A Statement of Reflection and Solidarity with Palestinian Liberation 

Leora Johnson and Salimah Khoja*
Editors-in-Chief, CUNY Law Review

It has been a devastating few months for all human beings invested in collective justice, liberation, and freedom–from Palestine and Israel, to our very own neighborhoods across the U.S. and the world.  

These moments simultaneously prompt our sustained solidarity with Palestinian life and liberation in the face of occupation, distinct from any endorsement of Hamas’s attacks on October 7, 2023; grief and outrage over the killing of more than 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapping of 240 more in those attacks; further grief and outrage over Israel’s military assault in Gaza and recently in the West Bank, killing more than 23,000 Palestinian people, with many more presumed dead, injuring over 59,000 more, and displacing over 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million at grave risk of genocide; grief and outrage at the upsurge of antisemitic and Islamophobic violence and rhetoric across the world; and grief through a continued reckoning with more than 75 years of historical and political context.

Continue reading

Human Rights Attorneys Grapple with the Law’s Promises and Failures Amid Calls to Prevent Genocide in Gaza: A Reading List

Nick Leiber

The current situation in Gaza is horrifying and dire, even more so than it has been over the last several decades. Following Hamas militants killing over 1,200 people in Israel and taking roughly 240 people hostage on Oct. 7, Israel’s military has killed more than 12,000 Palestinians, NPR reported. United Nations experts are warning of “a genocide in the making.” The history of Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank adds crucial context.

CUNY Law Review’s central mission is to publish legal scholarship to “address the consequences of structural oppression, and to challenge these structures.” As a CUNY Law Review editor helping to realize this mission, I see it as aligning with Palestinian self-determination and opposition to the occupation and Israel’s warfare. With this in mind, and to help me understand the promises and the failures of domestic and international law in addressing the atrocities and their aftermath, the work of legal scholars and practitioners has been helpful.

Continue reading