Contributing Writers

A free speech battle is playing out on college campuses, as students, professors and others advocating for Palestinian rights across the United States are facing racist attacks and retaliation that threaten their safety and livelihoods. These attacks aim to suppress criticism of Israel and U.S. support of its actions in Gaza. This comes as the U.S. Senate has unanimously passed a resolution “condemning Hamas and antisemitic student activities on college campuses.

According to the latest update from the Israeli military, Hamas is still holding at least 229 hostages captured during its October 7 incursion into southern Israel. The group has stated that they will not release all hostages until Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza. To discuss the release thus far of four hostages and prospects for future releases, we speak to Gershon Baskin, who helped negotiate a critical hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas in 2011.

Palestinian poet Ahmed Abu Artema was seriously injured in an Israeli airstrike on October 24 that also killed five members of his family, including his 12-year-old son. Artema helped inspire the Great March of Return, a series of nonviolent protests in Gaza starting in 2018 when thousands of Palestinians marched to the militarized fence separating them from their ancestral homes inside Israel, braving deadly Israeli sniper fire that killed hundreds and injured thousands more.

UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestine refugees, says it is close to running out of supplies in Gaza, where it is sheltering over 600,000 displaced Palestinians. Israel has claimed that they cannot allow fuel to enter the besieged territory because of the supposed risk of it being appropriated by Hamas.

Democracy Now! co-host Juan González discusses his new report on “The Current Migrant Crisis,” about how U.S. policy toward Latin America has fueled historic numbers of asylum seekers. He argues U.S. “economic warfare” against countries like Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela is what motivates many migrants to risk the journey north. “We’re seeing this enormous increase from these three countries.

We speak with philosopher Judith Butler, one of dozens of Jewish American writers and artists who signed an open letter to President Biden calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. “We should all be standing up and objecting and calling for an end to genocide,” says Butler of the Israeli assault. “Until Palestine is free … we will continue to see violence. We will continue to see this structural violence producing this kind of resistance.

Palestinian diplomat and scholar Hanan Ashrawi joins us from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and says the unfolding catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli bombardment has killed over 7,000 people so far, is equally the fault of the United States. “The U.S. is certainly a partner in crime with Israel,” says Ashrawi, noting that the bombs raining down on Gaza right now are largely produced in and paid for by the U.S.

We speak with Al Jazeera correspondent Youmna ElSayed in Gaza, where an Israeli airstrike killed the family of the news outlet’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh on Wednesday. The Qatar-based news network is one of the few international outlets with reporters in Gaza. The Israeli strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp killed at least 25 in total, and Dahdouh had fled to the refugee camp with his family after Israel ordered residents of northern Gaza to vacate their homes.

Democracy Now! co-host Juan González discusses his new report on “The Current Migrant Crisis,” about how U.S. policy toward Latin America has fueled historic numbers of asylum seekers. He argues U.S. “economic warfare” against countries like Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela is what motivates many migrants to risk the journey north. “We’re seeing this enormous increase from these three countries.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen says a ceasefire is desperately needed in Gaza, where Israeli bombardment has killed more than 6,500 Palestinians since October 7. “Wars lead to an ‘us vs. them’ mentality: ‘We are good, they are evil,’” he says.

We are joined by the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen to discuss his new book, A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, a History, a Memorial. Last week the 92NY, a major cultural institution in New York City, canceled an event with Nguyen after he joined 750+ writers in signing an open letter calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. His memoir explores his family’s personal history as refugees from Vietnam dealing with the impacts of U.S. imperialism.

Despite growing international condemnation, Israel has rejected calls for a ceasefire of its continued assault on Gaza. “Israeli forces carried out indiscriminate attacks, killing and injuring civilians, and in some cases that we documented, … entire families were wiped out,” says Amnesty International researcher Budour Hassan, who shares testimonies of Gazans from a new report on Israeli war crimes.

We speak with Noy Katsman, whose brother Hayim Katsman was a peace activist killed by Hamas militants in the village of Holit on October 7, about how they are demanding the death of their sibling not be used as a pretext for more bloodshed. “What Israel is doing now is very clearly not for the security of anyone,” Katsman says of the bombing campaign. “The real reason is just revenge and killing and distraction [from] the failure of Israel to protect its citizens.