Yaël Mizrahi-Arnaud

I think that the International, regional and internal-Israeli dynamics will not allow the Israeli government to return to hostilities. But at the moment that's all we can count on - the "dynamics". There seem to be no clear mechanism to prevent that.

"I believe a durable, mutually agreed upon resolution to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires what Trump’s plan sidelines: Palestinian self-determination."

The Ripple Effects of the Oct. 7 Attack on Israel This is a special edition of our members-only newsletter, In Brief, where each week, experts will dig deep into a single issue happening in the world to

My comments in @warontherocks.bsky.social in their October 7 brief on what it will take to end the war. We're all breathing a sigh of relief, but I don't think we're there yet. The plan still has a main weakness of having no enforcement mechanisms or timelines. warontherocks.com/2025/10/the-...

Barak Ravid: Hugs in Egypt as negotiators wait Trump's truth social post announcing the end of the Gaza war

الحمد لله رب العالمين
שהחיינו וקיימנו והגיענו לזמן הזה

A General Air of Anxiety - Boston Review The Red Scare targeted my father. He taught me the meaning of resistance.

"no matter the costs, principled integrity is a priority, taking a stand means standing fast, and contesting the predations of the powerful gives meaning to the lives we lead."

An inspiring essay by the preeminent feminist historian Joan Wallach Scott.

www.bostonreview.net/articles/a-g...

Elizabeth Tsurkov, for me, is an example of a rare Jewish Israeli who decided to embrace the Middle East as her home, immersed itself in Arabic language and culture, struggled and put herself at risk for justice and liberty for people in Palestine, Syria and Iraq. She's a model of how things can be.

I also have zero hopes that Witkoff or Trump is going to propose/impose a resolution that provides justice for Palestinians in Gaza an/or the West Bank. The administration's disdain for Netanyahu doesn't translate into sensitivity towards Palestinian's needs for safety and sovereignty.

A non-insignificant part of the Witkoff success is his recent appearance on the scene. Dems have four more years of soul searching, and a huge part of that should be on revamping their foreign policy priorities. It's embarrassing that our hopes for a more peaceful future rest on his shoulders.

On the Squeezing The Parable of the Lemons

If jewish currents isn't one of the best outlets we have, I don't know what is

jewishcurrents.org/on-the-squee...

On the day that Israel enacted a complete blockade on aid and commercial goods entering Gaza, COGAT released a report on OCHA's "biases and methodological inconsistencies." As if we could trust COGAT to begin with, they have since stopped producing any statistics for what entered in March.

The scale and intensity of atrocities committed by Israel during the last 18 months dwarfs anything in the previous 78 years. Torture, mass detention, executions, massacres, destruction, ethnic cleansing. None of it is new, but the scale and intensity is.

A weird time to be on a Fulbright in Israel/Palestine. My funding is fine, and it's the last cohort of Hays for the foreseeable future. I take this responsibility & my PhD very seriously, yet I can't help but feel it's a futile endeavor in this environment both at home and what's happening here.

‘No Other Land’: An Eye-Opener About the West Bank and the Movies (Gift Article) A team of Palestinian and Israeli directors take a daring approach to the subject. But the Oscar-nominated film could not find a U.S. distributor.

“‘No Other Land,’ an audacious and devastating film, was 2024’s most decorated documentary“ and just won the Oscar for Documentary Feature but still doesn’t have a US distributor. Gift link for context: www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/m...

Jews of the Indian Ocean A panel of two lectures by Professor Ben-Dor Benite and Dr. Kvindesland

SOAS Centre for Jewish Studies has the pleasure of hosting next week two excellent scholars - Professor Zvi Ben Dor Benite and Dr Eirik Kvindesland - talking on the Jews of the Indian Ocean

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/jews-of-th...

It feels important to stress that despite the analysis and attendant pessimism, this is a moment we have waited 14 months for. For the tens of thousands stuck under the rubble, for those who have yet to be buried, for those we have yet to mourn, for those who haven't seen their families in months.

How Israel manages the spoilers in the 1st phase will be interesting. The true test is what's next? They will insist on retaining IDF presence & carrying out strikes in the strip whenever they please. Gazans will not have safety. Trump will be busy with other pressing foreign policy issues by then.

Spent the last week selling the ceasefire deal to friends and family, to assuage my own despair. There are too many ways it could fail. The idea that Israel will ever withdraw from Gaza is likely the culprit. The deal will thus fall apart after phase 1 and Trump's interest in Gaza only goes so far.

So relentless has been Israel’s assault, and so complete the destruction in northern Gaza that a former Israeli defence minister described the military’s actions there as ‘ethnic cleansing’.

Here's how the Israeli military erased a town of 200,000 people in Gaza. on.ft.com/3DTS14e

I trust people who:

- acknowledge when they get things wrong
- change the mind and explain why
- acknowledge the things they're unsure about
- engage seriously with counter arguments
- show consistency even when it's uncomfortable
- are not afraid to say things their followers won't like

Fort Greene park, Christmas eve. I come to this park regularly. It holds the remains of 11,500 men and women who died in British prisons on ships off the coast. Imagine a similar outcome 250 years later in Palestine.

In the weeks after October 7, a sign on the storefront said “on vacation, return soon.” The metal gate has remained closed ever since. I walk past the store everyday and think about him, and the life he tried to build. I pray he and his family are safe. But the reality is likely very grim.

I think about all the displacement. I think about the dozens of friends and family I would be mourning. About how entire families would be wiped out, how cemeteries, schools, hospitals, churches, mosques, and the social fabric of society completely destroyed. And it continues…

While completely incomparable, I often imagine what Brooklyn would be like if it had to endure the conditions the residents of Gaza have survived. We are roughly the same population size. I think about what starvation, bombardment, and besiegement would do to us.

He knew my name, and knew I had spent time in Palestine/Israel and that my family was from Lebanon. He was always polite and friendly. He shared that all of his family was still in Khan Yunis. Once we started to discuss the Nakba but other customers entered and we dropped it.

I get a small, daily reminder of the depths of loss the genocide has wrought on Gaza and its people. Three years ago, a falafel shop opened on my corner of Nostrand Ave in Brooklyn. Cafe Tamam was run by a man from Gaza. I spent many memorable moments with him, some watching World Cup games.

Protest in Jerusalem. Sign: End the Fucking War photo credit: Orna Kupferman

Jerusalem tonight

This hits better on X but there’s a strong irony that while Arab states across the region are abandoning Assad, the tankies tweeting from comfortable homes in coastal U.S. cities will be the last pillar of the “axis of resistance.”

No sigh of relief that the war is over as a bloody night awaits Lebanon.

It's been 1 year since the temporary ceasefire & hostage deal with Hamas. Only SEVEN hostages have since returned alive.

Israel has pursued only death and destruction, for its enemies and citizens alike.

7 Oct 2023 was most likely the deadliest day in the history of Palestine/Israel (ever). With over 800 civilians killed by Hamas.

2023 was most likely the deadliest year in the history of the country, with over 20,000 civilians killed by Israel.

2024 better make this stop.