Jerusalem-based journalist and author Nathan Thrall has been awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for his book, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy. It tells the story of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank through one Palestinian father’s quest to seek answers and accountability after his 5-year-old son is involved in a deadly accident. We speak to Thrall about President Biden saying for the first time that he would not supply certain weapons to Israel to be used in an all-out invasion of Rafah. “It is too little, too late,” Thrall says. “It is a step in the right direction, but the administration has said that it has not made a final determination even about these paused weapons.” Thrall also discusses Israel’s ceasefire talks with Hamas, anti-Netanyahu protests led by families of Israeli hostages, Israel’s intensified crackdown in the West Bank, how criticism of Israel is conflated with antisemitism, and why debates over the future of a Palestinian state are an “enormous distraction from the reality on the ground” — Israel’s “system of domination that is extremely bureaucratic and elaborate, [that] has lasted for over half a century and [is] not going anywhere.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.