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In a joint article [ [link removed] ] published by The Guardian and Jewish Currents, Alex Kane has revealed that the international watchdog Human Rights Watch blocked a report on the Palestinian right of return, leading many researchers to quit the organization.
According to the analysis of the report in question, the researchers found that Israel’s denial of the right of return — allowing Palestinian refugees and their ancestors to return to their homelands — amounted to crimes against humanity.
After the report was blocked, The Guardian and JD Forward note, two researchers who make up HRW’s entire Israel and Palestine team resigned. Those resignations come as Philippe Bolopion, the rights group’s new executive director, starts the job.
“I have lost my faith in the integrity of how we do our work and our commitment to principled reporting on the facts and application of the law,” Omar Shakir, one of the researchers, said in his resignation letter.
Leading up to, during, and after the war that led to Israel’s 1948 establishment, several hundred thousand Palestinians became refugees across the Middle East and beyond. The 1967 Middle East war displaced between 280,000 and 350,000 more.
In response to the resignations and the subsequent media attention, HRW said in a statement: “In our review process, we concluded that aspects of the research and the factual basis for our legal conclusions needed to be strengthened to meet Human Rights Watch’s high standards. For that reason, the publication of the report was paused pending further analysis and research. This process is ongoing.”
If You Read One More Thing: Trump’s Silence on Surveillance Powers
The Trump administration has maintained an unusual public silence as Congress approaches an April 20 deadline to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the warrantless surveillance authority at the center of Edward Snowden’s disclosures, Matt Sledge at The Intercept reports [ [link removed] ].
At consecutive Senate hearings, no administration officials have appeared, and Trump’s nominee to lead the NSA, Lt. Gen. Joshua Rudd, has declined to endorse reforms requiring warrants for “backdoor” searches of Americans’ communications.
Lawmakers from both parties have criticized the absence, with Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley noting: “If the administration would like to brief us in an open or closed setting, I will help work to set it up.”
The White House has insisted it is working privately, but its lack of a public stance has frustrated Democrats and civil liberties advocates, who argue that recent FBI violations strengthen the case for reform.
Sledge also notes shifting political incentives, with Republicans potentially favoring broad surveillance powers now that Trump is back in office.
Trouble for Springfield’s Haitian Population
Michael Tomasky at The New Republic [ [link removed] ]writes [ [link removed] ] that Springfield, Ohio, is bracing for aggressive immigration enforcement after the Trump administration moved to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for thousands of Haitian residents.
The article says the community has already endured racist falsehoods amplified by Donald Trump and JD Vance during the 2024 campaign, including fabricated claims that Haitians were eating locals’ pets.
As TPS approached its Feb. 3 expiration, local officials warned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement could launch a 30-day surge targeting individuals with removal orders and others lacking legal status. Springfield school leaders prepared for potential family separations, while residents stayed indoors out of fear.
Pastor Carl Ruby described Haitian parents granting power of attorney to protect their children. “They are making preparations to stay inside, not to come out of their homes. They are afraid for their children.”
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has criticized the policy shift, arguing that Haitian workers contributed significantly to the state’s economy.
Deep Dive: Why Do People Join the Military?
A new comparative study published in Armed Forces & Society examines how citizens in five democracies understand why soldiers and officers joined the military, revealing striking cross‑national differences rooted in national citizenship traditions and military operational tempo. The authors report that their surveys in France, Germany, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States show that “beliefs about motivations for military service vary significantly by nation,” with some publics emphasizing patriotism and civic duty and others focusing on pay, benefits, or desperation.
The researchers behind the study, entitled “Citizenship Traditions and Cultures of Military Service: Patriotism and Paychecks in Five Democracies [ [link removed] ],” begin by situating their work in the long arc of democratic military recruitment. They noted that over the past six decades, “many countries — and especially the world’s wealthy countries — gradually abandoned the military draft,” shifting toward volunteer forces recruited on the open labor market. Critics have long feared that the end of conscription would “kill off ‘the mythic tradition of the citizen-soldier,’” weakening civic duty and elevating individualism. The authors argue that Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine revived these debates, especially in Europe, where concerns about recruitment shortfalls had led some states to reintroduce or expand selective conscription.
The study builds on earlier US-focused research showing that Americans often resist viewing military service as ordinary employment. As the authors summarize, prior work found that “a majority of Americans resist thinking of military service as a ‘job’ and of soldiers as ‘employees.’” But the new study extends this inquiry across four additional democracies to determine whether the “citizen‑soldier” ideal persisted elsewhere.
The team fielded nationally representative surveys between 2018 and 2021, asking respondents to choose among four motivations for military service: patriotism, good citizenship, pay and benefits, or the need to escape adverse circumstances. In Israel, where enlisted soldiers are overwhelmingly conscripts, the survey instead asked about officers and omitted the “no other options” category because respondents found it implausible. The authors emphasize that these differences “complicate efforts to compare the data,” but the overall pattern remains clear.
The results show sharp national contrasts. In Germany, “‘pay and benefits’ was by far the most common response … accounting for more than half of respondents (53.6%),” followed by “no other options.” In the United Kingdom, half of respondents (49.7%) also chose “pay and benefits,” nearly double those who selected patriotism. The United States displayed a more even split: “43.1%” chose pay and benefits, while “33.3%” chose patriotism.
France and Israel, however, stand apart. In France, a plurality (32.9%) cited service to patriotism, with substantial numbers also selecting good citizenship and pay and benefits. In Israel, “46.4% said that officers signed up primarily out of patriotism,” with another 38% citing pay and benefits. When motivations were grouped into intrinsic versus extrinsic categories, the divide sharpened: “[L]arge majorities of respondents in Germany and Britain attribute extrinsic motivations,” while “significant majorities of respondents in France and Israel credit soldiers … with being chiefly intrinsically motivated.”
The authors then tested three possible explanations for these differences: military size, recruitment format, and operational tempo. None proved sufficient. Military size, for instance, failed to predict public beliefs. They write that “the size of the military cannot explain the cross-national pattern,” since France and the United Kingdom have similarly sized forces but very different public attitudes, and Israel’s exceptionally large reserve force did not produce extrinsic narratives.
Likewise, having a family member in the military did not consistently shape beliefs. The authors report that “respondent-level data … do not support” the idea that military families idealize or demystify service motivations. In France and the United Kingdom, household military service “was not associated with any particular account,” and even segmenting French respondents by whether relatives served before or after the end of conscription revealed “no significant differences.”
Finding the standard explanations inadequate, the authors advance a new framework centered on national citizenship traditions and military operational tempo. They argue that “the more a political culture embraces republican citizenship ideals, the more citizens see soldiers as intrinsically motivated.” But in republican states with low operational tempo, citizens might temper this idealism. Conversely, in liberal citizenship cultures, people tend to view soldiers as extrinsically motivated — unless high operational tempo compels them to valorize service and “venerate soldiers’ patriotism and sacrifice.”
This combined framework, they contend, best explains why France and Israel lean intrinsic, why the United States is evenly split, and why the United Kingdom and Germany lean extrinsic. The authors conclude that these findings have broad implications for democratic civil‑military relations, noting that assumptions about soldier motivations “affect public support for military operations,” shape attitudes toward veterans’ benefits, and influence beliefs about “the appropriate roles of military officers and civilians in policymaking.”
The study ultimately suggests that national cultures of citizenship remain deeply rooted despite surface-level convergence among democracies. As the authors write, their findings “provide further evidence… that national citizenship traditions are enduring,” and that public beliefs about why soldiers serve continue to reflect those traditions in consequential ways.
Show Us the Receipts
At Inkstick, Managing Editor Patrick Strickland has [ [link removed] ]reviewed [ [link removed] ] Christopher Mathias’s book To Catch a Fascist, which chronicles anti-fascist activists infiltrating, surveilling, and documenting far‑right groups. Strickland describes how these volunteers gathered intelligence to expose white nationalists, and disrupted planned actions. It emphasizes that anti-fascists are operating quietly, often risking retaliation, and are continuing a lineage of US anti‑fascist organizing dating back to the 1930s. Though there are often claims that Antifa does not exist, “Antifa does exist, though, and Mathias gets it right by pointing out that the movement is ‘largely a reflection of America itself,’” Strickland observes.
Also at Inkstick, Rebecca Rottenberg [ [link removed] ]writes [ [link removed] ] about UN peacekeeping in Africa winding down as governments in Mali and the Democratic Republic of the Congo push for withdrawals, arguing that the missions failed to protect civilians. The drawdowns are creating a fragmented security landscape dominated by regional forces, state‑backed contractors, and private militias with little oversight, according to Rottenberg. Analysts have warned that civilians are becoming more vulnerable as mercenary groups such as Wagner are committing abuses with impunity. Human Rights Watch has documented killings, disappearances, and burned homes.
At The World, Sara Hassan covers [ [link removed] ] immigrant neighborhoods in Minneapolis and how they remain on alert after ICE agents’ arrival in December. Immigration agents have been detaining residents and alarming Somali Americans. Hassan reports that Karmel Mall, normally crowded, has seen shuttered stalls as shop owners stay home out of fear. Younger and older Somali Americans alike are avoiding public spaces, worried they could be targeted despite citizenship. As one boutique owner says, “People are afraid to come here.” Meanwhile, community members have described heavy‑handed tactics, alleged constitutional violations, and the shock and fear that has taken root in the wake of the shooting deaths of two US citizens, Renée Goode and Alex Pretti.
Support Inkstick
For anyone who missed our annual fundraising campaign last year but would still like to support Inkstick, there are several ways. We accept one-time donations and recurring monthly support [ [link removed] ] year-round. We also make a sum off any of the snazzy Inkstick swag [ [link removed] ] you purchase from our merch store. As always, any support you can offer will go directly toward our reporting. And if financial support isn’t something you can swing, then we’d love it if you shared our articles anywhere you are on social media.
Critical State is written by Inkstick Media in collaboration with The World.
The World is a weekday public radio show and podcast on global issues, news, and insights from PRX and GBH.
With an online magazine and podcast featuring a diversity of expert voices, Inkstick Media is “foreign policy for the rest of us.”
Critical State is made possible in part by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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