Personal mental health is important. Absolutely. But how important? I’ve been polling friends and acquaintances all over the country, asking three simple questions: Q: Have you been following the news on the war in Gaza? Q: If so, where are you getting that news from – any particular network or outlet? Q: If not, why not? An answer I’ve heard quite a lot is, “I don’t really follow that news because I want to protect my mental health.” Okay, granted... Read more
Only Netanyahu’s obstinacy is keeping Israeli hostages in captivity, and the people of Gaza in a death camp. by Kathryn Shihadah, reposted from If Americans Knew According to the ceasefire agreement that Israel and Hamas signed in January, all of the living hostages would be free TODAY, April 14, 2025, and Israel’s war against Gaza would be over. Reconstruction would be underway right now. But Israel made sure this would not happen. The ceasefire agreement, first outlined in May 2024, was... Read more
A few months back, Palestinian parents in Gaza began a grim new practice: on each child’s arms and legs, they wrote the child’s name with a sharpie. They did this so that, if their children were blown apart by a bomb, their body parts could be identified. It became more and more commonplace for rescue workers to find only body parts. In some cases, bodies were completely vaporized. I’ve seen too many videos in which a weeping or screaming parent... Read more
Confirmation hearings began this week for President Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. “Huckabee uses his Christianity to justify ethnic cleansing,” said one protestor at Huckabee’s hearing. Ahead of his hearing, Huckabee visited the Ohel, the New York City gravesite of the late Chabad Hasidic leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. He is highly revered in some circles, although some of his teachings were profoundly problematic. For example, Schneerson said that non-Jews have “satanic souls,” and that non-Jews are... Read more
Suffer the little children The children are our future…except when they’re not. A few recent news items for your consideration. 15,613 children have been confirmed killed during Israel’s genocidal war These are named children. That is, these are the children whose corpses could be identified. Children whose parents named them, whose mothers called them by name to come to dinner. Children whose fathers tucked them in at night. Whose grandma and grandpa spoiled them. Thousands more children are still missing... Read more
GCG – Grace-Colored Glasses – took a long hiatus from Patheos. The genocide in Gaza was breaking me in pieces. The last thing I wanted to do, after six or eight hours writing about Palestine and Israel for If Americans Knew, was to spend more time writing about this horrifying situation in my husband’s homeland. I couldn’t write about anything else – I couldn’t even think about anything else. Now, not only is Palestine blowing up, but so is the... Read more
Can you guess what number I’m thinking of? Hint: it’s not 1. Another hint: it’s the number of Palestinians that have been killed in Gaza since October 7th. If, with this hint, you really have no idea what the number is, it’s a pretty good bet that you don’t consider Palestinians to be as human as you are. And that’s something we need to talk about. The correct answer – according to recent reports – is 40,786. Without a doubt,... Read more
What Israel Supporters Really Mean When They Say “Release The Hostages” by Caitlin Johnstone, reposted from Caitlin’s Newsletter If you’re not on social media, you’ve likely spent ten and a half months blissfully unaware of an extremely freakish but very common phenomenon in which Israel’s supporters respond to images and videos of dead and mutilated children in Gaza by babbling about the Israeli hostages being held there by Hamas. Whenever you see someone sharing raw footage of the most horrific thing imaginable... Read more
On Tuesday, news got out from Gaza of a terrible tragedy. A pair of newborn twins were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Gaza’s healthcare sector has been decimated, and medical supplies are in extremely short supply, so the very fact that a woman in Gaza was able to carry twins to term and give birth to healthy infants is nothing less than miraculous.. But alhamdulillah – thank God – mother and babies were doing fine. (BTW, I’m putting today’s post... Read more
It’s not just Republicans who need a clue. Democrats have renounced their own priorities, and it’s high time we recognize that and make some changes. Democrats on the whole have created a “Palestine exception” to their own cherished principles. The preamble to the 2024 platform states, “Protest is among the highest forms of patriotism.” A great sentiment that prioritizes free speech…except when protesters are calling for a ceasefire or an end to military aid to Israel. “Character is on the... Read more
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