To our friends and comrades,

As we were putting together the 23rd edition of The New York War Crimes, rescue workers in Gaza City pulled the remains of 96 martyrs, 58 of them children, from a single site in Zeitoun that the Occupation bombed three years ago. A six-story building — damaged by bombardment — collapsed, killing 21 people. Dozens of the displaced were martyred in drone strikes.

Meanwhile, on the day he inaugurated two new settlements in the West Bank, the Israeli finance minister said that the entity needs “to go to war in Judea and Samaria, to do what we did in Gaza.” Yet the biggest story related to Palestine in the mainstream media concerned a rapper who had been dropped from a stadium tour, at the urging of a billionaire stadium owner, for saying “Free Palestine” on stage.

This was depressing. It was also a strange relief, an indication that solidarity, even at the discursive level, can still be threatening to capital and to empire. Often this is not how it feels. It feels instead like “Free Palestine” has become possible to say in direct proportion to how impossible it is to do. It is up to us to decide the slogan’s meaning. One task for the movement is to defend “our right to be effective,” as a former member of Palestine Action puts it in our featured roundtable discussion, with more rigor and fervency than we defend our rights to free speech.

Palestine is a winning cause. Many people who say the right words also seek to do the right thing. They are being misled by so-called movement leaders and political figures who are trading on that sincerity to raise money, advance their careers, and gain access to power — without ever using that power to fulfill a popular mandate.

Our responsibility is to hold these people to positions that materially advance the cause of Palestine.

The twenty-third issue of the War Crimes, published on the three-year anniversary of Al-Aqsa Flood, is a tribute to the primary fronts of struggle against Zionist extermination — Gaza, the West Bank, South Lebanon, and Iran — and to the martyrs who paid the ultimate price for their people.

This introduction was excerpted from the editors’ note for the Three Year edition of The New York War Crimes. Read the rest here.

Read the new issue of The New York War Crimes

• Poem: The Mathematics of Grief

• Interviews: Helyeh Doutaghi talks to organizers about how anti-imperialism shapes Iranian political life

• Report: The Palestinian Feminist Collective on Israel’s reality-bending inversion of victim and perpetrator

• Photo essay: Wahaj Bani Moufleh documents life in the West Bank

• Timeline: How Israel uses ‘ceasefire’ as a weapon of genocidal war

• Essay: The writer Nour Abdel Latif pens a letter to Gaza about ‘a September that resembles us’

• Roundtable: An open and honest discussion about wins, mistakes, and the tasks ahead among members of PAL-Awda, the Palestinian Feminist Collective, the former Palestine Action, the Global Sumud Flotilla, and DSA

• Testimony: ‘Our colleagues gave their lives to their people’: Mahmoud Shalha’s testament to Gaza’s journalists.

Read the full issue here.

March with us

New York City

• Hear the student movement’s demands on October 7, 4 p.m., at City Hall.

• Join the Palestinian Youth Movement and the Muslim American Society Youth Center to mark three years of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. October 9, 7:30 p.m., MAS Youth Center, Brooklyn.

• Join PYM and take the streets of NYC for the living, for the martyrs, for the land . October 10, 3 p.m., Washington Square Park.

• Join W.A.W.O.G. for a community reading of Issue 23 October 11, 7 p.m. at The Word is Change.

New Jersey

• PYM will host a benefit concert with Aya Khalaf. October 16, 7 p.m., Clifton High School. Tickets available here.

Bay Area

• Three Years of Genocide, Shipped by FedEx: Protest, October 9, 10 a.m., FedEx Shipping Center (9190 Edes Ave.), Oakland

New York War Crimes: Three Years of Genocide and Resistance Edition Launch, Distro, and Salon Pop-up

You’re invited to gather, read, and chat with us over delicious Palestinian-owned coffee! Bring your friends, homies, and comrades. Learn about The New York War Crimes, what it’s been doing for the movement to free Palestine, and how you can get involved and help us distribute the paper in the Bay Area!

• October 11, 9 a.m.–12 p.m., Grand Coffee Too (2544 Mission St.), San Francisco

• October 17, 1 a.m.–3 p.m., Children’s Memorial at Lake Merritt, Oakland

Montreal

• March for Palestine: For the Living, the Martyrs, and the Land, October 10, 2 p.m., The Ring at Place Ville Marie

Toronto

• March for Palestine: For the Living, the Martyrs, and the Land, October 10, 3 p.m., Sankofa Square

Philadelphia

• Tuesdays at Day & Zimmerman, every Tuesday at 7:15 a.m., 1835 Market

• Flood the Streets, Defend the Land, October 7, 6 p.m., Rittenhouse Square 

• Requiem for Gaza Panel Discussion & Book Signing, October 18, 5 p.m., 320 Arch St. 

• Philly WAWOG Town Hall, October 20, 6–9 p.m., Calvary Center 

• Apple Cider & Grilled Cheese for Gaza, October 25, 3 p.m., Clark Park 

Oklahoma

• Honoring Our Martyrs: Art Demo & Maghrib Prayer, October 7, 6 p.m., North Oval at OU

Austin

• Three Years of Genocide, Three Years of Resistance: Vigil, October 7, 6 p.m., South Mall Lawn at UT-Austin

• Three Years of Genocide: Community Gathering, October 17, 4:30 p.m., Nelson Ranch Park (905 Nelson Ranch Rd.)

College Station

• Three Years of Genocide, Three Years of Resistance: Week of Action, October 5–October 9

Dallas–Fort Worth

• Three Years of Genocide, Three Years of Resistance: Popular University, October 7, 10 a.m., North Lawn at University of North Texas

• UTD Cut Ties with Occupation: Town Hall Meeting, October 8, 6 p.m.

• Three Years of Genocide: March for Palestine, October 11, 1 p.m., Civic Garden Park (1014 Main St.)

• A Tribute to Gaza: Three Years of Genocide, October 24, 5:30 p.m., Lifta Society (701 Belt Line Rd.)

Houston

• Banner Drop for Palestine: For the Living, the Martyrs, and the Land, October 9, 5 p.m., 4502 Dunlavy St.

• Houston Arms Embargo Community Meeting, October 19, 6:30 p.m., 33080 Garrow St.

San Antonio

• Three Years of Genocide: March for Palestine, October 10, 12 p.m., Travis Park (301 E. Travis St.)

Tyler

• Three Years of Genocide, and 78 Years of Resistance: Week of Action, October 6–October 9, UT-Tyler

Orlando

• Show Up for Palestine: For the Living, the Martyrs, and the Land, October 10, 2 p.m., Corner of Mills & 50

Cleveland

• Walk for Palestine: For the Living, the Martyrs, and the Land, October 11, 4 p.m., Edgewater Park

Chicago

• March for Palestine: Three Years of Genocide and Resistance Continues, October 10, 1 p.m., Water Tower (806 N. Michigan Ave.)

We leave you with the words of the late Palestinian painter Sliman Mansour: 

I was born one year before the Nakba, and I will die one year before liberation. I don’t care, as long as there is liberation at the end.