Current Analysis Palestine at the UN: An Alternative Strategy As Israeli-Palestinian negotiations lurch from crisis to crisis, Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders have been suggesting they may go to the United Nations to seek resolutions confirming the illegality of Israel’s settlements in the Occupied Territories and recognizing a reality of Palestinian stateh Mouin Rabbani • 3 min read
Current Analysis Contesting Past and Present in Silwan On September 1, Elad -- a Hebrew acronym for “To the City of David” -- convened its eleventh annual archaeological conference at the “City of David National Park” in the Wadi Hilwa neighborhood of Silwan. Silwan, home to about 45,000 people, is one of 28 Palestinian villages incorporated into East J Joel Beinin • 9 min read
Current Analysis Another War Zone In late May 2010, the convoy known as the Freedom Flotilla met off of Cyprus and headed south, carrying humanitarian aid and hundreds of international activists who aimed to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. The organizers used social media extensively: tweeting updates from the boats; webc Adi Kuntsman, Rebecca L. Stein • 17 min read
Current Analysis Hamas Back Out of Its Box Every year or so the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas confounds the Western policymakers who have worked to deny it power since its electoral triumph in January 2006. If the goal of Western policy is to keep the Islamists out of sight, out of mind, then Hamas is like a jack-in-the-box, periodical Nicolas Pelham • 14 min read
Current Analysis It's Time for Israel to Lift the Gaza Siege Why would the Israeli navy commandeer boats carrying collapsible wheelchairs and bags of cement to the Gaza Strip? Israel says that the aid convoys are trying to "break the blockade" of the densely populated Palestinian enclave. But why is there a blockade in the first place? Sen. Chuck Schumer, an Bayann Hamid • 3 min read
Current Analysis Outlaws of the Mediterranean At 4 am Eastern Mediterranean time on May 31, elite Israeli commandos rappelled from helicopters onto the deck of the Turkish-registered ship Mavi Marmara, part of an international “Freedom Flotilla” that had met in Cyprus and then set sail to deliver humanitarian relief supplies to the besieged Gaza Strip. The The Editors • 11 min read
MER Article BDS in the USA, 2001-2010 On April 26, 2010, the student senate at the University of California-Berkeley upheld, by one vote, an executive veto on SB 118 -- the student body resolution endorsing divestment of university funds from General Electric and United Technologies, two companies that profit from the Israeli occupation Noura Erakat • 19 min read
Current Analysis Confronting Settlement Expansion in East Jerusalem The neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, a 20-minute walk up the hill from the Damascus Gate to the Old City of Jerusalem, has become the focal point of the struggle over the expanding project of Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Joel Beinin • 11 min read
MER Article Stein, Itineraries of Conflict Rebecca L. Stein, Itineraries in Conflict: Israelis, Palestinians and the Political Lives of Tourism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008). “To read Israel as itinerant is to imagine its alternative future.” With these optimistic words, Rebecca L. Stein closes the introduction to her beautifull Gil Hochberg • 4 min read
MER Article Locked In, Locked Out of Work Article VI, Item 2 of the 1993 Oslo accords concluded between Israel and the Palestinians states, “After the entry into force of this Declaration of Principles and the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and Jericho area, with the view to promoting economic development in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, au Jennifer Olmsted • 11 min read
MER Article Beyond Compare “Rolling into Gaza I had a feeling of homecoming,” writes the novelist Alice Walker. “There is a flavor to the ghetto. To the bantustan. To the ‘rez.’ To the ‘colored section.’” In a poetic vein, Walker captures the confinement and marginality one senses in the Gaza Strip, and its familiarity to tho Julie Peteet • 22 min read
MER Article "Creeping Apartheid" in Israel-Palestine On July 5, 2009, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said something that had many rubbing their eyes in disbelief. Reviewing his government’s first 100 days, he pronounced, “We have managed to create a national agreement about the concept of ‘two states for two peoples.’” Can it be that the Oren Yiftachel • 20 min read
