By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

Gaza City Of Rafah

The United Nations' top court on Friday ordered Israel to stop its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, something Israel has signaled it will not do. The order, which calls on Israel to submit a progress report within a month, further increases international pressure on Israel over its handling of the war with Hamas. The order was condemned by Israeli officials.

What did Hamas hope to achieve by its attack of October 7, 2023? Why did it select that date? How far did events unfold according to plan, and in particular, to what extent was the targeting of civilians in southern Israel premeditated? The evidence about such questions currently ranges from suggestive to non-existent. It seems that Hamas launched the operation without notifying its main allies, Hezbollah and Iran. Even the external leadership of Hamas was kept in the dark. It would have been reckless to provoke a massive Israeli offensive without preparing the ground for covering interventions from other fronts. Failure to coordinate with the “resistance axis” therefore indicates that the blow inflicted by Hamas on October 7 exceeded what its architects had designed.

What did Hamas hope to achieve by its attack of October 7, 2023? Why did it select that date? How far did events unfold according to plan, and in particular, to what extent was the targeting of civilians in southern Israel premeditated? The evidence about such questions currently ranges from suggestive to non-existent. It seems that Hamas launched the operation without notifying its main allies, Hezbollah and Iran. Even the external leadership of Hamas was kept in the dark. It would have been reckless to provoke a massive Israeli offensive without preparing the ground for covering interventions from other fronts. Failure to coordinate with the “resistance axis” therefore indicates that the blow inflicted by Hamas on October 7 exceeded what its architects had designed.

Hamas might have conceived Operation Al-Aqsa Deluge as an attempt to recreate this “unity of the battlefields” on a larger scale. In a speech on October 12, Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida declared that the “current battle has started where Operation Jerusalem Sword left off.”1 There are notable parallels between the two initiatives. In both 2021 and 2023, unlike previous confrontations, Hamas struck first. In both cases, too, Hamas presented its attack as a response to national challenges rather than grievances specific to Gaza. As the leader of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif stated on October 7, 2023:

The incursions of the occupation troops into Al-Aqsa increased, and they desecrated the holiness of the Mosque, dragged praying women, the elderly, the children, and the youth and prevented them from arriving to the mosque … At the same time, the occupation authorities still imprison thousands of our heroes and practice against them the most brutal methods of humiliation and torture. Hundreds of our prisoners spent more than twenty years in prison, and dozens of them, males and females, whose bodies were eaten by cancer and illnesses, and many of them died because of lack of medical treatment, and a deliberate slow death. All our offers to undertake the exchange of prisoners based on human reasons were met by rejection and stubbornness.2

Synonymous with Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa is a national reference point as well as the primary symbol through which the Palestinian struggle resonates with Muslim constituencies around the world. Hamas’s decision to spotlight it pointed to a political rationale for the attack: enhancing Hamas’s stature in Palestinian as well as regional politics, bridging across divided Palestinian constituencies, and returning the Palestinian cause to international and Arab agendas. The frequent references by Hamas to Palestinian prisoners also fell within a broad national agenda, as these prisoners come from various parts of Palestine, and at the same time indicated the operation’s practical objective: capturing Israelis to secure the release of more than six thousand Palestinians detained by Israel.

Beyond these preliminary conclusions, no definitive answers can yet be given. But if the precise details of the October 7 eruption could not be foreseen, and remain mysterious, that Gaza would explode somehow was widely predicted.3 To understand why, it is necessary to recognize with UN Secretary-general António Guterres that “the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” and attend to what Amnesty International termed “the root causes of these repeated cycles of violence.”4 It is commonly said that “nothing succeeds like success.” But if Hamas resorted to the violent incursion of October 7, it was because the movement had repeatedly failed to translate short-term triumphs into lasting political gains. Hamas’s persistent efforts to participate in a unified Palestinian political system and to acquire international legitimacy were unable to overcome the unyielding intransigence of Israel, the United States, and the rival Palestinian faction Fatah. Meanwhile, if Israel suffered the devastating blow of October 7, this was because its achievements—annexing the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and sealing off the Gaza concentration camp while simultaneously side-lining the Palestine Question abroad—finally pushed Hamas, and the people of Gaza in general, beyond what they could bear.

Hamas and the “peace process” In 1987, Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza undertook a mass civil revolt against Israel’s occupation. In the 1990s, exiled Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leaders entered diplomatic talks to capitalize on the uprising. They secured permission to establish a Palestinian Authority (PA) in the OPT. In return, the PLO unilaterally recognized Israel, disavowed armed struggle, and agreed to administer the OPT pending a final settlement of the conflict. These concessions were formalized in the interim 1993 and 1995 Oslo Accords, which did not require Israel to end its colonization of the OPT or commit to Palestinian statehood. Whereas Palestinians expected the Oslo process to culminate in Palestinian independence, it gave Israel political cover to further entrench the occupation while conscripting the PA as its functionary. When the Oslo process finally collapsed in 2000, Palestinian disappointment curdled into rage, and a second intifada broke out. What began as another popular uprising rapidly militarized in response to Israel’s lethal repression. By 2005 the revolt was quelled.

Hamas—an Islamist nationalist movement comprising an armed wing, a political party, and a social welfare infrastructure—was founded during the first intifada. It generally cooperated with other factions during the uprising. But it rejected the Oslo agreements that followed as a capitulation that abandoned Palestinian rights to their homeland. In the 1990s, Hamas led an anti-Oslo coalition, known as “The Ten Faction,” which included the Islamic Jihad movement as well as the main left-wing groups of the PLO. This represented a new phase in Hamas’s political trajectory: by combining Islamist, Marxist, and nationalist factions, the alliance prioritized a common political program over ideological conformity. On the ground, Hamas was harshly repressed by the newly installed PA, which hoped thereby to appease its US-Israeli interlocutors and prevent Hamas resistance from derailing negotiations.

The collapse of Oslo and the intifada that ensued gave Hamas room to breathe. The uprising was initially led by Fatah,5 but the easing of PA repression gave Hamas and the Islamic Jihad a green light to join in. As the violence escalated, Fatah and the PLO factions competed with Hamas over who could fight Israel more ferociously. Fatah even resorted to suicide bombings, a tactic Hamas had employed in the mid-1990s. The resumption of armed struggle by the PLO factions appeared to vindicate the military approach of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Yet Israel’s superior might eventually prevail while its indiscriminate repression took a severe toll on the PA, all armed factions, and Palestinian society in general.

In 2005, amidst a post-intifada impasse, Hamas took stock and reconsidered its approach.6 It made three consequential decisions. First, to unilaterally end the suicide attacks, which had tarred its image and led not only Israel and the US but also many European states to proscribe Hamas as a terrorist organization.7 Second, to seek membership of the PLO. Third, to participate in any municipal or national elections held in Palestine. Taken together, these new policies amounted to a strategic transformation: from the consummate outsider, Hamas would henceforth try desperately to become part of the formal and internationally recognized Palestinian political system.

Frozen out Hamas’s new political strategy yielded short-term successes. But the movement’s adversaries—Israel, the US, the PA, and certain Arab governments—undertook a concerted effort to prevent the movement from translating those achievements into lasting gains. Hamas was unable to overcome this opposition and eventually concluded that the political strategy was a dead end.

In January 2006, Hamas contested national elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council. Hamas had for many years opposed Palestinian elections because they would be conducted within the framework of the Oslo Accords, which Hamas considered illegitimate. It changed this stance for two main reasons. First, it hoped to circumvent the targeting of the movement by the US. The George W. Bush administration had declared a “global war on terror” and included Hamas in its gallery of evildoers. The PA had signed up for this “war” under US-Israeli pressure, which created a risk of factional conflict with Hamas. To legitimize its aggressive policy, the Bush administration simultaneously trumpeted its commitment to “democracy promotion,” institutionalized regionally in the Middle East Partnership Initiative. In this context, Hamas participated in Palestinian elections to promote its reconceptualization by the US as a legitimate political party rather than a terrorist group. It hoped to use US “democracy promotion” as a shield against the US “war on terror.” Second, Hamas judged that it had sufficient support to win many seats, even as it did not want a full victory.8 Running in the election would therefore allow it to influence Palestinian decision-making as an opposition party without having to assume the burden of executive authority.

To everyone’s surprise, including its own, Hamas won the election.9 This put the group in an uncomfortable position: a militant resistance force suddenly became the ruling party of an institution that functioned within a framework (the Oslo Accord) it vehemently rejected. Unprepared for this outcome, and lacking administrative experience, Hamas sought to convince other Palestinian factions to join in a coalition government. When Fatah refused and encouraged others to do the same, Hamas reluctantly formed a Hamas-exclusive cabinet in March 2006. Seeking regional and international legitimacy, the Hamas government issued a manifesto whose language hovered around “ending the occupation,” well-understood code for accepting the two-state solution.10 That gesture fell on deaf ears. Israel together with the US and EU imposed economic sanctions on the Hamas government while Israel undertook major military offensives against it. Hamas remained isolated.

Even after Hamas assumed power, the PA security forces remained under the control of the Fatah-aligned President Mahmoud Abbas. This effectively created a dual power structure. The US then collaborated with certain PA security officials to paralyze the Hamas government and ultimately foment a coup against it.11 In June 2007, Hamas pre-emptively attacked the Fatah-aligned paramilitaries that were causing most of the trouble. Hamas’s immediate objective was narrow: to “punish” and constrain the PA’s security apparatus.12 But to its surprise, Hamas fighters found that the PA security forces offered little to no effective resistance and were easily overrun. This tempted Hamas to expand its operation across the entire Gaza Strip, culminating in the dismissal of all PA security forces and the imposition of Hamas’s sole military control. Hamas fighters triumphed—but the chalice was poisoned.

When Hamas launched its anticipatory strike, it no more expected to end up in sole command of Gaza than it had foreseen, prior to January 2006, that it would form the next Palestinian government. Once again, a short-term, tactical move wound up having strategic significance. Once again, Hamas was unable to translate its unexpected success into lasting political gain, due primarily to the unbending refusal of international and other Palestinian actors to engage with it. Immediately after Hamas’s electoral victory, and even before it formed a government, the US and Israel mobilized Western and other states to boycott any Hamas-led administration. To achieve this, the Middle East “Quartet”—comprising the US, EU, UN, and Russia—issued three conditions that any Hamas government would need to meet to qualify for diplomatic engagement.13 These stipulated that Hamas should renounce “terrorism,” abide by all agreements reached between Israel and the PLO, and recognize Israel. Hamas had hoped that its decisions to unilaterally end suicide attacks, run for elections, and attempt to join the PLO would be received positively as progress toward international expectations. That didn’t work, and the cage door began to swing shut.

The Hamas takeover of Gaza in June 2007 triggered further factional warfare that culminated in the PA seizing complete control of the West Bank. The geographical separation Israel had engineered between Gaza and the West Bank was now reinforced by a corresponding political divide. Israel immediately intensified its blockade of Gaza, cutting off access by land, sea, and air. International and regional powers refused to recognize the Hamas authority in Gaza but dealt with it indirectly via UN agencies and NGOs. The movement found itself the de facto ruler of a besieged enclave, isolated from most of the world, committed to resisting the occupation, yet also responsible for delivering services and security to more than two million Palestinians.

Under siege Notwithstanding these difficulties, the movement managed to consolidate its rule in Gaza. It was especially effective in the realm of internal security. Following Israel’s disengagement in 2005, the residents of Gaza had been plagued by criminal and clan violence. The PA’s multiple and overlapping security forces were unable to address the problem, but after June 2007, Hamas enforced order.14 Hamas was also credited with running a more efficient, less corrupt civil bureaucracy than the PA, despite the hardships attending Israel’s blockade.15

Israel’s closure regime nevertheless remained the overriding factor that determined and constricted possibilities in Gaza. The siege did not only preclude meaningful development; it extinguished the economy, with the inevitable and intended consequence that humanitarian conditions in the Gaza prison camp relentlessly deteriorated. Israel’s objective was to turn public opinion in Gaza against Hamas.

To this end, it did not rest content with suffocating the population economically, but also periodically “mowed the lawn”—massacring civilians and flattening civilian infrastructure to weaken Hamas, maintain the population in its state of destitution, and deter other regional actors from challenging Israeli domination. Those devastating assaults—in 2008–9, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2021, 2022, and mid-2023—killed thousands of Palestinians, wounded many thousands more, and, together with the blockade, rendered Gaza “unlivable.”16 The people of Gaza blamed Israel more than Hamas for their worsening plight. Nonetheless, they did look to the Hamas authorities for effective relief, and when this was not provided, support for Hamas declined.

Hounded, hamstrung, and hemmed in, Hamas’s survival strategy combined military deterrence with political outreach. By developing its military capabilities and engaging in low-intensity operations along the perimeter fence, Hamas sought to maintain its credibility as a resistance force while deterring Israel from deploying its ground forces in urban areas. This strategy scored limited successes—prisoner exchanges, temporary easing of the blockade—but never came close to breaking the siege. Meanwhile, the firing of projectiles arguably helped legitimize Israel’s regular resort to overwhelming force that exhausted the population and fomented criticism of Hamas.17

In an attempt to appease public opinion in Gaza, Hamas gradually relaxed its grip on Fatah and other groups in the Strip, became more tolerant of public criticism, and abandoned early attempts to impose its conservative religious mores on women.18 The Hamas administration was not free of corruption and engaged in authoritarian impositions, but its performance in key aspects of governance still received higher approval ratings than the PA in the West Bank, even as the latter enjoyed international benefaction and was not under siege.19

At the same time, Hamas sought to overcome its political isolation by extending conciliatory overtures internally, toward the PA, and abroad, to the US and European Union (EU). Internally, Hamas repeatedly albeit unsuccessfully engaged in efforts to reconcile with Fatah. Both factions were severely criticized, by each other and in public opinion at large, for prioritizing their particular interests over the national struggle. In 2017, during reconciliation talks with Fatah and other factions in Cairo, Hamas made landmark concessions that would have seen the administration of Gaza transferred to the PA and the establishment of a unity government across the West Bank and Gaza.20 In 2021, Hamas offered another major concession when it agreed to participate in “engineered elections” structured to guarantee that Hamas would not win a majority, as a preliminary to the formation of a national unity government after the vote.21 But three weeks before polling day, Abbas canceled the vote, fearing poor results in light of “fragmentation and lack of discipline within the [Fatah] movement.”22 Hamas denounced the move but, once again, remained caged in the Strip. Without absolving either Hamas or the PA from culpability for the factional divide which continues to paralyze Palestinian politics, they have not been the principal obstacles to reconciliation. The unity government of 2007 was sabotaged by Israel and the US, and those actors have effectively vetoed Palestinian unity ever since. The PA knows that integration with Hamas will put in jeopardy the aid it receives from the US and EU as well as the tax revenues controlled by Israel, without which the PA would collapse.

Externally, Hamas attempted to prize a political opening by formally revising its political program. In May 2017, the movement published a “Document of General Principles and Policies”23 to replace its (in practice, long defunct) 1988 charter. The main element of the new document was the reaffirmation of Hamas’s acceptance of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders:

Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.

Measured against Hamas’s early insistence on the liberation of Palestine from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, the formalization of this revised rhetoric marked a major milestone in Hamas’s trajectory toward the PLO’s terms for resolving the conflict. It also paved the way for factional reconciliation based on shared political objectives. Israel’s response was categorical rejection, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu theatrically tossing a copy of the document into a trashcan.24 This response was hardly unexpected given that Israel was refusing to engage in negotiations even with the PA, whose preparedness to compromise well beyond the international consensus two-state settlement was a matter of unambiguous record. Hamas saw President Abbas humiliated and the PA rendered irrelevant, except in its capacity as Israel’s enforcer, and it understood that compromising further—for instance, by unilaterally recognizing Israel—would destroy its political credibility without yielding anything in return.25 Hamas’s integrationist political strategy had reached a dead end.

Pyrrhic victories The path from there to the explosion of October 7, 2023, was short and direct. Even Israeli intelligence could connect the dots. In 2016, Israel’s military intelligence chief observed that the “humanitarian condition in Gaza is progressively deteriorating” and warned that “if it blows up, it’ll be in Israel’s direction.”26 In 2018, when tens of thousands of people in Gaza embarked on mass nonviolent demonstrations along the perimeter, Netanyahu had little difficulty identifying the cause. “They’re suffocating economically, and therefore, they decided to crash the fence.”27

As living conditions degenerated, political horizons were comprehensively foreclosed. Israel declared its intention to annex the OPT, accomplished this in practice, pledged never to permit the establishment of a Palestinian state, and relentlessly expanded the illegal settlements that materially precluded Palestinian self-determination. Israelis voted into power far-right parties whose program gave Palestinians just three options: resign themselves to permanent subjugation in an apartheid regime, or leave, or be put down.28 Worse still, these developments did not incur any political price from those international actors that remained at least formally committed to a two-state settlement. On the contrary, Israel’s lurch to the ultranationalist far-right coincided with increased US hostility to the PA, the Trump administration’s abandonment of even the pretext of support for Palestinian independence, and the signing of normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab states. The implication for Palestinians in Gaza, and Hamas as their government, was clear. No political concession would be rewarded, resistance in any form would be crushed, and the Palestinian cause was dead, as the world moved on.

One million children were fated to rot in Gaza prison camp, with death their only deliverance. And so, on October 7, Hamas rolled the dice.

As with its 2006 electoral victory and 2007 takeover of Gaza, it is unlikely that Hamas expected to achieve what it did on October 7. The question now is whether, unlike those previous episodes, Hamas will be able to translate a short-term success into lasting political gain.

Thus far, the US and Israel have responded to October 7 by doubling down on their demonization of Hamas and refusal to engage it in any political process. This approach considers repeated massacres (including of Israelis) an acceptable price to pay for maintaining Israeli rule in the OPT, or it is delusional in its refusal to learn from the history surveyed above. So long as Israel offers Palestinians under its boot nothing but permanent subjugation, the conditions will remain for another explosion, and another, whether at the hands of Hamas or some other group. Hamas does not have a monopoly on Pyrrhic victories.

 

1. Mark Murray, “Poll: Biden’s Standing Hits New Lows Amid Israel-Hamas War,” NBC News (19 November 2023).

2. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel: Flash Update 42,” ochaopt.org (17 November 2023).

3. Akbar Shahid Ahmed, “Biden Cast Doubt on Gaza’s Death Statistics—But Officials Cite Them Internally,” huffpost.com (26 October 2023). Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber, “Despite Biden’s Doubts, Humanitarian Agencies Consider Gaza Toll Reliable,” Reuters (27 October 2023).

4. Gal Beckerman, “‘The Middle East Region Is Quieter Today Than It Has Been in Two Decades’,” Atlantic (7 October 2023).

5. UN OCHA data.

6. Mitchell Plitnick, “In Latest Visit Blinken Offers Nothing to Palestinians,” Mondoweiss (3 February 2023).

7. IHRA, “What is Antisemitism?” holocaustremembrance.com (n.d.).

8. Mitchell Plitnick and Sahar Aziz, “Presumptively Antisemitic: Islamophobic Tropes in the Palestine-Israel Discourse,” Rutgers University Center for Security, Race, and Rights (November 2023).

9. Yousef Munayyer, post on X (formerly Twitter), 7 October 2023.

10. For a deeper examination of the history and ideology of Hamas, cf. Tareq Baconi, Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance (Stanford University Press, 2018).

11. Alex Gangitano, “White House Calls Lawmakers Not Backing Israel ‘Wrong,’ ‘Disgraceful’,” thehill.com (10 October 2023).

12. “Statement from Gerald Rosberg, Chair of the Special Committee on Campus Safety,” Columbia News (10 November 2023).

13. Andrew Jack, “US Universities Lose Millions as Donors Pull Funding Over Hamas Stance,” Financial Times (19 October 2023).

14. Anemona Hartocollis and Stephanie Saul, “After Antisemitic Attacks, Colleges Debate What Kind of Speech Is Out of Bounds,” New York Times (9 November 2023).

15. Joyce Li, “NU Students for Justice in Palestine Leads Walkout, Calls for University Divestment and Support for Palestinians,” The Daily Northwestern (26 October 2023).

16. “Jewish Student Tells Jake She Doesn’t Feel Safe at MIT,” The Lead—CNN (14 November 2023).

17. Cf. Sarah O’Neal, “US Media Outlets Smear Palestinians as Inherently Violent in January Coverage,” palestine-studies.org (26 April 2023).

18. Bridge Initiative Team, “Factsheet: Common Anti-Muslim Tropes,” Bridge: A Georgetown University Initiative (4 December 2018).

19. Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick, Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics (The New Press, 2021).

20. Justin Papp, “Protesters Calling for Cease-Fire in Gaza Keep Up Drumbeat on Capitol Hill,” Roll Call (16 November 2023).

21. “‘Let Gaza Live’: Calls for Cease-Fire Fill Grand Central Terminal,” New York Times (31 October 2023).

22. “March for Israel Speaker Pastor Hagee Once Said God ‘Sent Hitler to Help Jews Reach the Promised Land,’” Democracy Now! (15 November 2023).

23. Ali Harb, “‘No Ceasefire’: Israel Supporters Gather in Washington, DC, Amid Gaza War,” aljazeera.com (15 November 2023).

24. For a partial list of the demonstrations and groups involved, cf. Heather Hollingsworth and David Crary, “Longtime Israeli Policy Foes Are Leading US Protests Against Israel’s Action in Gaza. Who Are They?” apnews.com (16 November 2023). Ali Harb, “Group Stages ‘Die-Ins’ Across Washington, DC to Raise Awareness for Gaza,” aljazeera.com (28 November 2023).

25. Kelly Hayes, “This Weekend’s DC Protest Was Largest Pro-Palestine Mobilization in US History,” truthout.org (5 November 2023).

26. “Estimated 290K Attend March for Israel in Washington DC,” ABC 7 Chicago (14 November 2023).

27. Maha Nassar, “‘From the River to the Sea’—a Palestinian Historian Explores the Meaning and Intent of Scrutinized Slogan,” theconversation.com (16 November 2023).

28. Anti-Defamation League, “Allegation: ‘From the River to the Sea Palestine Will be Free’,” adl.org (26 October 2023).

29. “Censuring Representative Rashida Tlaib for Antisemitic Activity, Sympathizing With Terrorist Organizations, and Leading an Insurrection at the United States Capitol Complex,” H. Res. 829, 118th Congress (1 November 2023).

30. Akela Lacy, “GOP Representative Denies Existence of ‘Innocent Palestinian Civilians’ and Tries to Hobble Aid to Gaza,” theintercept.com (1 November 2023).

31. Mychael Schnell and Mike Lillis, “House Democrat Pulls Resolution to Censure GOP Rep. Mast,” thehill.com (8 November 2023).

32. “Voters Agree the US Should Call for a Ceasefire and De-Escalation of Violence in Gaza to Prevent Civilian Deaths,” dataforprogress.com (20 October 2023).

33. “Reuters/Ipsos Survey: Israel Hamas War and the 2024 Election,” ipsos.com (15 November 2023).

34. Akbar Shahid Ahmed, “Exclusive: ‘Mutiny Brewing’ Inside State Department Over Israel-Palestine Policy,” huffpost.com (19 October 2023).

35. Nahal Toosi, “US Diplomats Slam Israel Policy in Leaked Memo,” politico.com (6 November 2023).

36. Michael Birnbaum and John Hudson, “Blinken Confronts State Dept. Dissent Over Biden’s Gaza Policy,” Washington Post (14 November 2023).

37. Akbar Shahid Ahmed, “Biden’s Israel-Gaza Approach Sidelines State Department, and Officials Fear the Worst,” huffpost.com (2 November 2023).

38. Akbar Shahid Ahmed, “‘I Couldn’t Shift Anything’: Senior State Department Official Resigns Over Biden’s Gaza Policy,” huffpost.com (19 October 2023).

39. “A Statement by Journalists: We Condemn Israel’s Killing of Journalists in Gaza and Urge Integrity in Western Media Coverage of Israel’s Atrocities Against Palestinians,” protect-journalists.com (9 November 2023). For empirical support for allegations of pro-Israel media bias, cf. Conor Smyth, “For Cable News, a Palestinian Life Is Not the Same as an Israeli Life,” fair.org (17 November 2023).

40. Max Tani, “LA Times Blocks Reporters Who Signed Open Letter Criticizing Israel From Covering Gaza,” semafor.com (17 November 2023).

41. “‘No Ceasefire, No Votes’: Arab American Support for Biden Plummets Over Gaza Ahead of 2024 Election,” democracynow.org (7 November 2023).

42. National Muslim Democratic Council, “2023 Ceasefire Ultimatum,” muslimdems.org (30 October 2023).

43. Kathy Frankovic and David Montgomery, “Americans Support Ceasefires in Both Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine Wars,” yougov.com (29 November 2023).

44. Sharon Zhang, “Biden Approval Hits Low With 70 Percent of Young Voters Opposing His Gaza Policy,” truthout.org (21 November 2023).

45. “Modest Backing for Israel in Gaza Crisis,” pewresearch.org (13 January 2009).

 

For updates click hompage here