Last month, the UN Human Rights Office issued a list of 112 “business enterprises involved in certain activities relating to settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” a measure intended to support boycotts of Israel. No such measures have been taken against territories elsewhere in the world occupied by foreign powers, note Brenda Shaffer, Svante Cornell, and Jonathan Schanzer—including areas where the legal problems are far more clear-cut:

During the past four weeks, there has been a rash of violent attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank. These are not a response to any Israeli actions, nor are they spontaneous outbursts. Rather, as Itamar Marcus and Maurice Hirsch explain, the violence is the result of deliberate incitement by the Palestinian Authority (PA), which began when its president, Mahmoud Abbas, realized he was unlikely to win the upcoming national elections. The violence, write Marcus and Hirsch, was originally a way to win votes, and is now a way to maintain popularity after Abbas’s decision to postpone the elections in definitely: