Zionism, critics of the Jewish state often claim, is nothing but a European colonial enterprise. But in reality the Jews of the Land of Israel were, in the 28 years before the state’s creation, subjects of British colonial rule—which was not always benign. According to recently declassified documents from the Mandatory period, British police killed or wounded a number Jews without provocation. Itamar Eichner writes:

Some of these files show that the British tried to cover up the killings, [whether] made in cold blood, as acts of self-defense, or misfires; . . . in many cases, the families of the dead were not informed about subsequent investigations.

On November 12, 1947, British troops attacked a house in Ra’anana where [the Jewish militant group] Leḥi was conducting a firearm course for a group of youths. In the attack, four children aged fifteen to eighteen and a nineteen-year-old instructor were killed. Already at the time, the British were blamed for killing the children in cold blood. According to testimonies, the group did not fire back and were mowed down while running away from the house.

Another incident uncovered in the British police files is the 1947 killing of Meir Plaskowski and his son Reuven in Moshav Karkur. On September 17, 1947, Plaskowski and his son were riding their motorcycle from Hadera to Pardes Hannah, when both were intentionally run over and killed by a British armored car. . . . In his testimony, the soldier driving the armored car said that he took off his sunglasses, lost control of the vehicle, and smashed into a roadside tree, unaware at all that he ran someone over. However, the uncovered documents show another testimony belonging to a Jewish man . . . who was driving that day to Pardes Hannah . . . and saw the armored car swerve intentionally and hit the motorcycle.

When he called upon Hamas to end the war and release the hostages last week, the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas was also getting ready for a reshuffle within his regime. On Saturday, he appointed Hussein al-Sheikh deputy president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is intimately tied to the PA itself. Al-Sheikh would therefore succeed Abbas—who is eighty-nine and reportedly in ill health—as head of the PLO if he should die or become incapacitated, and be positioned to succeed him as head of the PA as well.

Al-Sheikh spent eleven years in an Israeli prison and, writes Maurice Hirsch, was involved in planning a 2002 Jerusalem suicide bombing that killed three. Moreover, Hirsch writes, he “does not enjoy broad Palestinian popularity or support.”

Still, by appointing Al-Sheikh, Abbas has taken a step in the internal reforms he inaugurated last year in the hope that he could prove to the Biden administration and other relevant players that the PA was up to the task of governing the Gaza Strip. Neomi Neumann writes:

Abbas’s motivation for reform also appears rooted in the need to meet the expectations of Arab and European donors without compromising his authority. On April 14, the EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas approved a three-year aid package worth 1.6 billion euros, including 620 million euros in direct budget support tied to reforms. Meanwhile, the French president Emmanuel Macron held a call with Abbas [earlier this month] and noted afterward that reforms are essential for the PA to be seen as a viable governing authority for Gaza—a telling remark given reports that Paris may soon recognize “the state of Palestine.”

In some cases, reforms appear targeted at specific regional partners. The idea of appointing a vice-president originated with Saudi Arabia.

In the near term, Abbas’s main goal appears to be preserving Arab and European support ahead of a major international conference in New York this June.