Nationalism is chametz, during Passover and always!

This Passover, we cannot celebrate as usual while Palestinians in Gaza face famine and the Israeli military continues its genocidal campaign, using starvation as a weapon and murdering Palestinians with impunity. The questions of liberation are not theoretical—this year’s Jewish holiday of liberation calls us to strengthen our commitment to the liberation of the Palestinian people. This year is unlike any other. We cannot feast while there is famine. This Passover, we gather not to celebrate, but to demand and dream of liberation for all.

During Passover, Jews abstain from eating “chametz,” or foods that are forbidden to consume during the holiday. For many, part of the ritual of beginning the Passover fast from chametz can include donating or burning these foods. This passover, and every day, we strive to build a world free from the US-Israel alliance that is funding and enabling Palestinian genocide. We collectively work towards a future free from Zionism — the colonial ideology built on the premise of “maximum land with minimum Palestinians,” which requires the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land — as well as all forms of nationalism.

This Passover, we cannot hold seder as usual. The meal cannot be festive while Palestinians in Gaza face famine; the questions of liberation are not theoretical. This year’s Jewish holiday of liberation urges every one of us to step up our commitment to the liberation of the Palestinian people. Right now, the Israeli military is carpet-bombing Gaza and using starvation as a weapon of war as it continues to kill Palestinians with impunity. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is attacking our movements, detaining and abducting those who have spoken out for Palestinian rights.

The Israeli military is wiping out entire bloodlines — killing every living relative — of Palestinian families. This is how genocide works.

apps.npr.org/gaza-building-… An Israeli strike on a Gaza apartment building in October 2024 killed 132 members of the Abu Nasser family instantly. It was one of the Israeli military’s deadliest attacks since the beginning of the genocide in 2023. The few surviving family members were left to document their dead loved ones.

Palestinians in communities across the occupied West Bank are remaining steadfast in the face of increasingly brazen and destructive violence from Israeli settlers and soldiers.

https://twitter.com/activestills/status/1909322467337699714

On Monday, Israeli soldiers conducted violent back-to-back raids on Palestinian families living in Wadi Qatuniya and al-Mughayer, near Ramallah. In Wadi Qatuniya, the Abu Na’eem family refused to leave after Israeli soldiers threatened them with expulsion.

Words from @theimeu: 

Today marks 77 years since the massacre of Deir Yassin, an atrocity that came to define the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 to establish the state of Israel on stolen Palestinian land. During the Deir Yassin massacre, militias that would soon become the Israeli military rounded up men, women, and children before executing them. By the end of the massacre, the militias had killed or forced out the town’s entire population. During the Nakba, Israel forced more than 75% of the Palestinian population from their homes and land.

Palestinian workers have always been the backbone of the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice — fighting against Israeli apartheid, occupation, and calling for the end of settler-colonialism.

https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1909316490743939466

Earlier today, Palestinian solidarity movements held a general strike, coinciding with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to the US.⁠

Last night, the Israeli military deliberately bombed a tent in Khan Younis housing several Palestinian journalists next to a hospital. Terrifying video footage shows people frantically trying to save journalist Ahmed Mansour, who was engulfed in flames, still alive. Ahmed is now in critical condition. The targeted attack killed his colleagues Helmi al-Faqawi and Yusuf al-Khazandar, and wounded at least nine other journalists. The Israeli military has targeted and killed at least 232 journalists and media workers since the genocide began.

The Israeli government has abandoned all pretenses for its goal of ethnically cleansing of all Palestinians from their land, accelerating its genocide in Gaza and engineering the largest land theft in the occupied West Bank in over thirty years. Last week, war criminal and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu promised the Israeli military would expand its genocidal assault to achieve the Israeli military’s “permanent maintenance of the territory [of Gaza],” a pledge of mass death, expulsion and total land theft.

Yesterday, Palestinians located the bodies of 15 aid workers in a mass grave in Gaza. One week after two ambulances were directly shot at by the Israeli military, the bodies of these Red Crescent workers were finally found handcuffed and crushed under their ambulances, concealed in a mass grave.🧵 The @PalestineRCS recovered the bodies of eight medics, six civil defense workers, and one UN employee, all killed when the Israeli military opened fire on them in Rafah while they were en route to provide first aid. A spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza said that each retrieved body was riddled with around 20 gunshots from the Israeli military. A ninth PCRS medic is still missing.

Project Esther is here. Students and faculty at universities across the country are being targeted by ICE for deportation due to their support for Palestine under the guise of fighting antisemitism. The Trump regime is pulling funding to blackmail universities into complying with authoritarian restrictions on free speech and curriculum. The JVP Academic Advisory Council’s report on Project Esther argues that, “The architects of Project Esther aren't interested in fighting antisemitism, even in this moment of rising white nationalism – instead, they're building a machine to crush dissent by any means necessary.”

Free Rumeysa Ozturk! Never Again for ANYONE! Yesterday, we watched in horror and disgust as newly released footage showed masked ICE agents surrounding a terrified Rumeysa, a PhD student at Tufts University, handcuffing her on the street and taking her away.

The Israeli military is committing genocide against Palestinians at the fastest rate since October 2023. Since the Israeli government violated the ceasefire nearly a week ago, the Israeli military has killed nearly 700 Palestinians, including at least 400 women and children.🧵 Last week, the Israeli military invaded Rafah and retook the Netzarim Corridor, dividing Gaza and further displacing Palestinians, massacring fleeing families, and targeting the injured. Evacuation notices and so-called humanitarian zones mask further Israeli bombardment. Yesterday, Israeli warplanes bombed Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, killing at least five Palestinians and injuring many more.

“They ordered all of us, men and women, to take off our clothes and to continue walking, ordering us to only look forward. I was walking naked between the tanks, not even wearing underwear. An Israeli soldier spit in my face. I forced myself not to react as I knew they would break every bone in my body if I did” — A Palestinian man recounting his evacuation through Salah al-Din Street, Gaza Sexual, reproductive, and gender-based violence occurs in almost all wars and genocides, and Gaza is no exception. Torture and humiliation is a tool of repressive regimes to punish and try to destroy the spirit of anyone who challenges their oppression. A new report from the UN titled “More Than a Human Can Bear” shares harrowing accounts of sexual, reproductive, and other forms of gender-based violence committed by Israeli forces and settlers against Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank since October 2023.

The Israeli government has repeatedly violated the ceasefire agreement since the day it was signed. But Monday night, the Israeli military dramatically escalated its attacks, carpet-bombing the captive population of Gaza and killing over 400 Palestinians, many of them children. This is a campaign of extermination. This is genocide.

Now is the time to act! For concrete steps and links: jvp.org/wiretwitter 1. Support BDS. Your city can join the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and genocide profiteering — including starting a boycott of Chevron.

bdsmovement.net/Your-City-Can-…

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…

Understanding how we got to this horrific moment in history — the US giving unconditional support and funding for the Israeli government to massacre Palestinians — requires a commitment to clarity about how we got here.

https://twitter.com/imanabid_/status/1901963122048373028

The total and expanding devastation in Gaza is a result of Zionism. Zionism, in the words of its founders, is an explicitly “colonial” ideology.

Last night, the Israeli military carpet-bombed Gaza, killing at least 404 people, including many children, and injuring over 562 in its renewed attacks in one of the deadliest single-day tolls since the start of the Israeli military's 15-month-long genocide against Palestinians. At the same time, the Israeli military launched a sweeping assault across the occupied West Bank, terrorizing and detaining Palestinians while causing widespread destruction. 🧵 Since the beginning of the ceasefire, the Israeli military has already killed at least 150 Palestinians in Gaza, including aid workers, continuously breaking the ceasefire.

Last night, Palestinian journalists reported Israeli airstrikes targeting dozens of schools, tents, mosques, and apartments all at once, using more than 100 war planes. In Gaza City, Palestinian Hani Mahmoud told Al-Jazeera, “as of now, there is not a single safe place across Gaza. People are dying inside their homes, they’re dying inside public facilities, and they’re dying inside schools they’ve turned to for shelter.”

The Israeli military is still killing Palestinians in Gaza — and the US government continues to use our tax dollars to fund it. Mainstream media would like you to believe that Palestinians in Gaza are “returning to normal” following 15 months of genocide. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Free Mahmoud Khalil! There is no other way to put it: Mahmoud Khalil’s illegal detention at the hands of the Trump administration is horrific.

DHS agents ripped Mahmoud Khalil from his home, threatening his immigration status, and detaining him, solely because of his political beliefs. This is a clear attempt by President Trump to silence dissent, chill speech, and attack our freedoms. Ideas are not illegal, and there is no “controversial speech” exception to the First Amendment. Our right to free speech includes advocacy for Palestine. We will not be intimidated. We will not be stopped. We will fight until Mahmoud Khalil is free. We will fight until Palestine is free.

Last night the Jewish holiday of Purim began, where we celebrate and honor the courage it takes to resist state violence and empire. We stand in solidarity with Palestinians who face increased violence on Purim, while already enduring the Israeli government’s genocide and occupation. Since March 2nd, the Israeli military has deliberately blocked all aid from entering Gaza, a repeated war crime. The over 2 million Palestinians living in Gaza are spending the holy month of Ramadan starving and deprived of basic needs like shelter, medicine, and electricity.

Today marks what would have been the 84th birthday of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, whose words continue to resonate across generations and borders. Darwish’s writing captured the pain of displacement, the struggle for justice, and a profound longing for home, while weaving images of nature—anemones, lapis lazuli, gazelles, and olives. His poetry inspired generations, blending personal longing with political resistance.

HAPPENING NOW: Police arrested hundreds of protestors including Jewish elders, descendants of Holocaust survivors, and students, dragging them out of a sit-in at Trump Tower by their arms and legs.

Jews say: Free Mahmoud, Free Palestine!
On Saturday, ICE agents abducted Palestinian activist and recent Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil from his home. This is the first attempt by the administration to put into practice Trump’s Executive Order which promises to revoke the visas of students protesting against Israel’s genocide of Gaza as part of a so-called crackdown on antisemitism.