Politics
On May 17, 2024, the US began operating a temporary floating pier off the coast of Gaza. Since the project’s announcement, many have expressed skepticism towards the pier’s effectiveness and deep concern regarding the US’s long-term plans and the pier’s potential role in serving Israeli objectives. This commentary examines the pier’s operations and unpacks the many incentives for its development by key geopolitical players. It positions the pier within Israel’s longer-term strategy for Palestine, using the structure as a window into understanding the regime’s broader regional aims. Temporary or not, this commentary contends that the pier must not be viewed as merely a short-term humanitarian effort, but also as a symbol of the US and Israel’s continued imperial and colonial endeavors.
 Politics
Since the beginning of the Zionist project in Palestine, large efforts have been exerted to paint all resistance to its colonial endeavors as irrational and at odds with progress and modernity. This deliberately manufactured dichotomy between the prosperous and civilized Settler and the regressive and rejectionist Arab standing in the way of progress set the tone for developments between Palestinians and Zionist settlers for decades to come. In this commentary, Al-Shabaka analyst Fathi Nimer explores the nascence of this trope, unpacking its weaponization to deny Palestinians their fundamental rights and demonize their collective aspirations for sovereignty.
Al-Shabaka Fathi Nimer
Fathi Nimer· Jun 4, 2024
 Politics
In this commentary, Omar Shaban offers an entry point to a Palestinian dialogue on what may follow a ceasefire. He does so by delving into the current non-Palestinian “day after” discourse, then by identifying the ways in which reconstruction today is distinct from past efforts, and finally by putting forth a possible approach to begin to embark on rebuilding Gaza.
Al-Shabaka Omar Shaban
Omar Shaban· May 19, 2024
 Politics
Mainstream media coverage of the genocide in Gaza throughout the West has highlighted not only deep biases in favor of the Israeli regime, but also the ease in which Palestinians are dehumanized. In this commentary, Yara Hawari details Israel’s strategy to strip Palestinians of their humanity in the public realm, as well as the role of Western media in advancing Israel’s aims. She reveals consistent patterns of journalistic malpractice since October 7, 2023, and concludes that the Western outlets are inescapably complicit in the Israeli regime’s genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza.
Al-Shabaka Yara Hawari
Yara Hawari· Apr 3, 2024
 Politics
The Israeli regime is currently committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, aiming to eliminate the Indigenous community through slaughter, starvation, and mass expulsion. While devastating, it is imperative to recognize that this practice is not new. Rather, it is part of Israel’s decades-long Zionist colonial project. In this commentary, guest author Jamal Nabulsi outlines three defining features of Zionist settler colonialism: its structural nature, strategy of elimination, and use of fragmentation. It is through these tactics, Nabulsi argues, that the Zionist project seeks to ultimately extinguish Palestinian Indigenous sovereignty.
Al-Shabaka Jamal Nabulsi
Jamal Nabulsi· Feb 5, 2024
 Politics
Hamas’s surprise offensive on October 7th, 2023, dealt the most lethal blow to the Israeli military and public since the establishment of the state in 1948. In retaliation, Israel launched the most extensive military assault on Gaza in its history, destroying large swathes of the territory and killing more than 14,000 Palestinians, over a third of whom were children.
Al-Shabaka Tareq Baconi
Tareq Baconi· Nov 26, 2023
 Civil Society
Consensus-building can be a long and challenging process that requires all stakeholders involved to be committed to reaching an agreement. In the case of the Palestinian liberation project, achieving consensus among the forcibly fragmented Palestinian people is both particularly difficult and of critical importance in order to create a united national movement.
Al-Shabaka Jaber Suleiman
Jaber Suleiman· Jul 18, 2023
 Economics
The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) budget disproportionately relies on clearance revenues — import taxes collected by Israel on its behalf — that the Israeli regime regularly withholds as political blackmail. As a result, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza suffer severe economic consequences.
Amal Ahmad· Feb 15, 2023
 Civil Society
Leadership is a focal point for Palestinians in Gaza who have been living through the division in Palestinian politics since 2007. Palestinian leaders in Fatah and Hamas continue to operate in tandem with the Israeli settler-colonial project to fragment the Palestinian polity, leaving Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere in colonized Palestine little hope for liberation through the political establishment.
Al-Shabaka Ali Abdel-Wahab
Ali Abdel-Wahab· Nov 7, 2022
 Politics
The term “normalization” emerged following the signing of the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, which stated that the “signatories shall establish among themselves relationships normal to states at peace with one another.” Previously, relations with the Israeli regime were more colloquially referred to as khiyanah (betrayal or treachery)
Al-Shabaka Yara Hawari
Yara Hawari· Oct 18, 2022

Media & Outreach

The region braces for further attacks after Israel’s killing of Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut. Hezbollah is still reeling from the killing of its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah. As the group mourns his death and weighs its options, Israel has carried out more strikes, killing another of Hezbollah’s top leaders. But beyond words, what does this mean for an already volatile region?
Al-Shabaka M. Muhannad Ayyash
M. Muhannad Ayyash · Sep 30, 2024
Israeli forces have been carrying out a series of raids in the occupied West Bank. In Hebron, Israeli soldiers entered the city of Dura and searched more than 30 homes. They also raided towns near Nablus, Ramallah and Jenin. The Palestinian Prisoners Society says 25 people were detained, included a woman and a wounded man. Al-Shabaka policy analyst Fathi Nimer told Al Jazeera English that there have been an increase in attacks by the settlers in the occupied West Bank.
Al-Shabaka Fathi Nimer
Fathi Nimer· Sep 26, 2024
“The work for Palestinians today is to explore how we can reclaim our revolutionary legacy and extend it into the twenty-first century,” Al-Shabaka board president Tareq Baconi told The New York Review of Books.
Al-Shabaka Tareq Baconi
Tareq Baconi· Sep 21, 2024
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