Nathan Thrall
Nathan Thrall is an American author, essayist, and journalist based in Jerusalem. Thrall is the author of "The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine" (Metropolitan/Henry Holt, 2017; Picador, 2018) and a contributor to "The New York Times Magazine", the "London Review of Books", and "The New York Review of Books". His reporting, essays, and criticism have also appeared in "GQ", "The Guardian Long Read", "The New Republic", "Slate", and "The New York Times", and have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Thrall is the former Director of the Arab-Israeli Project  at the International Crisis Group, where he covered Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel's relations with its neighbors from 2010 to 2020. Thrall's reporting and analysis have been cited on the floor of the UN General Assembly by Noam Chomsky and in the UN Security Council by former UN Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. His analysis is often featured in print and broadcast media, including the Associated Press, the BBC, CNN, Democracy Now!, "The Economist", "The Guardian", "Jacobin", "The New York Times", PRI, Reuters, "Slate", and "The Wall Street Journal", "The Washington Post". The historian Perry Anderson wrote  in the "New Left Review" that Thrall has written "the most acute analysis of American policy towards Israel, from Clinton to Obama. ... In their combination of clear-eyed criticism and level-headed realism, Thrall's reports from and on Israel have consistently been outstanding." "The New York Review of Books" described Thrall as having "published a series of articles over recent years—notably in "The New York Times Magazine", "The Guardian", and the "London Review of Books"—that have defined the new intellectual and political parameters for what is increasingly recognized as Israel-Palestine's one-state (or post-two-state ) reality," and the "Financial Times" called him "one of the best-informed and most trenchant observers of the conflict." Background and education. Thrall received a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara's College of Creative Studies and an M.A. in politics from Columbia University. A former member of the editorial staff of "The New York Review of Books", he was hired at the International Crisis Group by Robert Malley. At the start of his tenure at the International Crisis Group, Thrall lived in Gaza. In 2011, he moved to Jerusalem. Critical reception. The Only Language They Understand. Thrall 's critically acclaimed essay collection "The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine" (Metropolitan/Henry Holt, 2017; Picador, 2018) was hailed in "The New York Times" ("a brilliant job...smart and hard to dispute"), "Foreign Affairs" ("Thrall has consistently been one of the sharpest observers of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict"), "Time" ("Life is short, and writings about Israel and the Palestinians can be very, very long. So it's a good thing there's Nathan Thrall"), and "The New York Review of Books" ("By far the most cogent of the new books [on Israel–Palestine]"). The Jewish  Book Council's Bob Goldfarb wrote that his book, "The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine," "brings unparalleled clarity to the dynamics of Israeli-Palestinian relations, and is an essential guide to the history, personalities, and ideas behind the conflict." Mosaic selected the book as one of the best of the year, writing, "A knowledgeable and bold retelling of the Israel-Palestinian conflict that forces readers to take a serious and fresh look at their assumptions. Throughout its counterintuitive retelling of this history, it offers an unusually provocative and sometimes startling contribution to the genre." On  the publisher's website, Mark Danner described the book as "brilliant," writing, "Eloquent, fact-rich, full of vivid characters, and relentlessly contemporary in its narrative, "The Only Language They Understand" is a withering indictment of conventional wisdom―and a necessary, essential book." Trump's Middle East Plan. The day after President Donald Trump released the Trump peace plan, "," Thrall published a critique of it in "The New York Times", "Trump's Middle East Peace Plan Exposes the Ugly Truth: This isn't a break with the status quo. It's the natural culmination of decades of American policy." Trump's Special  Envoy for International Negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, criticized Thrall's op-ed: "A 1-sided, distorted analysis. The ideas are dangerous to an important ally, based on an approach that has driven Palestinians (who deserve a better future) into a ditch. Time to embrace reality, seek a brighter future & stop being an arm-chair critic." Thrall replied: "Refreshing to see that only days after releasing the Trump plan, one of its chief architects, @GreenblattJD, has come around to opposing approaches that are 1-sided, distorted, dangerous to US allies, & designed to drive Palestinians (who deserve better) into a ditch." The Separate  Regimes Delusion. In January 2021, the "London Review of Books" published Thrall's article, "The Separate Regimes Delusion," which argued, "The premise that Israel is a democracy, maintained by Peace Now, Meretz, the editorial board of "Haaretz" and other critics of occupation, rests on the belief that one can separate the pre-1967 state from the rest of the territory under its control. A conceptual wall must be maintained between two regimes: (good) democratic Israel and its (bad) provisional occupation." Thrall's article was praised in "Haaretz" by veteran columnist Gideon Levy, who wrote, "the American writer Nathan Thrall, who lives  in Jerusalem, published an eye-opening and mind-expanding piece in "The London Review of Books" ... Thrall doesn't hesitate to criticize the supposedly liberal-Zionist and leftist organizations, from Meretz and Peace Now to Yesh Din and "Haaretz". All of them believe that Israel is a democracy and oppose annexation because it could undermine their false belief that the occupation is happening somewhere else, outside of Israel, and is only temporary." Thrall's piece was cited in an April 2021 Human Rights Watch report finding that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid. In an article about The Separate  Regimes Delusion, Philip Weiss wrote: "Thrall's thrust is that liberal Zionists have bolstered the persistence of apartheid by insisting that that's not happening in Israel, it's only the West Bank. Israel is a democracy! There are two regimes here! Thrall's piece is a careful and lacerating exposition of the damage caused by the claim that the two 'regimes' can be separated." A Day in the Life of Abed Salama. In March 2021, "The New York Review of Books" published Thrall's piece, "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: One man's quest to find  his son lays bare the reality of Palestinian life under Israeli rule," together with an animated trailer. The article was covered in "The Washington Post", "Foreign Policy", "The American Prospect", "Jewish Currents", European publications, the Israeli newspaper "Haaretz", a podcast episode hosted by "New York Times" columnist Peter Beinart, and a two-part, forty-minute segment on Democracy Now! "Mondoweiss" stated that "Thrall narrates his tale with detachment and precision, reminiscent of Hersey's "Hiroshima"." Longreads called it "an astonishing feat of reporting" and named it a Best Feature of 2021, stating: "This isn't just the best feature I  read this year. It's one of the best I've ever read, period. ... Expertly researched and brilliantly told, Thrall's feature is a masterpiece." A news article in "Haaretz" noted that Ro Khanna praised "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama" at the plenary session of the J Street conference and sent what is known as a "Dear Colleague" letter to the nearly 100 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, urging them to read the "extraordinary article" that "deepens and enriches out understanding of Israel-Palestine" and "deserves our attention." Attached to the Congressional letter were endorsements of  the piece J.M. Coetzee, Desmond Tutu, Michelle Alexander, Frank Lowenstein, Aaron David Miller, David Shulman, Avraham Burg, former director general of Israel's Foreign Ministry Alon Liel, Ilan Baruch, Hanan Ashrawi, and the heads of B'Tselem and al-Haq, leading Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations. Thrall's piece was quoted from in the Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, presented to the 47th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council.