Antisemitism and Islamophobia in the US Political Discourse on Israel/Palestine
Sahar Aziz and Mitchell Plitnick discuss their study “Presumptively Antisemitic: Islamophobic Tropes in the Palestine Israel Discourse” with MEI’s Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs Program Director Khaled Elgindy.
The current escalation between Israeli and Hezbollah forces necessitates immediate action from the international community to prevent a widening of the Gaza war, and the US is positioned in a leadership role to mollify tensions, beginning with diplomatic actions to stabilize the Lebanese-Israeli border, helping to pacify the broader region as a result.
The international community is focused on “the day after” in Gaza, built on the comforting but illusory assumption that Oct. 7 never happened. In contrast, Israel and Hamas alike are engaged in a zero-sum contest to build a new system created out of blood and fire. When we consider the options for Gaza, the most instructive point of departure is the day before — that is, the evolution of Israeli occupation policies in the half century since the June 1967 war.
In the aftermath of the brutal Hamas terror attack Oct. 7, Israel has launched a ground invasion aimed at “eliminating Hamas.” Many of Israel’s Western allies have expressed concern about this operation given the lack of a clear plan for what will happen in Gaza after Hamas is eliminated. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that “Israel will, for an indefinite period will have the overall security responsibility” of Gaza. President Joe Biden even said publicly on 60 Minutes that the reoccupation of Gaza would be a “big mistake.”
How Netanyahu could beat the odds and stay in power
There has been much speculation that the military and intelligence failure to prevent the Hamas terror attack on Oct. 7 (which became known in Israel as the “Black Shabbat”) means that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s days in office are numbered.
But Netanyahu is signaling that he will not step down without a fight. He is preparing the ground for blaming military officials for the failure and continuing to promote the overhaul of the judiciary, which was at the center of the political debate in Israel in the months before Hamas’s attack.
Essential questions about the Russia-Hamas link: The evidence and its implications
As the war in Gaza continues to unfold, essential questions about Russian and Iranian support for Hamas remain. They include whether Russia played any role in providing support to Hamas ahead of its Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Evidence available from foreign-language publications in Russian, Persian, Arabic, and Hebrew, as well as those in English, provides provocative leads, which, if accurate, have serious potential implications.
Israel’s Response to Iran in Syria: Choosing Between Escalation and Accommodation
The following quantitative analysis explores the core of Israel’s strategic airstrikes in Syria between 2013 and August 2023, a critical aspect of its defense policy during this time, aimed at mitigating Iranian influence in the region and protecting its national borders.
How Meta’s platforms normalize anti-Palestinian racism
The ongoing Palestinian-Israeli crisis is further intensified in the information space by the failure of the leading tech giants, including Meta, to combat online disinformation, incitement to violence, and hate speech proliferating on their platforms, most egregiously against Palestinians.
Amid the Gaza war, Palestinian citizens of Israel feel like the target of a witch hunt
In the aftermath of the horrific Hamas terror attack on Oct. 7, and amid the ongoing war in Gaza, the scope and intensity of the current crackdown by the Israeli government and law enforcement on Palestinian citizens of Israel and the suppression of pro-Palestinian speech are unprecedented.
Former U.S. general: The lessons of Iraq apply to Gaza
As we watch the war in Gaza develop, we must not lose sight of the stark challenges the Israeli military is facing. Modern urban combat is always bloody and grueling, and the devastation it wreaks is gut-wrenching to watch. But in Hamas, Israel is facing a particularly formidable foe.
