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.
Tariq Kenney-Shawa, Al-Shabaka’s US policy fellow, joins host Yara Hawari to discuss Israel’s information warfare tactics, used to influence public perception of its ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Disinformation is being produced at industrial scale by official Israeli sources to justify its ongoing genocide in Gaza. Journalists and open-source intelligence analysts have only added fuel to this fire of Palestinian dehumanization by propping up the false news without necessary scrutiny. In his latest policy brief, Tariq Kenney-Shawa delves into Israel’s information warfare tactics, exploring how these efforts have contributed to the decay of truth and how they hamper efforts to organize a global response. He offers recommendations for reporters, analysts, and the wider public to leverage open-source tools to refute dominant Israeli propaganda and disinformation.
The only global network of Palestinian experts to produce critical policy analysis and collectively imagine a new policymaking paradigm for Palestine and Palestinians worldwide.
Policy Briefs
In-depth analysis on existing or potential policies that impact possibilities for Palestinian liberation. Policy briefs are peer-reviewed and include recommendations for engagement.
Disinformation is being produced at industrial scale by official Israeli sources to justify its ongoing genocide in Gaza. Journalists and open-source intelligence analysts have only added fuel to this fire of Palestinian dehumanization by propping up the false news without necessary scrutiny. In his latest policy brief, Tariq Kenney-Shawa delves into Israel’s information warfare tactics, exploring how these efforts have contributed to the decay of truth and how they hamper efforts to organize a global response. He offers recommendations for reporters, analysts, and the wider public to leverage open-source tools to refute dominant Israeli propaganda and disinformation.
Christian Zionism can be defined by the unquestioning support for the Zionist colonial project, from the violent establishment of the Israeli regime in 1948 to continued Jewish settlement in Palestine, as part of one’s faith as a Christian. Christian Zionists’ support for Jewish settlement in Palestine is a precursor to their own (the Church’s) salvation, not that of Jewish people; they actively seek an end of times in which Jews and other non-Christians will be destroyed while they ascend to heaven. This ideological commitment aligns Christian Zionists with Israeli governments and their colonial and belligerent policies toward Palestinians, Iran, and other adversaries of the Israeli regime.
Despite the Israeli regime’s increasingly right-wing policies, liberal Zionism still plays a dominant role in Zionist ideology. It fulfills the specific and critical function of providing the settler colonial project with the veneer of enlightened, Western civilization and democratic, progressive politics. In our latest policy brief, Al Shabaka analyst M. Muhannad Ayyash exposes this veneer and proposes a guiding framework for how to confront and invalidate the notion of liberal Zionism.
Open-source intelligence is changing the way information is shared across the world. While increasingly credited as a means to expose war crimes and human rights violations, it is also being used as a tool for entrenching state oppression. In this policy brief, US Policy Fellow Tariq Kenney-Shawa examines the revolutionizing technology and offers recommendations for how to harness it for Palestinian liberation.
Commentaries
Insights and perspectives on social, political, and economic questions related to Palestine and Palestinians globally.
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.
The Israeli regime is currently committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, not only indiscriminately bombing Palestinians but actively targeting critical civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, universities, refugee camps, and residential buildings.
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.
Policy Focus
Compilations of past Al-Shabaka works surrounding a specific theme.
As the Israeli regime continues its genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, many have begun to weigh in on the future of Hamas and of Palestinian leadership more broadly once the bombardment ends. One of the dominant proposals circulating amongst analysts, Palestinian and otherwise, is the revival of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), with Hamas as a member party.
On October 7th, 2023, Hamas’s armed wing led the Al-Aqsa Flood, a guerilla operation where fighters broke through the Gaza barrier, seized Israeli settlements, killed an estimated 1,300 Israelis, and took an additional 200 hostage. The Israeli regime subsequently embarked on what is now its deadliest assault on Gaza. While the government pledged to wipe out Hamas, it has exacted a campaign of mass collective punishment and ethnic cleansing, murdering thousands of Palestinians and displacing over one million.
A sovereign Palestinian state is today perhaps further from reality than ever before. Indeed, with the demise of the so-called two-state solution and the entrenchment of Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid across Palestine, the possibility of a Palestinian nation-state is arguably defunct. What does a Palestinian political future beyond partition look like? What would this entail for Palestinians within colonized Palestine and across the diaspora? Given their forced fragmentation, how might Palestinians forge collective visions for their political future?
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Al-Shabaka is a network of intellectuals, practitioners, and activists based in Palestine and around the globe, collectively imagining a new policymaking paradigm for Palestine.
Policy Labs
Our monthly webinar series that brings together Palestinian experts to discuss and debate policy and strategy related to Palestine in front of a live audience.
While all eyes are on Gaza, Israel is escalating its oppressive measures against Palestinians in the West Bank at unprecedented levels. The Israeli army has launched large-scale military operations, leading to the deaths of dozens of Palestinians, and given free rein to violent settlers communities, who have displaced an estimated 1,000 people in the past six months.
The accelerating adoption of academic boycotts of Israel is just one manifestation of growing support for Palestinians and intensifying efforts to hold Israel accountable for colonization, occupation, and apartheid. However, academic boycotts remain one of the most controversial pillars of the wider boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement. According to a recent study, while 91% of Middle East scholars support at least some boycott of Israel, more than a third are hesitant to get behind a boycott of Israel’s academic institutions.
Throughout history, labor strikes have been used as a potent tool in expressing dissent, voicing grievances, and demanding change. In Palestine, they have emerged as a powerful mode of resistance and a critical source of leverage for workers. These strikes have encompassed diverse sectors, including labor, education, healthcare, and more, showcasing the unity and determination of the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation.
As the Israeli regime escalates its apartheid and settler colonial practices in Palestine, calls for sanctions against it have likewise increased. Still, sanctions remain controversial - both in terms of their ethics and efficacy. Indeed, many have argued that sanctions have rarely achieved their intended goals.
Policy Memos
Concise analysis into a specific policy, its background and implications.
To date, 2023 is the deadliest year on record for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005, largely due to the Israeli regime’s violent operations in Jenin and Nablus to suppress Palestinian mobilization and armed resistance. While the Palestinian Authority (PA) was largely absent during the Israeli army’s raids, it quickly sought to re-establish the guise of control following their conclusion.
In March 2023, after months of protests over Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial judicial overhaul, Israel gave far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir the go-ahead to establish a national guard. The force, to be composed of an initial 1,800 officers and with an operating budget of one billion NIS ($273 million), will primarily assist Israeli police during “security” emergencies.
Since the assault on Gaza began in October, 2023, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, injured, or missing, likely buried under the rubble of their homes or shelters. Nearly two million Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced, with cold, thirst, and hunger ravaging the entire population. While the world deliberates on the technicalities of genocide, Israeli colonization of the West Bank and disruption to Palestinian life there has only accelerated.
Israel’s 2023 genocide of Palestinians in Gaza has horrified many around the world and drawn widespread public outcry, with unprecedented levels of solidarity organizing taking place. But as this unparalleled camaraderie has emerged, so too has extraordinary repression at every level. Al-Shabaka spoke with Layla Kattermann of the European Legal Support Center (ELSC) and Diala Shamas of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) for further insight on this suppression of mobilization and methods to resist such efforts to stifle Palestine solidarity.
Rethinking Palestine
Rethinking Palestine is a podcast from Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, a transnational think tank that brings together Palestinians from across the globe to produce critical policy analysis and craft visions for a liberated, self-determined future. Host Yara Hawari engages with various Palestinian analysts to discuss recent developments and long-standing questions facing Palestinians worldwide.
Recent Podcast
Tariq Kenney-Shawa, Al-Shabaka’s US policy fellow, joins host Yara Hawari to discuss Israel’s information warfare tactics, used to influence public perception of its ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Media & Outreach
A visiting scholar at the Centre for Humanities Research, University of Western Cape, Dr Muhannad Ayyash, shared insights on the Gaza atrocities during his conversation with VOC’s Shafiq Morton.
A single state from the river to the sea might appear unrealistic or fantastical or a recipe for further bloodshed. But it is the only state that exists in the real world — not in the fantasies of policymakers. The question, then, is: How can it be transformed into one that is just?
Analysts say US decision against vetoing UN measure signals Biden’s growing frustration with Israel’s PM Netanyahu.
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