Catherine Shakdam

2 weeks ago | blogs.timesofisrael.com | Catherine Perez-Shakdam |Catherine Shakdam

There is a silence that comforts — the silence of awe before the sacred, the pause of grief, the reverent hush of memory. And then there is another kind. A silence of erasure, of complicity, of moral failure. A silence that does not heal but distorts. Such is the silence that surrounds the mass displacement of Jews from the Arab world in the middle of the 20th century — a silence so vast, so enduring, that it has become a second exile.

3 weeks ago | blogs.timesofisrael.com | Catherine Perez-Shakdam |Catherine Shakdam

It is June again, and with it comes Pride Month—flags hoisted, statements issued, brands temporarily reborn in rainbow hues. From Westminster to Waitrose, everyone is “celebrating diversity.” And yet, there is something disconcerting about the ease with which this ritual is performed in the West, especially by those who, in other contexts, remain oddly silent about one of the most egregious and violent threats to LGBTQ+ people worldwide. I refer not to populist reactionaries.

1 month ago | intpolicydigest.org | Catherine Perez-Shakdam |Catherine Shakdam

Two Israeli embassy staffers, murdered in Washington, D.C. Their killer: Elias Rodriguez, now in custody. A name unfamiliar to most, yet heavy with consequence. For all the headlines that fixate on him, the deeper question remains—one that polite diplomacy rarely dares to voice: Was he a lone actor, or was he a weapon in the hands of something far larger? We must resist the instinct to file this under domestic aberration.

1 month ago | blogs.timesofisrael.com | Catherine Perez-Shakdam |Catherine Shakdam

Let us, for a moment, imagine the headlines: “14,000 Babies to Die in 48 Hours”. Not from disease, nor natural disaster, nor famine — but, by implication, at the hands of the Jewish state. This was not tabloid hysteria. This was not war propaganda from the seventh-century stylings of Iran’s Supreme Leader. This was a claim made by none other than a senior United Nations humanitarian official, Tom Fletcher, during a BBC interview.

1 month ago | blogs.timesofisrael.com | Catherine Perez-Shakdam |Catherine Shakdam

In an age awash with hashtags, slogans, and placard profundity, it has become unfashionable—if not positively subversive—to ask that history be treated with care. Today, history must emote. It must rally. It must rattle cages, preferably while rhyming in iambic chants. It must, above all, serve a cause. And so we come, inevitably, to the Nakba. The Arabic word Nakba, meaning “catastrophe,” has assumed a near-sacrosanct status in modern discourse on the Middle East.