Current Analysis Israel's Palestinians and the Politics of Law and Order Last week, a shocking case of Israeli police brutality in the occupied West Bank was reported in the Washington Post. Officers accosted three young Palestinians out delivering groceries, beat them and took photographs of themselves holding up the Palestinians' bloodied heads "like hunting trophies" Graham Usher • 5 min read
Current Analysis Iran's Reform Dilemma Saturday's summons of the Ayatollah Ali Khameneii's brother Hadi Khameneii to the Special Court for the Clergy punctuated Iran's tumultuous summer in dramatic fashion. The younger Khameneii, publisher of the moderate daily Hayat-e No, appeared before the tribunal September 11 to face vague charges Ali Mudara • 6 min read
Current Analysis Politics, Not Policy In a public break with the US, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook today submitted a draft parliamentary bill supporting the rapid establishment of an International Criminal Court (ICC) in which to try major war criminals and violators of human rights. The British move to secure the ICC's ratificat Sarah J Graham-Brown • 5 min read
Current Analysis Egypt Harasses Human Rights Activists Family and friends of Saad Eddin Ibrahim, chair of Egypt's Ibn Khaldoun Center for Developmental Studies, breathed a huge sigh of relief on August 10, when Ibrahim was finally released on bail by prosecution authorities. The arrest at gunpoint of this internationally renowned pro-democracy activist Nicola Pratt • 5 min read
Current Analysis Jerusalem and the Illusion of Israeli Sovereignty Despite its ultimate collapse, the Camp David II summit constituted an important breakthrough. Several taboos for Israelis were broken for the first time: the repatriation of Palestinian refugees, the Israeli withdrawal from all settlements in the Gaza Strip and some from the West Bank, the exchange of territory and, finally, Mick Dumper • 4 min read
Current Analysis Camp David II The failure of the Palestinian-Israeli-American summit at Camp David did not surprise most Palestinians or those who understand Palestinian opinion on the issues. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's well-publicized "red lines" going into the negotiations delineated a position very far from the minim Joel Beinin • 4 min read
Current Analysis The Final Approach to Final Status The Israeli-Palestinian summit scheduled for July 11 at Camp David carries high stakes for the principal parties. President Clinton's hoped-for legacy as a statesman rests to a large degree on mediating a comprehensive settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The future of Prime Minister Barak's fragile government Roger Normand • 6 min read
Current Analysis Afghan Girls' Struggle for Schooling When the first snows started to melt in March, schoolchildren in towns and villages across Afghanistan put on fresh uniforms, strapped satchels across their backs and headed off for a new semester. Despite disruptions in education from more than twenty years of fighting and civil war, education remains a high Jeanette O'Malley • 5 min read
Current Analysis Israel's Cabinet Crisis and the Political Economy of Peace Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak postponed this week's cabinet meeting from Sunday to Tuesday in an effort to resolve the crisis prompted by the Shas Party's announcement that it is leaving his government. Shas (Sephardi Torah Guardians), with 17 seats in the Knesset, is Israel's third largest part Joel Beinin • 4 min read
Current Analysis Lebanon: An Occupation Ends Just about everything about last week's Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon was surprising to most observers. When, in the early hours of May 24, the last Israeli soldier stepped off Lebanese soil and locked the border gate behind him, he ended a 22-year occupation several weeks ahead of Lara Deeb • 6 min read
Current Analysis "They Dignified Our University" In February 1998, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger held a "town meeting" at Ohio State University to rally public support for a new round of bombing of Iraq. Despite the administration's careful orchestration of the Fadia Rafeedie, Nadine Naber • 7 min read
Current Analysis Lebanon's Most Dangerous Summer Lebanon is where Palestinians were most loved and most hated, said Shafiq al-Hout, a former PLO Executive Committee member and now the top PLO official in Lebanon, at the 1983 PNC Algiers meeting. Listeners could not have missed the reference to the cold-blooded massacre of about 2,000 Palestinian refugees Ghassan Bishara • 6 min read
