The Wild Reed: May 2025

Saturday, May 31, 2025

May Vignettes

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Gifts of Abundance
• The “Free-Flowing Visions” of Mayday 2025
• Dandelion: A Celebration
• Cernunnos and Pan: “Witch-Fathers of the Wild”
• Why What’s Happening in Palestine – and Our Response to It – Is So Important

Images: Michael J. Bayly.

Friday, May 30, 2025

Why What’s Happening in Palestine – and Our Response to It – Is So Important

Shortly after Donald Trump was elected president the first time, I joined with around 200 other people in Minneapolis to speak out against what many of us saw as his increasingly fascist agenda – an agenda that is the antithesis of human, environmental, and democratic rights.

In writing about my participation in this protest, I stated that:

I never want to sleepwalk through life only to be suddenly and rudely awakened by events, especially those portentous of tyranny.

I want to always strive to be informed and proactive about the important political and social issues of the day. I want to be able to say, for instance, Hey, I recognized when things started going awry in a particularly disturbing way, and lifted my voice against it.

This reason for why I spoke out – and continue to speak out – against the rise of fascism in the U.S., is the same reason why I speak out today against the holocaust in Gaza that’s being perpetrated by the far-right government of Israel; why I speak out for the human rights of the people of Palestine. And by Palestine I mean that country in West Asia, recognized by 147 of the United Nation’s 193 member states, that encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. Collectively, these locales are known as the occupied Palestinian territories, and are situated within the broader geographic and historical Palestine region.

This speaking out – both for the Palestinians and against the genocide being perpetrated against them – takes a number of forms. For followers of this blog, the most obvious of these is my sharing of both my writings and the writings of others on this issue. I also share the gist of what I present here at The Wild Reed when the topic of Palestine and/or Israel comes up in conversation with family, friends, colleagues, and strangers. I also participate as often as I can in the weekly vigil at Summit and Snelling Avenues in St. Paul, MN. It’s a vigil that has been taking place in support of justice and peace in Palestine for well over a decade.

A few weeks ago a longtime friend challenged me on my activism on this issue, asking: “What and who decides what is the right conflict to raise outrage to?”

Here was my response:

A major reason so many Americans are giving so much attention to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as opposed to other conflicts around the world, is because the U.S. government is giving so much attention to this particular conflict, as opposed to others. Put simply, a majority of Americans do not appreciate the extent and type of attention their government is giving Israel, especially as it relates to its genocidal project in Gaza and the fact that their tax dollars are funding it.

And this attention is different than that given to other countries or conflicts. For starters, Congress funds no other country to the extent that it funds Israel. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Israel is the “largest cumulative recipient of U.S. aid, including military aid.” Post Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, we’re talking about multiple packages of military aid to the tune of billions of dollars. Both corporate-backed major parties support this funding.

Conversely, Congress is not militarily supporting either side in the conflict in Sudan or any other conflict. The U.S. government does not recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government, so I’m not sure what you mean when you say we’re “complicit in propping up the Taliban.” And, yes, we provide weapons to both Ukraine and Saudi Arabia; yet in the case of Ukraine, we’re supporting a country that is the victim of aggression, not the instigator. Compare that to the Gaza genocide where we’re funding Israel, the instigator of said genocide. In the case of Saudi Arabia, as horrible as what that country is doing, including in Yemen, the extent of devastation and death is not comparable to what is happening on a daily basis in both Gaza and the West Bank. For example, the following quote from a recent Common Dreams article can only apply to what’s happening in Gaza and nowhere else in the world at this time in history: “Genocide, ecocide, mass infanticide, rape, sexual assault, torture, sniping children, bombing hospitals, schools and refugee camps, executing aid workers. Israel has committed every atrocity imaginable these past 18 months. We are funding an endless nightmare and it should haunt us forever.”

I mention all of this so as to explain why during the 2024 election cycle (and beyond) the Gaza genocide received the measure of attention it did from the American public, including students on multiple campuses across the country who staged the largest demonstrations and encampments since the Vietnam War. Throughout the 2024 election season, the majority of Americans – across the political spectrum – supported both a ceasefire and an arms embargo on Israel. Yet Kamala Harris and the Democratic establishment consistently failed to include this in her platform.

Here’s the thing that perplexes me: Many self-described liberals are quick to denounce and express anger toward voters who, in good conscience, could not vote for what they saw as a pro-genocide candidate, i.e., Kamala Harris. These voters are blamed for the Democrats’ failure to secure an electoral victory. At the same time, those who target voters in this way never denounce or express anger toward Democratic candidates who refused to adapt the party platform so as to readily earn the votes they needed to secure an electoral victory. It seems clear to many of us that the Democratic establishment chose to prioritize the funding and supporting of Israel’s genocide over winning an easy and crucial election. And yet still there are some who insist on blaming and shaming voters. Personally, I’ve never found this a helpful strategy for changing people’s minds. What I am open to, however, is holding candidates and parties accountable for their political decisions and stances, especially when these decisions and stances ignore the clear will of their constituents, which is exactly what happened last year in relation to the issue of Gaza.

I dare say that most of us who are taking a stand on what’s happening in Palestine are challenged at times by family and friends, just as I was.

I recently came across Kenn Orphan’s rationale for why he focuses on Palestine and the genocide that Israel is inflicting on Gaza. It’s a rationale he was compelled to articulate after being challenged by a friend. I’ll close this post by sharing how Orphan responded to this challenge.

____________________

A friend of mine asked me recently why Palestine is so important to me. “Why is it my main focus?” he asked. And I took the question as honest, because it was from a real friend. My answer may be surprisingly simple.

Palestine is the litmus test for every single value the West supposedly holds dear. And we are failing miserably.

Palestine doesn’t matter more than Ukraine or Myanmar or Kashmir or Congo. But it matters in a different way, because Western nations are the primary engine of this genocide. And it is only the West that can stop this.

If you care about Western values of liberty, justice and universal human rights, Palestine is the issue.

About due process, Palestine is the issue.

About free speech, Palestine is the issue.

About international law being respected, Palestine is the issue.

About the right of all human beings to have access to food, clean water and medical care, Palestine is the issue.

About children being safe from bombs falling on them as they sleep, Palestine is the issue.

About the crime of targeting hospitals, infrastructure and shelters, Palestine is the issue.

About not demolishing people’s homes, destroying their livelihoods and forcibly moving them into concentration camps, Palestine is the issue.

About not starving people as collective punishment, Palestine is the issue.

About protecting our biosphere, Palestine is the issue.

Our very fate lies in how we, as a civilisation, meet this moment. Palestine matters because we have stated over and over and over again that all human beings matter. And if the West really believes this, it has done a horrendous job of demonstrating that so far.

– Kenn Orphan
“Palestine Is the Litmus Test
for Every Value the West Holds Dear”
May 28, 2025

Thursday, May 29, 2025

There’s No “Might Have” About It . . . Tina Turner Was Queen

Today marks a special anniversary, about which I’ll let Michael Leftwich Jr. explain.

Released 41 years ago today, Private Dancer by Tina Turner pivoted Tina into the stratosphere of mega stardom and certified what fans already knew: Tina was a bona fide force of nature!

The album peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 chart for ten consecutive weeks and remained in the top ten for 39 weeks from August 1984 to May 1985.

7 singles were released from the album:

• “Let’s Stay Together”
November 1983 (U.K.)

• “Help!”
February 1984 (U.K.)

• “What’s Love Got to Do With It”
May 1984

• “Better Be Good to Me”
September 1984

• “Private Dancer”
November 1984

• “I Can’t Stand the Rain”
February 1985 (U.K.)

• “Show Some Respect”
April 1985 (U.S.)

Until the release of “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” Tina Turner had not had a U.S. top-ten single since the early 1970s [with “Proud Mary” when she was part of the Ike and Tina Turner Revue].

“What’s Love Got to Do With It” went to number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and remained there for three weeks, giving Tina her first and only solo number one hit in the U.S. Turner was 44 when the song hit number one, making her the oldest female solo artist to place a number one single on the U.S. Hot 100, at that time.

In the United States, Private Danceer was last certified 5× platinum on September 9, 1987, and to date it’s Tina’s best selling album. In Germany, the album went 5× gold, becoming one of the country’s best selling albums in history. It peaked at number two on the U.K. Albums Chart, where it was certified 3× platinum, remaining on the charts for 150 total weeks. It was certified 7× platinum for the shipment of over 700,000 copies in Canada by the Canadian Recording Industry Association.

At the 1985 Grammy Awards, Private Dancer won four of the six awards for which it was nominated:

• “Better Be Good to Me” Best Female Rock Vocal Performance

• “What’s Love Got to Do with It” Best Female Pop Vocal Performance

• “What’s Love Got to Do with It” Record of the Year

• “What’s Love Got to Do with It” Song of the Year

In 2020, the album was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

Such accomplishments ensured that Tina Turner soon became known as the Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll – a fitting and well-deserved honorific, though one not solely due to her chart success and subsequent record-breaking stadium tours. Writing in 2018, Daphne Brooks, a scholar of African-American studies, noted the deeper reasoning for and significance of Tina’s status as “Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll”:

Turner merged sound and movement at a critical turning point in rock history, navigating and reflecting back the technological innovations of a new pop-music era in the ’60s and ’70s. She catapulted herself to the forefront of a musical revolution that had long marginalized and overlooked the pioneering contributions of African American women and then remade herself again [with Private Dancer] at an age when most pop musicians were hitting the oldies circuit. Turner’s musical character has always been a charged combination of mystery as well as light, melancholy mixed with a ferocious vitality that often flirted with danger.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of Private Dancer, I share the album’s opening track, “I Might Have Been Queen,” accompanied by an excerpt from Ralph H. Craig III wonderful book, Dancing in My Dreams: A Spiritual Biography of Tina Turner.

I’m a new pair of eyes
Every time I am born
An original mind
Because I just died

And I’m scanning the horizon for someone recognizing
That I might have been queen
For every sun that sets there is a new one dawning
For every empire crushed there is a brand new nation

Let the waters rise
I’ve ridden each tide
From the gates of the city
Where the first born died

And I might have been queen
I remember the girl in the fields with no name
She had a love
Oh, but the river won’t stop for me
No, the river won’t stop for me

. . . I look up to the stars with my perfect memory
I lived through it all, and my future’s no shock to me
I look down, but I see no tragedy
I look up to the stars ’til I find my destiny
I look up to my past, my spirit running free
I look down, I look down, and I'm there in history
Oh, I’m a soul survivor

– From “I Might Have Been Queen”
Written by Jeannette Obstoj, Rupert Hine
& Jamie West-Oram, and recorded by Tina Turner
for her 1984 album, Private Dancer

[Manager] Roger Davies and Turner had one month to find songs for the album, producers to oversee the recording of songs, and professionals to take photos for the album’s cover and design artwork. . . . In [her 2020 book] Happiness Becomes You, Turner details how her song choices were “exercises in growth,” since if the song became a hit, she would have to sing it repeatedly. Therefore, she explained, “Before committing to a song, I would visualize how I might perform it onstage. I imagine it from start to finish before recording a single word.” By doing this, an act she considered to be “stepping outside my comfort zone," she was able to take ownership over her songs, “adding nuances that communicated a different meaning and subtext” to her audiences and expanding the song’s potential, along with her own. Expanding her own potential is a crucial spiritual concept for Turner, and such expansion exemplifies the Soka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhist notion of human revolution.

. . . At Davies’s behest, Turner met with producer Rupert Hine and his songwriting partner Jeannette Obstoj. Turner narrated, especially to Obstoj, the story of her life that she first told to People magazine in 1981. Obstoj paid close attention to the role spiritual beliefs played in Turner’s life. In particular, she noted the prominence of Turner’s belief in her past life as [Egyptian queen] Hatshepsut. This belief placed her traumatic marriage to Ike Turner into the context of a therapeutic understanding of the past, the overcoming of which encouraged her dreams of future solo success. After listening to Turner, Obstoj, together with Hine and guitarist James West Oram, wrote the song “I Might Have Been Queen,” produced by Rupert Hine.

“I’m a new pair of eyes / Everytime I am born,” Turner sings in the opening line of the song (and as the first track on the album, the opening line of the album) – immediately signifying to the attentive lstener Turner’s adherence to the Buddhist belief in rebirth. “An original mind / Because I just died,” she continues, making clear to the listener what was only signified in the second line: in Buddhist belief, to be born, one must have first died. This cosmological cycle of birth and death, referred to as samsara in Buddhist doctrine, is considered to have no beginning. Encompassing both the cosmic and the sociopolitical scope of rebirth, Turner sings about the new dawns and new empires that arise after dissolution. She displays the confidence gained through her Buddhist practice and her work with psychic Carol Ann Dryer, when she confidently reminds the listener that she has ridden each wave throughout her lifetimes.

Then, in the chorus, her voice rings with power as she soars through time and space to sing the song’s title. When she sings of the rivers of time that carried her forward, we might imagine her speaking of the journey from ancient Egypt to the cotton fields of Nutbush, Tennessee, and now, to a recording studio in England making what may be the most crucial album of her life, this time around.

Having taken us through her past, in the final verse she sings of the future, referencing her belief in the predictive efficacy of astrology. Then, Turner sings of looking down from on high and seeing no tragedies, which evokes the Soka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhist understanding of the awakened life-state, which is likened to a summit from which one is able to gaze on the world below with composure. Taken together, the lyrics of “I Might Have Been Queen” captures Turner’s spiritual understanding of the scope of her life, encompassing multiple lives in a broad sweep of history where the past is in context and the future is “no shock,” thereby enabling Turner to face her present with composure.

– Ralph H. Craig III
Excerpted from Dancing in My Dreams:
A Spiritual Biography of Tina Turner
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2023
pp. 156-159

Wednesday, May 28, 2025

Tony Pentimalli on Trump’s “Death Warrant for Democracy”

Political analyst and social commentator Tony Pentimalli shared the following yesterday on Facebook and BlueSky.

And trust me, it’s an essential read for all who are concerned about President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to establish a full-fledged authoritarian regime.

_____________

America on the Brink

Trump’s “Beautiful” Bill Is the
Death Warrant for Democracy

By Tony Pentimalli
May 27, 2025
Let me be blunt: this is no ordinary Washington fight. This is the kind of moment where you either recognize what’s coming or you look back later wondering how you missed it.

Trump and his people call it the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Beautiful? Please. It’s a loaded weapon, and it’s aimed right at the guts of American democracy.

This 1,100-page monstrosity scraped through the House on May 22, 2025, with a nail-biting 215–214 vote. You’ve got Speaker Mike Johnson, Elise Stefanik, Jim Jordan driving the charge, and over in the Senate, you see names like Josh Hawley, JD Vance, Marsha Blackburn, Ron Johnson doing everything they can to slam it through. Trump? He’s not even pretending to play it cool. He’s out there demanding, “send this bill to my desk AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.”

Here’s where things get real – and I want you to hear this plainly.

First, it guts the courts. There’s a provision that blocks federal judges from enforcing contempt rulings against the executive branch unless you post giant financial bonds. And I mean giant. Who has that kind of money? Not everyday Americans. Not grassroots groups. So if Trump decides to ignore a court order, what happens? The courts can wag their fingers, but they can’t stop him. Even Supreme Court rulings get tangled up and delayed. That’s no system of justice.

Second, it opens the door to election disruption. The bill jacks up presidential emergency powers, letting Trump play the “crisis” card to slow down, disrupt, or challenge elections. No, it doesn’t straight-up cancel voting, but it’s the legal scaffolding to choke the system until it barely functions.

Third, it puts every agency under Trump’s control. Thanks to Executive Order 14215, every agency, even those supposed to stay neutral, now has to follow Trump’s legal interpretations. Science, environment, public health, financial regulation – all reporting to one desk.

Fourth, it makes loyalty the price of a government job. Through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Trump’s people can monitor, review, and purge civil servants they don’t like. This isn’t a performance issue; it’s a political purge, plain and simple.

Fifth, it hits LGBTQ+ Americans hard. The bill bans Medicaid and CHIP from covering gender-affirming care for anyone, no matter their age. That’s not just cruel – it’s calculated.

Sixth, it threatens your rights to protest, to speak, to organize. Expanded surveillance powers let the government track dissent, monitor online activity, and flag dissenters as potential threats. VPNs? Not named directly, but the powers are so broad civil liberties groups warn they could cover encrypted communications. Add in stronger voter roll purges and tougher ID rules, and you’re looking at a system built to keep marginalized people out of the political process.

Ian Bassin, co-founder of Protect Democracy, cuts right to the bone: “This bill doesn’t just expand presidential authority – it rewires the fundamental checks and balances of our system. It gives the executive branch powers that no modern president has ever held, creating the legal conditions for autocratic governance.”

I’m going to be honest with you: I’ve been writing about politics for years, and this moment? It scares the hell out of me.

Picture Maria, a Chicago teacher, posting a photo of a climate march. That post? Flagged, logged, tracked. Samuel, a federal scientist, publishes research that makes Trump look bad. His job? Suddenly under review. Alex, a trans teenager in Tennessee? Their healthcare? Cut off overnight. This isn’t theoretical – it’s the world this bill is shaping right now.

Here’s the kicker: this bill doesn’t break the law. It rewrites the law so Trump doesn’t have to break it.

We’ve seen it before: Hungary, Russia, Turkey. Authoritarians don’t need tanks in the streets. They just need tired, distracted people willing to look the other way.

Look, I know some of you are thinking, “Tony, the courts will stop him.” No, they won’t. Or, “It can’t happen here.” Well, I’m telling you: it already is.

This isn’t just another headline. This is the fight of our time.

We have to wake up. We have to resist. And most of all, we have to act: call your senators, jam their offices with calls, support the ACLU, Protect Democracy, Common Cause. Share this message. Get out there and be seen. The system will not save itself.

It’s up to us.

And history? History will remember what we did – or failed to do – when everything was on the line.

To read the full legislative text, click here.

Related Off-site Links:
A New Phase of Trump Neofascism – Robert Reich (Common Dreams, May 25, 2025).
Maria Ressa Warns of Authoritarianism in the U.S.: “This Is a Pivotal Moment” – GBH News (May 2, 2025).
Is Trump’s America Still a Democracy?: An Interview With Autocracy Scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat – Prospect (May 1, 2025).
People Who Fled Authoritarian Regimes Say Trump’s Tactics Remind Them of Home – Frank Langfitt (NPR News, May 1, 2025).
What If It Is Fascism? – Fred Glass (Jacobin, April 29, 2025).
Marks of the Fascist, Tacky, Insatiable Beast – Abby Zimet (Common Dreams, April 27, 2025).
Democracy Is Dying in Broad Daylight: How Trump Is Leading a Totalitarian Coup – Marianne Williamson (Rising, April 8, 2025).
Expert on Fascism Explains Why He’s Getting Out of America; Offers Chilling Warning – Mike Figueredo (The Humanist Report, March 28, 2025).
“How Fascism Works”: An Interview With Author Jason Stanley – Amanpour and Company (March 26, 2025).
How the Media Walked Us Into Autocracy: An Interview with Ralph Nader – The Chris Hedges Report (March 6, 2025).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Marisa Kabas: “We’re Witnessing a Coup By an Unelected Billionaire Propped Up By a Felonious President”
• Timothy Snyder on Resisting the Oligarchs’ “Logic of Destruction”
• “This Is Essentially Viktor Orbán’s Playbook”
• “An Extremely Clever Ruse” by and for the Rich: Owen Jones on Elon Musk’s Coup
• “To Be a Rib in This Body of Our Country”
• Quote of the Day – February 21, 2025
• Ralph Nader: “We’re Heading Into the Most Serious Crisis in American History. There’s No Comparison”
• Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
• “This Is How Democracy Unravels”
• Jason Stanley on How Fascism Works
• James Greenberg on Trumpism: “The Tactics Are Unmistakable”

Tuesday, May 27, 2025

“A Holocaust, Live-streamed”

The following commentary by Qasim Rashid was published earlier today on his website, Let’s Address This with Qasim Rashid.

Rashid, a human rights lawyer, is dedicated to “bringing the receipts to disentangle fact from fiction and advance the fight for universal human rights.”

_______________

I woke up to yet another gut-wrenching horror: Israeli airstrikes killed at least 52 people in Gaza Monday night – including 36 Palestinians who were taking refuge in a school-turned-shelter. Most of them were women and children. Killed while they slept, their belongings – and their bodies – incinerated in the night.

This wasn’t a battlefield. This was a school. A shelter. A place people fled to escape death, only to be immolated by it. The Israeli military burned children alive while they slept. Let me repeat, Netanyahu ordered the burning of babies as they slept.

This is not “just” genocide anymore. This is a full blown holocaust. Let’s Address This.

It is time to recognize we are witnessing a holocaust

Leading scholars of genocide, including Israeli scholars, are unanimous in recognizing Israel’s actions against Palestinians as genocide. For example, world renowned Israeli scholar Shmuel Lederman of Open University of Israel wrote just this month:

The cumulative effect of what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocidal in every sense. I think the second half of 2024 is the point at which a consensus emerged among genocide researchers (as well as the human rights community) that this was genocide. Those who may have still had doubts – I estimate that they have dissipated following Israel’s actions since the cease-fire was broken.

Those who continue to deny this genocide for what it is are denying the reality and gravity of the situation. And it is that same reality and gravity that moves us to now consider whether this is also a holocaust. While I accept some might object to using the term holocaust, I ask only that you look at the facts before drawing a conclusion. And when we analyze this from a definitional and factual perspective, the conclusion seems undeniable that what we are witnessing is in fact a holocaust.

Let’s start with the definition. The Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines holocaust as “a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life, especially caused by fire.”

Thus, this definition gives us three elements to consider: 1. A thorough destruction; 2. Involving extensive loss of life; 3. Especially through fire.

Now, let us apply that rubric to the ground reality in Gaza.

1. Has Gaza faced a “thorough destruction?”

Here’s what the facts tell us. Just this week a UN survey concluded that more than 95% of land in Gaza is now unusable for agriculture. Another report by Doctors Without Borders in January 2025 concluded that more than 92% of homes and more than 70% of all buildings in Gaza are destroyed, damaged, or unusable. Yet another UN report from last September concluded that nearly 70% of all infrastructure in Gaza has been destroyed or damaged. Finally, simply compare the visual destruction in Gaza from October 12, 2023 to January 11, 2025.

By April of 2024 Gaza had already suffered more than 70,000 tonnes of bombing. To put that in perspective, that is more than the combined bomb tonnage dropped on Dresden, Hamburg, and London in World War II. Now more than a year later, that bombing has only increased. It is no surprise, therefore, that UN Humanitarian Chief Martin Griffiths declared Gaza “uninhabitable” due to the bombing, destruction, blockades, and subsequent famines. Given all of the above data, it is factually accurate to conclude that Gaza has been “thoroughly destroyed.”

2. Has that destruction involved “extensive loss of life?”

The Lancet estimated last summer that Israel’s genocide upon Gaza had already killed up to 186,000 people, conservatively. The analysis concluded:

In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.

The current “official” death toll in Gaza is approximately 56,000 people. That alone should suffice any metric to mean “extensive loss of life.” But applying The Lancet’s conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death lands us at a staggering 224,000 people killed. In fact, over the last 20 months, Israeli bombing has killed more children in Gaza than children killed in all global conflicts combined. While the latest data is far worse, even 1 year into Israel’s siege on Gaza, OxFam reported this horrifying fact: More women and children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military over the past year than the equivalent period of any other conflict over the past two decades.

Without question Gaza has suffered “extensive loss of life,” one that absolutely and tragically meets the second criteria of the textbook definition of a holocaust.

3. Has that destruction and loss of life especially been through fire?

While the first two definitional elements of holocaust can also be applied to genocide, the dictionary differentiates a holocaust with the third element of “killing by fire.” Again, let us look at the facts.

This week, Israeli bombing burned alive at least 36 Palestinians, including women and children, while they slept in a school designated as a shelter. And this is not a one-off event. It is part of a repeated, sustained pattern in which the Israeli military incinerates entire Palestinian families and family lines. And sadly is not new. Back in December, 2023, the New York Times reported: “Israel claims it protects civilians, but a New York Times investigation found that at least 200 times Israel dropped its most destructive bombs in areas it designated as safe for civilians in Gaza.”

Another investigation by NBC reached the same conclusion, that Israel repeatedly forced Palestinian civilians into what they called “safe zones,” then bombed those very safe zone, killing by fire and explosives the very people they forced into those trapped locations. How is this in any way different than rounding up civilians into camps, and then killing people in those camps?

And these reports were only from the first two months of bombing Gaza. The atrocities that have unfolded since further add to this death toll and mass killing by fire. And then there are the countless horrific stories like of Dr. Alaa al-Najjar, who as reported, “left her ten children at home when she went to work in the emergency room at the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza. Hours later, the bodies of seven children arrived – most of them badly burned.” In total, the Israeli military killed nine of her 10 children by targeting them at home and burning them to death.

Let’s be clear. Hundreds, if not thousands, of bombings on locations Israel designated as safe zones, and forced people to move to under threat of death, before bombing them to death in those safe zones is not an accident – it is intentional policy. This is one reason why ICC prosecutor Karim Khan charged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with war crimes. And we see these blazes live streamed right before our eyes. . . . We see tragic example after tragic example of the Israeli military killing Palestinians by burning them to death. In schools, in hospitals, while they sleep, and while they sit in what is left of their homes. Any fair minded person can see these hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of the Israeli military killing Palestinians by fire and acknowledge that it meets the third definitional criteria of a holocaust.

Conclusion

Let’s recap this painful discussion. The textbook definition of holocaust is a “thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life especially through fire.” Applying this definition to the facts at hand, the Israeli military has:

• Destroyed more than 90% of Gaza

• Killed more than 224,000 Palestinians

• Incinerated Palestinians by fire and explosives with thousands of targeted, deliberate bombings, including in designated safe zones

Based on these documented and irrefutable facts, what other conclusion can we draw but recognize this as the literal dictionary definition of holocaust?

And still, no consequences for Netanyahu. Still, the world’s most powerful nations — including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada – continue to fund this horror, in opposition to the unanimous consensus of genocide scholars that this is genocide, in opposition to their own government reports that Netanyahu is committing war crimes. In my younger years I used to wonder how the world could watch the Holocaust unfold and do nothing? How governments could witness mass extermination and justify their silence with “complicated geopolitics.” But now we don’t have to wonder. We are living through it. We are watching a genocide unfold on our phones in real time.

A holocaust, live-streamed.

– Qasim Rashid
Excerpted from “Holocaust”
Let’s Address This with Qasim Rashid
May 27, 2025

The Wild Reed

Saturday, May 31, 2025

May Vignettes

Friday, May 30, 2025

Why What’s Happening in Palestine – and Our Response to It – Is So Important

Thursday, May 29, 2025

There’s No “Might Have” About It . . . Tina Turner Was Queen

Wednesday, May 28, 2025

Tony Pentimalli on Trump’s “Death Warrant for Democracy”

Tuesday, May 27, 2025

“A Holocaust, Live-streamed”

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