Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework" (Springer, 2014), has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.
The Palestinian situation concerns Israel and Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and a range of Arab countries, including Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, Hamas, which the United States designates a terrorist organization, is obviously part of the equation, as is Fatah and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. It is therefore very difficult to make sense of terms like “pro-Palestinian” or “pro-Israel” when one is talking about either the current war or one's position on the future of the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians.
What does it even mean to be pro-Palestinian? Which Palestinians and Palestinian platforms does one support if one is pro-Palestinian?
Someone who is pro-Palestinian might be supportive of Palestinian civilians in the current war but also in favor of a two-state solution or confederation solution to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinians. On the other hand, someone who is pro-Palestinian might be supportive of Palestinian civilians in the current war as well as supportive of Hamas and the effort to destroy Israel and Jews in Israel because he or she denies that Israel has a right to exist. Many people who are pro-Palestinian, in either sense of the term, like to say they are Pro-Palestinian and many are very passionate about saying it. The problem is that saying you are pro-Palestinian is not informative and can be very misleading.
The same holds for people who say they are pro-Israel. Someone who uses that term could be supportive of Israel in the current war and also supportive of a two-state solution or a confederation solution. On the other hand, someone who uses these words could be supportive of Israel in the current war but against the idea of a two-state solution or a confederation solution or indeed any solution to the Palestinian situation.
What would truly eliminate confusion is if people would first identify their overall position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The key is to know if someone thinks there is a way to create a map of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza that enables Jews and Palestinians to live in peace. This can be called the "Peaceful Coexistence Model." Thus someone can either stand for peaceful coexistence or not. Hamas, for one, is against the idea of peaceful coexistence. Iran is also opposed to the idea. The Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority, on the other hand, have appeared for years to be for peaceful coexistence, although they have sharply criticized Israel for building up too many settlements in what they regard as Palestinian land given to them by the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Regarding the war itself, it is best to spell out specifically where you stand. There are not two clear camps. For example, you can be for peaceful coexistence, argue that Israel has a right to defend itself, oppose the precise way Israel has been trying to dismantle Hamas, and support the humanitarian pauses and hostage/prisoner exchanges as they have proceeded so far. This is the position of the Biden administration and many other countries. Alternatively, you can be for peaceful coexistence, support the hostage/prisoner exchanges, but essentially favor a cease-fire and an end to the war. If that is your position, then you must explain how there is a path to peaceful coexistence if Hamas has not been dismantled, recognizing that Hamas has threatened to attack Israel over and over again.
If you are not in favor of peaceful coexistence, then you should say so. At that point, you can make it clear that you support Israel against the Palestinians in every sense or that you support the Palestinians against Israel in every sense. Theoretically, you could say you are pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian, but this will be very confusing because others might be using these terms even though they favor peaceful coexistence. Best therefore to express your total commitment to one side rather than the other in some other way.
Overall, if the media, nonprofit organizations and citizens themselves, especially in their families, dropped the terms pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel. there would be less confusion. Even more, there would be less unnecessary polarization and strife where people may favor a form of peaceful coexistence but the language they use to identify their positions may suggest just the opposite.
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.