Current Analysis Four More Years The 2012 US presidential election elicited less interest among Palestinians than any such contest in living memory. While most Israelis, and their government in particular, expressed a clear preference for a Republican victory, Palestinians seemed resigned to continuity in US foreign policy irrespec Mouin Rabbani, Chris Toensing • 11 min read
Current Analysis Nays and Yeas in Charlotte The kerfuffle over the initial non-mention of Jerusalem in the Democratic Party platform throws into particularly sharp relief just how disconnected are discourse and reality when it comes to Israel-Palestine. Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis The Problem of Privilege “To believe in a democratic Jewish state today is to be caught between the jaws of a pincer,” writes Peter Beinart in his widely circulated and hotly debated op-ed [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/opinion/to-save-israel-boycott-the-settlements.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all]. Indeed -- but it was ever t Shira Robinson • 4 min read
Current Analysis Beinart's Boycott The New York Times has done it again. For the second time in a month its op-ed page features an article calling for a (qualified) boycott of Israeli products. The latest installment [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/opinion/to-save-israel-boycott-the-settlements.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&pagewanted=all Joel Beinin • 2 min read
Current Analysis BDS in the News Unusually, on February 21 the New York Times carried an op-ed [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/opinion/peaceful-protest-can-free-palestine.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212] by a prominent Palestinian political figure, Mustafa Barghouthi. Joel Beinin • 2 min read
Current Analysis Price Tag Journalism The Washington Post today features a hit piece [http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/center-for-america-progress-group-tied-to-obama-accused-of-anti-semitic-language/2012/01/17/gIQAcrHXAQ_story.html?hpid=z3] on the Center for American Progress, the largely Clintonite think tank whose Middle East d Chris Toensing • 2 min read
Current Analysis Blocking Palestinian Statehood When President Barack Obama addressed the UN General Assembly in September 2010, he sounded hopeful that by the following year there would be “an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations -- an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.” Sure enough, Chris Toensing • 2 min read
Current Analysis As If There Is No Occupation For many months, the streets of downtown Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority (PA), have literally been heaps of earth. Workers have labored intensively to replace water and sewage pipes, repave roads, lay beautiful carved stones at roadsides and install thick chains along the edges of sidewa Numan Kanafani • 14 min read
Current Analysis The Question of Palestine in Miniature The countdown to September 23 has begun. On that day, if he does not renege on his September 16 speech, Mahmoud ‘Abbas will present a formal request for full UN membership for a state of Palestine. The UN Security Council, which must approve such requests, will not do so, because the United States w The Editors • 10 min read
Current Analysis The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Arab Awakening The March 15 Youth Movement, whose name comes from demonstrations held in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that day to demand unity between Fatah and Hamas, is the most direct Palestinian expression of the “Arab awakening” of 2010-2011. The next day, March 16, Fatah’s leader, Palestinian Authority (PA) Joel Beinin • 13 min read
MER Article From the Editor (Summer 2011) A Beltway bromide that will not die is, “No one ever went broke betting against peace in the Middle East.” Of dull wit and unclaimed provenance, the saying nonetheless makes the rounds every time the White House reiterates its commitment to resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The Editors • 9 min read
MER Article Evolutionary Constant Nadav Shelef, Evolving Nationalism: Homeland, Identity and Religion in Israel, 1925–2005 (Cornell, 2010). Zachary Lockman • 5 min read
