Journalist; Best-selling author (The Lemon Tree); Professor @uscannenberg New book coming January 2027. Click on the link to pre-order.
Los Angeles, CA
Joined June 2011
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My new book, BITTERSWEET EMPIRE, comes out Jan. 26, 2027.
More than five years of reporting on the billionaires behind Domino Sugar—and the workers and communities paying the price for their fortune.
Pre-order Now:
harpercollins.com/products/b…
Sandy Tolan retweeted
please do tell me which war crimes the Japanese interior minister committed lately with my tax dollars
Ten years ago today, I was on assignment for the LA Times as riot-clad police, in essence a petrostate's private security force, broke the line of unarmed #NODAPL protestors just north the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. latimes.com/nation/nationnow…
I remember meeting you, Van, in a Berkeley back yard nearly 20 years ago, being so impressed with your progressive vision and imagination. My book The Lemon Tree had just come out and we had a great conversation. Never did I imagine you'd be one day be a shill for #Israel. How did this happen?
I have spoken out against anti-Muslim hate in the Michigan Senate race. I will speak out just as loudly when the target is Jewish people.
Let me state a little-known fact: ISRAEL GETS LESS THAN 0.1 PERCENT OF THE FEDERAL BUDGET. That’s less than one tenth of a percent!
But there is an ad running that tells voters they can’t afford groceries because the United States gives so much money to Israel. In reality, the United States spends money in and on countries all around the world – but this ad singles out the Jewish state. The ad is as dangerous as it is dishonest.
You can disagree with how the United States spends money abroad. But telling hungry families that the Jewish state is the reason they are suffering is wrong and shameful.
Blaming Jews for people’s problems is an old story. Anybody who has read the last century of history knows where it leads. It is a dark pathway.
This ad is anti-Jewish hate and should come down immediately. Abdul El-Sayed should denounce it today.
The #Brewers' postseaon team strategy, determination, and execution has been astounding. One by one, they have broken, in order, the Padres' Morejon & Miller, the Dodgers Yamamoto & Snell, and now, in the #WorldSeries, the Rays' Rasmussen - five of the most elite pitchers in MLB.
Just astonishing.
Sandy Tolan retweeted
I was not familiar with Roll Out the Barrel
I will never forget it. Absolutely electric.
Sandy Tolan retweeted
3. @Sandy_Tolan brilliantly is making note of everything he felt while researching the book. He doesn’t make any conclusions but shares his impressions from the ground. He is brilliant. I am glad to spend time thinking on the book.
Still trying to get over it, I see. The Dodgers had the Brewers "on the ropes..." until they got swept. But I understand. A changing of the guard is never easy.
Just a friendly reminder that the Dodgers had the Brewers on the ropes and would’ve beaten them 9/10 times
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The Brewers swept the Dodgers.
espn.com/mlb/game/_/gam…
Poor JD Vance. Could even get handshakes from the Cincinnati Bengals. Well, he did get one, but 15 players turned away. Geez, former Senator Vance, how's it going for you?
Settler attacks on Palestinian olive harvesters have been going on for decades, long before my report on it for NPR 20 yrs ago. The only difference: now they're much more incendiary, violent, and encouraged by Israel's colonial settler regime. npr.org/2007/11/22/16506897/…
Sandy Tolan retweeted
Israel’s apartheid system is turning the olive harvest into a season of horror for families in the occupied West Bank. This is state-sponsored brutality. It is ethnic cleansing.
npr.org/2026/10/21/nx-s1-601…
I’ve published five books, about race in America, life under military occupation, and the hope and perseverance that people maintain, despite the immense hardships they face. Those stories have stayed with me long after the reporting ended.
Me and Hank began with a boyhood letter to Hank Aaron and became a story about race in America.
The Lemon Tree follows a Palestinian and an Israeli whose families called the same house home. This one became an international best seller with over 200k+ books sold worldwide. I later adapted their story for young readers.
Children of the Stone traces the determination of my friend Ramzi Aburedwan and children under Israeli military occupation to bring music into the lives of children under occupation.
Now comes Bittersweet Empire, the story of story of six generations of a billionaire sugar dynasty and the slavery, exploited labor, and environmental destruction that fueled its fortune.
After five years of writing, I’m proud to share that it will be published in January 2027. Pre order now: harpercollins.com/products/b…
Sandy Tolan retweeted
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Navi Pillay has called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stand trial for genocide in Gaza. trib.al/YAT9y9I
Sandy Tolan retweeted
@TomSilverstein Props to @leap36 Leroy Butler for saying what so few admit publicly: It's time for GB to part ways with #JoshJacobs. The man battered his gf, gave her a head injury, then tried to suppress the video evidence. Disgusting. Let us feel good about being #Packers fans again.
Are you effing serious? The man is facing grave health risks; his career may be over; and you’re questioning his will to win a football game? Do yourself a favor and delete this tweet.
Sandy Tolan retweeted
The GOP is panicking over Abdul El-Sayed leading in polls. Their anti-Muslim bigotry didn't work with Zohran in NYC. If if doesn't work in a midwest state like Michigan, their days of using Islam to scare people is over! That is why they are doubling down on it!
Barack Obama's unequivocal defense of Ilhan Omar is a call to arms for Democrats and democrats. First they came for the immigrants. Then they came for members of Congress who dare to stand up to them. Defend #IlhanOmar nytimes.com/2026/10/16/opini…
Barack Obama's unequivocal defense of Ilhan Omar is a call to arms for Democrats and democrats. First they came for the immigrants. Then they came for members of Congress who dare to stand up to them. Defend #IlhanOmar nytimes.com/2026/10/16/opini…
I first met Ramzi Aburedwan - رمزي أبورضوان in 1998, in a Palestinian refugee camp near Ramallah. He was 18, a grandson of refugees from the 1948 #Palestinian #Nakba (catastrophe). He was just starting to learn music, the viola. I was working on a story for NPR, and asked him what his dream was. "To build music schools for the children of Palestine," he told me. How nice, I thought. Little did I imagine that, 10 years later, when I saw him by chance again in Ramallah, I would learn that this is exactly what he did: He built Al Al kamandjati - الكمنجاتي, a music school in Palestine, an institution of beauty and creative resistance.
I wrote a book about Ramzi, Children of the Stone, in 2015. Since then we have become close friends. Tonight he'll be performing in Anaheim, at a benefit for the children of Gaza. Can't wait to see my old friend.
simpletix.com/e/palestine-fo…
