Enas Ikhlawi is a young Palestinian journalist committed to documenting and reporting about settlers' attacks against Palestinian villagers. Her goal is to inform the public, hold settlers and IDF attacks to account, and ensure that underrepresented voices of Palestinian villagers are heard. She also led a women's program in Hebron.

Sadly, that came abruptly to an end yesterday Monday January 5, when heavily armed IDF soldiers stormed her home in the town of Idana, west of Hebron in the occupied West Bank. According to her brother Raafat Ikhlawi, "After breaking down the doors and arresting my sister Enas in a brutal manner, she was dragged away violently without a hijab or warm clothing. After significant pressure, we were allowed to give her a coat. So far, we do not know her whereabouts or the reason for her arrest."

While activists link it to efforts silencing coverage of settler attacks, the arrest fits a pattern of over 21,000 detentions since October 2023 in Gaza and the West Bank, many without trial amid rising tensions and no immediate comment from Israeli forces.

We do not believe democratic societies are defined by perfection, moral purity, or the absence of abuse.

We believe they are defined by their capacity to detect error, correct abuse, and restore trust through evidence.

History shows that when power—whether governmental, institutional, or private—operates without transparency and independent verification, abuse becomes not only possible but predictable. This is not a claim about motives or ideology. It is a structural reality observed across time and systems.

1. Skepticism is not cynicism.
   Asking for evidence is not an accusation. It is a democratic responsibility.

2. Transparency is not exposure.
   Protecting privacy and civil rights is compatible with public verification of outcomes.

Monday, January 5, 2026, 12:00 – 1:00 PM
Ohio Statehouse, 1 Capitol Square, Columbus in the Rotunda

Share a reading or song.  Let’s change priorities in 2026. 

Moral Mondays are recurring demonstrations, often led by the Ohio Poor People's Campaign, calling for an end to "policy violence" through prayer, advocacy, and protest, focusing on issues like poverty, healthcare access, and social justice, with events held in the Capitol Rotunda. These events, part of a larger national movement, gather faith leaders and impacted individuals to demand action from lawmakers

It was 2002 when Delcy Rodriguez, sworn in today as President of Venezuela, came to my apartment in London well after midnight to tell me, a BBC television reporter, that the US was planning to kidnap, and likely assassinate, the then-president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.

The coup, Rodriguez said, was planned for March, but I could not get the BBC to send me there on the basis of Rodriguez’s inside info. In fact, there was no coup in March. Chavez was seized on April 2.

President Chavez was kidnapped and flown by helicopter to a prison on Margarita Island off the Venezuelan coast. But President George W. Bush had let Venezuelan plotters operate the coup, and they were incompetent.

Chavez, the first Black and Indian president in Venezuela’s history, was guarded by a young soldier who was the same color as Chavez. He handed Chavez his cell phone. Chavez reached his Air Force generals who made it clear to the plotters — most of them white (race matters here) — that they would be bombed into oblivion unless Chavez were returned in 48 hours to his desk. The coup leaders brought back Chavez within hours.