In responding to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of war in cities, it is crucial to pay attention to every individual death, injury, and incident of destruction and also to indirect harm to the collective population and its shared spaces—to the very fabric of the city.
The city as a unit is the expression of a sum greater than its parts: homes, centers of community and culture, roads to work and school, infrastructure and architecture, and the people living there; it is both political and politicized.
In one of the most dramatic moments in international legal history, advocates for South Africa argued before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel’s resort to and conduct of war in Gaza violates the Genocide Convention.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1 indicates the obligation of universal solidarity as a foundation for human rights: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
In the militarized geography of occupied East Jerusalem, a Palestinian girl named Lama described the erection of a new Israeli checkpoint, or what she and her classmates renamed “killing boxes,” in the communal space of Bab al-Amoud (Damascus Gate) as she walked to...
Adam Day In 2006 the Hezbollah movement based in Lebanon abducted two Israeli soldiers. The incident sparked a brutal war between Lebanon and Israel, destroying much of southern Lebanon and resulting in over 1,200 fatalities. In the wake of the war, UN Security...
Atalia Omer During the intense days of “Operation Protective Edge,” in an atmosphere of intimidation and growing self-protectionist groupthink within Israel, thousands of Israelis nonetheless flooded the main squares of cities protesting the occupation, the massacres...
Asher Kaufman Since the mid-1990s, Israel has attempted to separate the fate of Gaza from that of the West Bank. The 2005 “disengagement” from the Gaza Strip was the most dramatic step of this policy. There were at least two reasons for the decision to withdraw from...
Patrick Gaffney, C.S.C. In terms of media reporting, public debate, and partisan polemics, the recent conflict in Gaza can be characterized like its predecessors as a military confrontation and diplomatic poker game between Israel and Hamas. But on a deeper level this...
Atalia Omer Some commentators suggest that the new series of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, orchestrated by Secretary of State John Kerry, represents a last effort to save the so-called two-state solution from its demise. Kerry remains focused on attaining a...
Asher Kaufman If the late historian Barbara Tuchman could write a new edition of The March of Folly, would she consider the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a proper candidate for an addition to her classic book? Tuchman wrote about “one of the most compelling...
Khalil Shikaki A new and hopefully more promising phase of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations started in January 2014. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s tenth visit to Israel-Palestine that month aimed at outlining American bridging proposals for resolving the...
George A. Lopez Much attention is paid to noncombatant casualties caused by military strikes and terrorist bombings, but few observers have focused on the impact of non-military actions, such as economic sanctions, on civilians. The shift more than a decade ago from...
Atalia Omer On March 22, 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton affirmed uncompromising U.S. support of Israel at the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. On May 4, President Barack Obama had lunch with Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate,...