Amrit Wilson
Amrit Wilson is a writer and activist on issues of race and gender in Britain and South Asian politics. She is a founder member of South Asia Solidarity Group and the Freedom Without Fear Platform, and board member of Imkaan,…
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هندوتفا
وارتباطها بالصهيونية
أمريت ويلسون
سلسلة محاضرات عن إسرائيل
المساهمة: لاهور ألباست، مؤسسة الدراسات الفلسطينية، الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية
المشرف: الدكتور فيريندر سينغ كالرا
المحرر: طارق محمود، الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت
كتب هذا النص في كانون الأول/ديسمبر 2022، وهو مقتبس من محاضرة ألقيت بدعوة من مؤسسة الدراسات الفلسطينية. ومنذ ذلك الحين، تعمقت العلاقات بين إسرائيل والهند وتصاعدت الفظائع في كلا البلدين. في 5 إبريل 2023، اقتحمت قوات الاحتلال الإسرائيلي باحات المسجد الأقصى في القدس الشرقية المحتلة، واعتدت على المصلين بداخله. وفي الوقت نفسه، تواجه إسرائيل اضطرابات داخلية في الصراع بين مجموعة متنوعة، بما في ذلك أولئك الذين يعتقدون أن المستعمرة الاستيطانية الحالية هي دولة ديمقراطية ويريدون أن تبقى الأمور على ما هي عليه، وكذلك أولئك الذين يقفون على اليمين. والأهم من ذلك أن الحزب الحاكم في الهند، حزب بهاراتيا جاناتا، يدعم الخيار الأخير. يدور الكتاب حول هندوتفا، الأيديولوجية التي تحرك حكومة رئيس الوزراء ناريندرا مودي، حزب بهاراتيا جاناتا الذي يهيمن عليه الهندوس، والصهيونية، أيديولوجية دولة الفصل العنصري الإسرائيلية. وفي هذا العصر الذي يتسم بالفاشية الناشئة، تشكل هاتان الأيديولوجيتان المتشابهتان إلى حد لافت للنظر أهمية بالغة في تعزيز التحالفات الاقتصادية والعسكرية بين اثنتين من أكثر الدول اليمينية قمعية في العالم ـ وفي الوقت نفسه إضفاء الشرعية عليها في الساحات الثقافية. إن إسرائيل بلا شك دولة استعمارية استيطانية، لكنها أيضًا دولة فاشية، مثل الهند، ليس فقط بسبب “الأحزاب المتطرفة التي تشكل جزءًا من الحكومة” ولكن أيضًا “على حد تعبير مسؤوليها – نتنياهو ومروان بشارة”. نتنياهو هو “الأب الروحي للفاشية الإسرائيلية الحديثة”.
Written in December 2022, this text is based on a lecture given earlier at the invitation of the Institute of Palestine Studies. Since then, the relationship between Israel and India has deepened further and atrocities have skyrocketed in both countries. On 5 April 2023, Israeli forces stormed Al Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem and attacked worshippers inside. At the same time, Israel is facing internal turmoil in a battle between a diverse group, including those who think the current settler colony is a democratic nation and want things to remain as they are, and those who stand even further to the right. Significantly, the BJP, India’s ruling party, supports the latter. This book is about Hindutva, the ideology which drives the Hindu-supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Zionism, the ideology of the Israeli apartheid state. In this era of rising fascism, these two remarkably similar ideologies are crucially important in cementing the economic and military alliance between two of the world’s most repressive right-wing states – while helping to legitimize them in cultural arenas. Israel is, of course, a settler colonial state, but it is also, like India, a fascist state, not only because of ‘the extremist parties that [are] part of the government’ but also because of ‘their enablers – Netanyahu and his chauvinistic Likud party which long strove for a Jewish state dominating both sides of the Jordan River.’ In the words of Marwan Bishara, Netanyahu is ‘the godfather of modern Israeli fascism.’
Amrit Wilson is a writer and activist on issues of race and gender in Britain and South Asian politics. She is a founder member of South Asia Solidarity Group and the Freedom Without Fear Platform, and board member of Imkaan,…
Depuis le début du génocide contre les Palestiniens à Gaza, mené par la violence coloniale israélienne, les établissements d’enseignement supérieur ont été systématiquement détruits. Les campus sont en ruines, les universitaires et les étudiants ont été tués ou déplacés de force, et ce qui était autrefois une population étudiante florissante et intellectuellement dynamique vit maintenant sous la menace quotidienne de bombardement, de famine forcée et de mort. Pendant près de deux ans, les étudiants ont été coupés non seulement de leurs universités, mais aussi de leurs rêves, de leur avenir et même de leur sentiment de sécurité le plus élémentaire.
Pourtant, malgré ce traumatisme inimaginable, beaucoup écrivent encore.
Nous sommes toujours là est une anthologie de ces voix – brutes, non filtrées et courageuses. Il présente des histoires courtes et longues, des poèmes, des essais et des témoignages écrits par des étudiants des universités de Gaza. Ce ne sont pas des réflexions rétrospectives ou des analyses à distance ; ce sont des mots en temps réel, émergeant des profondeurs du génocide, du déplacement et du deuil. Ces écrits peuvent être leurs derniers espoirs d’atteindre le monde, un dernier acte de résistance par l’expression.
Les droits d’auteur de la vente de ce livre sont intégralement reversés aux étudiants auteurs de Gaza.
Survivant aux extrêmes les plus sombres de la souffrance, de la destruction et du déplacement, de la famine et de la menace constante de mutilation ou de mort, ces jeunes écrivains nous parlent avec une lucidité perçante. Leur résilience est leur seule forme d’optimisme. Paradoxalement, les lire soulève le cœur.
– Ian McEwan, auteur d’Expiation et d’Amour Éternel
Un recueil bouleversant, douloureux et pourtant plein d’espoir, de la jeune génération du peuple de Gaza. Le Sumud, la résilience, n’a jamais été aussi puissant et clair qu’il ne l’apparaît dans cette collection incontournable et urgente. —Ilan Pappé, professeur au Collège des Sciences Sociales et des Études Internationales de l’Université d’Exeter, auteur de Une histoire très courte du conflit israélo-palestinien
Au cœur de la souffrance, les mots naissent — et sous les décombres, la créativité s’élève. Ce livre est plus qu’un recueil de pages écrites ; c’est l’écho d’âmes résilientes et le cri de plumes qui ont parlé lorsque les voix ont été réduites au silence. — Professeur Dr. Omar Kh. Melad, Président de l’Université Al-Azhar de Gaza
Nous Sommes Toujours Là n’est pas un livre sur la guerre — c’est un livre sur le fait d’être en vie après que le monde a décidé que vous avez déjà disparu, écrit dans des pièces qui ne tiennent peut-être plus debout. Ces pages sont des dépêches du fil étroit du présent : des lettres de la faim, des fragments de vies interrompues, des éclairs d’espoir si inflexibles qu’ils brûlent. Ici, des jeunes gens façonnent le témoignage de leur temps sur terre, sachant que leur temps peut être court. Vous ne quitterez pas ce livre avec le confort d’une conclusion. Il restera avec vous bien après que la dernière page aura été tournée. — Leila Sansour, réalisatrice et fondatrice d’Open Bethlehem
Ces réflexions poignantes de Gaza, en prose et en poésie, du milieu d’un génocide, sont à la fois déchirantes et pleines de vie et de promesse. Israël a peut-être physiquement tué nombre de leurs jeunes auteurs, mais il ne tuera jamais leurs mots, qui vivent dans ce puissant recueil de leurs écrits. — Ghada Karmi.
La mort n’est pas une idée pour ces jeunes écrivains, mais une réalité quotidienne. Ce recueil témoigne de la puissance des mots. Il révèle comment l’amour, la créativité et l’espoir peuvent nous galvaniser contre la peur et l’inaction. — Selma Dabbagh, auteure du roman Out of It et éditrice de l’anthologie We Wrote in Symbols; Love and Lust by Arab Women Writers.
Sara Alkhaldy, l’une des contributrices de Nous Sommes Toujours Là, une nouvelle anthologie d’écrits d’étudiants de Gaza, déclare : “Je voudrais pouvoir mettre en bouteille l’odeur de notre maison et l’emporter avec moi en partant.” Rula Elkhair écrit à propos des études pendant le déplacement : “Même dans des endroits sans électricité, sans eau et sans internet stable, j’ai installé un eSIM sur mon téléphone et je suis montée sur le toit sous le bourdonnement des drones pour télécharger des cours. J’ai passé des examens dans des cafés au bord de la mer. J’ai étudié en ayant faim, en ayant peur, en étant en deuil.” — Selma Dabbagh dans la London Review of Books Connaissance des Faits Pertinents.
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La version anglaise de ce livre est disponible ici : We Are Still Here
While awareness and global solidarity with Palestine have grown, mainstream frameworks often remain narrowly focused. Common approaches typically confine the issue to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, or reduce solidarity to a matter of human rights and international law violations.
Although engaging formal institutions to end Israel’s genocide, apartheid, and occupation is a necessary strategy, such a focus can inadvertently depoliticize the Palestinian struggle. It frequently overlooks the foundational settler-colonial nature of the Israeli state, the unwavering material and ideological support it receives from Western powers, and Palestine’s profound significance within broader historical and contemporary anti-colonial movements.
The ongoing Western-backed genocide has starkly revealed the political divergence between the West and the Global South. In contrast to institutional complicity and failure, the enduring legacy of anti-colonial solidarity across the Global South has resurfaced as a vital force. As liberal international systems prove ineffective, rebuilding and strengthening transnational solidarity networks has become an urgent imperative to halt the genocide and achieve a liberated Palestine.
A deeper understanding requires a framework that connects Palestine to wider regional dynamics, global power structures, and the long arc of anti-colonial resistance. Towards Palestinian Liberation is an edited volume that reaffirms the Palestinian struggle as an intersectional and transnational anti-colonial fight.
Bringing together diverse perspectives from scholars and activists worldwide, this collection moves beyond mainstream narratives. It explores the interconnectedness of global struggles, examines the role of economic and political interests, and critically assesses the opportunities and challenges facing international solidarity movements. This book is essential for anyone committed to understanding—and advancing—the cause of justice and liberation in Palestine.
I can think of no other book that addresses the question of solidarity with Palestine and Palestinians as urgently and as eloquently as this collection – Laleh Khalili, author of Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration
A crucial intervention in these tumultuous times – Yara Hawari, co-director at Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network
A book that proves once again that writing and recording is itself resistance – Anuradha Chenoy, Adjunct Professor, Jindal Global University, India; Associate, Transnational Institute
Wide-ranging yet coherent, intellectually ambitious yet grounded in praxis – Hossam El-Hamalawi, scholar specialising in the Egyptian military and policing
An astonishing book – an answer to despair … I can think of no more necessary or important book for those of us determined to revolutionise our world – Leo Zeilig, writer, novelist and author of A Revolutionary of Our Time: The Walter Rodney Story
It stands as both an ode to hope and a practical manual for liberation – Shahd Hammouri, Lecturer in International Law and Legal Theory, University of Kent
This book is a living archive of resistance – unfolding across geographies, histories, and generations … If there is one book to read in these times, this is it – Madhuresh Kumar, Resistance Studies Fellow, University of Massachusetts Amherst; former national convener of the National Alliance of People’s Movements, India.
The authors in this urgent collection demonstrate the world-historic character of the struggle for Palestinian liberation – Thea Riofrancos, author of Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism
This is the book our moment demands – Abdeljawad Omar, writer and Assistant Professor at Birzeit University, Palestine
This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why Palestinian liberation cannot be separated from revolutionary and anti-colonial struggles across the world… [it] will play a vital role in educating a new generation of activists – Anne Alexander, author of Revolution is the Choice of People
This timely and generous collective effort by renowned scholars and activists is a must-read – Ndongo Samba Sylla, Head of Research and Policy for the Africa Region at International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs)
An indispensable book about one of our times’ most important political causes – Miriyam Aouragh, professor and author of Palestine Online
This book is a lesson in internationalism and the need to organise in order to practise it – Sabrina Fernandes, Brazilian economist, author and ecosocialist activist
This book is an indispensable resource for anyone committed to the belief that a better world is necessary and must be fought for – from many rivers to many seas – Salim Vally, Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg
An indispensable intervention … Reading this book is an essential antidote to the darkness and despair that permeates this moment – Grieve Chelwa, Associate Professor of Political Economy, The Africa Institute, Global Studies University
This work stands as a guiding light for those committed to a liberated Palestine in a liberated world – ClaraMattei, author of Escape from Capitalism, founder of The Forum For Real Economic Emancipation (FREE)
What distinguishes this collection is its refusal to treat Palestine as an exception. It places Palestinian liberation where it belongs — at the centre of a global confrontation with empire, fossil capitalism, and the architectures of racial domination – Yanis Varoufakis, Greek economist and author of Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism
An essential read to keep hope alive and to remember Ghassan Kanafani’s words: ‘As long as we struggle, we are not defeated’ – Olfa Lamloum, political scientist, filmmaker and president of The Legal Agenda, Tunisia
Historically informed, strategically oriented … crucially important and timely – Gyekye Tanoh, Freedom and Justice for Palestine (Ghana) and member of Global Ecosocialist Network
A must-read for anyone interested in understanding the struggle for Palestine and beyond – Rima Majed, Associate Professor of Sociology at the American University of Beirut
Indispensable for an acquaintance with Palestinian resistance that goes beyond reading the headlines – Walden Bello, Filipino scholar-activist and Right Livelihood awardee 2003
This book could not be more timely. … A book from the movement and for the movement, it provides us with essential tools to continue and globalise the anti-imperialist struggle – Lucia Pradella, Reader in International Political Economy, King’s College London
Here, for the first time, we get a chance to see Palestine and its struggle through the eyes of the majority of humanity – the global South, that is … an invaluable resource – Andreas Malm, author of The Destruction of Palestine Is the Destruction of the Earth.
Shines a new and revealing light on decades of anti-colonial, anti-imperialist struggles … This book will be welcomed by both analysts and activists – Brid Brennan, Transnational Institute Fellow
The Palestinian struggle for liberation is inseparable from histories of anti-colonial resistance and internationalist solidarity … this volume reclaims that radical tradition – Omar Jabary Salamanca, Professor of Social Sciences, Université libre de Bruxelles.
A crucial collection for those of us trying to find a way forward in a world shaped by genocide, rising fascism, aggressive imperialism, and climate catastrophe. – Sai Englert, author of Settler Colonialism: An Introduction
For full versions of these endorsements, view the ‘Review’ tab below.
Written in December 2022, this text is based on a lecture given earlier at the invitation of the Institute of Palestine Studies. Since then, the relationship between Israel and India has deepened further and atrocities have skyrocketed in both countries. On 5 April 2023, Israeli forces stormed Al Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem and attacked worshippers inside. At the same time, Israel is facing internal turmoil in a battle between a diverse group, including those who think the current settler colony is a democratic nation and want things to remain as they are, and those who stand even further to the right. Significantly, the BJP, India’s ruling party, supports the latter. This book is about Hindutva, the ideology which drives the Hindu-supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Zionism, the ideology of the Israeli apartheid state. In this era of rising fascism, these two remarkably similar ideologies are crucially important in cementing the economic and military alliance between two of the world’s most repressive right-wing states – while helping to legitimize them in cultural arenas. Israel is, of course, a settler colonial state, but it is also, like India, a fascist state, not only because of ‘the extremist parties that [are] part of the government’ but also because of ‘their enablers – Netanyahu and his chauvinistic Likud party which long strove for a Jewish state dominating both sides of the Jordan River.’ In the words of Marwan Bishara, Netanyahu is ‘the godfather of modern Israeli fascism.’
This essay focuses primarily on Hindutva, discussing Zionism mainly to highlight its similarities, links and increasing alliances with Hindutva.
The Spanish translation of original English edition of Gaza Held in Time is now available, published by Nota al margen in Spain. Copies of this publication are available here: https://www.notalmargen.com/libros/gaza-abrazada-en-el-tiempo/
«Sigo sin saber por qué amamos a Gaza. Tal vez porque nadie más lo hará. O porque dejar de amarla significaría renunciar a nosotros mismos. Ta vez nunca entienda el por qué, o bien sea algo que no necesito explicar. Quizá el amor es lo que queda cuando no queda nada. O quizá, solo quizá, no sea amor en absoluto, sino dolor. Una negativa a dejar de preocuparse, incluso cuando está en llamas. Esto no es una respuesta. Es lo que descubrí cuando empecé a preguntar. Sentir amor por Gaza no es lógico»
Le solía contar cuentos a mi hermana pequeña antes de dormir. Inventaba ciudades con árboles mágicos y bicicletas voladoras, donde la gente no se escondía bajo el hueco de la escalera ni revisaba el depósito de agua a diario, donde nadie se moría ni se suspendían las clases porque la escuela había sido bombardeada.Ella se reía y me preguntaba:
—¿De verdad, eso existe?
—Todavía no —le respondía.
Ese era el truco en Gaza. Decíamos «todavía no», en lugar de «nunca».
Porque la esperanza era lo único que no podían bombardear.
El cielo gritaba fuerte. Y sigue haciéndolo.
Ahora, en lo más hondo de mí, espero el día en que todo se quede en silencio.
Y cuando eso ocurra, alzaré la mirada, no con miedo, sino en paz.
Ese día no ha llegado.
Pero seguimos soñando.
Y seguimos viviendo.
«Busco por todas partes un cielo del que esté ausente la muerte. Estoy segura de que está ahí, cuando compruebo los callejones y las avenidas. Se dice que existe justicia bajo ese cielo. Justicia es lo que siempre he anhelado y buscado».
«¿Seguiremos durmiendo en tiendas de campaña durante años? ¿Crecerán los niños entre paredes de nailon, aprendiendo a dibujar con cenizas? ¿Qué ocurrirá cuando el mundo siga adelante —de nuevo— y los únicos que queden para recordar este horror sean quienes no pudieron huir de él?».
«si dejo de escribir, / el silencio escribirá en mi lugar. / Y temo lo que pueda contar».
In Partitions of the Heart: Unmaking the Idea of India, human rights and peace worker Harsh Mander takes stock of whether the republic has upheld the values it set out to achieve and offers painful, unsparing insight into the contours of hate violence. Through vivid stories from his own work, Mander shows that hate speech, communal propaganda and vigilante violence are mounting a fearsome climate of dread, that targeted crime is systematically fracturing our community, and that the damage to the country’s social fabric may be irreparable. At the same time, he argues that hate can indeed be fought, but only with solidarity, reconciliation and love, and when all of these are founded on fairness.
‘At last a book that turns a powerful searchlight on the evil tide of hatred and violence stalking our country, where our minorities live in fear, and Muslims among us are killed under a government that has declared war on Islam.’ —Nayantara Sahgal, journalist, author of Day of Reckoning: Stories (2015).
‘Harsh Mander’s is the voice of Kabir come alive in our violent times. We can hear it to our redemption, ignore it to our peril.’ —Gopalkrishna Gandhi, former administrator and diplomat, Governor of West Bengal 2004-2009
This book is absolutely mandatory reading. You owe it to the much-vaunted “motherland” which is being abused so shamelessly.’—Kiran Nagarkar, novelist, playwright, film critic and screenwriter.
This is a Bengali translation of Hindutva and its relationship with Zionism, by Amrit Wilson: ISBN 978-1-990263-76-7. Written in December 2022, this text is based on a lecture given earlier at the invitation of the Institute of Palestine Studies. Since then, the relationship between Israel and India has deepened further and atrocities have skyrocketed in both countries. On 5 April 2023, Israeli forces stormed Al Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem and attacked worshippers inside. At the same time, Israel is facing internal turmoil in a battle between a diverse group, including those who think the current settler colony is a democratic nation and want things to remain as they are, and those who stand even further to the right. Significantly, the BJP, India’s ruling party, supports the latter. This book is about Hindutva, the ideology which drives the Hindu-supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Zionism, the ideology of the Israeli apartheid state. In this era of rising fascism, these two remarkably similar ideologies are crucially important in cementing the economic and military alliance between two of the world’s most repressive right-wing states – while helping to legitimize them in cultural arenas. Israel is, of course, a settler colonial state, but it is also, like India, a fascist state, not only because of ‘the extremist parties that [are] part of the government’ but also because of ‘their enablers – Netanyahu and his chauvinistic Likud party which long strove for a Jewish state dominating both sides of the Jordan River.’ In the words of Marwan Bishara, Netanyahu is ‘the godfather of modern Israeli fascism.’ This essay focuses primarily on Hindutva, discussing Zionism mainly to highlight its similarities, links and increasing alliances with Hindutva.
Since the start of the unfolding genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, carried out through settler-colonial Israeli violence, higher education institutions have been systematically destroyed. Campuses lie in ruins, academics and students have been killed or forcibly displaced, and what was once a thriving, intellectually vibrant student population now lives under daily threat of bombardment, forced starvation, and death. For nearly two years, students have been cut off not only from their universities, but from their dreams, their futures, and even their most basic sense of safety.
Yet, despite this unimaginable trauma, many are still writing.
We Are Still Here is an anthology of these voices—raw, unfiltered, and courageous. It features short and long stories, poems, essays, and testimonies written by students from Gaza’s universities. These are not retrospective reflections or distant analyses; they are real-time words, emerging from the depths of genocide, displacement, and grief. These writings may be their last hopes to reach the world, a final act of resistance through expression.

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All royalties from the sales of this book go to the student authors in Gaza.
Surviving at the darkest extremes of suffering, of destruction and displacement, famine and the constant threat of maiming or death, these young writers speak to us with piercing lucidity. Their resilience is their only form of optimism. Paradoxically, reading them lifts the heart.
– Ian McEwan, author of Atonement and Enduring Love
A moving, painful and yet hopeful collection of the younger generation of the people of Gaza. Sumud, resilience, was never so powerful and clear, as it appears in this must read and urgent collection. —Ilan Pappé, professor, University of Exeter’s College of Social Sciences and International Studies, author, A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict
In the heart of suffering, words are born — and from beneath the rubble, creativity rises. This book is more than a collection of written pages; it is the echo of resilient souls and the cries of pens that spoke when voices were silenced. — Professor Dr. Omar Kh. Melad, President of Al-Azhar University– Gaza
We Are Still Here is not a book about war — it is a book about being alive after the world has decided you are already gone, written in rooms that may no longer stand. These pages are dispatches from the thin edge of the present: letters from hunger, fragments of interrupted lives, flashes of hope so unyielding it burns. Here, young people shape the record of their time on earth, knowing that their time may be short. You will not leave this book with the comfort of closure. It will stay with you long after the final page has turned. — Leila Sansour, filmmaker and founder of Open Bethlehem
These Gaza poignant reflections in prose and poetry from the midst of genocide are both heart-rending and full of life and promise. Israel may have physically killed many of their young authors, but will never kill their words, which live on in this powerful collection of their writings. — Ghada Karmi.
Death is not an ideation for these young writers, but an everyday reality. This collection is a testimony to the power of words. It reveals how love, creativity and hope can galvanise us against fear and inaction. — Selma Dabbagh, author of the novel Out of It and editor of the anthology We Wrote in Symbols; Love and Lust by Arab Women Writers.
Sara Alkhaldy, one of the contributors to We Are Still Here, a new Gazan anthology of student writing, says: ‘I wish I could bottle the scent of our home and take it with me as I left.’ Rula Elkhair writes of studying during displacement: ‘Even in places with no electricity, no water and no stable internet, I installed an eSIM on my phone and climbed to the rooftop under buzzing drones to download lectures. I took exams in cafés by the sea. I studied while hungry, while afraid, while grieving.’ — Selma Dabbagh in London Review of BooksKnowledge of the Relevant Facts
You can find the French language edition here: Nous Sommes Toujours Là
Beside the Sickle Moon is near future literary activism based on Israel’s occupation of Palestine. The story tells a first person narrative through Laeth Awad, a Palestinian who lives above his convenience store experiencing days pass through smoke clouds with his cousin Aylul. One night upon returning to their village from Ramallah they encounter an Israeli checkpoint within the buffer zone that hadn’t been there before. It isn’t long until the two stumble upon Israel’s plans to construct a luxury hotel for incoming settlers, Ma’al Luz. Demolition crews and military personnel are due to fulfill this contract in the months to come and with them as overseer is the infamous Meir Cohen, a Mossad operative who played a key role in the fall of Gaza.
Aylul believes from their father, an Al Qassam militant who died in the battle for Jericho, that only the threat of annihilation breeds the best of human action. They use their contacts to connect with the factions, who grant them strength to defend their village from occupation. With these resources in hand Aylul forms Al Mubarizun, a group crowning themselves Palestine’s final resistance.
Laeth doubts the existence of a future, lost in philosophical ambivalence as he tries to follow his cousin into the depths of guerrilla warfare. He questions the futility of resistance when all former allies have normalized relations with Israel. And what of the innocents on the other side of the Wall who had no say in where they were born? Though a minority of the population, he is not alone in this sentiment. Palestinian youth begin to empathize with this logic enough to create a new social movement, the Forgotten Ones. Coining the derogatory term that their critics slung, the NGO advocates for a peaceful transition to Israel’s colonization where most Palestinians hear whimpers of surrender.
Set in a hauntingly plausible future, where Israel has marked a century of Palestinian occupation … As a novel of the future, Beside the Sickle Moon is, unsurprisingly, preoccupied with temporality, attempting to reconcile the vastness of macro-historical events with the immediacy of everyday life. … One of the most chilling features of Husien’s novel as history is the world’s renewed abandonment of Palestine. In a future of systemic global crisis, nations have closed ranks and shut their eyes. Israeli mines run on the slave labor of Palestinian captives, and refugee camps have become invisibilized death zones … — Londiwe Gamedze https://africasacountry.com/2024/11/reading-the-present-as-history
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