This week, I’m taking back the reins of Required Reading as Lakshmi is currently on vacation. This edition is video-rich as we shuffle from one holiday to the next, with New Year’s just around the corner. Happy New Year! —Hrag Vartanian
‣ For the New Arab, Alexander Durie speaks with Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha about his abduction by the Israeli military and the role of the artist in times of genocide:
In this collection, he merges the lyrical stream of consciousness of American poets like Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg (directly referencing the two in poems “After Allen Ginsberg” and “After Walt Whitman”) with the direct and musical influence of Arabic poets like Mahmoud Darwish, Ahmed Shawqi and Hafez Ibrahim.
Poem titles range from What a Gazan Should Do During an Israeli Air Strike to We Are Looking for Palestine and Under the Rubble, narrating everyday stories from Gaza.
“To so many people, what matters is what happens after the airstrike. The number of people who were killed, the number of wounded children, the number of houses that were bombed, the number of schools. But we don’t usually focus on what was happening before the airstrikes. What kind of things people were holding onto before everything was lost? So this is equally important,” Mosab tells The New Arab.
Poetry is Mosab’s tool to document and resist Israel’s genocide — a feat even more important as international journalists are still not allowed into the Gaza Strip and over 141 Palestinian journalists have so far been killed by Israeli forces.
‣ Siri Chilukuri, writing for Scalawag, reports that farmworkers played an outsized role in the post-Helene and Milton hurricane cleanups:
A Futuro Media, Center for Public Integrity, and Columbia Journalism School investigation found that in general, the disaster recovery and cleanup crews post-climate disasters are disproportionately made up of immigrants and often receive little if any formal training about how to handle any toxins they might come into contact with. Most workers have encountered either mold, asbestos, or lead on the job.
“We’ve also heard from one of our partners that people are being recruited for the cleanup in the Tampa area, so they’re being brought over from down South and other places, and [they are] not properly trained, not paid well, and not given protective equipment,” said O’Connor.
‣ Reporting for Jewish Currents, Theia Chatelle uncovers how Yale University used counterterrorism tactics in suppressing pro-Palestine activism. She writes:
Emails with the FBI were just some of the 1,936 files Yale handed over in a settlement agreement to close out a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit I filed in late May 2024, which together document the university’s repressive strategy in dealing with pro-Palestine students. The documents reveal that the YPD installed cameras on campus, tracked students’ social media accounts, and monitored students using aerial drones. Additionally, the YPD also collaborated with the New Haven Police Department, other university police, pro-Israel organizations, and even a federal counterterrorism intelligence-sharing center in its effort to crack down on protest. Along the way, YPD officers repeatedly denigrated students they ostensibly work to protect: In one May 4th email, YPD Assistant Chief of Police Von Narcisse called the protesters “pathetic and sad,” with Campbell replying: “I agree 100 percent. There [sic] actions are like a small group of vandals and criminals rather than protesters.” (The YPD and Yale leadership did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
‣ For LitHub, Hyperallergic contributor Ed Simon elaborates on the enduring political relevance of Frankfurt School philosopher Walter Benjamin’s “Theses on the Philosophy of History”:
Belief in unalloyed and guaranteed progress is Benjamin’s biggest target, a faith shared (in different ways) by both leftists and liberals. The former may contend that dialectics ensures an inevitable revolution while the latter content themselves in the faith that the arc of history, though it be long, must ever bend towards justice, but Benjamin mocks the naivete that finds “current amazement that the things we are experiencing are ‘still’ possible in the twentieth century.”
‣Reuters reports on the anxieties among Syria’s Christians since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorial regime and the takeover by Islamist rebels:
‣Scientists are racking up some wins when it comes to reading the excavated scrolls of ancient Herculaneum:
‣The strange flags coming out of the protests in South Korea after President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law and shocked the world:
‣This is a two-parter… first, Johnny Harris ‘investigates’ why Saudi Arabia’s Noem (line city) continues on and what that means for locals:
‣ Now, Micro “calls out” Harris for what he thinks is a paid sponsorship of some sort, and judging by the softballs, it certainly seems so. We have seen the same happen with art media that covers Saudi Arabia, and often has financial interests connected to the Kingdom, and how they gently spice laudatory stories with mild criticism to have it be perceived as objective. It’s just another form of soft propaganda:
‣ Did you know there is a god of male-male love in Chinese mythology?
‣ The story of a young man who trolled people around politics because of their own hurt and pain. I bet this is more common than we realized:
‣ The dramatic amateur footage of the crash of an Azerbaijani Airlines plane near Kazakhstan’s Aktau Airport:
‣ A member of the public attended the Astoria, Queens, community board meeting and spoke about the Noguchi Museum, which is located in that same district, and its director’s disrespect of Noguchi’s legacy by banning the Palestinian keffiyeh at the museum and firing staff who refused to comply with the troubling rule:
‣ In an alternate universe, misogyny would be overthrown like in this person’s imagination:
‣ I sang the praises for the PBS series on American Muslims in our best films of the year list, and the latest installment doesn’t disappoint. Did you know Thomas Jefferson organized an Iftar dinner for the Tunisian ambassador?
‣ The Pokemon drone show in Shenzhen, China, is impressive:
‣ Truly adorable, so much so that I can’t believe it isn’t AI:
Required Reading is published every Thursday afternoon, and it is comprised of a short list of art-related links to long-form articles, videos, blog posts, or photo essays worth a second look.
