Attention to the Unseen

Dahlia Scheindlin writes: For a few days in early May, Israel appeared close to establishing a new government. After four elections in two years that failed to produce a decisive result, the country was poised for a surprising partnership of ideologically diverse parties including, for the first time, an independent Arab party — Raam. Such a government would have been fraught, even shaky, but it would have ended the two years of political chaos and replaced Israel’s right-wing prime minister,…

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Amjad Iraqi writes: A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was finally announced Thursday night after 11 days of devastating bombardment and indiscriminate rocket fire that killed over 240 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and 12 people in Israel. As far as many observers are concerned, this deal — which, if it holds, will undoubtedly prevent countless more deaths, injuries, and wanton destruction — should finally put an end to the vicious saga. This desperate return to “calm,” however, remains a…

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The New York Times reports: Dan Kleinman does not know quite how to feel. As a child in Brooklyn he was taught to revere Israel as the protector of Jews everywhere, the “Jewish superman who would come out of the sky to save us” when things got bad, he said. It was a refuge in his mind when white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., chanted “Jews will not replace us,” or kids in college grabbed his shirt, mimicking a “South Park”…

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Nimer Sultany writes: On Tuesday, in my hometown of Tira, which is inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders, the shops were closed and the streets were empty. A general strike had been declared in protest over Israel’s policies, whether the ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah, the storming of al-Aqsa mosque, or the onslaught on Gaza. As the Palestinian death toll continues to rise, commentators lament the shattering of coexistence inside Israel between Palestinian and Jewish citizens. Yet in my experience as a…

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Aida Touma-Sliman, a Palestinian member of Israel’s Knesset, writes: Several mixed towns in Israel looked like war zones over the past two weeks. In these communities, such as my hometown, Akka, Jewish Israelis and Palestinians like me live near each other. Recently, small numbers of young Palestinians, enraged by Israeli provocations at Al-Aqsa Mosque and plans to evict Palestinian families from their Sheikh Jarrah homes, clashed with police and attacked local businesses. Hundreds of other Palestinians, myself included, attempted to…

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Eric Lutz writes: Back in November, on the same day Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 election, Alabama Republican Mo Brooks announced that he would fight the results of the vote—and urged his colleagues to do the same. “There’s no way I’ll vote in the House to ratify the Electoral College votes of states where illegal votes distorted the will of the people in those states who voted legally,” the congressman wrote November 7. “This election was stolen…

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The New York Times reports: Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel stopped work for the day on Tuesday, as did other Palestinians across the occupied West Bank and in Gaza, protesting violence against Arab Israelis, the unfolding Israeli military campaign targeting Hamas militants in Gaza and the looming eviction of several families from their homes in East Jerusalem. Streets were deserted in Arab areas across both Israel and the occupied territories, as shopkeepers shuttered stores along the waterfront…

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Thomas B. Edsall writes: It is no wonder that Republican leaders in the House do not want to convene a truth and reconciliation commission to scrutinize the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The more attention drawn to the events of that day, the more their party has to lose. Immediately after the riot, support for President Donald Trump fell sharply among Republicans, according to surveys conducted by Kevin Arceneaux of Sciences Po Paris and Rory Truex of Princeton. The…

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Zaha Hassan and Daniel Levy write: The human rights community—including Palestinians, Israelis, and global groups—is documenting Israeli practices that they argue constitute the crime of apartheid at a moment when Democrats are increasingly rallying under the banner of racial justice. That will make the notion that justice is desirable—except for Palestinians—much harder to sustain. This rhetorical acrobatic act will also be hard to pull off in the international arena. The “America is back” message has been all about a law-abiding,…

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