MER Article The Israeli Peace Movement Mordechai Bar-On, In Pursuit of Peace: A History of the Israeli Peace Movement (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1996). Iman Abdel Megid Hamdy, “Dissenters in Zion: The Bi-nationalist and Partitionist Trends in the Politics of Israel,” unpublished PhD dissertation (Cairo Univ Joel Beinin • 7 min read
MER Article From the Editors (Summer 1997) The construction of a new Jewish settlement at Jabal Abu Ghunaym is but the latest effort by the Israeli government to assert its sovereignty over East Jerusalem and preempt the “final status” talks on the city’s future. In addition to completing the inner ring of Jewish settlements around East Jeru The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict After Oslo Naseer Aruri, The Obstruction of Peace: The US, Israel and the Palestinians (Common Courage, 1995). Norman Finkelstein, Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict (Verso, 1995). “Palestine: Diplomacies of Defeat,” special issue of Race & Class 37/2 (October-December 1995). Edward Said, Pe Joel Beinin • 8 min read
MER Article On the Right to Dream, Love and Be Free Michel Khleifi, born in Nazareth in 1950, studied theater and cinema at INSAS in Belgium, where he currently resides. In 1980, Khleifi directed his first film, Fertile Memory (al-Dhakira al-Khasiba). Khleifi received international acclaim following Wedding in Galilee (‘Urs fi al-Jalil, 1987), which Livia Alexander • 8 min read
MER Article Thwarting Palestinian Development The preamble of the Protocol on Economic Relations between the Government of the State of Israel and the PLO, signed on May 4, 1994, states: This protocol lays the groundwork for strengthening the economic base of the Palestinian side and for exercising its right of economic decision making in acco Jennifer Olmsted • 9 min read
MER Article Palestinian Political Prisoners Since the Oslo accords came into effect in May 1994, Israel’s treatment of Palestinian political prisoners has been a litmus test for a viable, just end to the Israeli occupation. Today the prisoners’ crisis continues to reflect an agreement that entrenches Israel’s remote control over Palestinians Yifat Susskind • 3 min read
MER Article Political Negotiations on the Palestinian Refugee Question Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on the Palestinian refugee question began with the first meeting of the Multilateral Working Group on Refugee Affairs in 1992. After the 1993 Oslo accords, the question of the repatriation of the 1967 refugees to the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip was to be dealt Ingrid Gassner-Jaradat • 9 min read
MER Article Palestinian Authority, Israeli Rule From September 23-26, Palestinian security forces and civilian demonstrators clashed with Israeli soldiers armed with machine guns and helicopters leaving approximately 80 Palestinians and 14 Israeli dead and 1,200 Palestinian and Israeli wounded. The pitched battles, which began in East Jerusalem t Mouin Rabbani • 14 min read
MER Article From the Editors (Winter 1996) Three years ago, a handshake in Washington was to have ushered in an unprecedented era of peace in the Middle East. While the return of the Likud to power has focused the attention of mainstream media on the questionable future of this “peace process,” it would be a grave error The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Closures, Cantons and the Palestinian Covenant On April 24, 1996 -- Israel’s forty-eighth Independence Day -- PLO leader Yasser Arafat made good on his 1993 pledge to the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to amend “those articles of the Palestine Covenant which deny Israel’s right to exist.” In a historic decision, 504 out Graham Usher • 12 min read
MER Article Itineraries of Peace In Near East Travel’s East Jerusalem office, a satellite photograph of the Middle East is framed under glass, inscribed with the names of countries and major cities. National borders are unmarked. The Holy Land -- so the map is labeled -- appears as a single, seamless territory. A full-page adverti Rebecca L. Stein • 12 min read
Recent Books on Palestinian Society Marianne Heiberg and Geir Ovensen et al, Palestinian Society in Gaza, West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem: A Survey of Living Conditions (FAFO, 1993). Ziad Abu-Amr, Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza: Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Jihad (Indiana, 1994). Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. M Ellen Fleischmann • 6 min read
