Hello, and happy Friday.
I promise that this correspondence will return to its usual biweekly schedule soon. But with everything going on at the moment in Israel-Palestine, I feel compelled to keep churning these out, if for no other reason than to share the stories that help illuminate what is happening amid this dark, dark period. More on those, and what I’ve written this week, below.
In podcast news: I joined this week’s Oh God, What Now? panel to discuss the situation in Gaza and the West Bank, among other things. You can tune in here or wherever you get your podcasts.
What I’ve written
Amid all of the international pressure facing Egypt to open its doors to refugees from Gaza, I wrote about Palestinians’ perennial fear of displacement and why Arab capitals fear being seen as complicit in their ethnic cleansing:
Egypt … only needs to look at the experience of nearby Jordan and Lebanon, both of which were forced to absorb hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees amid past wars (none of whom have been permitted to return), to know that any solutions billed as a temporary humanitarian measure may turn out otherwise. The expulsionary rhetoric of the Israeli government, both before and since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, hasn’t placated those concerns. Indeed, a recently leaked document from Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence, dated Oct. 13, outlines a proposal to forcibly and permanently transfer Gaza’s Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. “The messages should revolve around the loss of land, making it clear that there is no hope of returning to the territories Israel will soon occupy, whether or not that is true,” reads the document, which was first reported on by +972 Magazine and its sister Hebrew-language site Local Call. “The image needs to be, ‘Allah made sure you lose this land because of Hamas’ leadership — there is no choice but to move to another place with the assistance of your Muslim brothers.’” Keep reading here
I also reported on a new poll by the Arab American Institute, which found that just 17% of Arab American voters intend to vote for Biden in 2024—a staggering drop from 59% in 2020. You can read my analysis of what it all means here:
Even though 2024 appears likely to present a rematch between Biden and Trump, Arab Americans insist Biden cannot take their support for granted. None of those who spoke with TIME say that their lack of confidence in Biden means that they’ll be inclined to vote for Trump. But some remain conflicted about whether the situation would be any worse under the former president either. “Look, we’re not silly—we know what Trump has done to our communities,” says Amer Zahr, the president of the Dearborn-based New Generation for Palestine. But when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he continues, “The policies are basically the same. Except when Trump does it, you get some pushback from the Democratic Party.” Keep reading here
What I’m reading
This sober and thoughtful essay on the war in Gaza (London Review of Books)
Nothing in the history of Palestinian armed resistance to Israel approaches the scale of this massacre – not the 1972 Munich Olympics attack by Black September, not the Maalot massacre by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1974. More Israelis died on 7 October than in the five years of the Second Intifada. How to explain this carnival of killing? The rage fuelled by the intensification of Israeli repression is surely one reason. Over the last year, more than two hundred Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army and settlers; many of them were minors. But this rage has much deeper roots than the policies of Netanyahu’s right-wing government. What happened on 7 October was not an explosion; it was a methodical act of killing, and the systematic murder of people in their homes was a bitter mimicry of the 1982 massacre by Israeli-backed Phalangists in Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon. The calculated posting of videos of the killings on the social media accounts of the victims suggests that revenge was among the motives of Hamas’s commanders: Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing, lost his wife and two children in an airstrike in 2014. One is reminded of Frantz Fanon’s observation that ‘the colonised person is a persecuted person who constantly dreams of becoming the persecutor.’ On 7 October, this dream was realised for those who crossed over into southern Israel: finally, the Israelis would feel the helplessness and terror they had known all their lives. The spectacle of Palestinian jubilation – and the later denials that the killing of civilians had occurred – was troubling but hardly surprising. In colonial wars, Fanon writes, ‘good is quite simply what hurts them most.’
This latest report on the going-on at the State Department, where officials say they are being sidelined (HuffPost)
Frustrated State Department officials describe disillusionment and a sense of powerlessness as they watch the U.S. pursue policies they believe will cause immense suffering in the near term and painful blowback in the future.
“It feels like we are advocates on the outside or civil society banging on the doors of government and that’s not our role,” one department official said.
Another blasted a “moment of silence and reflection” that State asked employees to observe on Oct. 30 to, in the department’s words, “mourn the innocent lives lost in current conflicts and stand united against terrorism and all forms of hate ― around the world and in the United States.”
“These hollow moves fail to acknowledge the complicity of our decisions and policy in the relentless suffering of Gazans,” the official said. The gesture “ignores the fact that we still aren’t pushing for a cease-fire, still not asking Israel to control itself.”
This cover story on Zelensky’s struggle to keep Ukraine in the fight (TIME)
At the start of the Russian invasion, Zelensky’s mission was to maintain the sympathy of humankind. Now his task is more complicated. In his foreign trips and presidential phone calls, he needs to convince world leaders that helping Ukraine is in their own national interests, that it will, as Biden put it, “pay dividends.” Achieving that gets harder as global crises multiply.
What I’m thinking about
My former Atlantic colleague Ta-Nehisi Coates talking about his experience in Israel-Palestine is incredibly powerful. I hope you’ll take the time to watch it.
Until next time,
Yasmeen