On Feb. 9, 2024, renowned anthropologist Dr. Ghassan Hage released a public statement on the decision of the Max Planck Institute to sever its relationship with him because of his public statements regarding Israeli violence against Palestinians. We are republishing this statement here with Dr. Hage’s permission.

s part of my commitment to bringing justice-oriented voices from Spain to a broader audience, especially in the context of the ongoing struggle for justice in Palestine, I am providing this English translation of remarks made by Ione Belarra, leader of the leftist Podemos party and Minister of Social Rights in the Spanish government between 2021 and 2023. Belarra spoke at a Podemos-organized event at the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid marking 76 years since the beginning of the Palestinian Nakba.

Here’s the thing: Fascists hate solidarity. At a minimum, they want you to laugh at people who embrace the solidarity impulse and who act accordingly. At a maximum, they want you to support the criminalization and violent suppression of this impulse. What this means is that acting out of solidarity is a fundamental part of the larger project of fighting fascism - a project whose global urgency is growing by the day.

“Remember the solidarity here and everywhere…” Beginning with this quote from the legendary Palestinian scholar Edward Said, John Collins offers some reflections on a recent panel discussion where he and colleagues from Mexico, Palestine, and the UK discussed the looming threat of Israeli annexation and the changing conditions within which activists around the world express their solidarity with Palestine’s struggle for liberation.

By Jon Soske and Sean Jacobs

This post is part of our project, Holot: Crossroads of Global Violence. It was originally published by Mondoweiss and is reprinted here with permission of the authors.

The South African Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee has a habit of speaking in rhetoricals. The effect, however, is that he makes his point quite clearly. This was the case recently at the Palestine Festival of Literature, which travels through Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Speaking on the festival’s last day, Coetzee noticed that “naturally people ask me what I see of South Africa in the present situation in Palestine.”

At first, Coetzee suggested that using the word apartheid to describe the occupation is not a productive step (“it diverts one into an inflamed semantic wrangle which cuts short the opportunities of analysis”). Coetzee then offered a definition of South African apartheid: “Apartheid was a system of enforced segregation based on race or ethnicity, put in place by an exclusive, self defined group in order to consolidate colonial conquest particular to cement its hold on the land and natural resources.” He continued, “In Jerusalem and the West Bank we see a system of …” and proceeded to read the same definition, ending to applause: “Draw your own conclusions.”