The space of identity is tight. A single identity can hardly fit into its place, yet that is what society expects. The reality of identity is much more dynamic and colorful than dry categories of some census-defined race or ethnicity.

But wait. Is any generic definition a fair categorization of a person’s true identity? Do the census-defined presented categories neatly fit into the narrow space of society’s conceptualization of identity and therefore expected to accurately define a population?

I live a hyphenated life — an inherited scar that cannot be washed away nor neatly tucked into the space of races…

(Jerusalem — June 2021) — In a historic about-face, and while Palestinian bodies are still being pulled from the rubble in Gaza, the Middle East woke up this morning to its future. Late into the night, hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, better known as Bibi, surprised even the most radical Palestinians and ordered the Israeli Defense Forces to end 54 years of military occupation of Palestinian lands. It was reported that Netanyahu made this historic move after seeing the cover story of the New York Times, which photographed all of the Palestinian children he just killed in Gaza.

Israel…

Events in Israel and Palestine are disturbing, to say the least, but far from surprising to anyone who has been awake.

In an opinion piece last August that was published in Haaretz, Pushing Palestinians back to armed struggle, I wrote: “If the US and Israel do not make an about-face soon, Palestinians will care less who blames them when the bullets and missiles start flying in both directions.”

My focus in these words was on how Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation would act if nothing changed. Regretfully, I was spot on.

Allow me to also repeat something else I…

“Palestinian Refugees in International Law” by Francesca P. Albanese and Lex Takkenberg, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 2020, 608 pages.

I was recently on a video call with a longtime Jewish Israeli friend from Jerusalem. He is a highly educated, deeply cultured, politically liberal, and progressive academic who is outspoken and well-written on the need for Israel to end its military occupation of Palestinians and to stop its discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel.

But our political conversation hit an odd silence when, during the course of our conversation, I told him that peace can only be realized once Israel…

One of the world’s leading independent organisations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights, Human Rights Watch (HRW), today issued a 213-page report entitled ‘ A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution ‘. The report examines Israel’s treatment of all Palestinians, regardless of where they may reside between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and beyond.

For such a mainstream organisation, it minces no words. The report starts by noting that ‘Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.’ In a press release announcing the report, HRW said, ‘The finding…

The Palestinian political system is in a self-inflicted free fall. The results may be catastrophic for the just Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence. Most of the Palestinian people are looking on with utter despair, not only those living under Israeli military occupation in Palestine (West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip), but also those living in Israel, refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and amongst the diaspora worldwide. If corrective action is not immediately taken, Chairman Abbas and all the members of the Executive Committee of the Palestinian’s political agency, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), will be to blame.

…

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is the political agency of the Palestinians’ national liberation movement; it represents Palestinians wherever they reside. The PLO last defined its goals as freedom and independence — freedom from Israeli military occupation and oppression and for the right of Palestinian refugees to return home, and independence in a free and sovereign state of Palestine. This sole, internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people is currently under serious threat by none other than its own leadership.

PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and his predecessor Yasser Arafat, both systematically led this once-vibrant organization toward a situation of total…

Politicians and experts should not doubt a two-state solution. But they should finally consider a plausible version of it.

Bernard Avishai and Sam Bahour

Mr. Avishai, an American-Israeli professor and writer for magazines, lives in Jerusalem. Mr. Bahour is an American-Palestinian who lives in Ramallah in the West Bank and is a management consultant. They have proposed a confederation to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for years.

Donald Trump has left the Biden administration myriad international crises, and nowhere more obviously than in Israel and the Palestine Authority.

Mr. Trump dismantled relations with the Palestinian side and greenlighted an extremist Israeli…