This Eid al-Adha is Gaza’s fourth amid genocide, where the only celebration left isn’t new clothes, it’s food and surviving another day

As Muslims around the world prepare to celebrate Eid al-Adha this week, the central theme of sacrifice takes on profound new meaning against the backdrop of Gaza’s ongoing genocide. For 21 months now, we have watched Palestinian children pulled from rubble, families scattered by bombs, and an entire people systematically starved in what experts have confirmed is a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing. The question that haunts this Eid is not what Abraham was willing to sacrifice, but what we are willing to sacrifice to stop this violence.

The story of Eid al-Adha reminds us that true faith requires the willingness to give up what we hold most dear. The Prophet Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his son demonstrated a devotion that transcended personal attachment. Today, as Gaza burns and the world watches, we must ask ourselves: What are we materially willing to sacrifice to end Palestinian suffering?

The statistics are staggering and undeniable. As of June 2025, over 70% of Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed, 500,000 Palestinians face immediate forced starvation as the blockade continues into its third month, and an average of 30 children are killed every day. Yet the world has normalized this suffering. Countries continue to supply weapons to Israel, maintain embassies in Tel Aviv, and consumers continue purchasing products from companies complicit in the occupation.

This normalization is not accidental—it is the product of a global system that tells Palestinians time and time again that our death is to be expected, that our death is business as usual. When nonviolent resistance like BDS is criminalized, when protests are suppressed, when even calling for a ceasefire is labeled antisemitic, the message is clear: Palestinian lives simply matter less. We are told that if we decide to create a nonviolent movement that seeks to impose economic pressure on the Israeli government to end its crime of apartheid, we’re not going to receive media attention. Media is going to turn a blind eye to this, and that movement is going to be penalized.

But here’s what they don’t tell you: being socially ostracized or losing your job is never going to compare to losing your home or losing your entire family. The fear of suspension is never going to compare to the moments you live before you die under rubble. These things are not minor details. This is not just context that is marginal. It is, again, the very reason why people rebel, why people resist, why people engage in these acts that we might think are completely inexplicable.

After 21 months of genocide, it has become clear that government lip service and symbolic gestures are insufficient. The same politicians who issue statements condemning violence continue to fund it. The same institutions that claim to value human rights turn blind eyes to systematic oppression. The same media outlets that covered every detail of October 7th barely mention the daily massacres that followed. We are told as a people time and time again that our death can be, at best, mentioned in the end of year reports.

Content creator Ms. Rachel recently said, “whatever price we pay is worth it,” and she could not be more correct. The genocide will not end until each of us examines what we are materially willing to sacrifice—our comfort, our jobs, our money, our safety. Like Mahmoud Khalil and countless others who have faced real consequences for their solidarity with Palestine, we must move beyond performative support to meaningful action.

True sacrifice requires more than social media posts or attending rallies when convenient. It demands that we divest completely from Israeli institutions and boycott companies complicit in the occupation, even when it means giving up products or services we enjoy. It demands that we risk our professional standing by refusing to work with institutions that normalize Israeli apartheid, following the lead of doctors, artists, and academics who have put principle before career advancement. It demands that we use our bodies and voices to disrupt business as usual, joining actions like the Freedom March scheduled for June 15th and supporting the Freedom Flotilla attempting to break Gaza’s siege. It demands that we sacrifice our comfort by engaging in sustained resistance that goes beyond episodic protest to fundamental lifestyle changes that materially impact the systems enabling genocide.

The current moment reveals the bankruptcy of the “peace process” mythology. The peace process was never a process toward peace, but a process of erasure with better PR. What we’re witnessing in Gaza is not an aberration, it is the very defining factor of the Zionist project: more and more land theft. The very fact that Israeli politicians can talk on podiums with maps of Greater Israel, the fact that Netanyahu can go to the United Nations and show a map that shows a Greater Israel that includes parts of Syria, the West Bank, Gaza Strip—all of this flies under the radar, but the intent is clear.

This Eid al-Adha, we cannot afford to treat Palestinian liberation as a distant aspiration. Every day of inaction means more children in plastic bags, more families erased, more villages destroyed. The international community has failed Palestinians for 77 years. It falls to us—ordinary people willing to make extraordinary sacrifices—to break this cycle. We must recognize that there is so much fear, and this fear is not born out of the blue. There is so much hostility against Palestinians and against any pro-Palestinian sentiment. And this hostility is being transformed into legislation, into FBI investigations, into spineless university leaders who go after and target students and their freedom of speech.

But I want to remind all of us that these fears and these consequences will never compare to the consequences of living under occupation. I want to encourage everybody to be brave. And I want to remind everyone of the absolute importance of taking a public stance, denouncing apartheid, denouncing genocide, denouncing Zionism, denouncing the siege on Gaza, denouncing the occupation. It is of utmost crucial importance. This rabid repression, totalitarian response to Palestinian advocacy is scary, but it’s also revealing that they are proportionately responding to the way that the tide is shifting. And when they come for us, we do not shrink, we do not give them an inch. We become brave and we become courageous.

The story of Abraham teaches us that divine intervention comes only after we demonstrate our willingness to sacrifice. Perhaps our collective willingness to sacrifice—our comfort, our careers, our safety—will finally force the hand of history toward justice. We don’t think of ourselves as casualties. We don’t think of the prices we pay as personal, individualistic prices. But we remember that we are members of a collective movement and that struggles necessitate sacrifice.

This Eid, let us honor the spirit of sacrifice by moving beyond symbolic solidarity to material action. Let us join the growing movement of people worldwide who understand that Palestinian liberation is inseparable from human liberation everywhere. Let us be willing to pay whatever price is necessary to ensure that never again will children be starved on live television while the world looks away. The Palestinian people have already sacrificed everything. The question that will define our generation is simple: What are we willing to sacrifice for them?

Eid Mubarak to all those willing to answer that call.

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