Arabs

• These sentiments were recorded in a survey of Arab public opinion about the current war in Gaza, conducted by Arab Center Washington DC in cooperation with the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies.
• The survey was conducted by telephone with 8,000 respondents in 16 Arab countries, representing some 95% of Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa.
• The US's recent push for regional integration and normalization of relations between Arab countries and Israel is also unpopular among Arabs.
• Finally, 82% of Arabs believe that US media outlets are biased toward Israel in their coverage of the war in Gaza.

• In Israel’s single largest casualty event since the Gaza invasion began in October 2023, 21 Israeli soldiers were killed in an explosion on Jan. 22, 2024.
• 1st Class Cedrick Garin, a 23-year-old Filipino-Israeli whose mother came to the country to work before he was born.
• Hamas’ roughly 240 hostages, for example, were nationals of 25 different countries, including Thailand, Nepal, the Philippines and Tanzania.
• Hamas kidnapped Muslim citizens of Israel alongside Jewish Israelis, Americans and other dual nationals.

Israel’s diversity

• Much smaller groups of Israeli Jews were born in Africa and Asia, in countries including India and Uzbekistan.
• Roughly 20% of Israelis are Arab, including Muslims, Christians and Druze, a group of people who observe a distinct monotheistic religion.
• Another 5% of Israeli residents are neither Jewish nor Arab, including more than 25,000 African migrants who live in Israel.

Military service requirements

• Israel has different rules for military service for its citizens, depending on their background.
• Every Israeli citizen over the age of 18 who is Jewish, Druze or Circassian must serve in the military, unless they are religiously observant and/or married when conscripted.
• Mandatory service brings together Israelis of all backgrounds, forces them to work together and instills a sense of obligation to the broader society.

Minorities in Israel

• Abu Latif, who was called up as a reserve soldier, was killed in the Jan. 22, 2024, blast in Gaza.
• The vast majority of the 370,000 Bedouins in Israel are citizens and identify as Muslim.
• Unlike Jewish Israelis and Druze men who are required to serve in the Israel Defense Forces, Bedouins volunteer.
• In 2020, a record number of 600 Bedouins joined the Israel military.
• Another minority group in Israel, the Druze people, have a long history of Israeli military service.

Jewish minorities

• Even the deaths of Jewish soldiers reflect the complexity of Israeli society.
• In all, Jewish soldiers killed in the conflict have ties to at least 12 countries other than Israel.
• Soldiers killed in Gaza include Staff Sgt.

Equal in war?

• This exempts ultra-Orthodox Jews, who make up approximately 13% of the country, from military service.
• Women as well as men studying at a yeshiva, a Jewish religious college, are excused from service so they can follow strict religious observances and study religious texts.
• In August 2023, only 9% of eligible ultra-Orthodox men served in the military, compared with an 80% national average among other Jewish Israelis.

Jessica Trisko Darden is Director of the (In)Security Lab at Virginia Commonwealth University and Director of the Security & Foreign Policy Initiative at William & Mary's Global Research Institute.

• However, the two-state solution is now further away than it has ever been, with some even proclaiming it “dead”.
• But what actually is the two-state solution and why do so many see this as the only resolution to the conflict?

What is the two-state solution?

• The first attempt at creating side-by-side states occurred before the independence of Israel in 1948.
• More than 700,000 Palestinians were displaced from the new state of Israel, fleeing to the West Bank, Gaza and surrounding Arab states.
• This would mean the new Palestinian state would consist of the West Bank prior to Israeli settlement, and Gaza.
• How Jerusalem would be split, if at all, has been a significant point of contention in this plan.

Why is statehood so important?

• The kind of statehood referred to in the two-state solution, known as state sovereignty in international politics, is the authority given to the government of a nation within and over its borders.
• The vast majority of people on Earth live in or legally fall under the jurisdiction of a sovereign state.
• More than 160 members of the UN now recognise Israel; those who do not include Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Indonesia.
• As such, the self-determination of Palestinians through the creation of a sovereign state has been a cornerstone of Palestinian political action for decades.

The closest the two sides got – the Oslo Accords

• Negotiations began largely as a result of Palestinian uprisings across the West Bank and Gaza.
• In 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the head of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) Yasser Arafat met in Oslo and signed the first of two agreements called the Oslo Accords.
• The Oslo II Accord was signed in 1995, detailing the subdivision of administrative areas in the occupied territories.
• And over the next few decades, the two-state solution has only become harder to achieve for various reasons, including:

the rise of conservative governments in Israel and lack of effective political pressure from the US
the shrinking political influence of the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas and the rise of Hamas in Gaza, which caused a political split between the two Palestinian territories
Hamas’ vows to annihilate Israel and refusal to recognise the Israeli state as legitimate
the continued growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which has turned the territory into an ever-shrinking series of small enclaves connected by military checkpoints
dwindling support among both Israelis and Palestinians for the model
continued political violence on both sides.
And of course there is Netanyahu – no individual has done more to undermine the two-state solution than the current Israeli leader and his party. In 2010, a leaked recording from 2001 came to light where Netanyahu claimed to have “de facto put an end to the Oslo accords”.

What alternatives are there?

• There aren’t many alternatives and all of them have significant problems.
• Although Arabs already make up around 20% of Israel’s current population, the one-state solution would not be politically feasible.
• According to Zionist ideology, Israel must always remain a majority Jewish state and granting Palestinians citizenship in the occupied territories would undermine this.

Andrew Thomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• The NDP’s disciplinary response and the removal of her from caucus cannot be separated from the current climate.
• It is right in the middle of a nationwide Islamophobic backlash, where scores of others are also experiencing a wide range of institutional discipline.
• But this wasn’t enough for the Progressive Conservative government, who put forward a motion the next week to censure her.

Controversy is nothing new

• For Jama, a Black disabled Muslim woman of Somali heritage, controversy is nothing new.
• As Jama has said: “Mak[ing] people feel uncomfortable” has always been part of her work.

Climate of Islamophobia

• To understand this surge, it’s crucial to recognize the influence of the “Islamophobia Industry” in Canada.
• Sociologist Jasmin Zine, a noted authority on Islamophobia, delineates this industry as a conglomerate of media outlets, political figures, far-right, white nationalist groups and Islamophobia influencers and ideologues, among others, fostering an environment where harmful stereotypes of Muslims as innately provocative and violent become commonplace.
• Read more:
  How Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism are manufactured through disinformation

  This racialization lumps more than a billion Muslims into an undifferentiated mass, exploited by public discourse that sensationalizes violent narratives, devoid of geopolitical context or history.

Examples of anti-Black Islamophobia

Navigating the multiple forms of jeopardy faced by Black Muslim women means simultaneously surviving both interpersonal and structural anti-Blackness and Islamophobia. Anti-Black, hate-motivated Islamophobia is often directed at women. Here are some examples:
Feminist geographer Délice Mugabo explains: “anti-Black Islamophobia” is the exclusion of Black people from the category of the human and Muslims from the category of the citizen. Consequently, fidelity to the nation, and constitution as a person is readily up for interrogation.

Read more:
CSIS targeting of Canadian Muslims reveals the importance of addressing institutional Islamophobia

The trouble ‘they’ cause

• In practice, this double jeopardy leaves Black Muslim communities suspended, saddled with heightened vulnerabilities, and often erased from dominant discourses surrounding both anti-Blackness and Islamophobia.
• There are few grounds available to provoke so called “trouble.” Trouble is disorder, disturbance, violation of expectations, norms and values.
• As a Black Muslim, you’re already seen as trouble incarnated.

Interconnected liberation

• However, just as oppression is interconnected, so is liberation.
• Jama made her first public appearance at a peace protest this past weekend in Toronto.

Nadiya Nur Ali has received funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). She is also affiliated with the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM).