We Must Continue Bearing Witness to Israel's Monstrousness

The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.

It’s a great quote, often attributed to Marxist philosopher Antonio Gransci. The line been used rhetorically to great effect many times over the years, most recently at a June 18 rally by New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, who was addressing the use of dark money in primary elections. 

Mamdani’s point was clear in context: that it is monstrous for groups such as AIPAC to hide behind dark money to fund candidates who support Israel’s genocide; and that a new political world - free of elections bought and paid for by the millions of Super Pacs  -  was struggling to be born.

Inevitably, the wrath of the Jewish establishment busted out and rained down upon Mamdani for his rank "antisemitism." Of course, AIPAC is not a Jewish group and of course Israel advocates are not uniformly Jewish. But of course these truths didn't stop the ADL office of New York/New Jersey from blustering on Twitter/X: 

Referring to members of the Jewish community who advocate for causes they care about as “monsters” wielding “dark money” is shockingly offensive and unacceptable for a mayor who claims to represent all New Yorkers. This is not about political disagreement, it is about crossing a dangerous line by invoking dehumanizing and conspiratorial rhetoric with a long and troubling history in antisemitic tropes. We cannot allow fearmongering, conspiracy theories, or the demonization of Jews to become normalized in our public debate.

Soon ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who just can’t pass up an opportunity when it comes to Mamdani, piled on: “This is the kind of bigoted conspiracy mongering that you expect from unhinged streamers or white supremacists. It’s not the language that we should expect from the mayor whose jurisdiction suffers from the highest levels of antisemitism of any city in America.” Others, such as the ubiquitous Alan Dershowitz, also joined in the fray (I’ll spare you the link on that one).

To his credit, however, Mayor Mamdani, didn’t back down; in fact he leaned in and named the monster directly: “I want to be very clear: We’re talking about a status quo where children are being killed on a daily basis.” 

I found this particular back and forth telling for a number of reasons. It’s the latest dramatic example that an upcoming movement of leftist Democratic politicians is unwilling to toe the party line on Palestine/Israel. To judge by the recent victory of Mamdani-endorsed candidates in the New York Democratic primaries, it also seems clear that they're utterly unafraid of the disingenuous accusations of antisemitism coming from professional Israel advocates.

I have no doubt that as a politician, Mamdani still calculates the political cost-benefit of the words he chooses to speak. But politics or no politics, it was a profound act of public truth-telling. No, it's not antisemitic to say so - in fact it needs to be said out loud and often: Israel is committing monstrous acts every single day. 

On the same day as Mamdani’s press conference, in fact, a UN commission of inquiry released a report determining that Israel continues to commit genocide by deliberately targeting Palestinian children in Gaza. While the report deserves to be read in its entirety and shared widely, I’ll just highlight this one quote from a volunteer doctor:

Based on the clustering of injuries and the targeted body parts, I assess that the Israeli soldiers have been deliberately shooting teenage boys in a game of target practice – a different body part being targeted on different days… There is a very clear pattern that suggests this is a deliberate aiming of different body parts [of children].

Tragically, this latest UN commission report only updates what we’ve long known. It is not news that Israel is committing a genocide - nor should it be considered a revelation that Israel is killing children on purpose. Over a year ago, I did a deep dive into this subject, eventually writing an article for Truthout that highlighted the compelling evidence that children were deliberately being targeted by the Israeli military in Gaza:

For Israel’s supporters, it is even more unthinkable to face the increasing evidence that the Israeli military might well be intentionally targeting children for mass murder. A recent Al Jazeera “Fault Lines” documentary, “Kids Under Fire,” makes a compelling case for this claim, with extensive eyewitness interviews with volunteer American health care workers and human rights experts. Their accounts, corroborated across hospitals and over time, suggest a systematic pattern: increasing numbers of child victims were not injured as a result of bombing raids, but of direct gunshot wounds, often to the head. One of the doctors interviewed in the film, Tammy Abughnaim, an American emergency physician from Chicago, commented:

"More and more, I started to see children with penetrating injuries like gunshot wounds. After five, six, seven, eight, I came to the realization that somebody is shooting children. I didn’t want to believe that children were being shot. Nobody wants to believe that. Nobody wants to think that other humans are capable of annihilating children in that way."

Abughnaim’s testimony is corroborated in the film by Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic surgeon from North Carolina: “The target at the end of a scope is unmistakable. They are a young human being, and when that trigger gets pulled on that target, it is not by accident. At all. Ever.”

At one point, the interviewer asked Miranda Cleland of Defense for Children International – Palestine, “How you ever thought through ‘what’s the strategic reason to shoot a child? What message should we take from a military that would target children?’” Cleland’s reply: “I’ve thought about it a lot and the only conclusion I can come to is that Israeli soldiers are shooting Palestinian children because they want to. And I think they do it because they are allowed to and nobody has stopped them.”

Nabeel Rana, a vascular surgeon from Peoria, Illinois, put a finer point on it: “You’re wiping out a certain number, maiming a certain number and permanently mentally and emotionally disabling the rest. And that’s going to be passed down to the next generation. So, this is how you cripple a society.”

As centuries of state violence against oppressed communities have long demonstrated, the most direct way to undermine and even eradicate a society is to target its children. In December 2024, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) released a report, “Generation Wiped Out: Gaza’s Children in the Crosshairs of Genocide,” examining Israel’s crime of genocide against Gazans, including the genocide of children. The PCHR report concluded:

"The killing of children, infliction of serious physical and mental harm, and subjection to harsh living conditions that destroy their lives cannot be dismissed as mere collateral damage of military attacks. Instead, these actions are part of a systematic strategy aimed at erasing Palestinian identity and annihilating future generations."

There are ominous indications that this annihilation is well underway. A Reuters analysis of data from the Gaza Health Ministry revealed that at least 1,238 families — defined as married couples and any children they might have — have been totally erased, with no survivors. In an AP article on this issue last year, Omar Shabaan, a Gazan researcher and economist, observed that of Gaza’s 400,000 families, none have been spared, causing permanent harm to Gaza’s society, history and future. “It is becoming clear,” he said, “that this is a targeting of the social structure.”

I still remember how I felt when I wrote this article. I remember the monstrous findings of the reports I researched and cited. I remember the devastated feeling of finishing the article and just going on with my life. And I remember that sinking moment when I realized that sharing this monstrousness with the world would make no difference whatsoever. If a new world was struggling to be born, it certainly wouldn't matter one iota to the devastated families forced to live in the midst of this ongoing heinousness. 

Yes, I’m heartened that the mayor of New York City has the courage to name this monster for what it is. And I’m heartened that the candidates he endorsed celebrated their victories at parties amidst the chanting of “Free Palestine.” Whether or not it's a sign of a new world being born, we must continue to bear witness and call out Israel's monstrous acts that still continue on and on with utter impunity. 

Postscript: as I was completing my post today, this piece from Drop Site News appeared in my email box:

Eleven-year-old Ahmed Al-Raqab was playing outside his family tent pitched on Gaza’s sandy coastline in Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, on Wednesday when the Israeli missile struck, killing him and severely wounding several others.

“The children were playing and they fired a missile directly on them,” Ahmed’s father, Sabri Al-Raqab, said, sobbing as he knelt on the floor of Nasser hospital with his arms across his son’s dead body in a final embrace. “He was carrying a watermelon. What was this child’s crime? He picked up a watermelon and they fired at him. Is he a fighter? He’s not a fighter. He’s a child.”

Overcome with grief, Al-Raqab buried his face into his son’s, which was caked with blood, and wept uncontrollably. In a nearby room, a six year old child wounded in the same attack screamed in pain as blood from a gaping wound in his right eye covered his cheek and ear. He was carried into the hospital in the arms of a teenage relative who laid him down shouting, “Come attend to this boy. We are losing the boy, we are losing him.”

The child’s grandfather, Ahmed Al-Jarjawi, stood nearby, the front of his jalabiya stained deep red with blood. “We were just sitting and the strike landed next to the our tent and hit three other tents,” Ahmed Al-Jarjawi told Drop Site News. “This child lost his eye. I was wounded here,” he said pointing to his chest. “My son’s wife was also wounded in the upper part of her leg.”

In this time of monsters, I pray that it is not too late for a new world to be born.