“The problem of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was always trust. This is just a case of broken trust, this is a case of broken everything.” –Professor Ron E. Hassner Conflict Breaks Out: A Timeline October 7th, 2023. Hamas, a terrorist group operating within the Gaza Strip, fired a cascade of around 2,200 rockets into southern Israel. […]
Tag: Israel
The Devolution of Democracy: A Systematic Decimation of Israel’s Judiciary
“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government,” wrote James Madison in Federalist No. 51. Madison understood that an absence of […]
Democracy Pretzel
In January of 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition proposed a series of judicial reforms that would essentially deprive the Israeli Supreme Court of its veto power. Notably, Netanyahu’s move to undermine the authority of the judiciary comes as he is awaiting trial for corruption. The Supreme Court is viewed by […]
Holy War: Blood for God in Israel-Palestine
Examining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an exercise in déjà vu. The deaths of an old man, a young child, and nine others in the recent West Bank flare-up are tragically unremarkable. So is the ensuing cascade of violence, punctuated by the brazen murder of two Jewish brothers and a retaliatory settler rampage of a nearby […]
Israeli Election: Netanyahu’s Comeback Attempt, Plus Far-Right Revival
“Elections have consequences:” Israelis will pick winners today in a contest with the potential to dramatically alter long-standing norms. Today, Ehud, an Israeli construction worker from the small city of Hadera, will vote on his country’s future. What kind of future? He hasn’t decided yet. With over 30 parties vying for parliament, Ehud likely won’t […]
Unravelling the Israel-Palestine Conflict – Can We Collapse the Dialectic in This Generation?
Conflict stemming in the land of Israel and Palestine regurgitates toxic attitudes towards Zionists, Israelis, Arabs and Jews, with one group painting another as the oppressor or terrorist in the extreme cases. The picture shifts based on where in the various timelines an analysis begins. In Israeli and Palestinian governments, the question of how to […]
The Two State Solution Is Dead.
The holy grail of conflict management has always been between Israel and Palestine; it is the most shining accomplishment for any individual or state mediator. Since the establishment of the state of Israel, the most preferred solution to the Israel/Palestine problem has been the “Two State Solution,” which essentially proposes two sovereign states for two […]
Vaccine Disparities: The Future of Foreign Policy?
As the end of Covid-19 slowly dawns, and with it the advent of a vaccine, a troubling trend is on the rise. Faced with worldwide lockdowns that had a crippling effect on the global economy, public health, and the world at large, scientists from all over rushed to create a vaccine that would finally put […]
Homeland: Life in the Disputed West Bank
Israeli-Arab diplomatic breakthroughs mean little for West Bank residents August 2020 —A crowd of hundreds marches towards the outskirts of the Palestinian town of Turmus’ayya. They are headed in the direction of an Israeli military checkpoint, located just 500 meters from the edge of their town. The goal of the Palestinian marchers: to pray on […]
Lockdown within a Lockdown: COVID-19 in the Gaza Strip
On August 25, the Gaza Strip went into lockdown after a family of four that had recently returned from the West Bank tested positive for COVID-19, the first case of the virus in this densely populated territory outside of isolation centers. Since then 2,613 cases have been reported, although a shortage of testing kits means […]