Jewish Currents

Israel-Palestine
Explainer

AP Photo/Hatem Ali

Alex Kane, Mari Cohen, Jonathan Shamir, and Isaac
Scher
October 10, 2023
https://perma.cc/6NVY-SY5V

mainstreaming of many of Kahane’s views has moved the far-right fromfringe to center in Israel’s public debate.
The events of May 10th—when religious Zionist Israelis celebrated
Jerusalem Day, marking the Israeli occupation and conquest of East
Jerusalem during the Six-Day War—reflect these blurring distinctions
between Kahanism and the religious Zionist right. In a video thatcirculated widely online last week, groups of religious Zionist yeshiva
students can be seen singing “Zechreni Na,” a revenge song that quotes
the story of Samson from the Book of Judges, and that has become afar-right anthem. Composed by the Kahanist musician Dov Shurin,“Zechreni Na” was infamously sung at a 2015 wedding of two
extreme-right militants by attendees who brandished guns and knives
and stabbed printed-out photos of Ali Dawabshe, a one-year old
Palestinian killed by a right-wing settler in an arson attack in the WestBank village of Duma. In short, even while right-wing religious Zionists
and Kahanists belong to distinct ideological traditions, in practice theirpolitical movements have merged—and have gained unprecedented
public support in Israel.
— JL, 5/20/2021

122Israel, where he founded the Kach party. Kach’s platform called for the
expulsion of Palestinains from territories under Israeli control and for astate governed by Jewish religious law. Kahane also sought tocriminalize marriage between Arabs and Jews and to bar Arabs fromvoting or holding elected office in Israel. In 1988, Kach was disqualified
from running for seats in the Knesset under an Israeli law barring
parties that engage in racist incitement. But Gopstein’s Lehava, one ofKach’s inheritors, remains one of the more active Kahanist groups in theextra-parliamentary arena.
Within the Knesset, the Kahanist mantle is carried by the Jewish
Power (in Hebrew, Otzmah Yehudit) party, led by Itamar Ben-Gvir. A
veteran far-right activist, Ben-Gvir made his name as an attorney with
Honenu, an organization that provides financial and legal assistance toJewish Israeli terror suspects—for instance, the three Israelis suspectedof killingPalestinian teenaer Mohammed Abu Khdeir and theperpetrators of an arson attack on the Jewish-Arab Hand in Hand
school in Jerusalem. The Jewish Power party ran in the March 2021
Israeli elections on a joint slate with the Religious Zionism party,
currently led by Bezalel Smotrich, which boasts six seats in the Knesset.
The merger of the Jewish Power party with the Religious Zionism
party reflects an ideological convergence that has taken place over thelast several years between the religious Zionist movement—which
believes in a divine Jewish right to the Land of Greater Israel and in
Jewish sovereignty as a necessary prelude to the messianic age—and
the Kahanist fringe. In earlier decades, these were related but distinct
ideological tendencies with distinct social bases: religious Zionists havetended to be more affluent, educated, and Ashkenazi, while the Kahanist
movement draws its more hard-core base largely from working-class
Mizrahim and formerly ultra-Orthodox youth. Many in the religious
Zionist movement once considered Ben-Gvir’s views beyond the pale: In
2020, Naftali Bennett, erstwhile leader of the settler-right party Jewish
Home, refused to merge his party with Ben-Gvir’s. But a combination of
realpolitik considerations by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who
signed a vote-sharing agreement with Ben Gvir’s party and needs its
seats in the Knesset to remain in power—and the gradual

What are the reasons Palestinians have been demonstrating in
East Jerusalem?

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In late April, the Israeli police began to form nightly barricades atthe Damascus Gate esplanade, a popular gathering place for East
Jerusalemites—especially during Ramadan—and a major access point
to the Old City. This move prompted protests from Palestinians, who
saw the actions of the police as part of the broader repression ofPalestinian cultural and political life in the city. After several weeks ofnear-nightly protests, at which heavily armed Israeli police faced
unarmed Palestinian youth, the Israeli police removed the barricades.
At the same time, Palestinians have also been protesting in theneighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where eight Palestinian families arefacing eviction from their homes by right-wing Jewish settler groups.
These Palestinian protesters have been met with violence not only by
the Israeli police, who have fired rubber-coated bullets and stungrenades, but also from settlers and far-right activists, who in at least
one instance opened fire with live ammunition on protesters throwing
stones.
— JL, 5/13/21

Why are Palestinians facing eviction in Sheikh Jarrah?
The neighborhood known as Sheikh Jarrah lies about one kilometer
north of Jerusalem’s Old City. As Hagit Ofran, co-director of theSettlement Watch project at the progressive Israeli group Peace Now,
explained to me, two Jewish religious associations—the Sephardi
Community Committee and the Knesset Israel Committee—purchased
the area in the late 19th century but never built on it. In 1948, during
the war that followed Israel’s declaration of statehood, Jordan took
ownership of the area along with the rest of East Jerusalem. Around
700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes during thatwar, in an event known as the Nakba, or catastrophe, and neighboring
countries absorbed hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees.
Jordan ultimately decided to use the land now known as Sheikh Jarrah

to settle Palestinian refugees, and built homes there for 28 Palestinianfamilies in 1956.
Sheikh Jarrah faced new uncertainty after Israel took over all of East
Jerusalem, in violation of international law, during the Six-Day War in1967. Upon taking control of the area, the Israeli Knesset passed theLegal and Administrative Matters Law, which declared that land in East
Jerusalem that had belonged to Jews before 1948 would be returned toits original owners upon request. As Palestinian activists often note, thislaw enshrined a glaring inequality: It allowed Jews who fled or were
expelled from East Jerusalem in 1948 to reclaim their land, while
Palestinians who fled or were expelled from Israel at the same time are
barred from reclaiming their homes by a different dictum, the Absentee
Property Law, which transfered property “abandoned” by displaced
Palestinians to the Jewish state. In Sheikh Jarrah, according to Ofran,this meant that the Sephardi Community Committee and Knesset Israel
Committee were able to register as landowners under the Legal and
Administrative Matters Law in the late 1960s, but the Palestinian
refugees who live there could not recover their own pre-’48 property.
They have remained in their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, despite efforts by
the Jewish committees to evict them in the 1980s.
In 2007, the Jewish associations sold the land to a settler groupcalled Nahalat Shimon (which is owned by a company, Nahalat Shimon
International, based in the US). Nahalat Shimon soon filed eviction
proceedings against Palestinians living on the land, and succeeded inevicting Palestinians from four homes in 2008 and 2009; Jewish settlers
moved in. Palestinian Sheikh Jarrah residents report experiencing
frequent violence and provocation from these settlers. Over thesubsequent 12 years, as court cases concerning seven other houses
have dragged on, Sheikh Jarrah residents have held weekly nonviolent
protests against displacement. In February of this year, the Jerusalem
District Court, rejecting an appeal, ruled that the residents of fourhouses—amounting to six families and 27 people—could be evicted.
The families appealed, and the Israeli Supreme Court was scheduled torule on their case this week, but delayed its decision in order to seek
input from Israel’s attorney general. The court says it will announce a

envoy, she looked forward “to standing with Israel, standing against theunfair targeting of Israel, the relentless resolutions proposed against
Israel unfairly.”
But what US leaders call the UN’s anti-Israel “obsession” could beread, more straightforwardly, as an attempt to hold the country
accountable for its actions. UN Human Rights Council reports haverepeatedly documented Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, while a 2020 UN
Human Rights Office reportshed light on the corporations facilitating
Israel’s settlement project in the occupied West Bank and East
Jerusalem. It is true that Israel often receives more UN focus than otherstates that abuse human rights: Israel is the onlycountry in the world
listed as a permanent “standing item” at the UN Human Rights Council.
Israel is also the only country operating what human rights groups callan “apartheid” system, and carrying out an almost 54-year-old militaryoccupation.
Part of the US’s motivation for blocking UN statements andresolutions may lie in the anxiety that such international attempts at
accountability coulddraw attention to the US’s own tactics for fighting
the “war on terrorism,” which are currently under investigation by theInternational Criminal Court. Supporting an investigation into Israeli
actions would give legitimacy to the idea that not only US allies but the
US itself can be held accountable for war crimes. — AK, 5/20/2021

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Who were the right-wingdemonstrating in Jerusalem?

Israelis

who

have

been

In late April, several hundred far-right Jewish demonstrators
marched from the Jerusalem city center toward the Damascus Gate, atthe entrance to the Old City, shouting “Death to the Arabs” and “mayyour villages burn down.” This demonstration was organized by Lehava,
an anti-assimilation group led by Benzi Gopstein, ostensibly in response
to videos of Palestinians harassing Orthodox Jews circulating on TikTok.
Gopstein is a follower of the late Meir Kahane, an American-born rabbi
who founded the Jewish Defense League in the US—which the FBI
designated as a right-wing terrorist group in 2001—before moving todecades before the creation of Hamas. “If Hamas gets quashed, you’regoing to get another political party that calls for the same thing,” Baconi
said.
In an essay for his substack, The Beinart Notebook, Jewish Currents
Editor-at-Large Peter Beinart agreed. “If Israel eliminated Hamas,
nothing fundamental would change,” he wrote. “As long as Israel denies
Palestinians’ basic rights, Palestinians will keep fighting Israel. That fightbegan long before Hamas was created, and if Hamas were somehow
destroyed, it would continue long after Hamas was gone.”— MC, 5/20/21

new ruling date within 30 days. In advance of the scheduled ruling,
young Palestinians from elsewhere in Jerusalem came to join the Sheikh
Jarrah residents in protest, where they were met with violent police
repression— MC, 5/13/21

Why are the Sheikh Jarrah evictions often described as “ethnic
cleansing”?

Since Israel’s assault on Gaza began, the United States has blocked
the UN Security Council from releasing a statement calling for aceasefire on four separate occasions, and has opposed a resolution
making the same call. (A ceasefire is scheduled to go into effect at 2:00
am on May 21st, according to Israeli reports.) The UN Security Council
requires consensus before releasing such statements, and the US has
been the only power standing in the way of a UN-backed call to halt thefighting; resolutions, which are legally binding, do not require
unanimous consent, but the US has the power to veto them. The move
may seem counterintuitive, since the Biden administration has said it
supports a ceasefire. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki suggested
on Wednesday that the US blocked the UN statements because theywould “hinder” the goal of “ending the violence.” “The President has
been doing this long enough . . . to know that sometimes diplomacy
needs to happen behind the scenes; it needs to be quiet,” she said.
The US has a long history of defending Israel at the UN in response
to what it claims is the body’s anti-Israel bias. In her last appearance
before the Security Council as US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley
called the international body “hopelessly biased” against Israel. The
Biden administration has expressed an intent to continue opposing UN
rebukes of Israel: During her Senate confirmation hearings, US
ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield promised that, as UN

The attempt to remove Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah takes place
within the context of a system of Israeli laws that works to increase thenumber of Jews and decrease the number of Palestinians in Israel andthe Occupied Territories. (Human rights groups say the system meetsthe definition of apartheid.) For this reason, the writer and Sheikh Jarrah
resident Mohammed el-Kurd, whose family lost half its property tosettlers in 2009 and now faces removal from the other half, has pushed
back on the use of the word “eviction” to describe the threat facing
Sheikh Jarrah, arguing that the proceedings are more accurately
understood as “forced ethnic displacement.”
While the Israeli Foreign Ministry and many Israel advocates haveclaimed the matter is simply a private real estate dispute, settler
organizations—which insist on Jews’ divine right to occupy the entire
city of Jerusalem—and some politicians have been explicit about theirideological goals in displacing Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah. “I wantJerusalem to be Jewish,” one Sheikh Jarrah settler, Yonatan Yosef, told
The New York Times last week. “This land belonged to the Jewish nation,
to the Jewish people.” A deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Aryeh King, told
the Times that having more Jews move into East Jerusalem was a way
to ensure that future peace negotiators would designate the entire city
as a Jewish capital. And Sheikh Jarrah is just one front in a larger settler
enterprise: In the nearby neighborhood of Silwan, for example, 84
families face eviction suits filed by settler groups who say the land was
originally owned by Jews in the late 19th century.
Resistance in Sheikh Jarrah, therefore, has become emblematic of abroader struggle against Israeli occupation and apartheid. Speaking of
the Palestinian youth from outside Sheikh Jarrah who joined the recent

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Why did the US block the United Nations’ calls for a ceasefire?

protests, Muna el-Kurd, Mohammad’s sister, told +972 Magazine, “Theissue of Sheikh Jarrah is their issue as well, our homes are their homes.
What is happening to the homes here will happen to their homes in the
future.”— MC, 5/13/21

Why did Israeli police enter the Al-Aqsa compound earlier thisweek?
A key word in the Israeli security forces’ lexicon is “deterrence.”
Deterrence from what? In police terms, “public disorder”—a phrase
frequently applied to any attempt to challenge Israeli dominance over
the terms of life. Indeed, much of the Israeli police’s behavior over thelast several weeks can be explained by this principle. It’s what led thepolice to set up the barricades outside the Damascus Gate, which theyjustified by claiming it was necessary to secure public order. (As one
high-ranking police source toldHaaretz reporter Josh Breiner, thedecision to remove the barricades in response to Palestinian protests
was “a total loss of deterrence.”) It’s also why Israeli police entered the
Al-Aqsa compound—seemingly to suppress counter-protests inadvance of an Israeli nationalist parade—and fired flashbangs andrubber-coated bullets at worshippers during the holiest part of
Ramadan: because of a perceived need to show Palestinians who is incharge. Or as the Israeli police explained in a statement after the third
consecutive day of raids on the Temple Mount: “We will continue toallow freedom of worship, but we will not permit public disturbances.”
In addition to Al-Aqsa’s religious significance for Muslims—it isIslam’s third-holiest site—the mosque is one of the most important
Palestinian national symbols. “Al-Aqsa is in many ways the last place ofPalestinian, Muslim sovereignty in Jerusalem, perhaps even within theentire country,” explained Palestinian journalist Suleiman Maswadeh on
Israel Public Broadcasting’s Marhebet podcast. Israeli attempts to exert
control over the site thus constitute a serious political provocation. In
2017, Israeli forces set up metal detectors at the Al-Aqsa Mosque
entrances in response to a shooting by three Palestinians on the Temple
Mount that killed two Israeli policemen. Palestinians responded with5

huge towers that also house offices and residential apartments,
international humanitarian law—which is supposed to govern how
Israel and Hamas fight—takes other considerations into account,
including whether the military advantage conferred by a strikeoutweighs the harm to civilians.
“Deliberate targeting of civilian objects and extensive, unjustified
destruction of property are war crimes,” said Saleh Higazi, deputy
director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
“Destroying entire multi-story homes, making tens of families homeless,amounts to collective punishment of the Palestinian population and is abreach of international law. Even if part of a building is being used formilitary purposes, Israeli authorities have an obligation to choosemeans and methods of attack that would minimize risks posed tocivilians and their property.”— AK, 5/18/21

If Israel destroyed Hamas, would that help resolve theconflict?
Israel-advocacy talking points frequently describe Hamas as theultimate source of violence in Israel/Palestine, defending Israeli military
actions as necessary responses to Hamas’s rocket fire. But Palestinian
activists note that Israeli aggression in Gaza—which it first occupied in
1967—and elsewhere in Palestine long predates Hamas’s founding in
1987. “For decades before the founding of Hamas, the Gaza Strip was
attacked, occupied, and massacres were committed there, civilians were
killed, way before rockets or Hamas,” Jehad Abusalim, a writer from
Gaza, wrote on Twitter. Abusalim added on Twitter that even nonviolent
resistance from Palestinians is often harshly punished: “As we saw in
2018, during Gaza’s protests near the borders, hundreds were killed
when no rockets were being fired.”
Baconi said on Unsettled that occupation and denial ofself-determination inevitably produce armed resistance. Other
Palestinian nationalist movements—some of them leftist andsecular—engaged in sometimes violent struggle against Israel for18

Palestinian civilians as human shields during previous wars in Gaza,
when Israeli troops were present on the ground. (So far, Israel is fighting
today’s war from the sky and from just outside of Gaza.) In 2009,
B’Tselem documented how Israeli soldiers used a 53-year-old
Palestinian man as a human shield, forcing him to “enter five houses in
the area and gather the occupants of each house in one room.” Only
after the man entered those other Palestinian homes did “the soldiers
enter each house and search it,” according to B’Tselem. After Israel’s
2014 assault on Gaza, B’Tselem again received testimony from
Palestinians who said soldiers had used them as human shields.
Similarly, in 2014, Defense for Children International–Palestine
documented an incident in which Israeli soldiers forced a 16-year-old,at gunpoint, “to search for tunnels for five days, during which time he
was interrogated, verbally and physically abused, and deprived of foodand sleep.” DCI–Palestine noted: “The Israeli military has consistently
accused Hamas of using civilians—particularly children—as humanshields, but this incident represents a clear case of their soldiers forcing
a child to directly assist in military operations.”— AK, 5/18/21

mass demonstrations. After a weeks-long crisis—during which
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas temporarily froze
PA relations with Israel—the Israeli government removed the metal
detectors.
Against the backdrop of an unceasing occupation in the West Bankand ongoing attempts to displace Palestinians from East Jerusalem, theIsraeli incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque triggered the current crisis.
When Israel moves to exert control over the site, Maswedeh said, “itgenerates the feeling for Palestinians that, in the blink of an eye, they’regoing to take away the last place we have, and we’re not going to letthat happen.”— JL, 5/13/21

Where is the Israeli left at this moment?

On May 15th, an Israeli airstrike destroyed the al-Jalaa tower in
Gaza City, which housed the offices of Al Jazeera and the AssociatedPress. Though Israel argued that the strike was justified because Hamas
used parts of the building as a military intelligence base, it provided noconcrete evidence to support that claim. By contrast, the AP said it had“no indication” Hamas used the building, something it “actively” checked.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had seen no evidence to backup Israel’s claims of a Hamas presence in the building. Later, he said he
had received intelligence on the Israeli strike, but would not provide
details on its contents.
But even if Hamas operatives were in the building, that wouldn’t
have made the strike permissible under international law. Though Israel
claims that the presence of Hamas officials justifies the bombing of

While there are Israeli human rights NGOs and civil society groups
doing important work, documenting abuses and providing legal support
to Palestinian protesters, left-wing political opposition to the current
government’s policies is marginal. There are a few reasons why.
“Over 15 years or so, there has been a total convergence between
what the Israeli right says about issues of security and what the Israeli
center-left says,” explained Yonatan Levi, a research fellow at Molad:
The Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy. With no hope ofcreating an independent Palestinian state on the horizon, the center-left
has no alternative to offer to the right’s paradigm of “managing” theoccupation in perpetuity. In fact, the center-left parties—from TV
personality Yair Lapid’s centrist Yesh Atid, to Labor, to, in many
instances, the social-democratic Meretz—have “started parroting theright’s messages,” Levi said. This means that when Israel begins a
military operation in Gaza, the public debate is polarized not between
left and right, but between right and even further right—for example,
between those calling for Israel to deal “forcefully” with Hamas andhardline settlers calling for Israel to reoccupy the Gaza Strip. “And when
you abandon the field to the right,” Levi added, “the field keeps sliding
rightward.” In Israel, roughly 37% of Jews identify as right-wing, 55% ascentrist, and just 8% as left-wing.

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Why is Israel bombing entire buildings? Does that mean that’s
where Hamas is?

Of course, there are political parties, like the joint Arab-Jewish
socialist party Hadash and the Arab nationalist party Balad, whose
members often appear at demonstrations organized by largely
Jewish-led anti-occupation and peace movement groups calling for an
end to the war in Gaza. These protests tend to draw several hundred, orat most a few thousand, participants. Meanwhile, the Joint List, thecoalition of Arab-led parties in the Knesset of which Hadash and Baladare part, comprises just 6 of 120 seats in the Knesset. “The right has
sold the Israeli Jewish public [on the idea] that territorial compromise
equals a security disaster,” Levi said. Those who insist otherwise are
numerically small and “in terms of their influence, it’s quite limited.”— JL, 5/13/21

the fray helps Hamas stay relevant. It also reflects Hamas’s view that
popular protests are unlikely to succeed without force, according to a
May 14th article by Baconi for the London Review of Books. Still, Baconi
wrote in the piece that Palestinians are “divided” over Hamas’s actions.
“Some see them as a sign of a Palestinian military force rallying to theirprotection, unlike the leadership in the West Bank,” he wrote. “Others
view the barrages as a cynical effort by Hamas to co-opt the success ofgrassroots movements in Jerusalem and elsewhere. And many worry
that Gaza is once again paying the price.”— MC, 5/18/21

Does Hamas use civilians as “human shields”?

Palestinian politics is fragmented not only by political tendency but
also by geography. In 2007, after the last Palestinian legislativeelections held to date, the Islamist group Hamas ousted the rulingnationalist party Fatah from the Gaza Strip, leaving Fatah, led by
Mahmoud Abbas, in control of the West Bank. That split persists today.
Increasingly, many Palestinians are critical of the Palestinian leadership,especially that of the Palestinian Authority (PA). “There has never been
as a wide a gap between the Palestinian polity and the leadership as
there is today,” writes Marwa Fatafta, an analyst for Al-Shabaka. As PA
president, Abbas has maintained close cooperation with Israeli security
forces and has worked to quash opposition to his rule. Similarly, in Gaza,
as Palestinian analyst Tareq Baconi writes, “through a dual process ofcontainment and pacification, Hamas has been forcefully transformed
into little more than administrative authority.”
These authoritarian realities in Gaza and the West Bank do not leave
substantial room for opposition. The Palestinian Liberation Organization(PLO), which includes a range of smaller parties, has also been
subsumedby the PA in the years since the Oslo Accords. Still, even with
the Palestinian legislative elections that were planned for May 22
indefinitely postponed—due in part to Israel’s refusal to allow East
Jerusalem Palestinians to vote—the prospect of the elections has

The answer to this question is complicated, with no easy “yes” or“no.” Gaza is one of the world’s most densely populated places. It would
be impossible for armed fighters to find a place far away from civilian
areas. “There is almost no way to fight from [Gaza] without exposing
civilians to danger,” analyst Nathan Thrall told The New York Times.
Hamas is Gaza’s governing body, and a part of the fabric of its civilian
life. Gaza’s police officers and health ministry officials are all
Hamas-affiliated. Hamas fighters do not sleep in army bases; they sleepin their homes. (It’s worth noting that Israel’s army headquarters is
likewise located in a residential part of Tel Aviv, near a hospital and a
museum.)It’s also true that, even if a greater separation between warfare andcivilian life were possible, Hamas’s leadership might not view it as
desirable. Hamas, which is at a severe military disadvantage whenfacing the weight of the Israeli army, uses guerilla tactics tocompensate. Attempting to confine the fighting to areas apart fromresidential zones would thus undermine Hamas’s military operation.
Hamas’ guerilla tactics have been condemned by the international
community: In 2014, Hamas stored weapons inside schools run by
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
There’s something else that gets left out of discussions of Israel,
Hamas, and “human shields”: The fact that human rights organizations
have repeatedly documented instances of Israeli soldiers using

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What about the different Palestinian political groups?

rockets if Israel did not withdraw its security forces by 6:00 pm. That
evening, rocket fire from Gaza commenced. The journalist Neri Zilberargued in Newlines Magazine that the use of rocket attacks to respondto police violence marks a departure from Hamas’s previous strategy of
avoiding escalation as long as Israel stuck to the agreed terms of its
blockade of Gaza—a shift that may have caught Israeli security forces
unawares. Since May 10th, Hamas has fired more than 3,000 rockets
into Israel; most casualties have been prevented by Israel’s
sophisticated Iron Dome defense system, but 12 Israelis have been
killed, including two children. Israel’s bombing of Gaza, conducted in
response to the rockets, has killed 213 Palestinians in Gaza, including 61
children.
Since Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2006, Hamas has
frequently attempted to use rocket fire to exact concessions relating toIsrael’s administration of Gaza’s borders—pushing successfully for the
expansion of access to the Strip, and the adjustment of some terms of
the blockade. Baconi argued on Unsettled that this strategy hasn’t
improved life for Gazans, especially since it has prompted violent
retaliation from Israel. Still, he noted, Hamas can point to the fact thatits violence has extracted certain concessions from Israel—such as therelease of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of
Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit—while the party’s rival, the Fatah party that
controls the PA in the West Bank, can demonstrate no success incounteracting Israeli settlement expansion, even as it remains open tonegotiating with Israel.
Zilber argues that Hamas initiated rocket attacks on Israel in part tosend a message to Palestinians. Fatah, long the leading force inPalestinian politics, is weak; faced with indications that his party had
lost popular support, PA President Mahmoud Abbas recently postponed
what would have been the PA’s first elections in 15 years. By seeking todemonstrate its power while an impotent PA stands by, Hamas may be
attempting to position itself as the defender of a united Palestinianstruggle that reaches beyond Gaza. Many young Palestinians
protesting in Jerusalem and elsewhere have become disillusioned withaging and authoritarian leadership in both Hamas and Fatah; entering

sparked the emergence of several new Palestinian parties that wereslated to compete against Hamas and Fatah, such as the youth-led
Nabd al-Balad; the National Democratic Assembly, led by Yassir
Arafat’s nephew Nasser al-Qudwa and supported by jailed militant
Marwan Barghouti; and a faction led by Mohammed Dahlan, a former
Fatah leader exiled in the UAE.
Now, in the latest round of Palestinian demonstrations in East
Jerusalem, “with the Palestinian Authority (PA) having no jurisdiction in
East Jerusalem,” journalist Dalia Hatuqa writes, “the protests in Sheikh
Jarrah and the Old City have largely been grassroots-basedsocial-media enhanced popular movements without the formal politicalleadership that usually governs such a showing in the West Bank andGaza Strip.” The scope of the protests, which have spread out from East
Jerusalem to Palestinian cities and neighorhoods throughout Israel, has
not been seen since the years of the Second Intifada. “The recent calls toaction in Jeruralem have thus activated a large number of young
Palestinians and helped facilitate unparalled connections with
Palestinians in communities within Israel, in cities and towns that havenot seen protests for decades,” writes Palestinian scholar Dana El Kurd.
“It’s likely these connections will build capacity for longer-term
strategies and sustained mobilization efforts.”— JL, 5/13/21

15

8What is the Biden administration’s position on what’s
happening right now?
President Biden’s position is the same as the one every pastpresident of the US has taken when confronted with an Israeli attack on
Gaza. Biden told reporters May 13th that Israel has a “right to defend
itself,” but expressed hope the fighting would end “sooner rather thanlater.”
The administration’s only novel remark on the crisis came fromSecretary of State Antony Blinken, who has repeatedly said inconversations with foreign officials that “Palestinians and Israelis
deserve equal measures of freedom, dignity, security, and prosperity.”In both cases, the rhetoric fails to acknowledge the US’s central rolein backing Israel’s army and protecting the state from facing diplomaticpressure for its human rights abuses against Palestinians. Every year,
the US sends $3.8 billion in military assistance to Israel, the largest US
foreign military aid package. Israel is required to spend 75% of thatmoney on American weapons made by American companies, while therest is spent on Israeli-made weapons under a unique agreement
reached with the US government. (The provision allowing Israel tospend US money on Israeli-made weapons will be phased out by 2028,
though this will not meaningfully impact the way US aid serves tosupport Israel’s system of control over Palestinians.) This means that the
Israeli F-16s dropping bombs over Gaza were paid for with US taxpayer
dollars. Biden may express hope for peace, but he, like his predecessors,
has declined to use the US’s significant source of leverage to influence
Israel’s actions.
Meanwhile, US support at the United Nations shields Israel from
diplomatic censure. This week, the US twice blocked the UN Security
Council from releasing a statement on the crisis. (Consensus is needed
for the UN Security Council to release a statement. The US was the only
power standing in its way.)
Why does the US continue to back Israel, regardless of who ispresident? In addition to the emotional connection that many
Americans—especially American Jews—feel toward Israel as a Jewish
state and a purported fellow democracy in a volatile region, there are
two important, material reasons: First, Israel is the most reliable US allyin a region rich in oil that is central to the US economy. And second,Israel-advocacy groups spend millions of dollars on lobbying anddonations to politicians to cultivate Congressional support for Israel.
These factors have driven the US to hold tight to its alliance with
Israel—and to support Israel’s abuses of Palestinians.
— AK, 5/14/21

charter is quite perplexing . . . I think that it’s seen as a way ofmaintaining [their] ideological commitments.” — MC, 5/18/21

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How do Palestinians feel about Hamas?
Hamas’s leadership in Gaza is controversial among Palestinians. The
organization is authoritarian, harshly punishing dissent within Gaza, andstrictly enforcing Islamist social norms. “I’ve seen how those who havepolitical power in Gaza are fighting to control every aspect of our lives
there, and only fueling hatred,” the Gazan photographer Jehadal-Seftawi said in an interview in Jewish Currents. “And they areespecially opposed to any forms of dissent or calls for change.” A Marchpoll of Palestinian voters in Gaza and the West Bank—ahead of planned
legislative elections that have since been postponed—showed thatHamas had the support of 30% of voters, behind Fatah’s 43%. Some
Palestinian political commentators say the group has lost popularity as
its leaders have continued to lead prosperous lives amid mass economic
deprivation stemming from Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
At the same time, Baconi notes that some Palestinians see Hamas
as
their
best
hope
for nationalist resistance to theoccupation—especially as compared to Fatah, which is often seen as acorrupt participant in administering the occupation. “Palestinians living
under occupation [are] seeking dignity and a better life,” he said. “Hamas
understands that, and Hamas speaks to that . . . Many Palestinians
would choose Hamas over Fatah because of that.” — MC, 5/18/21

Why did Hamas start firing rockets? What do they hope toachieve?
On May 10th, Hamas issued an ultimatum for Israeli police toevacuate the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah—where
heavily armed security forces had clashed with unarmed Palestinian
protesters—and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, where police had fired
rubber-coated bullets at worshippers. Hamas pledged to begin firing

In January 2006, the last time that the Fatah-led Palestinian
Authority (PA)—the body created to govern Palestinians under the Oslo
Accords—held legislative elections, Hamas ran for the first time, andwon 45% of votes among Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and East
Jerusalem, enough to capture a majority of legislative seats. As Baconi
writes in Hamas Contained, Hamas’s campaign successfullyemphasized Fatah’s corruption—especially compared to its own recordof administering social welfare services like medical centers and schools
across the West Bank and Gaza—and played to widespread frustrations
with the failed Oslo peace process, in which Fatah played a central role.
“Support of armed struggle or Hamas’s Islamic ideology did not featureprominently in its electoral platform or constitute the majority of its
votes,” Baconi writes. “Nonetheless, Hamas’s leaders interpreted the
movement’s victory as a resounding endorsement of its worldview.”
The election caused international uproar: The US and Israel froze
funding they had provided to the PA and refused to recognize any
Palestinian government involving Hamas, even as Fatah and Hamas
attempted to form a unity government. Israel imposed a land, air, andsea blockade on Gaza, which remains to this day. Eventually, the US
helped fund a Fatah coup attempt, which led to an official split inPalestinian leadership: Fatah regained control of the PA in the West
Bank, while Hamas retained power in Gaza.
In addition to its armed resistance tactics—which, since the Second
Intifada, have usually involved rocket fire from Gaza into Israel—Hamas
is notorious for its founding charter, which conflates Judaism with
Zionism and plays on antisemitic tropes of Jewish global control.
Hamas has never officially repudiated its original charter, but it released
a new political document in 2017, which “affirms that its conflict is with
the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion.” Baconi
found in interviews with Hamas’s current leaders that many have asophisticated understanding of the difference between Judaism andZionism. “I do think that the [original] charter isn’t representative ofHamas’s political thinking today and isn’t representative of the degreeof sophistication they have in engaging with Israel,” he said on
Unsettled. “The question about why Hamas wouldn’t renounce the13

Are there any ways US citizens could put pressure on the
Israeli government to halt the violence?
Yes, there are numerous ways for people in the US to organize inresponse to this crisis. In Congress, the only vehicle that exists topressure Israel is Congresswoman Betty McCollum’s HR 2590, better
known as the Palestine Children and Families Act. The bill’s aim is toprohibit US aid from being used by Israel to demolish Palestinian homes,
detain Palestinian children, and annex Palestinian land. So far, there are
only 19 co-sponsors on the bill. US citizens can call their representatives
and tell them to co-sponsor HR 2590.
Others may want to focus their attention on the network of US
nonprofits that funnel millions of dollars to the Israeli settlement
project. These nonprofits receive tax-deductible donations from private
American donors, which they send to fund Israeli settlement
infrastructure in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Whilesome of these organizations are probably impervious to pressure fromprogressive activists due to their right-wing politics, others, like Jewish
Federation groups, may be more open to hearing complaints given thatthey seek to represent a broad spectrum of American Jews, many ofwhom oppose Israeli settlements. If you want to help prevent the flowof these funds, you can donate to and support American Jewish groups
advocating against settlements. The nonprofit rabbinic organization
T’ruah has repeatedly called on the IRS to revoke the tax-exempt statusof American Jewish groups that fund Israeli Jewish terrorism against
Palestinians, while Americans for Peace Now has launched calls toJewish Federations of North American to stop funding settlements.
Lastly, there are boycott and divestment campaigns you can join aspart of the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
In 2005, over 170 Palestinian civil society groups called on theinternational community to boycott Israeli products, divest from
corporations that do business in Israel, and impose government
sanctions on Israel. Right now, BDS activists are calling for a boycott of
Pillsbury because the company has a factory in a West Bank
settlement. Others are focusing on stopping the Israeli weapons
10

company Elbit System’s involvement on the US–Mexico border, where it
has installed dozens of surveillance towers as part of the US
government’s attempt to curtail unauthorized crossings. Boycotting
companies that do business with the Israeli military or anchor Israeli
settlements chips away at Israel’s discriminatory system.
— AK, 5/14/21

authoritarian governments are reconsidering the decision to sign theaccords.
— AK, 5/14/21

What is Hamas?

The short answer is no. In fact, the opposite is true: The promise ofopen diplomatic and economic ties once gave the Arab states leveragewith which to pressure Israel to halt its abuses of Palestinians. The
Abraham Accords—the name given to Israel’s normalizationagreements with Bahrain, the UAE, Sudan, and Morocco—which
deepened trade, ended Arab boycotts of Israel, and created open
diplomatic ties between the Arab states and Israel, therefore lessened
Israeli officials’ incentive to negotiate a peace deal with the Palestinians,
since the normalization agreements confer many of the regional
benefits that once seemed attainable only by signing a peace deal.
“There was a lot of spin that marketed the Abraham Accords asmaking peace at hand and making a two-state solution easier,” said
Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. “What we’veseen is the exact opposite. It’s minimized what little incentive Israel had
to deal with the Palestinian issue.”
But in many ways, the accords only formalized a diplomatic realitythat had already taken shape. In recent years, Israel has developed
quiet business ties with these countries, save for Sudan. Now, thisbusiness—including Israel’s sale of sophisticated surveillance equipment
to the Gulf States, for use in repressing internal dissent—can be
conducted openly. An increase in hostilities against Palestinians isunlikely to jeopardize these lucrative ties. Though the images of Israeli
police invading Al-Aqsa Mosque angered many Arab citizens in the
countries that signed deals with Israel, there has been no sign that theirHamas is a Palestinian militant political group that was founded in
Gaza by members of a Palestine chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood—aSunni Islamist movement that seeks to free Arab states from Westernimperialism—in 1987, against the backdrop of the First Intifada, aPalestinian uprising against the occupation that took place in the West
Bank, Gaza, and within the state of Israel. As Tareq Baconi, analyst at
The International Crisis Group and author of Hamas Contained: The Riseand Pacification of Palestinian Resistance, has explained on the
Unsettled podcast, Hamas’s formation was spurred partly by discontent
with the Palestinine Liberation Organization (PLO), a Palestinian
resistance movement founded in 1964. The PLO and its dominantsecular Fatah faction had led armed Palestinian resistance to Israeli
occupation for 20 years, but by the late 80s it had begun to contend
with the limits of its militant strategy and was preparing to makecertain concessions to Israel—including officially recognizing Israel andendorsing a two-state solution in which Israel would retain sovereignty
over its pre-1967 borders. Hamas offered an alternate option thatpromised not to compromise on Palestinian sovereignty over the entire
land or to legitimize Israel as a state. (As The Wall Street Journal and
The Intercept have reported, Israel, in fact, initially offered financial
support to the Islamists who formed Hamas, in the hopes that theywould check the power of the PLO.)
During the Second Intifada in 2000, Hamas was the mostdestructive of the Palestinian groups that carried out suicide bombingsin Israel. From that period until Israel’s 2005 disengagement from the
Gaza Strip, Baconi says on the podcast, Hamas “believed that the more
pain it could inflict on the Israeli public, the more likely [it was that] theIsraeli public would pressure their government to let go of theterritories.”

1112

Israel recently signed high-profile normalization agreementswith Arab states in the Gulf. Has this done anything to limit
Israel’s abuses of Palestinians?