MER Article Two Poems About Palestine In the Refugee Camp The huts were of mud and hay, their thin roofs feared the rain, and walls slouched like humbled men. The streets were laid out in a grid, as in New York, but without the dignity of names or asphalt. Dust reigned. Women grew pale chickens and children feeding them fables from the Sharif Elmusa, Nizar Qabbani • 1 min read
MER Article "When the Rest Is Quiet, There Is Revolution in Dahaysha" We enter Dahaysha through one of several gates, past rusted oil drums piled high in a stockade and a chain-link barbed-wire fence that residents keep tearing down. The alleyways are quiet; people must be inside. M. takes us to the home of his friend A., 27, a business student at Bethlehem Universit Melissa Baumann • 6 min read
MER Article Abu Jamal's Family In MER 146,1 wrote about Abu Jamal and his family. In mid-December, two weeks into the uprising, soldiers came to the house of Abu Jamal in the Old City of Ramallah. They arrested two of his teenage sons, Nasir and ‘Umar, and one of their cousins from across the street, and took them to the new pris Joost Hiltermann • 3 min read
MER Article What the Uprising Means This article is adapted from a talk Salim Tamari gave at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC on February 25, 1988. Salim Tamari • 20 min read
MER Article More Deadly Than Tears The roll call of the 146 dead published by the Palestine Human Rights Information Center in Jerusalem, March 20, 1988, is dominated by gunshot victims: shot in the head, shot in the chest, shot in the neck. But among the 49 “deaths from other causes,” 31 were killed by a “non-lethal” riot control we Martha Wenger • 5 min read
MER Article Uprising in Gaza One year before the Palestinian mass uprising began, the writing was on the grey cement walls of refugee camp houses in Gaza, where you could read the anguish of Gaza camp residents at the spectacle of the Amal militia bombarding Palestinians in the camps in Lebanon. These attacks forged a real unit Anita Vitullo Khoury • 11 min read
MER Article Gaza Diary FEBRUARY 7, 1988, MORNING “Welcome to Gaza,” the sign reads, but the streets are not inviting. The long road into town is nearly deserted, its shops and shanties locked shut; only a few men gather sporadically for coffee or a cigarette. Beyond, the camps stretch toward the sea like a giant junkyard Melissa Baumann • 14 min read
MER Article Morning in Ramallah Military Court The main street was completely deserted on the way to Ramallah Military Headquarters the morning of February 25. It was the second day of a general strike called for in the eighth statement by the United National Leadership to protest the visit of Secretary of State George Shultz. Few people were ev Lee OBrien, Penny Johnson • 2 min read
MER Article The West Bank Rises Up Ramallah’s landscape this February 21 has overtones of a war zone. Residents have dismantled the ancient stone wall across the street for a series of barricades. The smoke of a burning tire rises in the clear early afternoon air over nearby al-Am‘ari refugee camp and army flares light the camp at ni Lee OBrien, Penny Johnson • 20 min read
MER Article From the Editors (May/June 1988) In the land of Palestine-Israel, the “generation of occupation” has rewritten the equations that will describe the dynamics of any future political equilibrium. Israeli rulers are determined to stand against this sea change. Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin insists that the uprising will achieve no P The Editors • 2 min read
