MER Article Israel's Economic Strategy for Palestinian Independence A peace agreement between the government of Israel and the PLO has yet to be signed; a Palestinian state has yet to be established. But such details are unimportant to the organizations representing the Israeli bourgeoisie. “It does not matter whether a Palestinian state arises, whether Israel imposes autonomy or Asher Davidi • 6 min read
MER Article Rethinking Palestinian Politics During the Gulf war the entire population of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip lived under total curfew for 36 days, with brief and erratic periods of relaxation toward the end of the ordeal. Most inhabitants had no secure supply of food and fuel, no gas masks and no Joel Beinin • 5 min read
MER Article Pushing Israel's Boundaries of Debate Since expelling 415 Palestinians alleged to have been radical Islamic activists last December, the Israeli government, mass media and much of the Middle East studies establishment have intensified their campaign to demonize all forms of political Islam. On the academic front, Tel Aviv University’s Dayan Center for Middle East Joel Beinin • 4 min read
MER Article Friedman, Zealots for Zion Robert I. Friedman, Zealots for Zion (Random House, 1992). Palestinians and Israeli leftists shared high hopes at the time of Yitzhak Rabin’s inauguration, but optimism quickly began to fade. Robert Friedman’s new book, published shortly after Rabin took office, participates in that early, post-Lik Rebecca L. Stein • 4 min read
MER Article Russian Jewish Immigration and the Future of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Russian Jewish migration to Israel, like other international streams of the late 1980s and early 1990s, is a mass phenomenon that can be explained primarily by traditional factors. Migration occurs when people are pulled to a new country where conditions appear better, or are pushed to escape from difficult circumstances. Bernard Sabella • 11 min read
MER Article Teddy Kollek and the Native Question On Saturday night, June 10, 1967, Israeli authorities informed more than 100 families living in the Moroccan Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City that they had three hours to evacuate their homes, where some had lived for generations. As Teddy Kollek, mayor of the western half of the city since 1965, rec Joost Hiltermann • 11 min read
MER Article Clinton, Israel and the Hamas Expulsion On December 16, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin issued Order 97, authorizing military commanders to “expel inciters from among the population of their locality.” Israeli forces that day seized, bound and blindfolded 418 Palestinian men and threw them onto buses which then headed north. The military censor forbade the broadcast or The Editors • 5 min read
MER Article Israel Stonewalls US Aid Investigation An Israeli general and a General Electric official diverted more than $40 million in US military aid to Israel from 1984 to 1990 for unauthorized military projects, according to an ongoing investigation by the House Commerce and Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Presenting his pa Jack Colhoun • 4 min read
MER Article Money, Media and Policy Consensus Although the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) was established only in 1985, by the time the Bush administration came to office in January 1989 it had become the non-governmental organization with the greatest influence over US Middle East policy. WINEP built its success on ample fun Joel Beinin • 16 min read
MER Article Israel's Ultra-Orthodox The Palestinian delegation to the peace negotiations in Washington has enjoyed the services of an unusual group of advisers and supporters: four men wearing the unmistakable garb of ultra-Orthodox Jews, who were willing to tell anybody ready to listen that they were non-Zionist Jews. Israeli state television was delighted to Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi • 8 min read
MER Article Lavie, The Poetics of Military Occupation Smadar Lavie, The Poetics of Military Occupation: Mzeina Allegories of Bedouin Identity Under Israeli and Egyptian Rule (California, 1990). The era of the nation-state has increasingly put into question pastoral nomadism as a way of life and as a distinctive cultural identity. In Saudi Arabia, Bedo Ted Swedenburg • 7 min read
MER Article Sprinzak, Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right Ehud Sprinzak, The Ascendance of Israel’s Radical Right (Oxford, 1991). Most of the sociopolitical and historical research on Israel to date has oddly concentrated on the so-called left-wing sections of this polity. Even when recently some researchers (like Shapiro, Heller or Shavit) deal with the Baruch Kimmerling • 3 min read
