Op-Ed

Gaza mother's farewell message to her miracle twins

Rania was breastfeeding her miracle twins at night with her husband sleeping beside them. She held the twins tight to her chest and said, "If thousand people love you, I will the first one, if only one person love, it would be me, and if no one loves, I will be dead." An hour and a half later, she was awakened when her home was hit by an Israeli airstrike in the city of Rafah.
 
According to March 4, 2024, ITV News.' Rania screamed for her children and her husband. But there was an answer. "They were all dead." 
 
Farouq Abu Anza, a relative of Rania, said about 35 people were staying at the house, some of whom had been displaced from other areas. Total people murdered in the airstrike were 14 people, six were children, and four were women, according to the Hospital director where the bodies were taken. In addition to her husband and children, Rania also lost a sister, a nephew, a pregnant cousin, and other relatives.
 
The Abu Anza twins were named Wissam and Naeem, who were born after their parents spent 10 years trying to conceive.

Professor Michiko Hikida was spot on about OSU protest

On Tuesday May 1, I attended a protest at the South Oval at Ohio State University where students were demanding OSU to divest investments from companies with links to Israel and calling to end Israel’s genocide and forced starvation in Gaza.
 
The atmosphere was peaceful and festive and student activists passed sandwiches and slices of watermelons. I was there at the protest with my son who attends OSU. It is offensive for OSU and the media to call students' family members as "unaffiliated" and "agitators." You don't even have to be a "student" to take part in the protest at OSU. Do you? 
 
I met a lot of old friends and made a new one in the form of Assistant Professor Michiko Hikida of OSU, Department of Teaching and Learning. I learned from her that she attended the April 25 massive protest where nearly 40 protesters (students, faculty, and community members) were brutalized and violently arrested by Ohio State Troopers.

The Iron Heel of the State at UCLA: Eyewitness Account

“Biden Biden, Whattaya Say? How Many Kids You Kill Today?”

This was one of the militant chants of hundreds of students on May 1 at UCLA. I went to the university after covering the May Day rally in Hollywood, arriving around 4:00 p.m., and this is what I witnessed at the frontlines of the class struggle in Westwood:

I made my way on foot across the sprawling campus towards the epicenter of the unfolding action, the UCLA Palestine Solidarity Encampment, led by Students for Justice in Palestine and UC Divest Coalition at UCLA. The first thing I noticed was the sound of helicopters hovering overhead and a heavy security presence. The latter included the LAPD, the LA County Sheriff’s Department, California Highway Patrol, UCPD and CSC, a private firm specializing in crowd management. Upon reaching Dickson Plaza, the rather large area was cordoned off with metal barricades.

Daddy, why did Hamas attack us on October 7?

This conversation depicts a dialogue between an Israeli father and his son discussing the father's negative views and prejudices against Palestinians. The son challenges his father's stereotypes by expressing a real concern about the Israeli and Palestinian hostages as well as the killing of Palestinian women & children and the importance of open-mindedness.
 
Son: Daddy, why did Hamas attack us on October 7?
Father: Because they are evil & hate Jews.
 
Son: How come we are killing their kids? Are they evil too?
Father: Israel wants Palestinians off the land of Gaza, sooner or later.

Freedom was suppressed at Ohio State University

About 700 students, faculty, & community members held a 6-hour protest at Ohio State University campus yesterday. Protesters called OSU to divest investments from companies with links to Israel.  The protest ended when nearly 70 police officers and Ohio State High Patrol brutalized protesters while they were performing "Isha" Muslim prayers and arrested nearly 40 protesters, including students, faculty, one Jewish protester, and community members. There were 20 members who were not affiliated by OSU. Those were parents and other family members of the protesters who came to support the students and be there for them in the event of arrest.  After all, it makes no difference if they were students, faculty or not. OSU is public university and is supported by our tax-payers money. 

The Humble Pen takes on the Mighty Sword

Here’s an anniversary no one wants to celebrate: The Columbine school shooting — April 20, 1999 — just passed its 25th anniversary. Fifteen dead (including the two shooters), twenty-one injured. A new era begins . . .

Why, why, why bring up such a horrific event? Perhaps because it hasn’t stopped.

Even though I sit here in the comfort of my study, feeling perfectly safe, I can’t emotionally disentangle myself from the news, which is always, in one way or another, about the human need to kill itself — or rather, the human assumption that it’s divided from itself, and “the other,” whoever that other is, either needs to be killed or is, at best, expendable. For instance:

“The Senate has passed $95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, sending the legislation to President Joe Biden after months of delays and contentious debate over how involved the United States should be in foreign wars.”

The "accepted insanity" of World War III

“Mr. Netanyahu faces a delicate calculation — how to respond to Iran in order not to look weak, while trying to avoid alienating the Biden administration and other allies already impatient with Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza.”

Yeah, this is virtually nothing: a random, utterly forgettable quote pulled from the New York Times — from the basic corporate coverage of our present-moment violence, as the world shimmies on brink of . . . uh, World War III.

Survival without Bombs or Borders

An enormous flash, a mushroom cloud, multi-thousands of human beings dead. We win!

Nuclear weapons won’t go away, the cynics — the souls in despair — tell us. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. You can’t, as Gen. James E. Cartwright, former head of U.S. Strategic Command, once put it, “un-invent nuclear weapons.” So apparently we’re stuck with them until the “big oops” happens and humanity becomes extinct. Until then: Modernize, modernize, modernize. Threaten, threaten, threaten

David Barash and Ward Wilson make the case that this is completely false. We're not "stuck" with nuclear weapons any more than we’re stuck with obsolete and ineffective technology of any sort, bluntly pointing out: “Crappy ideas don’t have to be forgotten in order to be abandoned.

At last Columbus City Council passed a ceasefire resolution

At last Columbus City Council joined over 100 US cities, towns, and villages who have passed a ceasefire resolution demanding President Biden and members of Congress to do everything in their power to end the Israeli assault on Gaza that have left over 32,000 Palestinian civilians dead and close to 75,000 more injured. Local Palestinians and their supporters who lobbied CCC for 5 months to pass this measure are now relieved and happy. I firmly believe that passing a ceasefire resolution by Columbus City Council helps make difference by bringing better safety and well-being for Palestinians and Israelis alike. A ceasefire and the restoration of basic necessities along with humanitarian aid would enable the development of political solutions, including the release and safe return of ALL hostages (Palestinians included), rather than resorting to violence through a military option.  Currently, there are 129 hostages believed to be held in Gaza, among there eight American citizens. In addition to that, there are still the remains of 21 Israelis who were tragically killed in the IOF bombing.
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