MER Article Column: Happy Anniversary! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! On the occasion of Israel’s fiftieth anniversary, a Bar Ilan University poll found that kibbutzniks were considered to be the most Zionist by respondents asked to pick among 11 different categories. Myths of the heroic pioneers live on, despite the fact that kibbutzniks have not Al Miskin • 3 min read
MER Article The Enigmas of Shas On April 23, 1997, the general secretary of Israel’s Sephardi orthodox Shas movement, Rabbi Aryeh Deri, was carried shoulder high above the roar of more than 20,000 adoring supporters gathered in the Givat Ram sports stadium in West Jerusalem. “We are all Deri,” was one chant; “Deri equals Dreyfus” Graham Usher • 8 min read
MER Article The Contradictions of Economic Reform in Israel Half a century ago Israel was a poor new state hopelessly indebted to the outside world. Fifteen years later, it could be described as a rapidly growing developing country undergoing successful industrialization. By the early 1980s, it was an extreme case of an economically overburdened state incapa Michael Shalev • 10 min read
MER Article US Aid to Israel Not long ago right-wing Israel backer William Safire wrote in his column in the New York Times that the Palestinians had to recognize that their “100 million-plus [dollars] annual financial support from the European Union had ties to mutual movement” in the Oslo process. [1] On a certain level of ab Phyllis Bennis • 5 min read
MER Article Between a Rock and a Hard Place There is a bill pending in the Israeli Knesset that would allow women the option to use the country’s civil courts for personal status matters. Liberal Israeli feminists see this as promoting “women’s rights” by loosening the grip of religious authorities over women’s personal lives. But Israel is n Lisa Hajjar • 2 min read
MER Article The Myth of Gender Equality and the Limits of Women's Political Dissent in Israel The profuse media coverage showered upon Israel on its fiftieth anniversary largely failed to consider more critical perspectives that might have cast a different light on the celebrations. While some commented on the familiar divisions between secular and religious Jews, left and right, or immigran Simona Sharoni • 10 min read
MER Article Dis/Solving the "Refugee Problem" “A displaced person owns nothing but the spot where he is standing, which is always threatened.” -- Murid Barghouti Israeli power, US backing, Palestinian weakness, Arab complicity -- these are the basic ingredients for a coercive settlement of the “refugee problem” based not on refugees’ rights bu Rosemary Sayigh • 12 min read
MER Article Dayr Yasin Remembered Noam Chomsky, commenting on the just released book Remembering Deir Yassin, notes that “the Deir Yassin massacre is a bitter symbol of a long history of terror and repression, to which -- to our shame -- we have contributed in many substantial ways, and still do. We should not only remember, but als Phyllis Bennis • 2 min read
MER Article Fifty Years Through the Eyes of "New Historians" in Israel Since the 1980s, professional Israeli scholars have been challenging the official Israeli version of the origins of Zionism and the birth of Israel. The “new historians” view of the past is much closer to the Palestinian historical narrative than to the Zionist one. Their criticisms also correspond to demands and Ilan Pappe • 9 min read
MER Article Countering Israel's Fiftieth on the Internet The struggle over the historical record and popular memory of 1948 has reached the Internet. A number of websites and posted materials devoted to the Palestinian experience in 1948 known as the nakba (national catastrophe) offer a wealth of information to counter the virtual media silence about the Steve Niva • 1 min read
MER Article Democracy or Ethnocracy? In February 1998, President of the Israeli High Court, Aharon Barak, issued a statement explaining the temporary deferral of proceedings on an appeal known as the “Katzir case.” The 1995 appeal was lodged by an Arab citizen who was prohibited, because of his non-Jewish status, from leasing state land. [1] Oren Yiftachel • 18 min read
MER Article Alternatives to an International Criminal Court A scene toward the end of the documentary film Calling the Ghosts shows two Muslim women from Bosnia, survivors of the Serbian concentration camp of Omarska, looking through a rack of postcards. They have come to The Hague to testify about their experiences at the war crimes tribunal for the former Lisa Hajjar • 6 min read
