Why regulating stem cell–based embryo model research is important (yet controversial)

The stem cell-based embryo model and actual human embryos share many characteristics but are distinctly different. However, internationally, not everyone agrees on the definitions and what we should and should not do in using this research model

Hiroshima University

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Researchers reviewed what countries are doing to regulate SCBEM and proposed what regulation should look like for this field of stem cell research to move forward in a manner that everyone can agree is ethically sound.

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Credit: Kanon Tanaka

The stem cell-based embryo model (SCBEM) takes advantage of the flexibility of pluripotent stem cells (non-reproductive cells that can give rise to many different types of cells) to resemble that of embryos. While this model has helped to advance research in diseases and develop therapies or treatments, it has also sparked international debate on what regulations should be placed on this type of experimentation. Researchers reviewed what countries are doing to regulate SCBEM and proposed what regulation should look like for this field of stem cell research to move forward in a manner that everyone can agree is ethically sound.

The researchers published their results in EMBO Reports in March 2025.

Stem cell-based embryo models (SCBEMs) are a major improvement for studying human development and diseases or issues that can arise with it, which can then lead to research regarding treatments and therapies for those diseases. These cells are human in origin, but the embryos involved were generated from pluripotent stem cells. While most studies use embryonic stem cells, SCBEMs can also be created using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), which are reprogrammed from somatic cells such as skin or blood. These cells are distinctly different from germ cells, which are egg and sperm cells.

Currently, only a few countries are participating in governing SCBEM research. Australia has deemed that blastocyst-like structures (cluster of cells resulting from a fertilized egg) are to be treated the same as an embryo (early stages of growth for an animal resulting from a fertilized egg). The UK similarly set out “codes of conduct” for this research, though they also brought in public opinion to inform the policymakers’ decision. Japan has been involved in exploring regulation of this type of research and is aiming to take the lead in developing ethical and innovative guidelines to foster a positive outlook on the field of regenerative medicine and developmental biology using SCBEMs.

“Against this backdrop, our paper reviews international trends in the regulation of SCBEM research, examines the national-level debates that have taken place in Japan, and surveys what regulatory strategies have been adopted,” said Tsutomu Sawai, corresponding author of the study and a professor (special recognition) at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University.

What was uncovered during the research were three key areas for improvement: the limited citizen participation in establishing policies, difficulty in coordinating multiple regulatory frameworks and the uncertainties that can arise regarding informed consent when working with human-based stem cells resembling an embryo. These three areas are enough to provide a network of hurdles to cross, especially when the current regulations vary so widely on how they were established. Some regulations are put in place with reliance on researcher-led guides, others rely on the existing government policies to put SCBEM regulations into place.

The suggestions put forth in this review are that fertilized embryos should be treated and classified as distinctly different from SCBEMs and therefore should not have the limits imposed upon them some might believe is necessary. Each project will have its ethical suitability determined by committees working under the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) to ensure their work meets the guidelines set forth. This will help to alleviate some of the complexities of working with multiple frameworks for policy-making and give researchers a solid definition of what can be expected.

“Ultimately, our goal is to contribute to the formation of a robust, ethically sound, and internationally aligned regulatory system for SCBEM research,” said co-author Tomonori Nakamura, an associate professor at Kyoto University’s Institute of Advanced Study of Human Biology.  

To reach this goal, multinational cooperation is needed to adhere to international standards set forth. This will involve each country developing regulations that are in line not only with international standards but also with its own existing regulatory framework and its citizens’ perspectives. Japan’s eagerness to develop this type of framework and keep it adaptable will ideally help usher other countries into this area of ethical, innovative and dynamic research.

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Tsutomu Sawai of the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hiroshima University, Shu Ishida, Chie Kobayashi, Gyo Nakao and Tsutomu Sawai of the Uehiro Division for Applied Ethics at Hiroshima University, Tomonori Nakamura and Tsutomu Sawai of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology at Kyoto University, Tsutomu Sawai and Julian Savulescu of the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at National University of Singapore, Yasuna Murase of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at The University of Tokyo, Tomonori Nakamura of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Kyoto University and of the Hakubi Center for Advanced Research at Kyoto University and Julian Savulescu of the Oxford Uehiro Center for Practical Ethics at University of Oxford, Biomedical Ethics Research Group at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and Melbourne Law School at The University of Melbourne contributed to this research.

The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, JST Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, the Uehiro Foundation on Ethics and Education and the Singapore Ministry of Health under Enablers and Infrastructure Support for Clinical Trials-related Activities Funding Initiative made this research possible. 

About Hiroshima University

Since its foundation in 1949, Hiroshima University has striven to become one of the most prominent and comprehensive universities in Japan for the promotion and development of scholarship and education. Consisting of 12 schools for undergraduate level and 5 graduate schools, ranging from natural sciences to humanities and social sciences, the university has grown into one of the most distinguished comprehensive research universities in Japan. English website: https://www.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/en

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Journal

EMBO Reports

DOI

10.1038/s44319-025-00409-5 

Article Title

Regulating stem cell–based embryo model research in Japan: Proposals, debates, and future directions

ISSCR working group recommends enhanced oversight of stem cell-based embryo models in response to rapid technological advances

International Society for Stem Cell Research

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The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) Embryo Models Working Group has released updated recommendations for the oversight and regulation of stem cell-based embryo models (SCBEM), aiming to address rapid advancements and ensure responsible scientific progress. The proposed recommendations are detailed in a new paper published today in Stem Cell Reports.

SCBEMs are three dimensional structures that replicate key aspects of early embryonic development, offering unprecedented potential to enhance our understanding of human developmental biology and reproductive science.

“Stem cell-based embryo models are poised to revolutionize our understanding of early human development and improve clinical practices in assisted reproduction,” said Amander Clark, University of California, Los Angeles, USA, co-chair of the ISSCR Embryo Models Working Group and an expert in human stem cell and reproductive science. “However, as these models advance, it is crucial that they are studied in a framework that balances scientific progress with ethical, legal, and social considerations. These proposed recommendations are designed to foster innovation while at the same time providing regulatory guidance for key stakeholders in this vital area of biomedical research.”

Janet Rossant, CC, PhD, world-renowned expert in developmental biology and co-chair of the ISSCR Embryo Models Working Group stated, “Given the acceleration of these technologies, it was important to convene a working group to evaluate whether the existing ISSCR Guidelines should be amended to keep pace with new advances.”

The recommendations outlined in the paper, Stem cell-based embryo models: the 2021 ISSCR stem cell guidelines revisited, address recent scientific breakthroughs that enable the creation of increasingly complex models efficiently and without reliance on major extraembryonic lineages. The group made three central recommendations:

1. All research involving three-dimensional SCBEMs should undergo appropriate
   review,
2. Research must have a clear scientific rationale, and
3. Research should be subject to defined timelines.

The paper also recommends the removal of the distinction between integrated and non-integrated models. These modifications aim to bring clarity to the emerging field, guide the deliberations of researchers, oversight committees, and stakeholders, and ensure the continued confidence of the public in the responsible advancement of SCBEM research.

The co-chairs will present the proposed recommendations in June to the ISSCR Board of Directors as part of a targeted update to the 2021 ISSCR Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Clinical Translation.

For more information on the updated ISSCR Guidelines and their implications for SCBEM research, please visit the ISSCR website.

About the ISSCR
With nearly 5,000 members from more than 80 countries, the International Society for Stem Cell Research is the preeminent global, cross-disciplinary, science-based organization dedicated to stem cell research and its translation to the clinic. The ISSCR mission is to promote excellence in stem cell science and applications to human health.

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Journal

Stem Cell Reports

DOI

10.1016/j.stemcr.2025.102514 

Article Title

Stem cell-based embryo models: the 2021 ISSCR stem cell guidelines revisited

Article Publication Date

10-Jun-2025

UK

Migrant status compounds inequality for ethnic minority NHS staff, new study finds

SAGE

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Ethnic minority healthcare workers who are also born overseas face a double disadvantage due to the combined effects of ethnicity and migrant status, according to new research published in JRSM Open.

Using data from the nationwide UK-REACH cohort study, this is the first analysis to explore how migration status - often overlooked in Human Resources records - intersects with ethnicity to affect NHS career progression.

The cross-sectional study of over 5,700 healthcare workers employed under the NHS Agenda for Change (AfC) pay scale - which covers staff including nurses, midwives, and allied health professionals - found that overseas-born staff were significantly less likely to be placed in higher AfC pay bands, even after adjusting for education, job role, and years of professional qualification. In particular, Asian and Black healthcare workers born overseas were less likely to reach higher pay bands compared to their White UK-born and trained counterparts.

Lead author Dr Ji Soo Choi commented: “Our findings highlight that migration status plays a critical role in shaping healthcare professionals’ career prospects, yet this data is not routinely collected. These disparities cannot be addressed without first being recognised and recorded.”

Although ethnic minority and migrant healthcare workers make up nearly a quarter of the NHS workforce, they remain underrepresented in senior positions within the AfC framework. Migrant workers may face additional challenges distinct from non-migrant ethnic colleagues, including difficulties with international qualification recognition, limited professional networks, and restricted access to training.

The absence of routinely collected migration status data means these issues are often overlooked in research, creating a gap that hinders efforts to address workforce inequality. The authors urge NHS policymakers to include migration status in routine data collection to enable more targeted and effective interventions.

“Ethnic minority healthcare workers represent over a third of staff at NHS pay band 5, but their presence drops sharply to just 10% in senior roles,” said senior author Professor Manish Pareek. “This lack of diversity in leadership limits influence over key workplace decisions such as pay, scheduling, and policy, which may contribute to a less supportive environment for ethnic minority staff. These inequalities risk driving higher attrition rates amid the NHS’s ongoing staffing challenges.”

The authors recommend that NHS workforce policies explicitly address the distinct barriers faced by migrant healthcare workers, including training access, credential recognition, and mentoring and leadership opportunities.

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Journal

JRSM Open

DOI

10.1177/20542704251330157 

Article Title

The association of ethnicity and migration status with agenda for change pay band in National Health Service healthcare workers: Results from the United Kingdom Research study into Ethnicity and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Outcomes in Healthcare workers (UK-REACH)

AMERIKA

The Spectacle of a Police State: This Is Martial Law Without a Formal Declaration of War

by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / June 10th, 2025

In Trump’s America, the bar for martial law is no longer constitutional—it’s personal.

What is unfolding right now in California—with hundreds of Marines deployed domestically; thousands of National Guard troops federalized; and military weapons, tactics and equipment on full display—is intended to intimidate, distract and discourage us from pulling back the curtain on the reality of the self-serving corruption, grift, graft, overreach and abuse that have become synonymous with his Administration.

Don’t be distracted. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t be sidelined by the spectacle of a police state.

This is yet another manufactured crisis fomented by the Deep State.

When Trump issues a call to “BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!” explaining to reporters that he wants to have them “everywhere,” we should all be alarmed.

This is martial law without a formal declaration of war.

This heavy-handed, chest-thumping, politicized, militarized response to what is clearly a matter for local government is yet another example of Trump’s disregard for the Constitution and the limits of his power.

Political protests are protected by the First Amendment until they cross the line from non-violent to violent. Even when protests turn violent, constitutional protocols remain in place to safeguard communities: law and order must flow through local and state chains of command, not from federal muscle.

By breaking that chain of command, Trump is breaking the Constitution.

Deploying the military to deal with domestic matters that can—and should—be handled by civilian police, despite the objections of local and state leaders, crosses the line into authoritarianism.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

In the span of a single week, the Trump administration is providing the clearest glimpse yet of its unapologetic, uncompromising, corrupt allegiance to the authoritarian Deep State.

These two events—the federalization of the National Guard deployed to California in response to protests and the president’s lavish, taxpayer-funded military parade in the nation’s capital—bookend the administration’s unmistakable message: dissent will be crushed, and power will be performed.

Trump governs by force (military deployment), fear (ICE raids, militarized policing), and spectacle (the parade).

This is the spectacle of a police state. One side of the coin is militarized suppression. The other is theatrical dominance. Together, they constitute the language of force and authoritarian control.

Yet this is more than political theater; it is a constitutional crisis in motion.

As we have warned before, this tactic is a familiar one.

In times of political unrest, authoritarian regimes often invoke national emergencies as a pretext to impose military solutions. The result? The Constitution is suspended, civilian control is overrun, and the machinery of the state turns against its own people.

This is precisely what the Founders feared when they warned against standing armies on American soil: that one day, the military might be used not to defend the people, but to control them.

It is a textbook play from the authoritarian handbook, deployed with increasing frequency under Trump. The optics are meant to intimidate, broadcast control, and discourage resistance before it even begins.

Thus, deploying the National Guard in this manner is not just a political maneuver—it is a strategic act of fear-based governance designed to instill terror, particularly among vulnerable communities, and ensure compliance.

America is being transformed into a battlefield before our eyes.

Militarized police. Riot squads. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Stun grenades. Crowd control and intimidation tactics.

This is not the language of freedom. This is not even the language of law and order.

This is the language of force.

This transformation is not accidental—it’s strategic. The government now sees the public not as constituents to be served but as potential combatants to be surveilled, managed, and subdued. In this new paradigm, dissent is treated as insurrection, and constitutional rights are treated as threats to national security.

What we are witnessing today is also part of a broader setup: an excuse to use civil unrest as a pretext for militarized overreach.

We saw signs of this strategy in Charlottesville, Virginia, where police failed to de-escalate and at times exacerbated tensions during protests that should have remained peaceful. The resulting chaos gave authorities cover to crack down—not to protect the public, but to reframe protest as provocation and dissent as disorder.

Then and now, the objective wasn’t to preserve peace and protect the public. It was to delegitimize dissent and cast protest as provocation.

It’s all part of an elaborate setup by the architects of the Deep State. The government wants a reason to crack down, lock down, and bring in its biggest guns.

This is how it begins.

Trump’s use of the military against civilians violates the spirit—if not the letter—of the Posse Comitatus Act, which is meant to bar federal military involvement in domestic affairs. It also raises severe constitutional questions about the infringement of First Amendment rights to protest and Fourth Amendment protections against warrantless search and seizure.

Modern tools of repression compound the threat. AI-driven surveillance, predictive policing software, biometric databases, and fusion centers have made mass control seamless and silent. The state doesn’t just respond to dissent anymore; it predicts and preempts it.

While boots are on the ground in California, preparations are underway for a military spectacle in Washington, D.C.

At first glance, a military procession might seem like a patriotic display. But in this context, it is not a celebration of service; it is a declaration of supremacy. It is not about honoring troops; it is about reminding the populace who holds the power and who wields the guns.

This is how authoritarian regimes govern—through spectacle.

By sandwiching a military crackdown between a domestic troop deployment and a showy parade, Trump is sending a unified message: This is about raw, unchecked, theatrical power. And whether we, the people, will accept a government that rules not by consent, but by coercion.

The Constitution was not written to accommodate authoritarian pageantry. It was written to restrain it. It was never meant to sanctify conquest as a form of governance.

We are at a crossroads.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Strip away that consent, and all that remains is conquest through force, spectacle, and fear.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if we allow the language of fear, the spectacle of dominance, and the machinery of militarized governance to become normalized, then we are no longer citizens of a republic—we are subjects of a police state.

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John W. Whitehead, constitutional attorney and author, is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He wrote the book Battlefield America: The War on the American People (SelectBooks, 2015). He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Read other articles by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead.

The Resistance That Is Rising

By Michael Albert

June 8, 2025

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.


Image by Ivan Radic, Creative Commons 2.0

We live amidst lunacy that kills. Calm, reasoned reports of escalating state criminality are part of ending state criminality. Ditto for deep diving conceptual analyses. And also for historical contextualizations. All good. All needed. But we must also emotively emphasize the utterly obvious if we are to ward off and reverse dangerous lunacy.

Too calm may make disgusting normal. Too calm may make every street corner a shooting gallery, every handheld device a bomb. Too calm may spread fire not cease fire. Too calm may turn health into illness and science into mysticism. Too calm, even meant as an emblem of civility, may incinerate empathy.

Resistance is rising all over. It seeks to grow but those not yet active are often as conceptually awake as those who resist. Many know plenty. Maybe they are lulled by the mainstream’s calmness. Maybe they are paused by shock and awe. Let’s travel a little beyond calmness…

Netanyahu: You have flexed past statist elitism, nationalistic immorality, and ignominious infamy. You have attained fascistic bottom-feeding decrepitude. You disgust. You shoot children’s heads off. You starve children you can’t behead. Your Zionism produces anti-Semitism you decry to propel more carnage. You are quite the trickster but even Jesus would never forgive what you do.

But what about youngsters in the Israeli Defense Force? What about neighborly Israelis living life and life only in Haifa and Tel Aviv? What about Israel’s supporters living life and life only in London and New York? How should we who are nauseated by what iIsrael is doing regard Netanyahu, the IDF, Israelis in Israel who cheer genocide, and Israel’s supporters around the world who ignore, alibi, or abet genocide? Should we curse or reach out?

Trump: You have slithered out of your Trump 1 bumbling hostility persona into something even more repulsive, your Trump 2 full on mendacious malevolent persona. You acclimate others to your vile aims until you can escalate your aims further and further still. You say anything you think will aid you. You repeat and magnify your lies until people accept fabrication as sophisticated truth telling. You decry waste and fraud and you spew waste and flaunt fraud like no one has ever seen before. You produce profiles in cowardice married to profiles in hypocrisy bathed in hate and papered over with self denial. All that you touch becomes obscene. You annoint the rich, you make the rest supine by fearful choice or coercive constraint. You make grisly, ghastly, and grim look quaint. You want peace, you say, but here come the Marines. Quite a trickster, you are. Meanwhile garbage rises, beauty declines and dignity dies. You make malicious the new normal. You crown yourself King. Like Netanyahu, you too are disgusting. Actually, for you disgusting would be a big step up. You are like a flesh eating bacteria that morphs to eat sociality, solidarity, and compassion and to deposit in their rightful place hate and self loathing. So how should we relate to your supporters, your abettors, and to those who hate your hate but go to work as usual. To school as usual. To Netflix as usual. To life and life only as usual—all while you corrupt, defile, and deny life?

As we rightly resist Israeli war, Trumpian fascism, and so much else, can we be extremely enraged but also regard the ignorers, supporters and even the proximate perpetrators of what Israel hurls at Gaza’s schools, hospitals, homes, and streets and of what Trump unleashes on civility at home and abroad with proper militant outrage without, however, hurling dehumanizing epithets and becoming naysaying haters? Can we resist and also reach out? Can we block but not burn?

It is getting difficult. It really is. We don’t want to think of fellow humans much less of neighbors, offspring or parents as planners, perpetrators, abettors or even just ignorers of genocidal flesh eating fascism. We don’t want to hate or even just to scorn fellow humans. But can we hate and scorn the acts and yet somehow recognize that those involved in or who ignore the acts have minds and hearts just like ours? Can we hate the acts but not dehumanize the people? Can we organize to block the acts, to reverse the acts, and to then positively seek much better, but not lose our own humanity in the process? That is the resistance that is now rising. That is what we need still more of.

Could Israelis’ have hated the actions perpetrated on October 7 yet have understood the circumstances and feelings that led to those acts? Could Israelis have not dehumanized the perpetrators much less dehumanized all Palestinians? Could Israelis have not called Palestinians vermin thereby normalizing and incentivizing genocide against Palestinians? Could Israelis have avoided reducing themselves to perpetrating fascistic barbarity?

For that matter, can opponents of genocide and supporters of Palestine avoid damaging our own movements by emboldening repression against it? Can we in the U.S. hate repressive and even murderous policing and not call the cops pigs? Can we hate misogynist Trump but not dehumanize Trump’s supporters? Can we arouse in ourselves appropriate energy to battle mind numbing, life threatening fascist trends but not let fascist feelings invade our own choices? That is the resistance that is rising. The resistance that people not yet involved need to learn of, assist and lead.

We need to comprehend that against everything holy, moral and worthy, Israel seems literally hell bent upon mayhem until nothing remains of Palestinians—and perhaps of Israel and the rest of the world as well. To fight back and not become what we rightly reject is part of our task regarding genocide and regarding Trumpism too. It’s not easy to express outrage and deliver militance but also not dehumanize. Many are trying. We should all try. Collective resistance can succeed. That is the resistance that is rising and that people not yet involved need to learn of, assist and lead.

We must tell it, think it, speak it and breathe it. We must reach out and march, block and blockade, disobey and strike. There is no time to waste. The hour is getting late.

Detailed, calm, reasoned reports, conceptualizations, and contextualizations of criminality help. But we must also communicate appropriate passion. Rail at Netanyahu and genocide. Rail at Trump and fascism. But then organize to block their gut wrenching agendas. Then reach out to grow our side and to shrink their side. Offer positive strategy and inspiring vision. That is the resistance that is rising.

In the U.S., the next big day is June 14th. A military extravaganza for the devil’s birthday. They got the guns, we have to have the numbers. If you speak, speak to grow resistance. If you write, write to grow resistance. If you assemble, assemble to grow resistance. If you teach, teach to grow resistance. If you play, play to grow resistance. Block deportations. Block repression. Unite to resist it all as the one whole evil that it is. Grow to build much better. That is what can win. That is what must win. That is the resistance that is rising.


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Michael Albert`s radicalization occurred during the 1960s. His political involvements, starting then and continuing to the present, have ranged from local, regional, and national organizing projects and campaigns to co-founding South End Press, Z Magazine, the Z Media Institute, and ZNet, and to working on all these projects, writing for various publications and publishers, giving public talks, etc. His personal interests, outside the political realm, focus on general science reading (with an emphasis on physics, math, and matters of evolution and cognitive science), computers, mystery and thriller/adventure novels, sea kayaking, and the more sedentary but no less challenging game of GO. Albert is the author of 21 books which include: No Bosses: A New Economy for a Better World; Fanfare for the Future; Remembering Tomorrow; Realizing Hope; and Parecon: Life After Capitalism. Michael is currently host of the podcast Revolution Z and is a Friend of ZNetwork.

The Past, Present, and Future of Left Jewish Identity

By Benjamin Balthaser, Shane Burley

June 9, 2025

Source: Jacobin





As Jewish protesters began flooding capitol building rotundas, blockading roads in cities across the country, and staging an unprecedented protest in New York City’s Grand Central Station, journalists attempted to pin down this “new” phenomenon. Some in Jewish establishment organizations decried these Jewish dissenters, either claiming them as patsies for terrorism, betrayers of their community, or not Jews at all. Others saw this as a brand new reclamation of Jewish identity, the building of an authentically emergent way of being Jewish that broke with the mainstream Jewish consensus. While this was a resurgence in alternative Jewish organizations and religious and cultural life away from the overwhelming Zionism of American Jewry’s dominant institutions, in truth, nothing about this was new.

As scholar Benjamin Balthaser tracks in his new book, Citizens of the Whole World: Anti-Zionism and the Cultures of the American Jewish Left, the vision of Jewish identity on display in Jewish-led Palestine solidarity demonstrations organized by groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and the Jewish Anti-Zionism Network are the latest stage in a long history that sees Jewish identity as in relationship with all communities facing oppression and on a diasporic model of internationalism.

Shane Burley spoke with Balthaser about how Jews in both the Old Left and the New Left convened their sense of Jewish identity, how they understood and responded as Zionism emerged and then later dominated American Jewish life, and how this model of Jewishness has found its continuity in the radical Jewish activism attempting to halt the genocide in Gaza.

Shane Burley

How did the Jews who were populating the American Jewish left conceive of their Jewish identity apart from Judaism? Especially considering that they were not overwhelmingly religious.

Benjamin Balthaser

The book starts in the 1930s, the heyday of the American Jewish left, with the Communist Party, the Socialist Workers Party [SWP], and a huge Jewish labor movement, particularly in New York City with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union [ILGWU], constituting hundreds of thousands of American Jewish members.

The Jewish left long precedes the 1930s. In fact, historian Tony Michels points out that the Jewish left really begins in the late-nineteenth century and actually precedes the European Jewish left.

While there was never a huge presence of the Jewish Labour Bund in the US, the Jewish wing of the Communist Party was actually very Bundish in their celebration of Jewish identity. There was a kind of Bundishkeit to the American Jewish left that adopted many of the cultural hallmarks of the Bund — diasporism, cultural pride, internationalism, Yiddishkeit — even if they did not adopt the Bund’s call for Jewish autonomy. This could be seen in the Jewish People’s Fraternal Order [JPFO], which was a breakaway from the Workmen’s Circle, magazines such as Jewish Life and Morgen Freiheit, as well as with artists such as Ben Shahn, Victor Arnautoff, Hugo Gellert, and writers such as Mike Gold and Muriel Rukeyser.

So what was Jewish culture in the 1930s and 1940s? It was often pro–Yiddish language and grounded in what they called “Jewish progressive values.”

Shane Burley

How did this sector of the Jewish left understand Zionism?

Benjamin Balthaser

The anti-Zionism of the Jewish left in the 1930s was a little different than today. In some ways, they were probably more critical of the idea of a Jewish state. But their anti-Zionism emerged organically out of their diasporic, Jewish, Yiddish, secular humanism. They didn’t become anti-Zionist and then leftist — they were leftists, humanists, internationalists. So, when the Zionist movement started gaining steam in the 1940s, they saw it as the antithesis of everything progressive Jewish culture was supposed to be.

Their analysis saw Zionism as a form of fascism, the opposite of their progressive internationalism, and was aligned with imperialism. There were numerous essays published in the 1930s making this case. William Zukerman, a well-known socialist Jewish journalist who later founded a newsletter in the 1950s, famously referred to Zionism as “machine-gun Judaism.” He openly called the Zionists “fascists.” Robert Gessner famously called [Ze’ev] Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Zionism “a little Fuhrer on the Red Sea.”Mike Gold — probably the most prominent Jewish Communist of the 1930s and ’40s — essentially depicts his novel’s Zionist villain, Baruch Goldfarb, as a sleazy New York right-wing politician, a labor spy, and a vote-breaker.

For them, it was clear: the Zionists were the Roy Cohns of the world.

Shane Burley

Where is the origin point for this conception of Jewishness? Where do you see potential influences for it?

Benjamin Balthaser

The first counterintuitive fact one has to understand is that American Jewish left was kind of an autochthonous development; it was not an import from foreign shores. Indeed, I might turn the question around a little and ask: Why did a Jewish left emerge in the United States? It may seem unlikely, given that the US isn’t typically known for its progressivism.

Yet it’s also important to remember that May Day begins in the United States. Karl Marx, for instance, wrote very movingly about the American labor movement; the 1870s and 1880s in the US saw some of the most radical strikes and organizing anywhere in the world. The Haymarket martyrs and the eight-hour-day movement were hugely influential on the global left.

This is also a moment in which we see a huge influx of mostly working-class Jews fleeing the Pale of Settlement in Eastern Europe and arriving amid this maelstrom of labor union activity. These Jews were aware of the connection between Jewish emancipation and European democratic revolutions — they arrive in the United States and encounter German, Mexican, and other immigrant labor activists. These Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants came to America and joined the ranks of the proletariat and encountered German and other immigrant socialists. Many of them became socialists not in Europe, but once they arrived in the US.

The interesting question isn’t, “Why did Jews join the left?” Lots of ethnic groups in Europe had an outsize left presence for a time. Germans in the nineteenth century and, in the early twentieth century, Finns made up a huge portion of the Communist Party. The question is instead how and why the Jewish left in America took shape the way it did.

The Jews were actually very similar to other ethnic groups who either brought radicalism with them or became radicalized once they joined the American labor movement. But why did the radicalism persist?

For the Finns and the Germans, it basically lasted a generation, maybe two. But for Jews, it stuck around. If anything, until the 1950s, Jews who were members of the socialist movement became more radical the longer they stayed in America.

The narrative you’ll hear from many Jewish historians is this canard that radicals came from Europe, but as soon as they assimilated, they became proper liberal Democrats. That’s not actually what happened. Instead, these millions of Jewish immigrants became socialists on arrival. The longer they stayed, the more confidence they had in expressing their radical politics.

Mike Gold was a second-generation immigrant. Most of the Communist Party, as historian Michael Denning makes clear in The Cultural Front, was made up of second- and third-generation ethnic Americans — and a huge part of that was Jewish. The Jewish left made up a major portion of white ethnics in the Popular Front.

One reason Jews stayed in the Left longer is that, unlike the European left, the American left had to learn the language of anti-racism. America isn’t just a diverse society — it’s a country built on slavery and indigenous genocide. African Americans were a huge part of the labor movement, particularly in northern cities. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, labor organizers realized that bosses used racism to divide the labor movement. The more progressive and forward-looking factions of the labor movement — like the Wobblies, some wings of the Socialist Party, and the Communist Party — understood that they not only had to be anti-racist, they had to actively embrace the black working class. That was the only way to build a left-wing movement worth anything.Two-thirds of those brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952 were Jewish — at a time when Jews made up less than 2 percent of the American population.

For American Jews, this was the first time that being part of an ethnic, minority left wasn’t at odds with left-wing politics. In Europe, as Enzo Traverso discusses in The Marxists and the Jewish Question, the European left often struggled with what to do with autonomous Jewish movements. The Bund, for example, frequently clashed with other leftist organizations. But in the US, the Left became the first political space where you truly had a multiethnic, left-wing movement in which Jewish ethnic politics wasn’t anti-leftist; it was an integral part of left-wing American culture. As Stuart Hall observed of another settler country, “race was the modality through which class was lived,” and for generations of Jews who still remembered the experience of second-class citizenship in Europe, this was a modality that spoke to their common sense.

Another important factor was that many Jewish leftists identified with African Americans as a way to confront and process their own experiences with antisemitism. Jews who came to America could see the connection immediately, particularly the Eastern European immigrant Jews who joined nascent socialist and Communist movements. When Jewish immigrants in the US saw African Americans being lynched, burned alive, and subjected to all kinds of bodily violations, many immediately recognized it. Many American Jews turned away from cross-racial solidarity; but many who joined the Left understood cross-racial solidarity as being not only the core principle of socialism in the US, but also diasporic Jewish identity.

One could say this was a left-wing form of assimilation. They tried to translate their Jewish experience into what they saw as an American idiom. And within the labor left, that American idiom was anti-racism — just as other Jews, seeking to assimilate into mainstream American whiteness, interpreted the American idiom as racism.

For better or worse, Jews have long had the experience of seeing themselves as a community — a diasporic community — wherever they go. There’s a shared expectation that wherever Jews settle, they gather together, organize, and maintain communal life. That sense of collective identity and community-building didn’t go away in the US. Left-wing Jews did the same thing. There were holidays, rituals, community events, and a sense that wherever you go, you get together as Jews. That wasn’t necessarily the case for other white ethnic diaspora groups.

Shane Burley

There is a common narrative that Jews moved rightward in proximity to assimilation and Zionism, perhaps starting with the end of the Holocaust and the foundation of the state of Israel and consensus Zionism after 1967 and the Six-Day War. You complicate this analysis by pointing out the incredibly influential role the Red Scare had in this process as well. How did the 1950s Red Scare and McCarthyism impact American Jewish self-conception and politics?

Benjamin Balthaser

The Red Scare is an incredibly unappreciated fact of American Jewish life. One can’t underestimate the antisemitism of the Red Scare and the breaking up of the old Jewish left.

Two-thirds of those brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee [HUAC] in 1952 were Jewish — at a time when Jews made up less than 2 percent of the American population. John E. Rankin, Senate leader of HUAC, made a game to “unmask” the Jewish names of people under investigation, acting as though this “revealed” them as communists.

The JPFO, the largest Jewish left organization, was rendered illegal by the government. The Civil Rights Congress, the largest civil rights organization associated with the Communist Party and that had half black and half Jewish leadership, was similarly banned. So when you talk about the assimilation of the Jewish left into liberalism, you also have to talk about the fact that the American Jewish left was effectively crushed. The Communist Party itself, in its heyday, had about 100,000 members, about half of whom were Jewish. What formed the militant backbone of the progressive labor movement and the Congress of Industrial Organizations [CIO] — the dozen militant unions aligned with the Communist Party — were all taken down.

So the shift of Jews toward American liberalism was, in part, a result of the violent suppression of the Jewish left.

The New Left learned this lesson. In the book, I tell a number of stories about Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] activists who were red-diaper babies and learned from family members that if there was going to be a serious left-wing movement in America, it had to be anti-anti-communist. That, I would argue, was one of SDS’s real innovations.

Shane Burley

You talk about what you call “neo-Bundist” organizations, some of which are still established movement leaders, such as Jews for Racial and Economic Justice [JFREJ] and others which helped to set the stage for groups like Jewish Voice for Peace [JVP] that still lead so much of our radical Jewish imagination. But you also note that the Jewish Labour Bund itself never had a deep foothold in the United States. So how did the ideas of the Bund and revolutionary Jewish consciousness and particularism make its way into the New Left and beyond?

Benjamin Balthaser

My sense is the Bund itself, as an organization, had very little presence. There were Bundists and there was a circuit where Bundists would come to the United States and go back to Eastern Europe, bringing the good word back and forth. The Bund even opened a New York City office in 1946. So there was some Bund presence, but it was never the main show.

Part of why it didn’t dominate the Jewish left was that there was already a socialist movement in the United States, and then a Communist movement that was already kind of Bundist. Jewish cultural nationalism was in the air in all kinds of ways, not just directly from the Bund. In this anti-colonial era, there were a lot of left-wing versions of national autonomy being articulated. You had anti-colonial nationalism, Irish nationalism, and then in the 1920s, the Soviet Union articulated this idea of being a “mosaic of nations.”

The official Soviet ideology was that they weren’t simply an undifferentiated proletariat or peasantry but a mosaic of national cultures — what the scholar Steven S. Lee refers to as the “ethnic avant-garde” of socialist internationalism, at least before the rise of [Joseph] Stalin. You could have your Yiddish-language newspaper, your section of the Communist Party that met on its own and also joined larger meetings with everyone else, and still be part of a broader, multiethnic, multicultural milieu of the US.

American multiculturalism, in other words. As historian Paul Mishler once argued, multiculturalism emerges out of the multiethnic left of the 1920s and 1930s. The notion of America as a mosaic — a nation made up of many nations — was a popular left-wing idea at the time. It was a rebuttal to both the “melting pot” thesis of American liberalism, as well as to the Socialist Party’s class essentialism.

So American Jewish Bundishness has strong roots in American multiculturalism, of which the Jewish left was a huge part. When a kind of Jewish identitarian politics reemerges in the New Left, in the 1970s, it did so in a context where the New Left was once again exploring revolutionary nationalism. A lot of those revolutionary nationalists looked back to the 1930s and 1940s Communist Party and saw it as a direct antecedent.

They looked at things like the “We Charge Genocide” petition, which came out of the Civil Rights Congress. They looked back to figures like Claudia Jones, a Caribbean Marxist, or C. L. R. James — black, Caribbean, Marxist intellectuals in the United States. This notion of revolutionary nationalism rearticulates itself, and Jewish leftists responded in different directions.The task of the Jewish left is to imagine there’s going to be a world after this crisis.

Some said, “We’re revolutionaries; we don’t want anything to do with Jewish politics.” But there were others who went the other way, saying, “Yes, we want to be part of this new revolutionary nationalism of the 1970s, and to contribute as Jews.” One could say the emergence of groups like JVP and JFREJ emerged out of the left wing of identity politics in the 1970s.

Such left-wing identity politics was also a way to answer the rise of what people saw as compulsory Zionism. You didn’t have to be a Zionist to be a left-wing Jewish radical, and yet still articulate a Jewish identity or a Jewish sense of communal belonging. The neo-Bundism of the 1970s — with Chutzpah magazine, the Brooklyn Bridge Collective, and the Jewish radical community J — came out of this milieu. Figures like JFREJ founder Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz were very much part of that tradition.

Shane Burley

What model of Jewishness does the Jewish left of today offer other than simply anti-Zionism? How does it conceive of a Jewish identity, and how has it inherited that conception from an earlier era of the Jewish left?

Benjamin Balthaser

There’s a point of tension on the Jewish left about the centrality of anti-Zionism. There was an article by a comrade of mine, Jon Danforth-Appell, in Jewish Currents that addresses this debate. I think it’s a frustration among some Jews on the Left that the Jewish left is so focused on Zionism, at the expense of constructing progressive Jewish organizations that serve and speak to their own communities. It also makes it seem as though Zionism is a Jewish problem in the United States, when it’s actually as much an American imperialism problem.

That said, there’s no way out but through. The Jewish world has been subsumed by Zionism. Every major Jewish institution in America today is aggressively Zionist. You can’t have a Jewish organization that doesn’t address the fact that the entire institutional apparatus of the American “liberal” Jewish world is supporting Israel in a time of genocide, when the Israeli government has been captured by apocalyptic fascists.

The Jewish left must address Zionism and organize in solidarity with Palestinians. The other piece is this weaponization and mobilization of Jewish identity, not only to silence pro-Palestine organizing but also as an expression of white supremacy. To be a Jewish leftist is to have your identity mobilized, whether you like it or not.

But I also think the task of the Jewish left is to imagine there’s going to be a world after this crisis, and that you’re going to need organizations and communities that last beyond whatever immediate moment of burning intensity we’re living and dying through.

For better or worse, Jews are an organized community. We have thousands of years of organizing ourselves as a diasporic people, and that’s a resource and a way of thinking about how to continue long after whatever immediate crisis we’re in passes. To the extent that Jews are going to have institutional organizations in the US — and it seems we’re going to — then we’re going to have to organize counterinstitutions.

JVP is often maligned as both opportunistically Jewish and then, also, solipsistically Jewish. It’s neither. It’s a real community. JVP Chicago formed over a decade ago out of earlier organizations, and if you go to a meeting today, you will meet a lot of the same people.

JVP obviously has some differences from the Jewish left of the past. It is often derided as too secular, but JVP has many very religious members. People observe holidays, they pray at meetings. It has a Rabbinic Council. There were no rabbis in the Jewish section of the Communist Party. JVP articulates the same internationalist vision for the Jewish community that the Communist Party or other Jewish leftist organizations did in the past and builds out that sense of community.


Benjamin Balthaser is associate professor of multi-ethnic US literature at Indiana University, South Bend. He is the author of Anti-Imperialist Modernism and Dedication.

Flotilla Member Rima Hassan: Israel Is Breaking the Law, Not Us

This morning, Israeli authorities captured the aid boat Madleen, halting its mission to Gaza. Just hours before it was intercepted we spoke to Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament who was aboard the vessel.

By Rima Hassan, Hanno Hauenstein

June 9, 2025

Source: Jacobin

Via Freedom Flotilla Coalition, June 9, 2025, 11:25am ET: 

"It’s been 15 hours since we last saw or heard from our friends and comrades. We have not been allowed any contact. Of course, Israeli media alledge that no volunteers have been harmed. But the psychological impact of being forcibly abducted by a military force that is conducting a genocide in Gaza and other war crimes across the world, as well as being cut off from friends, family, and FFC colleagues, is illegal, beyond distressing and an attack on solidarity. We see everyone fighting for our team - thank you for stepping up and mobilizing. But we are aware that because of our volunteers’ varying passports of privilege, most of them will likely not be subjected to the horrendous torture we know Palestinians face every day - some of which have been imprisoned unlawfully for decades. This is why must also keep the pressure up on states to stop Israel’s genocide and siege of Gaza, creating the need for a Flotilla in the first place. This is why we are here, right now in this moment - for Gaza. For Palestine."

Home - Freedom Flotilla


Early this morning, activists aboard the Madleen announced that their aid boat had been intercepted by Israeli forces and the passengers “kidnapped.” While the British-flagged vessel, operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FCC), seeks to draw attention to Gazans’ suffering, Israeli authorities have repeatedly sought to delegitimize the activists’ intentions and referred to the boat as a “selfie yacht” carrying “celebrities.”

They now claim that the passengers will be sent back to their home countries, but not before, as hard-line defense minister Israel Katz announced, forcing them to watch footage of the October 7 attacks. For now, attempts to contact the passengers have proven futile.

The Madleen set sail from Italy on June 1 with a clear mission: to break Israel’s blockade and deliver aid to starving civilians in Gaza. On board were twelve activists from across Europe who chose direct action in order to draw more attention to the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Palestine, which their governments have failed to address in any meaningful way. One of those passengers is French Palestinian member of European Parliament Rima Hassan, elected in June 2024 as a representative of the left-wing movement La France Insoumise.

Just hours before the Israelis intercepted the Madleen and arrested Hassan, she spoke with journalist Hanno Hauenstein about her motivations for joining the mission, the political backlash in France, and how she deals with the personal risks her Palestine advocacy entails.

Hanno Hauenstein

You’ve been outspoken about Palestine. What motivated you to board this ship?

Rima Hassan

It’s been a year since I was elected to the European Parliament, and I’ve been very engaged on the Palestinian question. But we see that things aren’t moving fast enough. It’s been more than fourteen months since United Nations actors denounced the genocide in Gaza, and we still haven’t seen sanctions or similar measures to stop it. For me, joining this action is about coherence with what I stand for. Also, this action is very powerful. It mobilizes lots of citizens and carries very strong symbolism.

Hanno Hauenstein

A previous aid boat was bombed in May. Others have been killed trying to break the Gaza blockade. How do you deal with this risk to your life?

Rima Hassan

We are all very aware of the risks. Our main concern is precisely that kind of attack we saw on May 2 in Malta. The last ship was larger, and thankfully no one was killed or injured. Our boat is much smaller. A single drone strike could make the boat sink. But we’re prepared. We had several days of training before departure, and we continue to train daily on board. There were several nights when drones were nearby, so we enacted a full-on emergency protocol: putting on life jackets, preparing to jump into the sea.

Hanno Hauenstein

Was it a conscious decision to make this mission so public?

Rima Hassan

The last crew chose discretion, hoping it would help them. But they were attacked anyway. So, we did the opposite: we informed the media, we tried to mobilize public opinion, and maintained visibility to pressure Israel not to attack us.

Hanno Hauenstein

Your ship rescued migrants at sea. What exactly happened?

Rima Hassan

It was a very intense moment. We received a distress call relayed by Frontex, telling us our ship was the closest one to a migrant boat in need. So, we changed course and sailed for two hours toward Libya. Under maritime law, it’s an obligation to rescue people at sea in distress.

When we arrived, we found the migrants on a boat whose engine hadn’t worked for two days. When the coast guards arrived to take the migrants back, four people jumped into the sea. We couldn’t let them drown. They stayed a few hours with us on board. They were fed and examined by a doctor from our team. Eventually, Frontex picked them up and brought them to Greece.

Hanno Hauenstein

Critics say your mission is purely symbolic and won’t deliver any real aid into Gaza. How do you respond to this?

Rima Hassan

We’re aware, as are our critics, that our contribution is symbolic in relation to the immense humanitarian needs. The UN said that around 500 aid trucks per day are necessary for Gaza. We obviously don’t have 500 trucks on board. We have a small load.

Hanno Hauenstein

What are the things you are carrying on the boat?

Rima Hassan

Over 250 kilograms of rice, 100 kilos of flour, 600 units of infant milk, hygiene products for women, medicine, crutches. We do what we can. The mission is deeply political. The goal is to make Gaza accessible for aid. Especially now, as famine is being orchestrated by the Israeli regime, we see it as our responsibility to act. It’s not a journey for fun or adventure. We do this to fill a political vacuum left by the inaction of states. We’re denouncing the complicity of those states.

Hanno Hauenstein

What’s the atmosphere like on board day to day?

Rima Hassan

We want to humanize this mission. We try to stay in good spirits — we cook together, clean together, maintain the ship. It helps us stay focused. We want people following our journey to see who we are and how we live on this ship. We’re also constantly monitoring the news, especially from Israeli and international authorities. Ten UN special rapporteurs recently called on states to assist us in reaching Gaza, citing international law. We’re not the ones violating the law.

Hanno Hauenstein

Israel has accused the mission of supporting terrorism. How do you respond to that?

Rima Hassan

Israel isn’t a reliable interlocutor. For more than a year and a half — and before — Israeli representatives have labeled anyone who criticizes its policies as a terrorist or an antisemite. They accused the UN of antisemitism. They accused the Pope of antisemitism. Even Emmanuel Macron. It’s a war of propaganda.

The accusations against us are part of a broader disinformation campaign. Our response is to speak the language of international law. International law says the blockade is illegal, that ethnic cleansing and genocide are taking place, and that we have a right to deliver humanitarian aid.

Hanno Hauenstein

How do you assess the role of European countries like France and Germany?

Rima Hassan

European states are complicit — or at best passive. This isn’t something new. We can trace it back to the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the colonial partitioning of the region. Under the British Mandate, some of my own family members were imprisoned and killed. Macron may speak of recognizing Palestine, but France continues military cooperation with Israel. [Benjamin] Netanyahu was even allowed to fly over French airspace, despite the active International Criminal Court arrest warrant.

Hanno Hauenstein

Do you see a double standard in how international law is applied?

Rima Hassan

Of course. There shouldn’t be any immunity for the crimes Netanyahu is wanted for — just like there isn’t any immunity for [Vladimir] Putin. I want to stress: this complicity isn’t one that is enacted in the name of the people. Polls show that three out of four French people support sanctions against Israel. In Germany, a recent poll has shown that 80 percent of German citizens oppose the Gaza offensive. There’s a clear disconnect between governments’ actions and public opinion.

Hanno Hauenstein

Have you personally faced political pressure or threats for joining this mission?

Rima Hassan

We did consult the French Foreign Ministry, and they said they don’t advise us to go — because of the risks. Of course, in some media outlets, there has been condescension. They portray us as naive or hateful activists. Fortunately, others have treated this as a serious political act. What we are doing is putting pressure on decision-makers to intervene. Because Israel has warned that they’ll arrest us once we approach the territorial waters of Palestine, which are illegally controlled by Israel.

Hanno Hauenstein

What moment has stayed with you the most so far?

Rima Hassan

The hardest and most emotional moment for me personally was the rescue of the migrants at sea. It was a very difficult thing to see. We did not expect to see them jump into the sea. For a few minutes, we were a little panicked since they were far away. We were scared that they might drown — and die. And what would we have done with the bodies? We really went through all the scenarios. I think this was the moment when everyone broke down a little. I myself cried because it was such a hard moment.

The other moment that was very difficult was when we were woken up in the middle of the night by the alarm for drones. We panicked because we wondered if it was a drone attack or if it was just surveillance. It lasted just a few minutes, but it happened in the middle of the night, so it was a complicated atmosphere, we were just waking up, and it was stressful. When the alarm rings at night, it’s difficult to manage. These were the two moments that were the most emotionally intense.

Rima Hassan is a French Palestinian jurist and member of the European Parliament for La France Insoumise.

Catching Israel Out: Gaza and the Madleen

 “Selfie” Protest

by Binoy Kampmark / June 10th, 2025

The latest incident with the Madleen vessel, pictured as a relief measure by celebrity activists and sundry accompaniments to supply civilians with a modest assortment of humanitarian aid, is merely one of multiple previous efforts to break the Gaza blockade. It is easy to forget that, prior to Israel’s current program to kill, starve, and empty the enclave of its Palestinian citizens after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Gaza had already become, arguably, the world’s largest open-air prison. It was a prison which converted all citizens into inmates trapped in a state of continual privation, placed under constant surveillance, at the mercy of the dispensations and graces of a power occupying in all but name. At any moment, officials could be extrajudicially assassinated, or families obliterated by executive fiat.

In 2008, the Free Gaza Movement successfully managed to reach Gaza with two vessels.  For the next eight years, five out of 31 boats successfully journeyed to the Strip. Others met no such luck. In 2010, Israeli commandos revealed their petticoats of violence in killing 10 activists and injuring dozens of others on the Mavi Marmara, a vessel carrying 10,000 tonnes of supplies, including school supplies, building materials, and two large electricity generators. It was also operated by the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, a Turkish NGO, being one of six ships that formed a flotilla. Scandal followed, and the wounds on that issue have yet to heal.

With the Israeli Defense Forces and its evangelical warriors preaching the destruction of Palestinians along with any hope of a viable, functioning state, an impotent collective of nations, either allied to Israel or adversarial in nature, have been unable to minimize or restrain the viciousness of the Gaza campaign. Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen have made largely fruitless military efforts to ease the program of gradual liquidation taking place in the Strip. Given such an absence of resolve and effectualness, tragedy can lend itself to symbolic theatre and farce.

The Madleen enterprise, operated by the Freedom Flotilla, departed from Sicily on June 1 with baby formula, food, medical items, and water desalination kits. It ended with its interception by the Israeli forces in international waters roughly 185 km (100 nautical miles) from Gaza. With a top-billing activist such as Greta Thunberg, a French-Palestinian Member of the European Parliament, Rima Hassan, and journalists in the crew, including Al Jazeera’s Omar Faiad, this was not your standard run-of-the-mill effort.

Celebrities, when they throw themselves at ethical and moral problems, often risk trivializing the cause before the bright lights, gilding, if not obscuring the lily in the process. Thunberg, for all her principles, has become a professional activist, a superstar of the protest circuit.  Largely associated with shaming climate change deniers and the officials’ laziness in addressing dense carbon footprints, her presence on the Madleen crew is a reminder that calculated activism has become a media spectacle. It is a model, an IKEA flatpack version, to be assembled on sight, an exportable product, ready for the journey.

This is not to be flippant about Thunberg or the broader purpose involved here. Her presence and those engaged in the enterprise are dangerous reminders to the Israeli project in Gaza. Had they been wise, the bureaucrats would have let the affair play out in stoic silence, rendering it a media event, one filed in the library of forget-me articles that have become the stock and trade of an overly crowded infosphere. But the criminal instinct, or at least one guiltily prone towards one, is garrulous. The chatter can never stop, because the justifications for such behaviour never end.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry, for instance, thought it wise to dismiss the entire effort of what it called the “celebrities yacht” as a “media gimmick for publicity (which includes less than a single truckload of aid) – a ‘selfie yacht’.”  Perfectly capturing Israel’s own abominable record in supplying humanitarian aid in dribs and drabs to the residents of Gaza, when it bothered to, the ministry goes on to fabulize about 1,200 aid trucks and 11 million meals supposedly sent to those in the Strip, never mentioning the killing of those seeking the aid by IDF personnel, the enlistment of rogue Palestinian clans, and the sketchy background of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Defence Minister Israel Katz also issued a statement declaring that Israel would “not allow anyone to violate the naval blockade on Gaza, the primary purpose of which is to prevent the transfer of weapons to Hamas, a murderous terror organisation that holds our hostages and commits war crimes.”

In responding to the vessel, the Israelis did not disappoint. They added to the scene with accustomed violence, but the publicity wonks were aware that killing Thunberg and treating the rest of the crew like any other member of displaced persons at Khan Younis did not seem kosher. The infliction of suffering had to be magisterially restrained, a gold-class privilege delved out by the superior ones. No missiles or armed drones were used on this occasion.

Instead, the twelve-member crew was taken to the port city of Ashdod, 30km north of Gaza, where prison authorities had been instructed by Israel’s dogmatic National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to hold them in solitary confinement. A number, including Thunberg, have been deported. Others are still being held, purportedly for refusing to sign paperwork authorising their deportation.

As the formalities are being chewed over, the broader designation of the effort by the Madleen and her crew as those of a “selfie yacht” offer the pool’s reflection to Israeli authorities: how the IDF took selfies of their atrocities, filming with haughty and avenging pride the destruction of Palestinian civilian infrastructure and the moonscape of their creation; how Israeli officials, such as the former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant felt comfortable claiming the Jewish state was “fighting against human animals”. This was one occasion where a celebrity venture, as small as it was, proved worthy.

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Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.