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.  

The Israeli state has actively sought to destroy Palestinian Jerusalem since its creation in 1948. Al-Shabaka’s Senior Palestine Policy Fellow, Yara Hawari, examines the July 2020 attacks on three Palestinian cultural institutions in East Jerusalem as part of the Israeli regime’s systematic destruction of the city’s Palestinian identity. She offers policy recommendations for protecting Jerusalem’s Palestinian cultural and political institutions.

At a time of paralysis due to the pandemic and multiple Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, it is more urgent than ever for the Palestinian people to move beyond the sterile vision of a “feasible” future. Al-Shabaka Senior Policy Fellow Yara Hawari reviews efforts to break through imposed limits and envision a revolutionary consensus.

As Israel and the US fast-track President Donald Trump’s vision of “peace”, i.e. the illegal annexation of occupied Palestinian territory, European countries ponder ways to uphold the rule of law. In this Policy Memo Al-Shabaka’s Yara Hawari provides ideas on how they can – with a push from the Palestine solidarity movement. 

The West Bank and Gaza Strip are confronting COVID-19 from a reality of Israeli military occupation. Al-Shabaka Senior Palestine Policy Fellow Yara Hawari analyzes the severe challenges this presents to Palestinians, Israel’s political manipulation of the virus, and the international community’s normalizing response – and how it should change.  

Settler colonial projects such as Israel seek to control perceptions of reality in order to bind Indigenous and colonized people in a seemingly perpetual state of being. Imagining a future beyond this state is thus a rebellious and radical act. Al-Shabaka’s Yara Hawari explores the need for Palestinian imaginings of radical futures and highlights current examples of such work. 

Last September, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas renewed his pledge to hold parliamentary elections in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. Regardless of whether the polls take place, Al-Shabaka Senior Palestine Policy Fellow Yara Hawari argues that Palestinians must embark on a democratic process that far surpasses the proposed elections in order to achieve liberation.  

Since the establishment of Israel in 1948, the Israeli Security Agency has been torturing Palestinians. Al-Shabaka Senior Palestine Policy Fellow Yara Hawari argues that the use of torture in Israeli detention is systematic and legitimized through domestic law, and outlines steps for the international community to hold Israel to account and bring an end to these violations. 

Many are debating whether the re-emergence of a united Joint Arab List will result in increased Palestinian voter turnout in this month’s Knesset elections, but for those who advocate for an election boycott, the status of the Joint List is moot. In this roundtable debate, Al-Shabaka’s Nijmeh Ali and Yara Hawari argue against and for boycotting Israeli elections, respectively.