Month: February 2024

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I have recently launched my own Substack, as a vehicle for draft writing, experiments with text and image, and commentary on current events. A place to think with. Subscription is free—subscribers will receive a copy of each new post in their email.

Posts so far published include one long essay (eyeless in Gaza: paratexts, contexts, and the weaponization of october 7) and several shorter pieces on the history and politics of the current war in Gaza (a massacre of thoughts, 8 Jan; are you, or have you ever been, 10 Jan; an open letter to Canadian foreign minister mélanie joly, 27 Jan; the west responds to ICJ ruling of urgent risk of genocide in Gaza by defunding key aid agency, 28 Jan; who did the ICJ ruling on Gaza vindicate, 9 Feb); a four-part essay on Richard Strauss’s Salome and Four Last Songs (how middlebrow triumphs over death #1, #2, #3 and coda); an appreciation of John Prine and Iris DeMent (cryin’ into the skiller, 8 Jan); and a running series of photoessays juxtaposing image and text (unexpected encounters: introduction, 2 Feb; #1 the gaze, 2 Feb; #2 imaginary, symbolic, real, 5 Feb).

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an unpublished letter to the Guardian newspaper

I sent this letter to the Guardian on January 26 in response to their call for comments on an article on the ICJ ruling on South Africa’s charge of genocide against Israel. I think it is safe to assume they are not intending to publish it. The only thing I would add is that to describe the ruling as “a win for the rule of law” is overly hopeful. The actions of Israel, the US, the UK, Germany, Canada, and most other so-called western democracies since, including the disgusting defunding of UNRWA on the basis of completely unsubstantiated allegations by Israel, demonstrate the exact contrary. 

I have written more on this extremely clarifying moment in Canadian Dimension.

Dear Guardian,

Kenneth Roth is right to stress that the ICJ ruling on Israel’s actions toward Palestinians in Gaza is a “win for the rule of law” (“The ICJ ruling is a repudiation of Israel and its western backers,” Jan. 26).

It is also a vindication of the millions whose protests have been denounced as “hate marches, chanting for the erasure of Israel from the map” (Suella Braverman); of US congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who was censured by her House of Representatives colleagues for “promoting false narratives regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel”; of Liz Magill and Claudine Gay, who were hounded out of office as presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard respectively for their alleged failure to deal with campus antisemitism; of Mehdi Hasan, whose popular news show was pulled by MSNBC; of Ai Weiwei and Candace Breitz, who had long-planned exhibitions cancelled at prestigious art galleries; of Palestinian novelist Adania Shibli, whose Frankfurt Book Fair award ceremony for the 2023 LiBeraturpreis for her novel Minor Detail was cancelled; of editors Michael Essen at eLife and David Velasco at Artforum, who were fired for supporting pro-Palestinian speech; of journalist Masha Gessen, who forfeited the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s sponsorship for her Hannah Arendt Prize because she dared compare Gaza with a Nazi ghetto; of actress Melissa Barrera, who lost her lead role in the next “Scream” film for describing Israel as “colonial”; of footballers Yousef Atal and Anwar El Ghazi, who were dropped at Nice and Mainz FC for pro-Palestinian posts on social media; and for a legion of others in the US, UK, Germany, Canada and elsewhere who have been vilified as “antisemites” and persecuted for daring to criticize Israel and/or support the Palestinian cause.

Derek Sayer