tasks required for transforming an Arab state into a Jewish one: it has taken the Palestinians’ land (85% of Palestine is now Israeli State Land or its military equivalent, almost completely “cleansed” of Palestinians) and it has displaced the Palestinian population – half of the 15 million Palestinians live in exile abroad, and half are confined to enclaves on 15% of their homeland.
That leaves two more. First, the final pacification of the Palestinians, suppressing both resistance and political opposition to the point where any struggle against colonization becomes impossible. Military pacification is now clearly evident in Gaza and in the refugee camps of the West Bank. Political pacification ranges from the banning of political parties and the imprisonment or execution of Palestinian political figures, intellectuals, and activists (almost 5,000 being held indefinitely and without charge in administrative detention) to raiding the Educational Bookstore in East Jerusalem and arresting its owners and on to preventing foreign solidarity groups from visiting the Occupied Territory.
The second and final task that remains is normalization – the way settler colonialism is ultimately consummated. Normalization does not entail negotiations. As the Abraham Accords demonstrate, it is an agreement between states that leaves out the colonized – in this case the Palestinians – altogether. Normalization legitimizes whatever “facts on the ground” the colonial enterprise has managed to establish – in our case, a “Jewish” state of Israel possessing total control over Palestine. After normalization little political space remains in which the Palestinians can continue their struggle. The issue has been resolved in the eyes of the governments involved, the Palestinians have received whatever they were given (a truncated, semi-sovereign, non-viable Bantustan” state” on 15% of their country), and the world moves on. A Judaized Palestine is then anointed as “Israel.”
And this is how the normalization process will go down in the next few months:
- Saudi Arabia, the Jewel in the Crown for completing the Abraham Accords, has conditioned normalization with Israel on a vague, never-to-be-implemented commitment to a “pathway” to a Palestinian state at some undetermined future date. No details or conditions necessary; for example, would the Palestinian state be territorially contiguous, genuinely sovereign, and economically viable? Why spend the political capital to get into problematic details over an eventuality that “everybody knows” (to quote Leonard Cohen) will never materialize? The other Arab states that have already normalized with Israel – Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco – haven’t made even those modest symbolic demands.
- Arab government collusion with Netanyahu and Trump (and Biden – this is not just a Republican plan) empowers Israel to define less what the Palestinian Bantustan ”state” would look like and more the expanded Israel they would be normalizing. The parameters are clear, laid out in detailed maps during Trump’s first term, and define the state of Israel in its 1967 borders plus its settlements. Israel thus expands to 85% of historic Palestine while the Palestinian “state” is reduced to three enclaves in the West Bank and an uninhabitable Gaza. For “security” reasons Israel also controls the borders (Palestine will not have a border with an Arab country), the airspace, and even internal movement between the enclaves. No territorial contiguity, no sovereignty, no economic viability, and no provision to bring the refugees home. A Palestinian Bantustan within an all-encompassing Israeli apartheid regime.
- The fact that the normalization process is nearing its completion explains Israel’s push to ethnically cleanse Area C, the 62% of the West Bank where its settlements are located, and which is planned to be annexed. The most violent Israeli settler youth have been unleashed on Palestinian communities; indeed, they have been recruited into a special IDF unit called Desert Frontier where they join other army units in driving Palestinian farmers and shepherds from their villages and lands. More than 50 rural communities have been forcibly abandoned since October 7, and more than 40 new settlement “outposts” have been established to replace them. All to establish the “facts on the ground” that will then be normalized.
- Whether a couple million Gazans are relocated semi-voluntarily or by force, or whether they just rot there under some puppet Palestinian or Arab authority makes no difference. Israel has no strategic interest in Gaza and, a few settlers aside, no interest in integrating it into a Greater Israel. It is marginal and expendable – and hence the utility of Netanyahu’s embrace of Trump’s “bold” if harebrained scheme of turning Gaza into an American Riviera; though it will never happen, it “makes sense” to both. Israel’s main interest is removing 2.3 million Palestinians from its direct rule, then placing the remaining three million in its West Bank Bantustan under some Palestinian Authority-type subcontractor. Thus a Greater Israel with a Jewish majority of 70-80% covering all of historic Palestine.
- The only actual condition imposed on Israel by the US and Saudi Arabia for the normalization process to go ahead is industrial quiet, quietizing the Palestinian issue so that it simply drops out of sight. Thus Israel’s intense campaign of pacification, beginning with eliminating Hamas in Gaza, the last bastion of effective resistance, but now extending into the West Bank where Israel is “Gaza-fying” the Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nablus refugee camps as well as other pockets of resistance. (Sickeningly, this process is actively supported by the collaboration of the Palestinian Authority, as it desperately “proves” to Israel and the US that it is capable of taking control of Gaza.)
- Here’s how the normalization takes its final turn, and “Greater” Israel is recognized by Saudi Arabia, much of the Arab and Muslim world, and the United States, as Palestinians are relegated to a management problem.” This will then be sold to the international community as the long-awaited “two-state solution.” Others will call it by its real name: two-state apartheid.
Settler colonialism thus ends not through conquest or victory but through normalization imposed by the strong on the weak and gradually ratified more by being perceived as “normal” and self-evident than by official political transactions and pronouncements. At the heart of the Trump/Netanyahu drive for normalization between Israel and the Arab world is the elimination of the Palestinian struggle for their national rights. For them, normalization represents closure. Once an expanded Israel and its apartheid regime is recognized by the international community – if not formally by much of Europe, the BRICS Bloc, and the Global South, then certainly de facto, which for Israel is good enough – there is little political space for the Palestinians to continue pursuing freedom. Completion of the Abraham Accords and its normalization represent the greatest threats to the Palestinians since the 1948 Nakba. •
Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and a co-founder of the One Democratic State Campaign. He can be reached at jeffhalper@gmail.com.
US Policy Toward Israel/Palestine Under Trump
by Stephen Zunes
A Trump administration will certainly take a more hardline policy in support of Israel’s rightwing leadership and in opposition to Palestinian rights. Given President Biden’s strident support for Netanyahu’s wars on Palestinian and Lebanese populations, which had already isolated the United States in the international community, the shift in policy will probably be less dramatic than on practically any other major political issue.
Indeed, Biden’s policies toward Israel’s wars and Harris’s failure to distance herself from them contributed to Trump’s election by lowering turnout and increasing third party voting among young people, progressives, Arab Americans, Muslims, and other minorities. Despite Trump’s claims that had he been president, Hamas’ October 2023 attacks and the subsequent war would have never happened, it was actually Trump who helped create the conditions that led to the tragedies of this past 16 months.
These included his declaration that Israeli settlements are not illegal and are legitimately part of Israel; his efforts to undermine whatever leverage the Palestinians might have to get Israel to end the occupation by pushing Arab regimes to recognize Israel prior to a withdrawal through the so-called Abraham Accords; and his moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, which opened on a day Israeli forces were massacring hundreds of Palestinians protesting along Gaza’s border with Israel. By undermining any diplomatic route the Palestinians might otherwise have had to gain their freedom from occupation, Trump opened the way for Hamas and allied groups to take the lead in the resistance.
The policies of the new Trump administration are likely to be even worse. Indeed, a look at his appointees reveals the kinds of policies we can expect in the next four years. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is a committed Christian Zionist who has declared, “If you love America, you should love Israel.” He likens support for Israel to the Crusades, writing, “Our present moment is much like the 11th Century. We don’t want to fight, but, like our fellow Christians one thousand years ago, we must.” He has called for replacing the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock with a rebuilt Jewish Temple. And he claims that neither the United States nor its allies like Israel need to abide by the Geneva Conventions or any international laws regarding the conduct of war, insisting that they should rather concern themselves with “winning our wars according to our own rules” and arguing that they should “unleash” their troops to become a “ruthless,” “uncompromising,” and “overwhelmingly lethal” force. Moreover, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is a strident supporter of Israel’s war on Gaza and is working with Israel to go after Iran. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been one of Netanyahu’s strongest backers in the US Senate.
Trump’s nominee for US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, is another Christian Zionist who openly supports Israeli colonization and annexation of the West Bank and has referred to Palestinian identity as simply “a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.” He sees a militarily dominant Israel controlling all the occupied territory and beyond as necessary for the Second Coming of Christ. Nominee for US Ambassador to the United Nations, Elise Stefanik, has labeled any criticism of Israeli government policies as antisemitic and has pledged to use her position to prevent the United Nations from holding Israel’s far-right government accountable.
What is particularly disturbing is, based on Biden’s reaction to policies enacted during the first Trump administration, a successor Democratic administration is unlikely to reverse whatever shifts in policy Trump may take in the next four years. For example, Biden refused to reverse Trump’s decision to close the PLO office in Washington, which had opened in 1994, or the US Consulate in occupied East Jerusalem, which had been there since the 1930s. He refused to move the US Embassy back to Tel Aviv where other foreign embassies are located, implying support for Israel’s control over greater Jerusalem. He refused to reverse Trump’s recognition of Israel’s illegal annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights, which Israel seized by force in 1967 and annexed fourteen years later in defiance of a UN Security Council resolution that even the Reagan administration supported. He endorsed Trump’s Abraham Accords. And he refused to reverse US recognition of Morocco’s illegal annexation of the entire nation of Western Sahara, which Morocco seized by force in 1975 also in defiance of the United Nations, which was countenanced in return for Morocco recognizing Israel.
From a Palestinian perspective, having an administration that explicitly opposes Palestinian statehood and outright dismisses the Fourth Geneva Convention and related principles of international humanitarian law may not be that different than an administration that claims to support such principles but has nevertheless provided unconditional support for an Israeli government that refuses to accept them. Still, the outright rejection of post-WWII international legal norms by the world’s greatest military power is disturbing.
The major threat on the home front is the pledge by Trump and key allies on Capitol Hill to continue the suppression of public opposition to US support for Israel’s wars and occupations, including deporting non-citizens taking part in antiwar demonstrations, denying accreditation and government funding to colleges and universities that do not ban pro-Palestinian activism or fire pro-Palestinian faculty, and revoking the nonprofit status of organizations that support the Palestinian cause.
The one bright spot may be that having a Republican president pushing these extreme policies might allow more Congressional Democrats and mainstream liberals, who were reluctant to criticize a Democratic administration in an election year, to become more outspoken in opposition. For example, when Richard Nixon succeeded a Democratic administration in 1969, there was a dramatic shift among Congressional Democrats and mainstream liberal opinion, which had until then largely supported Lyndon Johnson’s foreign policy, toward openly opposing the Vietnam War. Indeed, having a Republican administration refusing to even pretend to support a two-state solution, openly embracing Israeli settlers and far-right racist Israeli officials, and outright rejecting international law and human rights as a foreign policy principle could provide more political space for Democrats who have until now either been supportive or relatively quiet in regard to Biden’s policies to finally speak out.
As opposition to supporting Israel’s wars and occupation increases among the Democratic base, the remaining hawkish pro-Israel Democrats may be targeted for being “pro-Trump.” The national debate could thereby become less focused on divisive arguments about the nature of Zionism or other ideological battles, and more on universal and broadly supported principles like international law and human rights. •
Stephen Zunes is a professor of Politics and director of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit university founded in 1855.
Grim Prospects for a Just Peace for Palestinians Under a New Trump Administration
by Don Wagner
In January 1981 the new Reagan era ushered in the most pro-Israel administration in US history. Reagan appointed several neoconservatives and Christian Zionists to key posts, a move celebrated by the leading pro-Israel lobby AIPAC and the conservative Likud Party in Israel. Within a month, a series of Israeli politicians and military leaders visited Secretary of State Alexander Haig and Pentagon officials, capped off by a visit from Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, who laid out his plans for Israel´s long anticipated invasion of Lebanon. In the spring of 1982 the United States advanced the latest weapons to Israel ahead of schedule, including F-16 jets and AWACs surveillance aircraft. The war on Lebanon commenced on June 4, 1982, with full US support.
The Reagan administration’s pro-Israel hawks occupied multiple levels, including National Security Advisor Richard Allen, Ambassador to the United Nations Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, and influential lower-level appointees like neoconservative Zionists Richard Perle, Max Kampelman, and Elliot Abrams. From top to bottom the pro-Israel influence represented a takeover by those who were aligned more closely with the maximalist positions of the right-wing Likud Party led by Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon.
Reagan believed Israel was a bulwark against Soviet influence in the Middle East and his politics were underscored by his belief in Christian Zionist ideology. Reagan accepted several of the end-time Christian Zionist doctrines, having been briefed by Hal Lindsey, author of The Late Great Planet Earth. The Reagan White House hosted annual conferences that were a “Who’s Who” of far-right Christian Zionist leaders including Rev. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, singer Pat Boone, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, co-author of the Left Behind series Tim LaHaye, Ed McAteer of the Religious Roundtable, and many others. Pro-Israel briefings were led by the Israeli Ambassador to the United States and coordinated by Reagan appointees Oliver North (of Iran-Contra fame) and Bud McFarlane. Author Grace Halsell, a friend of AMEU, showed me her invitation with a list of the 150 Evangelical participants after attending such a briefing.
Nine weeks into Israel’s invasion, Reagan surprised Israel and several pro-Israel hawks in his administration after he watched in horror as Israel carpet- bombed West Beirut neighborhoods, leaving countless Palestinian and Lebanese civilians dead or severely wounded. After consulting with his new Secretary of State George Shultz, Reagan telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Begin to demand an immediate cessation of the carnage. He was furious and Begin complied.
One can argue that the first Trump administration replaced the Reagan era as the most pro-Israel administration in US history. Trump surrounded himself with several pro-Israel advocates including Christian Zionists like Vice President Mike Pence, National Security Advisor General Mike Flynn, and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, as well as neoconservatives like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He also called on hard line pro-Israel Jewish hawks such as Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and son-in-law Jared Kushner, both closely tied to Israel’s settlement industry. This Christian Zionist influence was later cited by Trump as the primary reason he moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “That’s for the Evangelicals,” he declared.
If one considers Trump’s Middle East policy in terms of his new administration it is a potent blend of Christian Zionists, pro-Israel neoconservatives, and current supporters of Netanyahu and the settlement movement. The new US ambassador to Israel will be the fanatic Rev. Mike Huckabee, whose brand of Christian Zionism supports Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and does not believe Palestinians exist. The new head of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and the controversial Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth hold similar beliefs. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, UN Ambassador Elise Stefanik, and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz are neoconservative Zionists who defend Netanyahu’s genocidal policies. Still lurking in the background is Jared Kushner, who Trump will likely look to for advice while he manages the $2 billion Prince Mohammed Bin Salman gave him. Americans should expect to see a strong pro-Saudi tilt during Trump 2.0.
Trump’s proposal for the U.S. to take over Gaza, expel the Palestinians into other Arab and Muslim countries and turn the Gaza Strip into “a Middle Eastern riviera” echoes Jared Kushner’s vision somewhat earlier. Israeli hawks including Prime Minister Netanyahu and Knesset Members BenGvir, Smotrich and others have welcomed the proposal. The coming months and years will determine whether the Arab regimes and Muslim world will be capable of resisting the Trump-Netanyahu dystopian vision we are witnessing. Clearly, the militant Christian Zionists, neoconservatives, and others within the Trump Administration and Republican Party will support this latest Israeli-US version of settler colonial genocide of Palestinians. May we be reminded that what happens in Palestine and Israel may also be the final test case of the global world order established after World War II. We may be witnessing the end of the only remaining guardrails in international law and the systems so carefully constructed after the Nazi holocaust of a bygone era.
Journalist Peter Beinart of Jewish Currents confirms the view that the second Trump administration will embrace the hardline Netanyahu policies even more than his previous administration. He recently wrote:
If anything, Trump’s advisors will be even more uniformly pro-Israel than they were the first time around. At the beginning of Trump’s first term, his establishment-minded secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, and his secretary of defense, James Mattis – both of whom opposed moving the US embassy to Jerusalem – at times sought to counterbalance hardline advisors like Kushner, Friedman, and Greenblatt. But now that Trump has fully vanquished the GOP’s comparatively cautious old guard, he has appointed a Middle East team filled with extremists.
But this is not the end of the story. What remains is the masses—the global south and the rising movement of resistance to the colonial forces of Zionism and Trumpian bullying, also known as the U.S. Empire. Has the time come for a global movement of grassroots resistance to the genocidal designs that are well underway in Palestine—not only in Gaza but now in the West Bank and East Jerusalem? While the global world order appears incapable of preventing the genocide in Gaza, there will also be resistance by Palestinians until the last Palestinian remains standing on their sacred ground. There may also be a mass movement of costly solidarity that will stand with Palestinians and take to the streets, the halls of every Parliament, and resist what is now being planned for Palestine. The grassroots solidarity may be joined by a minority of courageous countries and new leadership, primarily in the global south but also in Europe and Asia, to challenge the genocide proposed for Palestine.
On another grim and darkened stage of world history, September 1939 to be exact, as World War II and the authoritarian Nazi regime was about to move across Europe, the great poet W.H. Auden wrote the following:
Uncertain and afraid, as the clever hope expires,
Of a low dishonest decade;
Waves of anger and fear circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing about our private lives.
All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie.
It’s time to rise up and meet the challenge to unmask, expose, and defeat the folded lies of Zionism in all its forms – militaristic, racist, and authoritarian. It’s time to claim our voices and a new level of solidarity for justice in all of Palestine, where Jews, Muslims, Christians and everyone can live in equality, justice, and freedom. •
Rev. Don Wagner is a retired Presbyterian clergyman, professor, and human rights activist. A new edition of his memoir will be issued this Spring titled No Place Left to Go: Why Palestine Matters
International Law and Accountability
by Jonathan Kuttab
This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place (Jeremiah 22:3).
One of the casualties of the recent situation in Palestine is international law itself and the respect, dignity, and effectiveness of international institutions. As the events in Gaza unfolded, it seemed there was little or no fighting taking place. Rather, we were witnessing the grizzly, daily spectacle of a population being pummeled by bombs, forced to relocate again and again, starved and deprived of all aspects needed for life, and its campsites (in supposedly “safe zones”) subjected to daily savageries – as the Israeli Army experimented on their live bodies with new and more sophisticated forms of killing and mayhem. Gazan hospitals and food distribution centers, especially, were repeatedly targeted. Israelis indulged in a lust for vengeance and sadistic practices were carried out in broad daylight with utter impunity, disdain for international opinion, and disregard for international law and norms.
For this level of arrogance, I believe the Biden administration and its “umbrella” of support was directly responsible. This goes far beyond the provision of military, financial, and logistical support that Israel needed for its genocidal practices. It was most felt in the US providing diplomatic cover and active support for impunity and exceptionalism that rendered international law and institutions inoperable and ineffective when it comes to Israeli war crimes. The Trump administration and Congress are, evidently, likely to continue this trend, as they threaten the judges, prosecutors, and those who attempt to enforce international law on Israel with direct sanctions and retribution.
Much of international law, norms, and institutions developed after the carnage of World War II and in recognition that with more and more destructive weapons it was necessary to institute rules and regulations that reduce the chances of war, avert its worst excesses, and ensure some measure of protection for innocent civilians, as well as respect for hospitals and other civilian structures. These postwar measures also included prohibitions on a number of practices, such as collective punishment, the use of hunger as a weapon of war, abuse of prisoners and wounded soldiers, and targeting healthcare facilities, as well as distinguishing between combatants and noncombatants, a prohibition on apartheid, a prohibition on annexing land captured during war, and a convention for the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, an international court of justice for adjudicating disputes, and an international criminal court for punishing war criminals and crimes against humanity. By and large, these measures have benefited humanity tremendously and immeasurably reduced suffering during wars that became limited in scope (and largely fought in regions like Africa and the Middle East). There were many reasons for this, but a broad overview of human history in recent decades shows the relative effectiveness of these instruments.
It is a sad thing indeed that almost all of these principles and institutions have come under severe attack during the recent events in Israel/Palestine, and that, with US support, both in the Security Council (utilizing the veto power) and elsewhere in other international arenas, Israel feels it can flaunt all these rules with utter impunity. Those who object are not only called antisemitic but face serious consequences from the United States, which shamelessly maintains a double standard as it holds its enemies to these rules but is unwilling to apply them to itself and to its friends. Many have complained in the past about the apparent double standard, but never has it been so blatant and conspicuous as now.
The case for genocide brought by South Africa against Israel at the ICJ and the arrest warrants for Israeli war criminals issued by the ICC brought matters to a head. The US and Israel, after failing in their attempts to thwart such procedures, reacted with outrage. Several European countries declared initially that they would indeed arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they entered their territory. Under intense pressure from the US and Israel, President Macron of France waffled and claimed that he would not arrest Mr. Netanyahu. Later, he said the matter would be up to the courts and that France would indeed honor its obligations under international law. Civil society groups in Europe made it clear they would demand their courts and their governments respect international law. Indeed, groups have started organizing to bring cases against other Israeli officials, even against soldiers who boldly filmed themselves committing war crimes and posted them on social media. Planning is underway to demand the arrest of specific individuals if they enter their countries.
For Europeans, the specter of a world without international law, where genocide occurs in the open, while the criminals prance throughout Europe as free people was intolerable. Indeed, even in the US, 19 senators finally had the courage to demand that their government cease providing the weapons Israel used to commit acts of genocide. Polls show that a majority of Jewish Americans also believe the US should restrict arms sales to Israel and make these sales conditional on Israel ceasing to use them for genocide and cease blocking humanitarian assistance.
The fight to bring accountability and restraint to Israeli actions is therefore no longer a fight for justice for Palestinians but a fight for international law and order, and for humanity itself. We all need a better world where there is accountability and where the powerful cannot just ignore the rights of the weak, using brute strength to promote their interests and destroy their enemies. The fact that Israelis do little to hide their intentions, but openly proclaim them, places the onus directly on all of us. The role of the United States, which once was the champion of international law, democracy, and human rights worldwide, is now pivotal as it has become the last remaining bulwark preventing accountability and restraint in world affairs.
Regardless of who is in the White House or the Congress, people of goodwill in the United States must face their responsibility and do what they can to bring the United States, and Israel, in line with what the rest of humanity wants and needs: proper respect for international law and accountability for international war criminals. •
Jonathan Kuttab is Executive Director of Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA). This commentary is reprinted with the author’s permission.
The Fall of the International Legal Order and What We Can Do About It
by Lena El-Malak
The 1990s introduced an era of hope. The Berlin Wall had just fallen, the decades-long apartheid regime in South Africa was dismantled, and peace agreements in Ireland and the Middle East were concluded in the hope of resolving seemingly intractable conflicts. The 1990s were also the decade of reparations and accountability. In the aftermath of the genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda, the international community set up the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and eventually, in the early 2000s, the International Criminal Court to prosecute criminals and bring some form of justice to victims of some of the most horrifying crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Claims commissions were also established to process claims for property losses and damages suffered as a result of wars in Bosnia, Iraq-Kuwait, and Eritrea-Ethiopia. After decades of Cold War, the world finally appeared to be moving toward an era of conciliation and global cooperation. The election of George W. Bush in 2000 brought a neoconservative administration to power in the US and heralded the beginning of a shift away from this era of peace and stability, to one of wars and military confrontations.
The erosion of the international legal order
The erosion of the international legal order began after September 11. The US adopted the so-called “Bush Doctrine,” which was based on principles of unilateralism, anticipatory self-defense, and regime change. This approach was used to justify the illegal invasion of Afghanistan and later of Iraq, which resulted in the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, the displacement of millions more, and the total destruction of the fabric of Afghan and Iraqi societies. This new approach to American foreign policy also introduced or distorted existing concepts in international law. For example, preemptive strikes, which were generally recognized as being unlawful, were used to justify US-led military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Global War on Terror also introduced the term “enemy combatant” to create a separate category of persons who do not qualify for prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Conventions and used it to detain alleged members of al-Qaeda or the Taliban, the vast majority of whom were held in Guantanamo Bay without formal charges and no access to the US civil justice system. Not a single US official responsible for the illegal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the destruction of the lives of millions of people who were either killed, tortured, displaced, or maimed for life, were ever prosecuted. George W. Bush and his Vice President Dick Cheney, who should both have been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, were rehabilitated into American public opinion and the political establishment, including within “liberal” circles, as we saw when former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris welcomed the Cheney endorsement in the run-up to her election campaign.
When Belgium introduced a law in 1993 giving its courts universal jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide wherever they may occur, the invocation of this law in 2001 against former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for Israel’s role in the 1982 massacres of Palestinians in the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, and subsequent complaints against former President Bush and US Secretary of State Colin Powell for crimes arising from the first Gulf War, led to unprecedented pressure on Belgium to rescind it. Then US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was also implicated in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, ultimately threatened to move NATO’s headquarters out of Belgium if it did not rescind the law. The Belgian parliament eventually responded by passing a new law, which eliminated the universal jurisdiction provision by requiring that plaintiffs or defendants have some nexus with Belgium.
Decades of impunity and lack of accountability continued under the Obama presidency. Former President Barack Obama institutionalized and normalized the use of drones to target alleged militants and terrorist suspects. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, between 2004 and 2020, successive American administrations launched hundreds of drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, which resulted in the killing of thousands of civilians. The majority of these strikes were launched during Obama’s presidency.
This cursory look at the past two decades reveals the gradual erosion of our international legal order. The lack of accountability and impunity that the perpetrators of these crimes benefitted from led us to the critical historical juncture of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, fully funded and facilitated by the Biden administration. As we contend with Donald Trump’s second presidency, we must find ways to mobilize to reverse this trend of impunity and salvage what is left of our international legal order.
What can we do about it?
When Donald Trump was first elected, renowned Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein published a book called No is Not Enough. The book’s aim was to provide a strategy for collective action and resistance in the face of systemic challenges. Today, we are confronted with these challenges and we must have a roadmap on how to mobilize to uphold the legal norms and values that would enable us to achieve a more just society and build a better world.
Countering attacks on free speech on college campuses through the weaponization of antisemitism
Inspired by student movements against apartheid in South Africa, student campuses across the US set up encampments in the Spring/Summer of 2024 and mobilized to pressure their institutions to disclose and divest from companies complicit in the genocide in Gaza and the illegal occupation of Palestinian Territory. Students also demanded that their universities sever their academic ties with Israeli institutions. With some minor exceptions, most administrations requested police intervention to violently crack down on student encampments and arrest thousands of protesters. In some cases, university administrations called on the FBI to investigate students engaged in protest activities for Palestine.
Through a continuing series of appointments, the Trump administration has made clear its intentions to increase repression on campuses and target pro-Palestinian movements. Various means of suppression have been devised, including revoking student visas where students are active on the question of Palestine and forcing universities to adopt the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism or risk their tax-exempt status. IHRA equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism and is used to silence free speech. In response to these challenges, protecting free speech on and off campuses, ensuring legal support for targeted students, amplifying demands to pressure universities to divest from corporations complicit in war crimes and gross violations of international law and severing ties with Israeli academic institutions that perpetuate a regime of apartheid and military oppression against Palestinians are all worthy measures.
Preventing passage of legislation that targets non-profit organizations
The threat to the Palestinian movement extends beyond college campuses. In November of 2024 the House of Representatives passed the Stop Terror Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, also known as Bill HR 9495. This bill would enable the Treasury secretary to unilaterally designate any nonprofit as a “terrorist supporting organization” without being required to disclose the evidence against it and revoke its tax-exempt status, effectively strangling an organization’s financing. The bill is likely to be used to target Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim organizations involved in advocacy on Palestine, including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Palestine Legal, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). If passed, the bill will jeopardize due process and create existential threats for a range of nonprofit organizations and civil society. (An earlier version of the bill had received bipartisan support, but many Democrats withdrew their support citing concerns that it will be used by Trump to undermine organizations that are critical of his policies, such as those working on migrant, reproductive, or transgender rights.)
Engage in strategic litigation
In her recent report on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese urged governments to “investigate and prosecute corporate entities and dual citizens involved in crimes in the occupied Palestinian territory, including soldiers, mercenaries and settlers.” While it is unlikely the US would launch any of these investigations, there are already organizations in the US and other jurisdictions that have initiated such legal actions.
Last December, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) supported a lawsuit filed by five Palestinian families against the US State Department over Washington’s support for the Israeli military, citing the US Leahy Law, which prohibits assistance to foreign military or security forces involved in human rights violations. On 24 February, the same organization filed a submission to the ICC urging the Court to investigate and prosecute former President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, and other US officials of the previous administration for their complicity in Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The Hind Rajab Foundation, based in Belgium, has also been actively pursuing Israeli soldiers who have committed violations of international law and have filed requests demanding their arrest and prosecution under the principle of universal jurisdiction in multiple jurisdictions around the world, as well as the ICC. Meanwhile, a coalition of NGOs filed a criminal complaint against Booking.com in The Netherlands for its role in profiting from war crimes in the occupied Palestine Territory by offering accommodations based in illegal Israeli settlements. All of these actions increase the pressure on Israel and its allies to abide by legal norms both domestic and international and ensure that perpetrators of these crimes, whether they be government officials, soldiers, or corporations, are held accountable.
The erosion of international legal order and the descent into fascism and authoritarianism in the US and elsewhere around the world have not occurred overnight. It is a gradual process that has been manifesting over decades, right before our eyes. Complacency and inadequate organizational capacity have brought us to the present moment, in which we coexist with genocide, students are violently repressed and criminalized for exercising their rights to speech and protest, and our civil rights are undermined on a daily basis, all while war criminals are met in Congress with standing ovations and obedience. The international legal order and the civil rights and liberal values that form the bedrock of so-called “western democracies” are hanging by a thread. It is not too late to ensure the thread doesn’t break. •
Dr. Lena El-Malak is an expert in public international law. She is the author of Stolen Nation: The Right to Reparation of Palestinian Refugees.
Censure as a Measure of Congressional Health:
The Case of Rashida Tlaib
by Jeremy Pressman
Reading the Congressional resolution that censured Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) in November 2023 is a lesson in rhetorical distortion as a form of political attack. The text of the resolution completely differs from what Rep. Tlaib stated about Palestine and Israel. While resolution sponsor Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) claimed that Tlaib had “levied unbelievable falsehoods about our greatest ally, Israel, and the attack on October 7,” it would be more accurate to say that the text of McCormick’s resolution is full of serious mischaracterizations of what Congresswoman Tlaib actually said.
On November 7, 2023, the US House of Representatives voted 234-188 to censure Rep. Tlaib. For the most part, Republican members voted to censure and Democratic members opposed the measure. But 22 Democrats did vote in favor of censure. The only more severe punishment that the House could have considered would have been Rep. Tlaib’s expulsion. An earlier vote to table the measure, and thereby avoid censuring Tlaib, failed, 208-213.
The censuring resolution is largely devoid of direct quotations from Tlaib, probably because her actual quotations do not fit with McCormick’s claims. For example, the Congressional resolution claims she “defended the brutal rapes, murders, beheadings, and kidnapping – including of Americans – by Hamas as justified ‘resistance’ to the ‘apartheid state.’” This is completely at odds with her statement of October 8, 2023, other than that it does contain the words “resistance” and “apartheid,” the latter in reference to Israel’s system and government. Tlaib made the point that “it is important to separate people and government.”
Instead of accepting the characterizations of others, any basic reading of her statement of October 8, 2023, reveals three things. First, she recognizes the humanity of both Palestinians and Israelis. For example, she writes, “I grieve the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost yesterday, today, and every day.” To be able to grieve for someone is to be able to recognize a common humanity. In some ways, what the wording does is shine a light on the many other members of Congress who have expressed the ability to grieve only for Israeli victims, not Palestinians ones.
Second, nothing in Tlaib’s statement supports violence. The wording states just the opposite: “No person, no child anywhere should have to suffer or live in fear of violence.” To state the obvious, “no person” is categorical. It includes everyone, both Israelis and Palestinians. She also explains, “I am determined as ever to fight for a just future where everyone can live in peace.” Everyone living in peace is the opposite of people living amidst war or violence. And she adds other characteristics, as well, that give us a fuller picture of what kind of non-violent peace she envisions: “without fear and with true freedom, equal rights, and human dignity.”
Third, she rejects Israel’s political system for ruling over Palestinians. This rejection is consistent with statements during her entire service in Congress, where she has spoken out against Israeli occupation. Her rejection is based on an accurate analysis of that Israeli occupation. As many human rights organizations have documented in great detail, Israel’s ruling system is a system that gives preference to Israeli Jews over Palestinians and certainly over Palestinians in the occupied West Bank or Gaza.
Another part of the resolution condemns Tlaib for using the phrase “from the river to the sea,” calling it “a genocidal call to violence to destroy the state of Israel and its people.” McCormick’s text hears the phrase how it wants to hear it. Tlaib has not issued a genocidal call. I do wonder if McCormick would hear a Jewish Israeli use of “from the river to the sea” as a genocidal call to violence to destroy the state of Palestine and its people.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, herself Palestinian-American, has been a stalwart defender of a narrative that seeks to protect the humanity of Palestinians and Israelis. But that kind of mutual approach remains a minority in a US Congress that favors Israeli views and appears to see only Israeli humanity – a stance that will undoubtedly only deepen under the second Trump administration. •
Jeremy Pressman is a professor of political science at the University of Connecticut and author of The Sword is Not Enough: Arabs, Israelis, and the Limits of Military Force (Manchester University Press, 2020).
Scholar Nadera Shalhoub Kevorkian Named AMEU/Mahoney Award Recipient
At its annual Fall meeting in November 2024, AMEU’s Board of Directors confirmed the selection of its third annual Mahoney Award for Service: Dr. Nadera Shalhoub Kevorkian. Dr Kevorkian holds the Global Chair in Law at Queen Mary’s College, London, and was formerly at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The award is accompanied by a $5000 honorarium and was established by AMEU’s Board to honor John Mahoney’s four decades-long service to the organization.
Professor Shalhoub Kevorkian, a Jerusalem resident, is a prominent feminist scholar and winner of numerous awards in Israel, the US and elsewhere. As UCSB scholar Lisa Hajjar noted some years ago, she is “a keen observer of the strategies that Palestinian women employ to survive, understand and dignify their existence, in contexts where complex and interlocking forms of repression are daily and lifelong experiences.” When, in the wake of Oct 7th, she questioned unsubstantiated allegations of Hamas’ widespread sexual violence, she was denounced, summarily arrested and detained. She is presently a visiting fellow at Princeton University