Politics

The Palestinian Authority’s security sector receives the largest portion of its budget, allowing it to consolidate its authoritarian and repressive rule over the Palestinian people. Al-Shabaka’s policy analyst and program advisor, Alaa Tartir, explores this troubling reality and offers recommendations for rethinking security sector governance whereby it can bring about inclusivity, accountability, and dignity for the Palestinian people.

The so-called Middle East Peace Process has ensured Palestinians’ oppression by a military regime bent on settler-colonial expansion. How has the bilateral negotiations framework consolidated Israel’s hegemony over the Palestinians, and how has Israel maintained it? Al-Shabaka policy analyst, Inès Abdel Razek, explores these questions and more, and offers recommendations to the international community for supporting Palestinian liberation.

Hamas has achieved unprecedented support among Palestinians since May 2021. How has it developed as an Islamic resistance movement and as a governing body since its participation in the Palestinian political sphere in 2005? Al-Shabaka policy analyst, Belal Shobaki, investigates the ongoing fundamental dilemmas and challenges faced by the movement, and its different strategies to resolve them.

With the rise in global solidarity with Palestinians since the May 2021 Unity Intifada, United States policymakers and activists are calling for conditioning and halting US military aid to Israel. Al-Shabaka’s US policy fellow, Nadya Tannous, examines this shifting tide and offers recommendations for how policymakers, lobbyists, and the international community can seize on this historic moment in the defense of Palestinian rights.

The Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM) entrenches Israel’s siege of Gaza. Al-Shabaka policy analyst, Talal Abu Rokbeh, argues that Palestinians need a new mechanism that revitalizes and unifies Palestinians politically, and that pressures Israel to lift its siege. He offers recommendations to Palestinian leadership and civil society, and to the international donor community, for how to bring about this new mechanism.

The PLO diplomatic corps is a main point of contact for Palestinian refugees and exiles. How can this help revive national aspirations? In the first study of its kind, Zaha Hassan, Nadia Hijab, Inès Abdel Razek, and Mona Younis review the corps’ legal foundations, days of glory, shifting roles, and interaction with the diaspora and solidarity groups. They present clear, doable recommendations to the PLO and to the diaspora.

People-to-People (P2P) funded-projects are being revived in the US and Europe, threatening to undermine international law and Palestinians’ rights. Al-Shabaka’s Senior Analyst, Yara Hawari, examines the troubling implications of P2P initiatives and offers recommendations for how policymakers can counter them in order to bring about a just peace that holds Israel accountable for its violations of Palestinians’ rights.

Palestinian political leadership is in a state of crisis. How did this come to be and what does the future hold? In this Focus On, we look back on several pieces authored by Al-Shabaka analysts which explore issues of Palestinian leadership in the past and present, and which propose concrete possibilities for future models that specifically engage youth.  

For Palestinians, the Palestinian leadership’s year-end decision to restore security coordination with Israel means a return to a status quo that did little to forward Palestinian liberation. Yet 2020 has demonstrated that radical and abrupt change to established orders is possible. Can Palestinians aspire to such changes in the new year? Marwa Fatafta explores how Palestinians can reclaim and redefine their leadership in the PLO. 

Israel has directly contributed to the deterioration of Palestinians’ health during the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Al-Shabaka policy analyst, Yara Asi, explores the different ways in which Israel has impacted Palestinians’ ability to respond to and mitigate the disastrous effects of the pandemic, and recommends approaches to addressing the Palestinian health crisis.