Keep Talking About Gaza at Your Thanksgiving Table

Relatives of Palestinians who lost their lives in Israeli attacks that violated the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip mourn at the Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah Gaza on Nov Photo Abdalhkem Abu Riash Anadolu via Getty Images If Israel s genocide in Gaza has been a site of tension in your family for the last two Thanksgiving holidays this year should be no different The so-called ceasefire might seem like a good excuse to bury the hatchet and enjoy a quieter turkey dinner but when we look at the harrowing status quo for Palestinians in Gaza in current times there is no peace to be thankful for especially not on a day that marks the remembrance of this country s own genocide against Indigenous Americans To be clear if two years of livestreamed annihilation have failed to shift your loved ones help away from the Israeli ethnostate I doubt there is anything a dinner table argument could do to persuade them There can be no reasoning with a worldview that forecloses seeing Palestinians as fully human I deal with this with pro-Israel members of my own British Jewish family It s painful and I don t have any good advice Whatever your approach with your family there can be no pretense that the genocide in Gaza is over I ll be thinking of another family this Thanksgiving that of my apprentice from Gaza Families like mine divided over Israel are not the pivotal ones here For my part I ll be thinking instead of another family this Thanksgiving that of my candidate from Gaza He escaped in after Israel bombed his home killing two of his immediate family members including his mother His surviving family are still there living in tents He hasn t heard from them in over two weeks It is for families like my apprentice s that we cannot purely take it easy this Thanksgiving because of the so-called ceasefire in Gaza Unending Destruction While the October agreement has offered particular relief for Palestinians with a substantial drop in daily slaughter displacement starvation and killings by Israeli forces continue Instead of relentless Israel s bombings over the last days have been exclusively ongoing and regular Israel has killed Palestinians in Gaza including children while demolishing over structures Related Trump s Gaza Ceasefire Deal Is Already Failing Palestinians At the same time only a fraction of the aid trucks which were supposed to enter Gaza daily under the ceasefire agreement have been permitted entry by Israeli forces Mass enforced hunger continues in the Strip where million tons of rubble sits atop well over unrecovered bodies In the face of such totalizing and unending destruction it s hard to find much solace in the fact that the patronage for the Palestinian cause has grown internationally that nearly all major international human rights organizations have recognized Israel s actions as genocidal that a major wave of nation-states including France Canada and Britain moved this year to recognize the state of Palestine The dead displaced and occupied can do little with declarations that carry no concrete consequences What we need is a justice plan Mosab Abu Toha the Palestinian writer and poet explained a U N meeting this week It is time to stop accepting the illusion of peace processes that only entrench injustices With the state of the world as it stands it feels unlikely that Israeli leaders will be held accountable for their war crimes any time soon Justice for Palestine is hard to imagine but we can continue to apply pressure in procedures that have already seen paradigms shift Zohran Mamdani s accomplishment in the New York City mayoral electoral process was a genuine domination against the perverse weaponization of antisemitism against Israel s critics Now New Yorkers must push our next mayor to uphold commitments to Palestinian solidarity and international law Related This -Year-Old American Is Among Hundreds of Palestinian Children Jailed in Israel And there is more those of us living in safety can do We can send funds and share information as so a great number of already do And we can continue heading and supporting Palestinians call for boycotts divestment and sanctions against Israeli institutions complicit in occupation and apartheid Activist sometimes say Solidarity begins at home Yet not everyone can choose their home If you have the great fortune of spending the holidays with loved ones who share your commitments to justice and liberation I hope your time together is full of ecstasy Majority of the time though solidarity truly begins anywhere but home So if you choose to spend time with your family knowing that it will be fraught I wish you luck The weekend will pass and there s urgent work to be done The post Keep Talking About Gaza at Your Thanksgiving Table appeared first on The Intercept