What Propels Us into the Streets for Gaza?

by Meizhu Lui, for the editorial team

I go to the fridge and survey the array of food choices. A photo of a Palestinian boy with jutting ribs dying from hunger flashes to my mind. I take a shower. My thoughts jump to the Gazan woman who doesn’t even have water. I fall and my knee bleeds, and I apply antibiotic cream. It’s incomprehensible that Gazans with severed limbs have no medicine and no anesthesia — if they’re lucky enough to still know a doctor. I see a kitty dead on the road, and it breaks my heart. But then I think, in Gaza, it could be my little granddaughter.

 

We take so much for granted, but horrified by the cruelty of Israel’s assault on the people of Palestine, daily conveniences seem like enormous luxuries. What do we do with the feelings we have, of gratitude — and guilt? Simply being grateful for what we have can make us complacent; guilt over our own plenitude can immobilize us.

 

But these conflicting emotions together propel many of us into the streets, where we howl with grief and rage. In our interactions with others who remain impassive, we infect them with our fury and frustration. Through massive outcry, ordinary people have turned the world — other than the US! — against Israel’s genocide.

 

A leader in this movement, José Luis Hernandez Ayala, as a union activist, never shies from defending those who are wronged. He has jumped into action against the atrocities perpetrated on the Palestinian people. As he says, we cannot remain indifferent; how can anyone with an ounce of humanity be indifferent? The condemnation of Israel grows. That’s a victory.

 

But still, the suffering and killing continues.

Mexico and Palestine: Sovereign States

José Luis Hernandez Ayala worked for Luz y Fuerza del Centro, or CFE, Mexico’s national electrical company, and has been active in the Mexican Union of Electricians, or SME, for 23 years. In 2013, the neoliberal government of President Felipe Calderón shut down CFE with the aim of eliminating the union, which opposed his privatization of the electricity industry. Today, although reduced in size, the SME continues to be active, and Ayala remains part of its heroic resistance.

Mexicans began organizing support for Palestine long before Israel's genocide in Gaza. How did that come about?

 

In the 1968 student movement against the PRI government, hundreds of peaceful student protesters were massacred in Tlatelolco Square. A wave of radicalization among youth followed in the 70s, and out of that, a significant movement of solidarity with the Palestinian cause emerged. Many of those activists now hold positions in the Mexican government.

In addition, young anti-Zionist Jews who emigrated to Mexico helped us understand the colonialist, racist and imperialist nature of the Israeli state. Yes, Zionist Jews do live in Mexico, but they are mostly businesspeople who are not involved in politics.

 

Mexican foreign policy has been governed by the Estrada Doctrine. What is that?

 

The Estrada Doctrine is a principle of Mexican foreign policy, enacted in 1930. It’s based on the principles of non-intervention and self-determination of peoples and remains a fundamental pillar of Mexican diplomacy.

 

Estrada is enshrined in the Constitution, which requires the head of the Executive Branch to “observe the following normative principles: the self-determination of peoples; non-intervention; the peaceful settlement of disputes; the prohibition of the threat or use of force in international relations; the legal equality of States; international cooperation for development; respect, protection and promotion of human rights; and the struggle for international peace and security.”

 

This Doctrine should be understood in context — in 1930, Mexico had already been invaded by France, Spain, England and the US. Neutrality was a way to defend Mexico, avoiding alliances that could lead to its being caught up in wider conflicts.

 

How has the Estrada Doctrine been applied?

However, in its international practices, Mexico hasn’t always been neutral — not when neutrality amounts to ignoring oppression. In international conflicts, Mexico has often played a significant role in supporting victims of dictatorial regimes or countries suffering imperialist invasions.

 

This was the case of the support — including military support — for the Republican fighters in the Spanish Civil War and later for recognizing Nicaragua’s Sandinistas as a legitimate revolutionary force. Mexico also severed diplomatic relations with the authoritarian regimes of Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, Pinochet and Somoza. During World War II, they  granted asylum to Jews and to persecuted people from other nations.

 

Mexico has granted political asylum in our country to thousands of victims of South American dictatorships and to political figures over many years, from Leon Trotsky in 1937 to former Vice-President Jorge Glas from Ecuador in 2024.

 

How does the Estrada Doctrine affect Mexico's relationship with Palestine and Israel?

 

In reality, it has no effect whatsoever. It is simply used as a pretext by the current government to avoid breaking diplomatic relations with the genocidal entity of Israel and to avoid antagonizing Donald Trump's imperialist government.

 

What does the pro-Palestine movement want the Mexican government to do? 

We applaud that Claudia Sheinbaum recognized the Palestinian state recently this year and established a Palestinian embassy in Mexico City. Mexico also joined South Africa and other countries in filing a charge of genocide against Israel before the UN’s International Criminal Court.

 

However, Mexico could do more in the face of Israel’s barbarism.

Reviving one of our best national traditions of breaking diplomatic relations with dictatorships such as Pinochet’s in Chile and Somoza’s in Nicaragua, we call on Mexico to sever diplomatic, commercial, cultural and military relations with the Zionist state of Israel. The Israel-Mexico Free Trade Agreement should be canceled. The acquisition of any military, police, or security products or services should be prohibited.

 

Mexico should denounce the criminal blockade of food, water and medicine, and the use of hunger as a weapon of genocide. Mexico can insist at the UN Security Council that food be immediately distributed to the people of Gaza.

 

You’ve been organizing labor for Palestine. What support is there already, and how will you expand labor support?

 

More than a year ago, SME’s leadership published a paid advertisement in a national newspaper demanding Mexico sever diplomatic relations with Israel. In August 2025, we joined the movement in solidarity with Palestine. Frankly, we were surprised to find other unions participating. Most were teachers from several CNTE local unions and professors from university unions here in Mexico City. Since then, we have proposed a Coordinating Committee of Mexican Unions for Palestine.

 

On September 25, we’ll hold our first public event. A national forum with the Palestinian ambassador Nadya Rasheed will draw an expected crowd of 1,200 people.

Next we’ll organize another demonstration in the streets.

To educate the rank and file, we’ll initiate a series of workshops inside unions led by teachers including Gilberto Conde, an expert on the Middle East and leader of the academic workers’ union at El Colegio de Mexico.

Israel is committing a crime against humanity, and we cannot remain indifferent. But also, support for Palestine constitutes part of the struggle against imperialism and colonialism, racism and the anti-worker offensive of extreme right-wing and fascist groups.

 

We’ve witnessed how Israel's genocidal violence is accompanied by intense repression of any resistance or solidarity from the peoples of the world who denounce it. Nations such as Germany, England, France and the US criminalize protests, violate freedom of expression and imprison hundreds of activists who are only exercising their legitimate right to civil and peaceful protest. Once again, this confirms that a nation that oppresses another, or is complicit with the oppressor, cannot be a free nation.

We understand that Claudia must be “careful” and “prudent” in handling Mexico’s support for Palestine, given this difficult moment in which the US is menacing our own country. But as unions and workers, we don’t have to be so careful. We must forcefully defend the principle of sovereignty for Palestine and for any other people.

MIT PROFESSOR CANCELS ISRAELI MILITARY GRANT AFTER STUDENT PRESSURE

“This concession shows that student campaigns do have an influence,” one student said. "These ties cannot survive transparency."

PRO-PALESTINE STUDENT activists across the country have struggled to get their universities to respond to pressure for divestment from Israel and its military–industrial complex.

So when a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology withdrew from a grant from the Israeli military after hearing feedback from students protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza, it was especially welcome news.

“This is one of the only cases where we know that student activism and public pressure led directly to an Israeli tie being cut, let alone a collaboration with its genocidal military,” said Mila Halgren, a postdoctoral associate at MIT. (The university did not respond to a request for comment.)

“Student action is not meaningless.”

MIT has come under internal and public scrutiny for conducting research on warfare technology sponsored by Israel. In July, the United Nations condemned the school for conducting “weapons and surveillance research funded by the Israeli ministry of defense — the only foreign military financing research at the institute.”

That research included projects on drone swarm control — technology which the Israeli military has used during its siege on Gaza — pursuit algorithms, and underwater surveillance.

Read the article here.

Why I Am Joining the People’s Hunger Strike for Gaza

I have joined the hunger strike in grief at the annihilation of Gaza, and to protest the use of my tax dollars to transform the Gaza Strip into a graveyard for its people and international law.

On September 25 I will begin a weeklong water-only fast as part of The People’s Hunger Strike that was launched outside the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Federal Building in Boston on September 4.

Its goals are to raise consciousness about the deliberate starvation of the people of Gaza and to pressure Massachusetts senators, whose offices are in that building, to sponsor a version of the House “Block the Bombs” bill (HR 3565) that would stop the US from sending Israel the kind of high-impact weaponry being used against civilians in the Gaza Strip in violation of international law.

The Horror of Forced Starvation

The People’s Hunger Strike is the brainchild of a Boston physician Miriam Komaromy. She had not previously been actively involved in organizing for Palestine. But “when forced starvation was imposed on the Gaza population it brought me up short,” she told me. “I said this cannot be. The reality of parents starving and watching their child starve to death—I couldn’t bear it.”

Responding to a Palestinian call urging people of conscience around the world to join a solidarity hunger strike initiated in the West Bank, Dr. Komaromy reached out to members of Boston’s Doctors against Genocide and Healthcare Workers for Palestine-Boston as well as the Boston chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. Soon they had numerous cosponsoring groups supporting the planned hunger strike, and some 35 people had pledged to undertake one-week fasts.

Read the article here.

Gaza Community Mental Health Programme

Gaza- 22-9-2025 - The Israeli Occupation Forces have just bombed Al-Shawa Building which houses GCMHP’s Gaza Community and Training center.

The Israeli Occupation Forces bombed Al-Shawa Building which houses GCMHP’s Gaza Community Center and Training Department.

Gaza Community Mental Health Programme condemns in the strongest terms the Israeli act of destroying Al-Shawa Building, in Gaza City. The building was housing GCMHP’s community center and main offices.

GCMHP has been using 7 rented offices in the targeted building to provide mental health and psychosocial services for war victims and affected people. The building was a pivotal point to support thousands of beneficiaries who are among the most fragile groups in the community, including children, women and people with disabilities.

This targeting does not only represent a flagrant violation of the international law,  but also aims at undermining the humanitarian efforts to support the civilians who live harsh conditions under the continuing aggression.

Despite the big losses and the increasing challenges, GCMHP emphasizes that it will continue the commitment to its humanitarian mission of providing mental health and psychosocial support for the affected.  It also calls upon the international community and human rights organizations to promptly intervene to stop the recurring violations against the civilians and their infrastructure.

Gaza Community Mental Health Programme