This month, an image of an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier raising the rainbow flag in Gaza went viral. But the photo obscures nuance, context and history.
Specific details about which manufacturers receive export permits and the nature of the exported goods are not provided publicly. This lack of transparency needs to change.
When people find themselves displaced from their homes, finding or creating beauty can be just as vital as food, water and shelter − and serves as a form of resistance and resilience.
This would send the message the West’s much-vaunted values and respect for rules are little more than rhetoric. It will also legitimise conquest as an option that goes unpunished.
While the war in Gaza has riveted public attention, the simultaneous escalation of violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank is not disconnected from the violence in Gaza.
The dismissal of Palestinians as “barbaric” or somehow less human is rooted in a long history of colonizing narratives, including how the land and people were first viewed as “uncivilized.”
Modern settlers to Palestine viewed the desert as something they needed to “make bloom.” But it already was, thanks to the long history of Palestinian agricultural systems.
The silence of some Canadian universities in addressing antisemitism, in particular when considered alongside active approaches toward equity and racial justice, needs to be addressed.