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12. Assessing the Efforts of International Community to Protect Human Rights in Palestine: Interventions and Challenges
- Author:
- Ilham Shamally and Yehya Qaoud
- Publication Date:
- 04-2025
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Pal-Think For Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- This paper examines international interventions aimed at protecting Palestinian human rights amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza and escalating tensions in the West Bank. It highlights international humanitarian law as the key legal framework designed to protect civilians during armed conflicts. The paper identifies significant challenges hindering these efforts, notably the overlap between international politics and law, and global polarization, which obstructed decisive measures to safeguard Palestinians—especially given the frequent use of veto power by countries such as the United States at the UN Security Council, allowing Israel to continue its operations without substantial restraint. The study focuses on international efforts, including UN General Assembly resolutions calling for ceasefires, though these remained non-binding due to weak enforcement mechanisms. Additionally, it discusses significant legal initiatives, including South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel at the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court’s issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders for war crimes. The paper further outlines humanitarian and medical interventions by organizations like UNRWA, the International Red Cross, and the World Health Organization, all of which faced substantial obstacles, particularly Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid access—a tactic identified by the paper as part of a deliberate starvation policy. It emphasizes the necessity of a unified Palestinian political system capable of enhancing diplomatic efforts and confronting these challenges effectively. Finally, the paper calls for re-evaluating current international mechanisms and more stringent enforcement of international law. It underscores the importance of unified Palestinian efforts to overcome international political polarization, thus ensuring more effective protection of Palestinian civilians in the face of ongoing, severe human rights violations.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, Humanitarian Aid, International Community, UN Security Council, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), and 2023 Gaza War
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Palestine, Gaza, and West Bank
13. Toward a More Tolerant Society: Mechanisms Against Hate Speech and Intolerance – Gaza as a Model in the Context of War
- Author:
- Islam Moussa Atallah and Khitam Abu Odeh
- Publication Date:
- 05-2025
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Pal-Think For Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- In times of wars and disasters, the effects of destruction are not limited to material and human losses, but extend to the moral and social structure of society, generating new forms of tensions, intensifying latent negative tendencies, and inciting divisions that may remain for decades after the ceasefire. Hate speech and intolerance are among the most prominent threats to the Palestinian social fabric in times of crisis, and their presence has escalated sharply during the ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip. In the face of widespread destruction, legal vacuum, mass displacement, insecurity, exclusion, and symbolic and moral violence, hate speech feeds on feelings of anger and despair, and finds fertile ground in a socially and politically exhausted environment. The danger of such rhetoric stems from the fact that it not only expresses temporary tension, but also reproduces structural divisions and deepens societal fissures along familial, regional, or political lines. In the Palestinian context, hate speech cannot be separated from the general structure of the long conflict, whether with the occupation or internally between the components of society. Palestinians themselves, despite their collective suffering, have for years been facing increasing challenges related to weak social cohesion, the division of political authority, and the erosion of trust between citizens and their institutions. As the war on Gaza intensified and the humanitarian tragedy intensified, discourses of accusation, betrayal, and exclusion emerged, whether on the basis of political affiliation, family origins, geography (between those displaced from the north and those settled in the south), or even economic and social status, revealing an underlying crisis in the cultural and social structure that goes beyond the impact of the war itself.
- Topic:
- Hate Speech, Intolerance, and 2023 Gaza War
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Palestine, and Gaza
14. Is There Hope for Gaza Under International Law?
- Author:
- Abigail Flynn
- Publication Date:
- 01-2024
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Cairo Review of Global Affairs
- Institution:
- School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
- Abstract:
- Why has international law failed to hold Israel responsible for its destruction of Gaza? It was built to enable the colonizer, not to protect the colonized, explains legal expert Jason Beckett.
- Topic:
- Genocide, International Law, United Nations, International Court of Justice (ICJ), Israeli–Palestinian Conflict, and 2023 Gaza War
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Gaza
15. The EU’s Response to the Gaza War Is a Tale of Contradiction and Division
- Author:
- Martin Konečný
- Publication Date:
- 01-2024
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Cairo Review of Global Affairs
- Institution:
- School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
- Abstract:
- Since the Hamas attacks on October 7 and the start of Israel’s retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip, European Union (EU) member states have broadly split into three camps. At one end are those who have professed to stand “on the side of Israel”, flying its flag on government buildings, backing its military campaign, and avoiding criticism even after the Israeli army flattened most of Gaza and killed thousands of Palestinian civilians. The Czech Republic, Austria, and Hungary stand out in this camp, followed by Germany. At the other end of the spectrum are governments that proclaim to stand “on the side of peace” and, while strongly condemning Hamas, have been calling for a ceasefire and openly criticizing Israel for violating international humanitarian law. Belgium, Spain, and Ireland are the most vocal members of this moderate camp, followed by France and several others. The third, middle camp, is made up of those who are somewhere in between the first two groups: siding with Israel but in less absolute terms than the first camp. It would be wrong to label the moderate camp as “pro-Palestinian”. The fact is that there is no pro-Palestinian camp at the level of EU governments: none of them has hoisted Palestinian flags or primarily condemned the Israeli occupation or its devastating Gaza offensive, as many countries in the so-called Global South have done. The only vocal exception may be Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz of the leftwing Sumar party who has denounced “Israeli apartheid” and called for sanctions and an arms embargo against Israel. However, her statements do not represent the position of the government as a whole.
- Topic:
- European Union, Hamas, Israeli–Palestinian Conflict, and 2023 Gaza War
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Gaza
16. Israel’s Ever-Existing Plan to Depopulate the Gaza Strip
- Author:
- Nadia Naser-Najjab
- Publication Date:
- 01-2024
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Cairo Review of Global Affairs
- Institution:
- School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
- Abstract:
- The recent violence in Gaza may be unprecedented in its intensity, but the Zionist rhetoric underlying Israel’s current brutal strategy has roots going back much earlier than October 7
- Topic:
- Zionism, Ethnic Cleansing, Israeli–Palestinian Conflict, October 7, 2023 Gaza War, and Depopulation
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Gaza
17. Security and Peace After the War in Gaza
- Author:
- Ibrahim Awad
- Publication Date:
- 01-2024
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Cairo Review of Global Affairs
- Institution:
- School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
- Abstract:
- Is the two-state solution feasible? In order to pursue such a policy, the international community must be able to overcome three main points of contention: Israeli occupation, the creation of a Palestinian state, and the role of Hamas
- Topic:
- Security, Self Determination, Refugees, Hamas, Israeli–Palestinian Conflict, 2023 Gaza War, and Two-State Solution
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Gaza
18. Hamas, ISIL, and Israel: An Exercise in Comparison
- Author:
- Ayman Zaineldine
- Publication Date:
- 01-2024
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Cairo Review of Global Affairs
- Institution:
- School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
- Abstract:
- One of Israel’s main responses to the October 7 attacks was to declare that “Hamas is ISIL,” and that the world should thus unite in support for Israel to eliminate it. But others are not sure, and ask whether Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, and its practices as an occupying power, is even more worthy of global sanction
- Topic:
- Islamic State, Hamas, October 7, and 2023 Gaza War
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Gaza
19. Gaza: Israel’s Unwinnable War
- Author:
- Richard Silverstein
- Publication Date:
- 01-2024
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Cairo Review of Global Affairs
- Institution:
- School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
- Abstract:
- Even if, for argument’s sake, it achieved its war goals, Palestinian resistance will exist wherever there are Palestinians—whether in Sinai, Beirut, Ankara, Tehran or Amman
- Topic:
- Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Axis of Resistance, 2023 Gaza War, and AIPAC
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Gaza, and United States of America
20. Radicalization and Regional Instability: Effects of the Gaza War
- Author:
- Mamoun Fandy
- Publication Date:
- 01-2024
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Cairo Review of Global Affairs
- Institution:
- School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
- Abstract:
- As Israel attempts to reestablish its identity as a regional deterrent by destroying Gaza, the effects of its campaign cascade through the region, shifting political alignments, and generating new concerns over radicalization and conflict spillover
- Topic:
- Radicalization, Deterrence, Instability, and 2023 Gaza War
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Gaza