 On Mamdani’s victory, the seductions of institutional power, and how to turn City Hall into a laboratory of resistance
By Dyab Abou Jahjah Today I came across several posts quoting Leonard Cohen’s line, “First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.” It’s an understandable reflex — that lyric feels made for this moment, a poetic shorthand for triumph at the heart of empire. I thought of it too, the instant Mamdani clinched the mayoral race. Cohen’s political poetry has always fascinated me, and I’ve often written about itt. But what lingers with me now is a quieter line from the same song: “They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom / for trying to change the system from within.”
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 Dyab Abou Jahjah
Now that the killing has paused in Gaza, we must be even sharper than before. The first question we must ask is simple yet decisive: has the genocide ended?  By Dyab Abou Jahjah
As the world holds its breath to see whether Israel will respect the deal brokered by Donald Trump — a deal that could at least pause the genocide in its direct killing form — many are asking an uncomfortable question: Is this a capitulation? Should the Palestinian resistance not continue fighting?  Dyab Abou Jahjah
What happened at the United Nations yesterday during Netanyahu’s speech was good, yes. That walkout sent a message of condemnation and rejection, and such a message was needed — but it was needed two years ago. It was needed in mid-October 2023, when the intent to commit genocide was already crystal clear, when Israel’s leaders were declaring their plans openly, when the massacres had already begun and the possibility of halting them before they unfolded into full-scale genocide was still real. At that moment, a decisive international stand could have made a difference. But now, two years into a genocide that has annihilated tens of thousands of lives and reduced Gaza to rubble, symbolic gestures like walking out of a speech feel hollow, insufficient, and tragically out of time. They ring as echoes in a chamber that should have been filled with urgent action, not belated symbolism.  By Dyab Abou Jahjah
Today, we filed a criminal complaint in Greece against Naor Shlomo Dadon, an Israeli soldier from the Givati Brigade’s 432nd Battalion. He documented his role in the destruction of Gaza — torching schools, posing proudly on ruins, grilling meat amid starvation. Now he’s enjoying a “healing retreat” in the Greek mountains. Let that sink in.  By Dyab Abou Jahjah
International law was never born as a universal covenant. It was crafted in the aftermath of war, but its vocation was always political: a tool to punish the defeated and restrain the unruly, never to bind the powerful. The Third World learned this early. Colonial wars raged, coups were sponsored, entire nations were starved — and the law remained silent, or worse, complicit.  On this very spot, nearly 50 years ago—perhaps in 1975—I sat with my mother under the shade of a fig tree at the entrance of this house. I was only four years old. Suddenly, helicopters roared through the sky, and my mother, her voice trembling with fear, said, “Dyab, we need to get inside. It’s dangerous.” At that age, I didn’t understand much, only that something monstrous—something my mother called Israel—was in the sky, firing on people below.
 Herman Brusselmans, a Belgian writer renowned for his provocative and controversial style, is currently facing an intense backlash led by an Israeli campaign. Brusselmans, who writes novels and litterary columns, is known for his use of extreme and shocking statements and imagery in his work.
 Since this genocide started, I've been having regular nightmares about losing my children. In my dreams, they fall off cliffs, down stairs, and I wake up in panic. However, the worst nightmares are those I see with my own eyes on my cellphone every day. Children are being murdered daily, fathers are carrying the lifeless bodies of their children. Many times, I've pondered how death might be an easier price to pay for such a father.
 By Dyab Abou Jahjah
First some general context: Gaza is an open-air prison where Palestinians have been collectively incarcerated for 17 years. See here. Every two years or so, Israel commits mass slaughter in Gaza. Even when Palestinians choose to protest non-violently against the blockade. See here. The majority of Gaza's residents (86%) are refugees ethnically cleansed by Israel from towns around the Gaza Strip. See here. Jewish settlers now live in these towns amid green oases, overlooking the walls of the open-air Gaza prison. This is part of Israel's ongoing colonisation and military occupation of Palestine, which has now continued for more than 75 years. To have an idea, see here So what did really happen on the 7th of October 2023? |
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