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gaza genocide
What My Jewish Family’s Holocaust Experience Teaches Me About an Appalachian Mamdani
Sam Rasoul, a Palestinian-American State Legislator in Virginia, campaigns on affordability amid false charges of anti-Semitism.
Oct 31, 2025
In 2019, I visited my ancestral home in a small town in northwestern Germany named Prussian Oldendorf. Through genealogical research, I had learned that my Jewish ancestors—I am 100% Ashkenazi Jew genetically, as well as a proud Jew by upbringing and choice—had lived there for centuries, until my great-great-grandmother, Rosalie Cahen, a single mother with six children, fled persecution by the German authorities and immigrated to America in 1859.
I had read that there was a Jewish cemetery just outside of town that had been made intentionally hard to find because neo-Nazis had desecrated it in the 1980s. I found the cemetery and saw that many of the gravestones were my direct ancestors with the last name of Cahen, my mother’s maiden name. I also found the gravesite for Philipp Cahen, Rosalie’s husband and my great-great-grandfather.
Additionally, with the help of an old college friend from Germany who lives close to Prussian Oldendorf and who did much of the research necessary to make my visit possible, I found the retired pastor of the town’s 500-year-old Lutheran church who had restored the Jewish cemetery after its desecration. The pastor, who had protected and maintained the cemetery for decades, had come to Prussian Oldendorf at the end of World War II, having fled the Red Army as it rolled west as part of the destruction of the Third Reich. The pastor told me he had spoken out—to the great dismay of many of his parishioners—about how the townsfolk had remained silent during the Holocaust as their Jewish neighbors were disappeared.
According to the pastor, every single Jew in that town—save for one—was sent to the extermination camps and murdered by the Nazis.
As I was getting ready to leave Prussian Oldendorf, I walked past the Lutheran church, and something caught my eye on the ground.
There were small square stones, which I later learned were known across Europe as Stolpersteine or stumbling stones, embedded in the cobblestone courtyard surrounding the church. Inscribed upon the stumbling stones were the names of the townsfolk who were sent to the camps, when they had died, and the names of the camps.
Treblinka
Terezin
Sobibor
Auschwitz
Many of those stumbling stones bore our family name, Cahen.
Seeing these stones, I crumbled to the ground and cried, right there outside the church. When I was finally able to compose myself, I did two things. First, I quietly cursed the monsters who committed these atrocities: “You bastards.”
And then I thanked my great-great-grandmother Rosalie for having had the courage to leave some 80 years before the Holocaust because, if she had stayed, her descendants surely would have been exterminated. Suddenly, the old saying, “There but for the grace of God go I,” had a special and very tangible resonance.
Which brings me to Sam Rasoul, a proud Palestinian-American state legislator who has represented southwestern Virginia and Roanoke City in the Virginia General Assembly since 2014. Like Zohran Mamdani, a fellow Muslim state legislator who is campaigning on a platform of affordability for working people and who is poised to become the next Mayor of New York City, Rasoul leans into speaking out against injustices, including in Palestine. However, he does so not because he is Muslim nor because of his Palestinian heritage—he speaks out because he believes in intersectional justice for all, as evidenced by his work for the communities he represents.
As Rasoul puts it:
In my 11 years in the General Assembly, I have worked to lower healthcare costs, pushed for intersectional justice through a Green New Deal, advanced the socioemotional health of our children, fought to raise teacher pay to the national average, and advocated for good government in limiting the influence of special interests in our government.
I have worked closely with Delegate Rasoul for almost 10 years in environmental justice fights in Virginia that he has helped to foster and lead, most particularly the fight to save the historic African American community of Union Hill in Buckingham County. Union Hill was under assault by Dominion Energy, the state’s monopoly utility company, which wanted to build a massive pipeline compressor station there as part of the now-cancelled Atlantic Coast Pipeline. That fight was won through a relentless coalition-building campaign that brought together diverse communities from across the Commonwealth, and with the help of national civil rights organizations.
Delegate Rasoul was at the forefront of what would become the winning fight to save Union Hill, and he helped bring along most of his Democratic colleagues to join that fight. During that campaign, I watched as, at first, Rasoul worked quietly behind the scenes to garner support from his colleagues in the House for Union Hill, and then as he galvanized national support for the fight, travelling out of state to meet with Karenna Gore, a prominent environmental justice advocate and the daughter of former Vice President Al Gore, also an environmental champion. Rasoul’s work complemented the work of many others, particularly those who lived in the frontline community of Union Hill, and their efforts culminated in a large rally in Buckingham County featuring former Vice President Gore and civil rights leader Rev. William Barber II.
I came to know Delegate Sam Rasoul—his given name, Salam Rasoul, means “peace messenger”—as a kind and decent family man and a relentlessly positive and inclusive politician.
Rasoul is now running for reelection, and he has been attacked by his Republican-turned-“independent” opponent as “consumed with hate,” a laughably false smear, as anyone who has actually met or knows Rasoul can attest. Some in his own party have even chimed in, citing his outspoken denunciation of what Israel has done to Gaza for the past three years.
So let me say this as directly as I can—as a proud Jew who was not only brought up in a Zionist household, but whose relatives were exterminated in one of the greatest genocides in human history.
Let me say this as someone who understands the lessons of my own family heritage, that “never again” means never again—for anyone.
Israel has committed, and continues to commit, unspeakable war crimes against innocent civilians, mostly women and children—in Gaza.
Israel has committed, and continues to commit, genocide in Gaza, and is now moving to the West Bank.
As with the Holocaust, the years that follow will show who was on the right side of history, who spoke out, and who remained silent. I believe I am on the right side of history, and many proud Jews like me are not only on the right side of history but are helping to lead the worldwide movement to stop the genocide.
Delegate Rasoul is also on the right side of history.
But Rasoul is not running for reelection in Appalachia because Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Rasoul is running so he can continue to do what he has always done: fight injustice, and deliver for the people he represents in Roanoke—on pocketbook issues, affordability, healthcare, education, utility bills, environmental justice, and more.
If Rasoul prevails on November 4, it will represent a defeat for the politics of cynicism and demonization and a victory for the politics of inclusivity and lifting up communities.
It will send a message from Appalachia and beautiful Southwest Virginia all the way to New York and Washington, DC and around the world, that denouncing a genocide is a moral imperative, born of generations of tragedy, for all communities.
Most importantly, if Rasoul wins, it will prove that “never again” truly means never again for anyone, and that we should not only tolerate, but encourage, politicians denouncing injustice while simultaneously fighting for the basic needs of the communities they represent.
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Don't Be Fooled: Trump Will Still Enable Israel's Annexation Plans
Any apparent dispute between the Americans and the Israelis concerns timing and method, not the objective itself.
Oct 30, 2025
As Israel continues its genocide of the Palestinians under the new umbrella of US President Donald Trump's "peace plan," the Americans are mounting a diplomatic campaign that feigns opposition to the Jewish settler-colony's latest moves to annex the West Bank.
To secure backing for a ceasefire in Gaza—where Israel has killed at least 88 Palestinians and injured 315 others since it took effect on October 10—Trump promised his Arab client regimes last month that he would not allow Israel to proceed with annexation, a red line they feared would ignite public anger and jeopardize Washington's broader normalization project in the region.
Israel's parliament, however, gave preliminary approval last week to two bills calling for the formal annexation of the West Bank.
Trump's vice president, JD Vance, who was in the country to help the Israelis coordinate the next phase of the Gaza genocide, described the vote as "a very stupid political stunt"—and one to which he "personally [took] some insult."
Far from opposing Israel's expansionist agenda, the Trump administration has long been integral to its realization.
In an attempt to save face with Washington's Arab clients, Trump also dispatched his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to rebuke the Israelis for their ill-timed vote. While en route to Israel, Rubio issued the administration's sternest warning yet, saying: "That's not something we can be supportive of right now"—meaning the Americans would support it later.
A week earlier, Trump struck a similar tone in an interview with Time magazine, insisting that this was not the right time for annexation: "It won't happen. It won't happen. It won't happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. And you can't do that now… Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened," he said.
The key word in these pronouncements is "now." Any apparent dispute between the Americans and the Israelis concerns timing and method, not the objective itself.
Advancing Expansionism
Far from opposing Israel's expansionist agenda, the Trump administration has long been integral to its realization.
After all, during his first term, Trump's "peace for prosperity" plan, authored by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, endorsed Israel's designs to annex 30% of the West Bank.
Under that proposal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel would move immediately to annex the Jordan Valley and West Bank settlements, while generously committing to defer the construction of new settlements in areas left to the Palestinians for at least four years.
Then-US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman signaled that Trump had green-lighted immediate annexation, stating that "Israel does not have to wait at all" and that "we will recognize it." Trump reiterated his position last February, when he justified annexation by observing: "It's a small country… it's a small country in terms of land."
It would be ludicrous to think that the Arab regimes truly believe Trump's promises. They only pretend to flatter him and play along for the sake of domestic public relations.
Indeed, and to his credit, Trump had already recognized Israel's illegal annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights in 2019, just as he recognized the illegal Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem in 2017.
Why, then, would he oppose West Bank annexation rather than simply postpone it to a more auspicious time?
In fact, the Israelis are already planning to expand beyond the West Bank, which, like East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, they already consider a done deal. They are now looking to seize more territory from their other Arab neighbors.
Just weeks ago, Netanyahu declared that he was on a "historic and spiritual mission" on behalf of the Jewish people, adding that he felt "very attached to the vision of the Promised Land and Greater Israel." This vision extends to the entire country of Jordan, as well as additional Syrian, Lebanese, Egyptian, and Iraqi lands.
Arab countries were quick to condemn Netanyahu's vision coveting their territories as future parts of Israel, just as they condemn recent Israeli moves to annex the West Bank. Yet this is little more than a pro forma performance.
The Arab regimes, following European and American orders, have in practice acquiesced de facto in every Israeli annexation since 1948—and some have even embraced them de jure, as Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Morocco, Sudan, and Bahrain did when they recognized Israel's 1949 borders, which already encompassed annexed Palestinian land.
Global legitimization
When Israel was established in 1948, it included half the area allotted by the United Nations for a Palestinian state, as well as West Jerusalem, which was meant to remain under international jurisdiction.
While the UN General Assembly, including the United Kingdom, initially insisted that Israel would only be recognized once it withdrew from these territories in accordance with the 1947 UN Partition Plan, between 1949 and 1950, the Security Council and the UK ultimately recognized the country with its new borders—expanded by conquest far beyond those contained in the 1947 UN Partition Plan—intact.
Israel initially agreed to negotiate with its Arab neighbors over the boundaries of the state, but kept the territories it occupied in violation of UN resolutions, especially those concerning its annexation of West Jerusalem in 1949. It moved its government offices there and declared the city its capital.
Israel's avarice for the land of others has always been publicly avowed and on display.
The UN, the US and all of Europe recognized Israel's annexations de facto, if not de jure, by the early 1950s, and the normalizing Arab countries followed suit in later decades.
After all, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat saw no problem in addressing Israel's parliament in annexed West Jerusalem during his 1977 visit without a word of protest.
While King Hussein never paid an official visit to West Jerusalem, as his 1994 and 1996 visits to Israel were mainly to Tel Aviv and Lake Tiberias, he did visit annexed West Jerusalem in 1995 to attend the funeral of then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and again in 1997 to meet Israeli families who had lost children when a Jordanian soldier opened fire on them.
It bears mentioning that even before signing a peace treaty with Israel in 1993, Hussein had already conceded Palestinian and Arab sovereignty not only over West Jerusalem but also over East Jerusalem, when he insisted that "only God has a claim in Jerusalem"—a statement he would reiterate many times thereafter. The Egyptian and Jordanian embassies, like those of most countries that do not recognize West Jerusalem as Israel's capital, remain in Tel Aviv.
This, however, does not mean these countries do not recognize West Jerusalem as part of Israel.
Legacy of Conquest
Lest we think that Netanyahu's recently announced Greater Israel "vision" is a peculiar obsession of his alone, it should be remembered that he has so far conquered few Arab territories and has yet to annex any—unlike his predecessors, from David Ben-Gurion to Menachem Begin, who annexed vast Palestinian and Syrian lands.
Israel's avarice for the land of others has always been publicly avowed and on display. After its 1956 invasion and first occupation of Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, Israel's founding prime minister, the secular David Ben-Gurion, waxed biblical, claiming that the invasion of Sinai "was the greatest and most glorious in the annals of our people." The conquest, he added, restored "King Solomon's patrimony from the island of Yotvat in the south to the foothills of Lebanon in the north."
"Yotvat," the name the Israelis bestowed on the Egyptian island of Tiran, had "once more become part of the Third Kingdom of Israel," Ben-Gurion proclaimed.
In the face of international opposition to Israel's occupation, he insisted: "Up to the middle of the sixth century Jewish independence was maintained on the island of Yotvat… which was liberated yesterday by the Israeli army." He also declared the Gaza Strip "an integral part of the nation." Invoking the prophecy of Isaiah, Ben-Gurion vowed: "No force, whatever it is called, was going to make Israel evacuate Sinai."
When the Israelis were finally forced to withdraw, they bided their time and invaded and occupied these areas again in 1967. Despite Israel's final withdrawal from Sinai—whose demilitarization it demanded—talk of invading and settling the Egyptian peninsula is once again in the air today.
After 1948, the Israelis proceeded with plans to steal all the land in the demilitarzsed zone (DMZ) along the Syrian border near the Golan Heights. By 1967, they had taken over the area before conquering the Golan itself.
In the first 10 months of this year, Israel expanded its illegal acquisition of Syrian territories with the acquiescence of Syria's new US-backed regime, led by the rehabilitated former al-Qaeda and Islamic State member Ahmad al-Sharaa.
The Israelis created yet another "buffer zone" on Syrian territory, and just as they did in the DMZ between 1948 and 1967, Israeli Jewish settlers last month crossed into Syrian territory to lay the cornerstone for a new settlement called Neve Habashan, or "the Oasis of Bashan," on the newly occupied Syrian territories near Jabal al-Shaykh.
They hail from Israel's Uri Tzafon "Awaken the North" movement, which aims to settle Syria and southern Lebanon, asserting religious claims to the "Bashan region"—the biblical name Jewish expansionists apply to these lands. Last year, the movement sent thousands of eviction notices to residents of Lebanese towns using balloons and drones.
While the Israeli military removed the settlers in Jabal al-Shaykh, it is only a matter of time before official Jewish settlements are established—just as they continue to be built across the Golan Heights, which Israel occupied in 1967 and annexed in 1981, the year after it annexed East Jerusalem.
Annexation Continues
In 2002, Israel built its illegal apartheid "separation wall" inside the West Bank, de facto annexing 10% of the territory, eliciting only pro forma protests from the "international" community, including the International Criminal Court.
Israel has also insisted since 1967 on annexing the Jordan Valley bordering Jordan—another 10 percent of the West Bank—a move that Trump's 2020 "peace" plan approved.
American and European acceptance, and in some cases sponsorship, of such territorial expansions is no different from their endorsement of Trump's more recent Gaza plan, which foresees Israel directly and indefinitely occupying more than half of Gaza's territory.
When Palestinians resist this international support for Israel's continued colonization, settlement, occupation, and annexation of their homeland, all these countries will feign surprise, while openly or covertly abetting the next phase of Israel's genocide.
The Arab regimes, as much as Europe and the US, know very well that Israel's annexation of the West Bank will proceed apace, even if it is tactically delayed. And this will be done with the actual blessings of the "international community"—albeit accompanied by the usual pro forma protests—with the Arab regimes (save Jordan, for its own national security reasons) at the forefront.
Rubio was explicit on this point: "At this time, it's something that we… think might be counterproductive" and "potentially threatening for the peace deal"—but clearly not at a later time, when it could be "productive" and "potentially" conducive to peace.
Indeed, the UN Human Rights Office just released a report documenting the complicity of dozens of countries—mostly European, but also Arab—in Israel's ongoing genocide. The Washington Post likewise revealed that several Arab states have upgraded their military cooperation with Israel during the genocide, including Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE.
When Palestinians resist this international support for Israel's continued colonization, settlement, occupation, and annexation of their homeland, all these countries will feign surprise, while openly or covertly abetting the next phase of Israel's genocide, just as they have done for the past two years. And as ever, they will do so in the name of "Israel's right to defend itself."
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Justice Without Exception: Palestinianism and the Global Call for Disarmament
Palestinianism insists that disarmament must extend beyond arsenals to include the dismantling of the systems that arm injustice: unchecked power, selective law, and institutional silence.
Oct 29, 2025
Each October, the United Nations observes Disarmament Week—a global call to reduce weapons, promote peace, and raise awareness about the human cost of armed conflict. Held annually from October 24 to 30, this observance invites governments, civil society, and individuals to reflect on the roots of violence and the pathways to peace. In 2025, as the world confronts escalating conflicts and humanitarian crises, the objectives of Disarmament Week resonate with renewed urgency.
This essay argues that true disarmament must dismantle not only weapons but the global systems that perpetuate impunity and selective justice. It invites reflection on how Palestinianism reframes peace—not as the absence of conflict, but as the restoration of dignity.
Palestinianism as Ethical Framework
Palestinianism has emerged as a global ethical framework. It links Palestinian resistance to struggles for justice worldwide—from South Africa’s fight against apartheid to Indigenous and anti-racist movements. It also exposes the failures of global governance, where law is bent by power, and silence becomes complicity.
Palestinianism insists that disarmament must extend beyond arsenals. It must include the dismantling of the systems that arm injustice: unchecked power, selective law, and institutional silence. In this sense, Disarmament Week is not only about reducing weapons—it is about confronting the ideologies and structures that perpetuate violence.
Systemic Violence and International Law
The war on Gaza illustrates a spectrum of violence prohibited under international humanitarian law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention. United Nations agencies and humanitarian organizations have documented patterns including indiscriminate attacks on civilians, destruction of medical facilities, targeting journalists, and denial of humanitarian aid.
Observers describe these violations in layered terms:
- Genocide: Acts that may reveal an intent to erase a people.
- Medicide: The deliberate targeting of healthcare systems and personnel, violating medical neutrality.
- Ecocide: The destruction of farmland and water systems, threatening survival and livelihoods.
- Epistemicide: The silencing of memory through attacks on journalists, schools, and archives—an attempt to erase not just lives but legacies.
These crimes are lived realities, reflecting the erosion of norms meant to safeguard humanity. They reveal what jurists call the “architecture of impunity”: a UN system paralyzed by vetoes, and a world where accountability is rationed by politics.
Expanding the Meaning of Disarmament
The integration of Palestinianism into the discourse of Disarmament Week adds new dimensions to the very definition of disarmament. It shifts the focus from weapons alone to the systems that sustain violence: impunity, silence, and structural inequality. Disarmament, in this light, becomes not only a technical goal but a moral imperative—a commitment to dismantling the conditions that allow injustice to persist. It is about restoring dignity where it has been denied, and ensuring that peace is not built on erasure, but on recognition.
Global Contradictions and the UN Mandate
Palestinianism reveals contradictions at the heart of international governance. States pledge “never again,” yet stand idle as starvation and mass displacement unfold. The International Court of Justice affirms that obligations under humanitarian law are owed to all humanity, yet enforcement remains elusive.
This gap between principle and practice is not unique to Palestine, but it is most brutally exposed there. It raises a critical question: Is international law a shield for the vulnerable, or a tool for the powerful?
Disarmament Week offers a moment to confront these contradictions. It reminds us that peace is not the absence of war—it is the presence of justice. It calls on the international community to uphold the rule of law, protect civilians, and ensure that disarmament is not selective.
Global Solidarity and Recognition
Despite paralysis at the level of great powers, civil society, universities, international organizations, and media across the globe have responded with unprecedented solidarity with the Palestinian people. Student movements have organized teach-ins, professional associations have spoken out, and grassroots campaigns have mobilized worldwide.
Global media outlets have amplified Palestinian voices, countering narratives that erase suffering or normalize occupation. A growing number of governments have also recognized the State of Palestine, affirming the right of its people to self-determination and challenging decades of diplomatic stalemate.
These developments show that Palestinianism is not confined to the Middle East. It is a transnational consciousness, affirming that justice for Palestine and Palestinians is justice for humanity.
Personal Reflection as a Health Professional
As a health professional, I have had the privilege of visiting several Palestinian refugee camps. There, I witnessed not only the daily hardships of displacement, but also the resilience of families determined to preserve dignity under the harshest conditions. Working alongside local health and social organizations, I saw how disabled refugees in particular faced compounded layers of exclusion—yet also how communities mobilized to support them with courage and creativity.
I remember a child in a wheelchair, smiling as he recited poetry in a crowded clinic. His voice was soft, but his presence was defiant—a reminder that dignity resists even in rubble.
These experiences deepened my understanding of Palestinianism as more than an abstract principle. It is lived in the bodies of children denied healthcare, in the aspirations of students studying in overcrowded classrooms, and in the perseverance of families who rebuild after every demolition. Palestinianism, for me, is therefore not only a global framework of justice and peace—it is also a lived ethic of solidarity, rooted in the faces and stories of people I had the honor to serve.
Conclusion: Justice Without Exception
Palestinianism is a call to conscience. It affirms that the denial of rights in Palestine threatens the universality of human rights and the credibility of international law.To embrace Palestinianism is to affirm justice without exception—not as a slogan, but as a standard and a criterion.
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