Yasmeen Serhan writes:

In a conflict where words matter (so much so that even using the word conflict invites disagreement), it’s notable when the words used begin to change. And when it comes to discussing Israel and Palestine in the United States, the words have changed. The first, most obvious shift has come from Congress, where more and more (predominantly progressive) voices have criticized Israel’s human-rights abuses, as well as the U.S. government’s role in sustaining a status quo that human-rights groups and other high-profile leaders, including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, have likened to apartheid. Staunch defenders of Israel within the Democratic Party now offer criticism of the scale of the country’s military response in Gaza (which caused extensive damage, and at least 230 deaths) or, just as strikingly, say nothing at all.

But a subtle, and perhaps more revealing, shift has come from the White House itself. In an address announcing yesterday’s cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, President Joe Biden said, “Palestinians and Israelis equally deserve to live safely and securely and to enjoy equal measures of freedom, prosperity, and democracy.” A readout from a call between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Israeli counterpart echoed those words almost verbatim, as did remarks by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.

On their face, these statements aren’t extraordinary. Why wouldn’t the United States support freedom, prosperity, and democracy for Israelis and Palestinians alike? For close observers of U.S. policy on this issue, however, one word has stood out in particular.

“All of the sudden, and I mean all the sudden, the word equal is appearing in [President Biden’s] rhetoric and the rhetoric of the secretary of state,” Martin Indyk, a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Israel and Barack Obama’s special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from 2013 to 2014, told me. “That’s totally new.” [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports:

Muhammad Sandouka built his home in the shadow of the Temple Mount before his second son, now 15, was born.

They demolished it together, after Israeli authorities decided that razing it would improve views of the Old City for tourists.

Mr. Sandouka, 42, a countertop installer, had been at work when an inspector confronted his wife with two options: Tear the house down, or the government would not only level it but also bill the Sandoukas $10,000 for its expenses.

Such is life for Palestinians living under Israel’s occupation: always dreading the knock at the front door.

The looming removal of six Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem set off a round of protests that helped ignite the latest war between Israel and Gaza. But to the roughly three million Palestinians living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 war and has controlled through decades of failed peace talks, the story was exceptional only because it attracted an international spotlight.

For the most part, they endure the frights and indignities of the Israeli occupation in obscurity.

Even in supposedly quiet periods, when the world is not paying attention, Palestinians from all walks of life routinely experience exasperating impossibilities and petty humiliations, bureaucratic controls that force agonizing choices, and the fragility and cruelty of life under military rule, now in its second half-century. [Continue reading…]