Desistance from violence can be to withdraw from a stance of violence through an act of violence, to leave off one form of violence by taking on another. Each Israeli attack on Gaza is simultaneously and implicitly recast by state subtext as a desistance from genocide.
These options distract people from the real priority: to find (or strengthen) practical forms of pressure in support of international consensus.
Behind the Arab rhetoric of unity over Gaza - and Syria or Iraq - lie deep and dangerous fractures.
A review of Omar (2014), the most recent offering from the Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad, which portrays the reality of life under occupation.
Plain and simple sadness is a natural human reaction to the killing in Gaza. But we are told such emotional reactions must be politically calibrated.
If one of the motives of Israel's war on Gaza was to crush the nascent Palestinian unity government, it may have failed. For the sake of whatever peace process is still possible, Palestinians need to stay the course.
After its four-week bombardment, a three-day ceasefire reveals that the ground has shifted under Israel.
If the political will to bring about justice and peace is lacking, the answer lies in international law. Ending state trade with Israeli settlements is not an economic sanction, but a legal obligation.
Those dedicated to the Palestinian cause should think carefully about the tactics they choose.
The war in Gaza has strengthened both the Muslim Right and the Jewish Right; while the results have been disastrous for the people of Gaza, they aren't good for the people of Israel either. Meredith Tax asks, what does this mean for the two state solution?
The likelihood that 7000 homes in the Gaza Strip have been used as storage facilitates or military outposts is very slim. When you see the numbers out of Gaza, consider your own context. Look around at the houses in your neighbourhood and imagine the scale of destruction.
