The Intifada in Israel Our visitors -- activists coming to express solidarity with the Palestinians, human rights workers documenting the latest atrocities, itinerant journalists doing the definitive intifada story -- sometimes see things clearer than we do. Here, in the eye of the storm, it is easy to be misled. The sign Stanley Cohen • 15 min read
US Aid to Israel The US has provided over $50 billion in economic and military aid to Israel since 1949, more than to any other country. Israel has the highest GNP per capita of all US aid recipients ($6,810). In 1991 Israel will receive more US aid per capita ($686) than the total GNP per capita of many countries, Martha Wenger • 3 min read
The Money Tree How much money flows from US taxpayers’ pockets into the Israeli treasury each year? Is it the $3 billion figure so often quoted in the press? And what is it used for? When Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN) asked the State Department these questions, he learned that the total for fiscal year 1989 was actual Martha Wenger • 5 min read
MER Article From the Editors Events elsewhere in the world -- elections in Nicaragua, death squads in South Africa and recent decisions by the European Commission -- hold much instruction for people concerned with the Middle East. Elections, after all, are not the same as democracy. After ten years of US armed intervention and The Editors • 4 min read
MER Article Editor's Bookshelf Since late 1988, MAPAM (The United Workers’ Party) has been among the Israeli political forces favoring Israeli-PLO negotiations which might lead to the creation of a Palestinian state. Yossi Amitay’s Ahvat amim bamivhan: MAPAM 1948-1954: emdot besugiyot araviyei eretz yisra’el [Brotherhood of Natio Joel Beinin • 4 min read
MER Article Blitzer, Territory of Lies Back in 1976, a college student acquaintance of mine, Jay Pollard, used to talk in great detail about his work for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. I listened for hours, even if I never quite believed his stories. Eleven years later, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger would tell the cour Jonathan Marshall • 8 min read
MER Article From the Editors The government of Israel fiercely maintains its rejectionist stance toward any political accommodation with the Palestine Liberation Organization. This is not merely a diplomatic posture, but undergirds the ideological structure of its policies of dispossession and occupation. Ha’aretz reported last The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Black Hebrews in the Promised Land The Black Hebrews are a group of African-Americans who have settled in Israel, where their controversial presence has fed charges of Israeli racism. Who are these Black Hebrews, and why have they attracted so much attention? Ben-Ami Carter, leader of the Kingdom of God Nation, as the community forma Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi • 3 min read
MER Article Poems Hey Jeep, Hey Jeep Sami Shalom Chetrit 1. Eight kids in an army jeep Eight soldiers, one major: eight kids and one minor 2. Hey Jeep, Hey Jeep [1] 3. And his son Ishmael was thirteen years old at the cutting of his uncircumcised flesh. 4. And eight of his sons in the army jeep and his son cri Erez Bitton, Shelley Elkayam, Sami Shalom Chetrit • 3 min read
MER Article "Wounded Kinship's Last Resort" Ironically, the latest junkets featuring liberal Israelis and recently domesticated Palestinians threaten to finally collapse the intricate history of Jews and Arabs in the Middle East into two streamlined, easily recognizable blocs: enlightened, idealistic and well-intentioned Zionists (“wounded sp Ammiel Alcalay • 10 min read
MER Article Primer: Where They Stand I. All states in the region, including a Palestinian state, have the right to independence and security. US / Israel / PLO / Arab States / USSR / EEC States (bold = support; plain text = opposition) (Author not identified) • 2 min read
MER Article Reading an El Al Ad The declaration of the state of Palestine just five days earlier, nearly a year of the intifada, and a paralyzed but uncompromising Israeli politics are the immediate background of the full page El Al advertisement on page 57 of the Sunday New York Times on November 20, 1988. The ad has a rather pec James Faris • 6 min read
