Weeks ago, the Indian capital ran out of space for its dead. New Delhi’s public parks and parking lots were converted into sites for mass cremations of Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains. Cremations are an important Hindu funeral ritual, but Indian crematoria declared that they were out of wood for pyres, and burial grounds for the…
Author: THEJOHNANTONIOBLOG
The Israel-Hamas ceasefire stopped the fighting — but changed nothing
The ceasefire announced Thursday between Israel and Hamas will hopefully end the worst of the violence that in the course of 11 days killed well over 200 people, the vast majority of them Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. In the narrowest sense, Hamas and Israel have both accomplished their immediate goals. Hamas got to portray…
Journalists can tweet about Black Lives Matter but not about Palestine
Last week, no one had heard of Emily Wilder. Then she became the focus of a national campaign to get her fired. Days later, she was. Things move fast. So there’s a good chance that days from now, the story of a rookie journalist who lost her job because of the way she used social…
How Black Lives Matter reenergized Black-Palestinian solidarity
Marching in a recent Ithaca, New York, demonstration in solidarity with Palestine was one of the truly gratifying moments of my life as an internationalist. Organized by Cornell University undergraduates, the protest against Israel’s latest, massive bombardment of the Gaza Strip and assault on Palestinians within and beyond Jerusalem proved that even in Ithaca —…
The progressive foreign policy moment has arrived
As the Israel-Gaza war raged, President Joe Biden made clear to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that there was a problem. Full-throated support for Israel among Democrats was waning, namely because of progressives. Among the clearest signs were moves in the House and Senate to block a $735 million weapons sale to Israel, a deal…
In defense of the two-state solution
Last week, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in a conflict that claimed nearly 250 lives. But the underlying status quo makes another round of fighting all but inevitable, and a fundamental solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems further away than ever. Worse, the long-running American solution for the problem — a US-mediated peace…
Why Biden’s team didn’t go all-in on Israel-Gaza
Click:吊扇燈 Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a choice to make. It was mid-May, and in a few days he’d travel to Europe for talks with allies on the Arctic and climate change, and to meet with his Russian counterpart ahead of a presidential-level summit in June. But a fight broke out between Israel and…
China is buying Muslim leaders’ silence on the Uyghurs
As the world increasingly speaks out against China’s genocide of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, the quietest voices continue to belong to the leaders of Muslim-majority countries. Look no further than Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s interview this week with Axios’s Jonathan Swan. Swan asked why the premier, who often speaks out on Islamophobia in the…
The fight over European values is playing out at Euro 2020
When Germany and Hungary play each other in the Euro 2020 soccer tournament on Wednesday, the match will be viewed as much more than a game. It’ll serve as another front in the war for the future of a more accepting Europe. On one side stands Hungary, led by autocratic right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán,…
The incomplete education of American Jews
For decades, American Jewish institutions have made it a priority to teach kids about Israel. Learning about the Jewish state is a key part of the curricula and programming at schools, camps, and community organizations around the country, with Israel often depicted as a miraculous entity locked in righteous battle with irrational Arab foes. Given…