Calls for a cease-fire in Gaza are driven by humanitarian compassion and principles. But cease-fires are also technically complicated military and political ventures.
While the war in Gaza has riveted public attention, the simultaneous escalation of violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank is not disconnected from the violence in Gaza.
In my analysis of 12,000 Telegram comments posted after the October 7 Hamas attack, I found commenters talking about the two wars as part of the same antisemitic plots.
Benjamin Jensen, American University School of International Service
The Taliban and the Islamic State group are among the militant groups that have been known to use civilians as human shields in the past, in order to try to shift their opponents’ war calculations.
The dismissal of Palestinians as “barbaric” or somehow less human is rooted in a long history of colonizing narratives, including how the land and people were first viewed as “uncivilized.”
Modern settlers to Palestine viewed the desert as something they needed to “make bloom.” But it already was, thanks to the long history of Palestinian agricultural systems.
The silence of some Canadian universities in addressing antisemitism, in particular when considered alongside active approaches toward equity and racial justice, needs to be addressed.
Ritesh Shah, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
A four-year survey of Palestinian school children in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem found hope and wellbeing already seriously declining. The situation now can only make it worse.
Turkey and Israel exchanged tit-for-tat diplomatic withdrawals over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s pro-Hamas stance in the regional conflict. But behind that, the picture is more nuanced.
The Israeli attack on Gaza is undermining the West’s international standing, offering opportunities for China to enhance its regional and global diplomatic influence.
An expert on the laws of war argues that the burden is now on Israel to show that the heavy death toll in Gaza is proportionate to the military advantage gained.
In Ontario and in Alberta, university decisions about balancing free expression and protection from harm will be an important test of recent university policy shifts pertaining to free expression.
At the United Nations and elsewhere, the response by the US and Western Europe to events in Israel and Gaza have been out of step with that of governments in Africa, South America and Asia.
People talk about genocide in a few different ways, ranging from technical to colloquial – but a war of words does not replace a path to peace, a genocide scholar writes.