Author: Dilip

I'm a scholar, writer and teacher; and my blog is designed for intellectual exploration. It carries no advertisements and requires no cash subscription

Standing up for Palestine is also standing up to save the west from the worst of itself

How many times have we been lectured about so-called western values? I am a person born and raised in the west. I am a westerner, and yet those so-called values are sounding very much like Gazans, Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims are utterly disposable. We hear Israel present the situation as if it has no choice… Read More Standing up for Palestine is also standing up to save the west from the worst of itself

Dilip

‘I hope it can endure’: examples of Jewish-Arab solidarity offer hope in Israel

Volunteers of different ethnicities are working to help victims of the violence and tidy up bomb shelters.. About 20% of Israel’s 10 million-strong population identifies as Arab, including the Muslim, Christian and Bedouin communities: they face systemic discrimination. In May 2021, during the last war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that rules the… Read More ‘I hope it can endure’: examples of Jewish-Arab solidarity offer hope in Israel

Dilip

Angry old men set the Middle East ablaze. The young will pay the price

Incompetent and discredited leaders, in thrall to worn-out ideologies, have brought Israel and Gaza to this catastrophe Simon Tisdall ld men start wars. Young men and women fight them. It’s a phenomenon that has broadly held true throughout history. Now, once again, in today’s violence-racked Middle East, the aggressive blundering of angry old men rains… Read More Angry old men set the Middle East ablaze. The young will pay the price

Dilip

I remember the times when Palestinians dared to hope for peace. How did it come to this?

The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993, stipulated that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank should constitute “a single territorial unit”. And yet almost immediately after signing the agreement, Israel pursued a policy of severing ties between the West Bank and Gaza, and each from Israel, by making travel to and from the Gaza Strip increasingly difficult for… Read More I remember the times when Palestinians dared to hope for peace. How did it come to this?

Dilip

‘It’s lonely being a Jewish critic of Israel’ – Nathan Thrall on his book about a Palestinian father’s tragedy

Rachel Cooke In the days since the attacks by Hamas in southern Israel, Nathan Thrall, an American journalist and former director of the Arab-Israeli project at the International Crisis Group, has found himself lodged anxiously between worry for his wife and daughters at home in Jerusalem, and awareness that, as the tour to promote his new… Read More ‘It’s lonely being a Jewish critic of Israel’ – Nathan Thrall on his book about a Palestinian father’s tragedy

Dilip

Heightened Security and Shouting Matches Animate Pro-Palestinian ‘Day of Resistance’

By  Maggie Hicks Dozens of George Mason University students and other community members, many wearing face masks, kaffiyehs, sunglasses, and all-black clothing, blasted rap music, pumped their fists, and chanted, “They got tanks, we got hang gliders! Glory to the resistance fighters!” The demonstration in Fairfax, Va., on Thursday afternoon, which grew to close to 100… Read More Heightened Security and Shouting Matches Animate Pro-Palestinian ‘Day of Resistance’

Dilip

Australia is still in denial, its history of forgetting a festering wrong

The referendum became by proxy a vote on Indigenous peoples’ right to exist in our own land… and our fellow Australians voted to reject us. Imagine – just try – how that feels today Lorena Allam Anthony Albanese was fond of saying, during the campaign, “If not now, then when?” On Saturday night he got… Read More Australia is still in denial, its history of forgetting a festering wrong

Dilip