Last month, Israeli forces violently raided the West Bank city of Jenin. PA President Mahmoud Abbas visited the area shortly thereafter, accompanied by a slew of Palestinian security forces. Days later, the PA began an arrest campaign of its own, detaining members of various factions throughout the West Bank. Such a cycle encompasses a critical component of PA-Israeli security coordination: the revolving door/al-bab al-dawaar. In our latest policy memo, Al-Shabaka analyst Alaa Tartir examines the protocol and offers recommendations to both Palestinian leadership and civil society for ways forward.

Benjamin Netanyahu has given far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir the go-ahead to establish Israel’s first national guard. Distinct from other Israeli forces, the national guard is designed primarily to target Palestinian citizens of Israel. In this policy memo, guest contributor Ahmed Omar looks at the emergence of the new force in order to understand its implications for Palestinian citizens of Israel and proposes recommendations to relevant stakeholders for how to challenge it and protect Palestinians.

Recognition of Israel’s crime of apartheid is increasing throughout the world. How should Palestinians seize this moment and strategize an anti-apartheid movement through legal avenues? Al-Shabaka’s policy analyst, Rania Muhareb, examines the importance of deploying international law in a decolonial Palestinian anti-apartheid movement and offers recommendations for how Palestinians and their allies should strategize it.

The PA and its international donors continue to promote state-centric and technical approaches to climate change that block legitimate climate and environmental justice in Palestine. Al-Shabaka’s policy analyst, Muna Dajani, explains how climate change across colonized Palestine is a political reality defined by Israeli settler colonialism and theft of natural resources. She offers recommendations for bringing meaningful climate justice to Palestine.

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 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 recent Israeli assault on Gaza has increased fears about the summer to come. As rising global temperatures continue to threaten Gaza, Palestinians are bracing for a hot summer with widespread destruction and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the August 4 explosion at Beirut’s port exacerbated an already multilayered crisis in Lebanon which crippled its economy and led to massive popular protests. How has this situation affected marginalized communities? Al-Shabaka policy analyst Jaber Suleiman describes the scope of the crisis and its impact on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, explaining what more needs to be done to support them. 

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. 

While civil society organizations have highlighted tourism’s role in advancing Israeli land theft in the West Bank, few describe how Palestinian Authority (PA) investments can also undermine Palestinian calls for self-determination. Al-Shabaka’s Halah Ahmad analyzes how the PA’s governmental and cultural investments in Ramallah establish facts on the ground that obscure Palestinian claims to a capital in Jerusalem.