Must Read Roundup - 11/3/2023

Photo: Kelly Hayes

From Israel’s ongoing, genocidal assault on Gaza to prison organizing, reproductive justice, and the far-right infiltration of Palestine solidarity protests, here are some important stories you may have missed this week.

I’m a Pediatrician in Gaza. Please Save Us From This Horror by Hussam Abu Safyia. “When the fuel runs out, we will no longer be able to function at night after the sun goes down. Most of the tools and equipment needed to run a modern hospital like ventilators, defibrillators and our neonatal units will become useless. When the generators fall silent, we will be relegated to practicing medieval-level medicine. Without an urgent resupply of fuel, the lights will go out permanently, and our hospital could turn into a morgue.”

Advisory: ‘No Nazis on Our Streets!’ Combating Far-Right Entryism in Palestine Solidarity Protests by Ben Lorber. "It is vital for Palestine liberation organizers and progressive activists to recognize and counter far-right actors who stand diametrically opposed to the movement’s principles and goals."

Calls Grow for Prisoner-Hostage Exchange as Israel’s War on Gaza Escalates by Mike Ludwig. “Well-known Israeli journalist Gideon Levy recently published an op-ed in the major Israeli newspaper Haaretz calling for the speedy release of 5,000 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel — a number that has only grown over the past three weeks — in exchange for the Israeli hostages reportedly hidden in tunnels under Gaza.”

Ahmed Wanted Israelis to Listen to Gazans. Then 23 of His Family Members Were Killed by Linda Dayan. “On the Facebook page 'Across the Wall,' Israelis read personal stories by Gazans in Hebrew, until the last update came in: 'The entire family of this page’s founder has been bombed to death.' The Israeli co-founder of the page now says: 'I don’t know if we’ll be able to build that bridge again.’”

Biden Wants Arms Deals With Israel to Be Done in Complete Secrecy by Sharon Zhang. “In a highly unusual move, the White House has requested for it to be able to conduct arms deals with Israel in complete secrecy, without oversight from Congress or the public — in a time when the U.S. is supporting a military that experts say has been committing war crimes in Gaza and beyond.”

Climate Disaster Is Here—and the State Will Never Save Us by Dean Spade. “We must expand our analysis beyond the limits of state solutions, as states demonstrate, again and again, that not only do they not protect the Earth, they facilitate its destruction, and criminalize people who try to stop it.”

UN Specialist Warned Chicago City Council that Tent Camps Could Become Permanent by Wendy Wei, Jim Daley and Matt Chapman. “In September, a shelter and emergency preparedness specialist at the United Nations-affiliated International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned the [Chicago] City Council’s Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights that tent camps can last far longer than expected. Experts on refugees and migration who spoke to the Weekly agreed with that assessment, and said the winterized tent camps Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to use as temporary shelters for asylum seekers are susceptible to becoming longer-term settlements.”

One prison guard, 96 abuse charges: women say ‘serial rapist’ targeted them over a decade by Sam Levin. “Prosecution is rare: since 2014, people incarcerated in California’s women’s prisons have filed hundreds of complaints of sexual abuse by staff, but Rodriguez is one of only four officers from those institutions confirmed by the state to have faced charges, internal records reveal.”

The Long Revolt by Orisanmi Burton. “Dominant narratives frame the Attica Rebellion at New York’s Attica Prison as having been crushed after September 13, 1971, when a state assault force opened fire on the prison, killing twenty-nine rebels and ten prison guards. Yet the events of those five days are only a piece of a protracted struggle, which preceded the Attica Rebellion and endured after the state-orchestrated massacre.”

British police testing women for abortion drugs by Phoebe Davis. “Tortoise has seen forensic reports in which police have requested a mass spectrometry test, which can detect the presence of the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol in the urine, blood and placenta of women under investigation.”

Pods

If you are looking for something to listen to this week, I recommend checking out the recent Tech Won’t Save Us series on Elon Musk. Paris Marx interrogates Musk’s history, reputation, and alleged accomplishments in this compelling three-episode arc.

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, I recommend checking out Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, edited by Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing, and Mike Merryman-Lotze. You can download the ebook free of charge, for a limited time, courtesy of Haymarket Books.

Final Thoughts

It’s been another tough week. I am incredibly grateful to the mentors and educators who have equipped me to navigate such moments. My practice of hope and my practice of grief are essential to my ability to live and work in such times. If I left either to chance, I might shut down completely in the face of unfathomable violence. Sometimes, it feels like nothing we do is enough, because the scale of what’s wrong is so overwhelming. But each day, I ask myself what I want to see happen, and how I can move in some way toward that horizon. There’s always an action I can take. There’s always a next right thing.

I also ask myself how I can honor the losses that break my heart, and I take those actions too, however small or private. I invite you all to ask yourselves these questions in the coming days if you think a practice of hope or grief might be helpful to you.

What action can you take today to move toward the world you want? It may feel small, but whatever it is, it counts. (If you don’t know where to start, here are some ideas.)

What can you do to honor all that is being lost in this moment? Again, whether that action is large or small, it matters.

My most earnest advice amid these difficult times is this: Don't try to lock your grief out of the house. Eventually, it will beat down your door and overpower you. Or worse, the parts of you that are soft enough to grieve will grow hard. When we forget how to grieve, we forget how to love. Invite your grief in from the cold, make it a cup of hot tea, share space with it, understand it, and understand yourself. Love the parts of you that are soft enough to grieve. Rage against the deadening of that softness. Sometimes, tears are a defense of our humanity.

In solidarity,

Kelly