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✌🏾Quote of the week:
“If you can make it in the room, but your morals and beliefs cannot, you have not gained power, power has gained you.”
~ Nina Turner
🤔 This week’s topic:
The Politics of Ethics Has Already Won
In recent history, political power has been torn between two philosophical viewpoints: the cynical pragmatism of Machiavelli and the ethical idealism of Plato. One rooted in self-interest, the other in justice and the common good. Today, we are witnessing the final resolution of this debate: the politics of ethics has won, even if many have yet to realize it. Even as the politics of interests clings desperately to its last gasps, the foundation of our global systems has already shifted.
When the United Nations was established in 1945, it represented a radical break from the ruthless self-interest that had led to world wars, slavery and colonial exploitation. The UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights established human dignity, justice, and equality as bare minimum universal standards. And today, human rights are the baseline for how we measure political legitimacy worldwide. Yes, I say this in spite of of Israel’s genocidal delusion that Palestinians, alone, are not covered by these universally agreed human standards.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed how much political leaders, guided by narrow interests and financial entanglements with drug companies and research labs, had already lost public trust. But power corrupts and so instead of looking for ways to regain trust, the powerful censored curiosity, shut down open debate, silenced critical voices, and used fear to manage the public—leading to a colossal collapse in trust and an epic failure that cost millions of lives.
The ongoing climate emergency is another example. Climate change doesn’t respect borders; it’s a global crisis that demands a collective response. Yet, the politics of interests has consistently prioritized profit and short-term gains over long-term sustainability. The planet gets hotter and sea levels continue to rise, as major powers like the U.S. and China remain deadlocked, simply because we refuse to pay our climate debt. The public sees very clearly that we must build a politics that recognizes our interconnectedness.
And what of the genocide in Palestine? Those of us who choose to look see very clearly that the capitalist politics of interests has caused unspeakable harm; we watch the massacres unfold in real-time. For decades, geopolitical calculations, military alliances, hegemonic ideologies, and economic deals have taken precedence over Palestinian lives. But the world is waking up. With every video, with every tweet, and with every post, people are seeing the immoral reality we’ve created - and people are seeing that a politics of ethics is the only viable way forward.
Regardless of all the efforts to distract us with questions like "Would you really prefer Trump?" or whether we need to take such a hardline on Gaza, the undeniable horror of what we’re witnessing is forcing us to think. The internet has globalized our consciousness, connecting voices across borders and pushing us toward new forms of solidarity. The ethics-based politics that decolonial thinkers like Frantz Fanon and others envisioned is becoming a reality as diverse voices demand justice and equity. The multitude is emerging, rising and learning new ways to reshape the world.
And so here we find ourselves, existing in the moment just beyond the crossroads, watching as the politics of interests, an outdated relic of capitalist greed and colonial power, is dismantled by a new global demand.
📚 This week’s reads:
Two historic California reparations bills stall out — sparing Gov. Newsom a tough political call
The California task force did an incredible job making the argument for reparations. For those of you who have not yet taken a deep dive, now is a perfect time. One of my key takeaways from my trip to the West Bank was that Palestinians learned from the Civil Rights movement and didn’t like the results. In spite of the movement, Black Americans were left as a “permanent underclass.” And the sad fact of the matter is that there is simply no way to solve this problem without systemic interventions like reparations. As the task force highlighted, reparations are a crucial tool that has been used in other contexts of historical injustice, such as Holocaust reparations and compensation for Japanese Americans interned during World War II. The absence of such tools for Black Americans means that we will remain a permanent underclass. This will be true with or without another Black president.
At the current pace it will take Black men more than another 225 years to achieve pay equity with white men. The wealth gap has only grown in the “post-racial” years. The problem will remain invisible to the majority of white Americans except for brief moments like the murder of George Floyd. Even when these moments generate sympathy or outrage, they are not enough to shift the structures that perpetuate this ongoing injustice. Black inequality is a nearly impossible to solve problem - in large part because it’s only a “problem” for Blacks.
The reality that years were spent researching the problem in California, a 1000 page document was produced, and legislation was written, but potentially transformative change crashed and burned in a matter of hours is not that surprising. The issue is complex: is it better or worse to get a veto from the governor? Will some direct cash payments to descendants in some states be meaningful enough to repair some economic damage? Will insufficient repair only deepen the problem?
“Burgess noted that the other reparations measures passed by the Black Caucus could benefit all Californians and are not explicitly aimed at those harmed by slavery. One of Bradford’s bills that did make it to the governor’s desk would establish a means of restoring property seized in race-based uses of eminent domain.
Advocates also discussed the need to maintain momentum for reparations measures as public enthusiasm for racial justice wanes.”
Shin Bet reveals 21,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails
There’s some confusion over the number of Palestinian hostages held by Israel. I’ve had a hard time figuring out an approximate number because sometimes articles refer to hostages taken since 10/7 and other times hostages in the West Bank only. The numbers are also fuzzy because there are questions as to whether an individual was taken hostage or died under the rubble from the bombings. But now we have Israel’s own number: 21,000. I do not think we should continue calling them “prisoners” euphemistically. Very few have been charged with any crime, they have not been convicted even by any kangaroo court, and they are held indefinitely - often without their families knowing where they are. They are widely tortured and when they are released, they look nothing like they looked when they were captured.
The Shin Bet chief goes on to say in his letter that now – after several months of war – the current number of incarcerated people stands at 21,000, despite prison capacity allowing for no more than 14,500.
It was previously assumed that around 9,000 to 10,000 Palestinians were detained across Israeli prisons.
Testing the boundaries for ethnic cleansing in the West Bank
While Gaza is still most urgent, the West Bank, where there is no Hamas, demonstrates that Israel is serious about its stated goals and that only military force will stop this genocide and the annexation of the West Bank. Israel has received the message that we will do nothing about its apartheid regime. They have studied our society. They have studied South Africa. They know what they are doing.
There is a pretense of novelty in Israel’s most recent offensive in the West Bank, which it has glibly called “Operation Summer Camps.” Even before it began, Israel announced that the operation was the most wide-ranging invasion of the West Bank since 2002. What is most striking about this framing is the charade that each new operation represents a fresh response to an emerging threat. In truth, these actions are part of a continuous, unbroken chain of suppression and a bloody impulse through which Israel exercises its power to kill and arrest, all the while undergirded by a continuous desire to see Palestinians disappear.
🔔 Other links to explore:
I’m really enjoying reading ‘s Substack essays. He’s a “Zionism-free” Israeli Arab-Jew. He provides some profound and personal reflections on the experience of an Israeli losing home in his “leaving Israel” series.
Pew Research has done a study and found not surprisingly that Many Israelis say social media content about the Israel-Hamas war should be censored
But we got a win from Meta: “From the River to the Sea” Should Not Be Automatically Removed from Meta’s Platforms, Oversight Board Says I guess we will have to wait to see what Congress does.
A welcome perspective: I’m a college President and I hope my campus is even more political this year
There was an incident a week or so ago at Arena Books in Dumbo where an event was cancelled to avoid platforming a Zionist rabbi. I stumbled upon it while reading Haaretz. Peter Bienart discusses his reasons for disagreeing with cancelling the event in this video. Readers present some alternative views that he shares toward the bottom of this post. I’m pretty much a free speech absolutist. Without dialogue, nothing can change. Sometimes dialogue doesn’t make a difference.
We’ve heard about the ideologically driven repression tactics colleges are using to shutdown dissent on the genocide, but what about K-12: The war on Palestine within U.S. education isn’t just happening in colleges, but in K-12 schools as well
Ultimately a hopeful take that made me reflect on the time horizon we have to be prepared for in this struggle: The Israel Lobby's Demise & The Future of Gaza (w/ Ilan Pappé) It will take time. But we will win.
The kids are back in school and already making “good trouble”:
Thanks for reading! See you next week!
Thank you Pamela, for this comprehensive, well-written and informative post!