Why Everything Changed in Haiti: The Gangs United | Violence Has Failed Palestinians | U.K. Government Strengthens Approach to Counter Extremism, and more

US Imposes Sanctions on Israeli Settlers, Two West Bank Outposts  (Simon Lewis and Daphne Psaledakis, Reuters)
The Biden administration imposed sanctions on two Israeli outposts and three settlers it accused of undermining stability in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, and appealed to Israel to do more to prevent settler violence that Washington says is an obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace.
The State Department said the outposts known as Moshe’s Farm and Zvi’s Farm had been bases for violence against Palestinians.
The administration in February imposed sanctions on four Israeli men it accused of being involved in settler violence in the West Bank, signaling growing U.S. displeasure with the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
While voicing growing frustration with the Palestinian civilian toll from Israel’s war against Hamas, Washington has repeatedly asked Israel to hold violent settlers accountable and complained that its actions allowing settlement expansion diminish hopes for a two-state solution.

Germany’s Far-Right AfD Seeking to Overturn Extremist Designation in Court  (Thomas Escritt, Reuters)
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Tuesday attempted to delay a court hearing on whether it can be treated as a suspected extremist organization, accusing judges of bias and seeking to summon a raft of top officials as witnesses. The AfD brought the case after the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), one of Germany’s security agencies, made the classification in 2021, meaning it could deploy intelligence tools such as phone taps and informants against the party. A ruling in favor of the BfV would allow that to continue and would deal the party a blow just six months ahead of regional and European elections. The party polls in first place in several of the poorer, post-industrial eastern states where its anti-establishment, anti-immigration message is particularly resonant. The AfD, which has 78 of the 735 seats in the Bundestag federal parliament, says it is a democratic, non-extremist formation. Regional branches of the party have already been formally declared extremist threats.

Violence Has Failed Palestinians  (John Aziz, Foreign Policy)
The Palestinian case for self-determination—like any stateless people—is bulletproof, even if Palestinians themselves are not. The principle of self-determination is enshrined in the U.N. Charter, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Palestinians have an inalienable right to rule themselves in the land on which they live.
The trouble is that Hamas’ demands go far beyond demanding self-governance. What they and Palestinian anti-Zionists demand is the right to extinguish their neighbor’s self-governance, and conquer their neighbor’s territory. It’s the same right that Israeli extremists claim as they prepare new settlements on the West Bank—and even dream of seizing land in Gaza.