Policy Lab

Collective Punishment: Israel’s Strategy to Subdue Palestinian Resistance

by Nada Awad, Issam Younis, Nur Arafeh on August 20, 2020

Israeli collective punishment against Palestinians

In his July 2020 report to the UN Human Rights Council, Special Rapporteur S. Michael Lynk asserts that "Israel continues to rely upon collective punishment as a prominent instrument in its coercive toolbox of population control."

From home demolitions to the Gaza blockade to the withholding of Palestinian bodies, Israel wields collective punishment tactics to subjugate and suppress the Palestinian population. In this policy lab, Al-Shabaka analysts Nada Awad and Issam Younis join host Nur Arafeh to discuss the toll of this strategy on the Palestinian people and how it fits into Israel's broader system of apartheid.

* Unfortunately, this YouTube recording cuts off the initial 5 minutes of the policy lab. To view the discussion in full, please click here.

Nur Arafeh

Nur Arafeh is a Fellow at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, in Washington DC, where her work focuses on the political economy of the MENA region, business-state relations, peacebuilding strategies, the development-security nexus and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. She previously served as Al-Shabaka's Palestine Policy Fellow between 2015 and 2017, worked as an Associate Researcher at the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS), and as a Visiting Lecturer of Economics at Al-Quds Bard College. Nur has also consulted for several Palestinian and international organizations, on issues related to development policies, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and socio-economic policy analysis. Her commentaries have appeared in English, Arabic and French in The Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatique, Al-Jazeera, and Al-Akhbar, among other outlets. Nur holds a doctorate in International Development as a Rhodes Scholar from the University of Oxford, a Master’s in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge, and a dual-BA degree in Political Science and Economics from Sciences Po Paris and Columbia University.”