Palestine & UNESCO: Protecting heritage and reasserting sovereignty
The first of two Ma’an installments of a policy brief from Al-Shabaka. The original can be found here. Palestinian leaders have not activated Palestine’s UNESCO membership despite the costly battle to join and even though it could help rebalance the skewed Israeli-Palestinian power dynamic.
Palestinian leadership must reevaluate liberation strategy
“Rather than continue security cooperation (a euphemism for being Israel’s security subcontractor), the current Palestinian leadership should turn its focus … away from closed-door negotiations to popular, nonviolent resistance that empowers Palestinians to achieve independence rather than perpetuating and deepening dependence on the goodwill of an ethnic cleanser,” writes Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Diana Buttu, whose latest for Al-Shabaka, with Nadia Hijab, is “PLO/Palestine: Time to Stop Buying Time.”
Palestine’s statehood options: a dialogue
What are the choices facing Palestinians regarding their state sovereignty, and how best should they be pursued? The International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the International Criminal Court (ICC)? Read this debate by Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Victor Kattan and University of Sussex lecturer Michael Kearney.
Palestinian Options at the United Nations and the International Court of Justice
In Victor Kattan’s analysis, it’s premature for Palestinians to approach the International Criminal Court (ICC), in order to end Israel’s occupation. Instead, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) should be asked by the UN General Assembly for an advisory opinion on the legal responsibilities of states to do it. This would circumvent a United States veto as well as the U.S. Congress’s retaliation.
Recognition’s Diplomatic Leverage Could Strengthen Palestinian Rights
"Britain’s House of Commons and the prime minister of Sweden recognized a Palestinian state in order to support Palestinian rights … European recognition of a Palestinian state could well pressure Israel to behave in accordance with international law. But whatever the ultimate outcome, one state or two, you can’t go wrong with rights."
Israel’s water war crimes
Evidence of water warfare, and deliberate efforts to use water as a weapon against Palestinian civilian populations, is being documented at all levels.
Gaza’s revenge: Israelis swim in Palestinian shit
Al-Shabaka advisor Sam Bahour discusses excerpts from Al-Shabaka’s policy brief, “Drying Palestine: Israel’s Systemic Water War,” by Muna Dajani.
"Consecutive Israeli military assaults have caused huge damage to Gaza’s water and sewage systems … One result is that almost all Gaza’s water is unfit for human consumption. Another is the tide of raw Palestinian sewage lapping on the beaches of Tel Aviv. So who should we feel most sorry for?"
Palestinian game-changer: the ultimate act of resistance
Al-Shabaka advisor Sam Bahour’s impressively concrete proposal for a political way forward, written with British researcher Tony Klug, was published earlier in 2014 at various outlets including Le Monde diplomatique, AlQuds, and openDemocracy, and was likely noticed by the Palestinian leadership. If adopted, it would be “a game changer that matches the seismic shift that has just emerged from Gaza,” Bahour writes. Their proposal bears revisiting.
Interminable Nakba: Syrian Palestinians return to the unknown
“International efforts continue to provide relief and to seek an end to violence in Syria so as to allow Syrian refugees to return home. Syrian Palestinians will enjoy no such return.”
