| |  | | | | | | | The world's eyes are on Rafah, the Gazan city on the Egyptian border. Israel is on the precipice of a possible major operation there that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says is needed to soundly defeat Hamas. The stakes are high, as over a million Gazans have crowded there seeking shelter, with no safe place to go and an attack could torpedo efforts to secure a cease-fire that would bring Israel's hostages home at last.
University of Pennsylvania Law Professor Claire Finkelstein asks how Israel can navigate the moral and legal choices to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians in Rafah or anywhere when Hamas uses them as human shields.
Netta Ahituv, angry that Netanyahu seems to be bungling a hostage deal, argues no Israelis will feel safe until all the hostages return home. Nesya Shemer, an expert on Islam, writes that Hamas' attempts to rewrite the atrocities it committed on October 7 so they comply with "Islamic values" cannot hide their flagrant violations of Islamic law.
Larry Garber and R. David Harden, both former USAID officials, argue that as the Middle East is being profoundly reshaped by October 7, the ensuing Gaza war, and an increasingly bloody proxy battle between the U.S. and Iran, the case for American and British recognition of Palestinian statehood makes more strategic sense than ever.
Radu Ioanid, Romania's ambassador to Israel and a Holocaust historian, calls on the deluge of voices weighing in the Gaza war to first focus on "critical thinking, education and actual knowledge of facts." | | |
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