Bookmarked

In 1780, Congress listened to a message from across the world describing how the Muslim rulers of The Kingdom of Mysore in India, were beating the British in battle. While George Washington was struggling to hold the line, Sultan Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan, nicknamed The Tiger of Mysore, were scoring victories that inspired the founding fathers and weakened the British Empire.

Here was a woman who had lived through a dictatorship, been through three marriages, and built a brilliant career in a relentlessly male-dominated field. And she was happy. I met Alexandra Bellow for the first time at the University of Chicago’s exclusive Quadrangle Club. She must have been eighty-four years old. I was twenty-nine.

Israel uses the dead to attack the living. The surgeon runs a scalpel from sternum to pubis in a smooth, single motion. They cut through and through until flesh gives, and chest and abdomen splay, revealing lungs, liver, the diaphragm separating them, and a heart that’s stopped beating.

Since October 2023, Israel has shifted its policy toward the Palestinians. Its military onslaught on Gaza, underway for more than 21 months, has included mass killing, both directly and through creating unlivable conditions, serious bodily or mental harm to an entire population, decimation of basic infrastructure throughout the Strip, and forcible displacement on a huge scale, with ethnic cleansing added to the list of official war objectives.