Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Occupation

Power Struggles—Energy as a Weapon of War, Domination and Resistance in Palestine
Palestinians living with limited electricity in Nuseirat Refugee Camp in the central Gaza Strip, December 24, 2024. Hassan Jedi/Anadolu via Getty ImagesOffice of the Quartet Energy Infrastructure Map, from Office of the Quartet Report to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, November 17, 2021.A Palestinian man charges phones at a station fed by a solar panel in a refugee camp in Rafah, January 2024. Due to worsening economic conditions and the lack of electricity, some young men who have solar panels are using them to run small businesses. Mohammed Talatene/dpa via Getty Images
MER Article

Power Struggles—Energy as a Weapon of War, Domination and Resistance in Palestine

The role of the grid in Israel's colonial domination.
Zachary Cuyler • 17 min read
A Day as Ordinary as Any Other
The Israeli settlement of Pisgat Zeev (L), built in a suburb of East Jerusalem, and the Palestinian Shuafat refugee camp (R) behind Israel’s separation wall, 2020. Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty ImagesThe cover of the US edition.Israel’s System of Segregated Roads in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Courtesy Visualizing Palestine, Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND 3.0.
Current Analysis

A Day as Ordinary as Any Other

Nathan Thrall's Newest Book Offers a Timely Window into Israel's Infrastructure of Occupation.
Joost Hiltermann • 9 min read
Jerusalem Youth at the Forefront of 2021’s Unity Intifada
Palestinian protesters hurl stones during clashes with Israeli forces in Shuafat, a Palestinian neighborhood next to the Israeli settlement of Ramat Shlomo, in East Jerusalem on May 14, 2021. Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images
Current Analysis

Jerusalem Youth at the Forefront of 2021’s Unity Intifada

The Palestinian uprising of April, May and June 2021—known as the Unity Intifada—is part of a long tradition of revolutionary political activity in which Palestinians from Jerusalem have often played a role. Akram Salhab and Dahoud al-Ghoul report from the city about the reasons youth feel compelled
Akram Salhab, Dahoud al-Ghoul • 11 min read
Israel’s Latest Effort to Fragment and Disempower the Palestinians
Israeli and Palestinian activists gather at the Al-Haq Foundation in the West Bank city of Ramallah to denounce Israel’s decision to declare six Palestinian human rights groups as “terror organizations,” October 27, 2021. Abbas Momani/AFP via Getty Images
Current Analysis

Israel’s Latest Effort to Fragment and Disempower the Palestinians

In October 2021, Israel spuriously designated six Palestinian civil society organizations as “terrorist” groups, liable to suppression and severe punishment under Israel’s counterterrorism law. Joost Hiltermann analyzes why Israel is targeting these well-regarded groups—including the oldest Palestin
Joost Hiltermann • 8 min read
On the Ground with Palestine’s Intifada Generation
Cover photograph of Beita village, West Bank, early March 1988, by George Azar.
MER Article

On the Ground with Palestine’s Intifada Generation

In December 1987, Palestine’s “generation of occupation” erupted in popular rebellion not seen since the 1936 revolt against British mandate rule. By the autumn of 1988, MERIP had already dedicated nearly three full issues to the roiling Intifada against Israeli occupation and oppression: “Human Rights and the Palestine Conflict,
Mezna Qato • 5 min read
Terra Infirma – Dead Sea Sinkholes – A Photo Essay
The Occupied Territories. A string of Dead Sea sinkholes in the West Bank are seen just north of the 1949 Armistice Line but south of the Israeli military checkpoint that Palestinians cannot cross without visas, Israeli or international passports or laissez-passer documents. The linear pattern of the sinkholes, which began appearing in the area in the 1980s, gave a clue to their origin. The lines of sinkholes parallel underground faults, where deposits of salt left over from the ancient Lake Lisan were dissolving as hypersaline Dead Sea water receded and fresh groundwater saturated the salt deposits.Israel. This sinkhole looks very different. Underneath the sun baked, uneven pavement of what was Route 90, the north-south highway that runs the length of the Jordan River Valley from the Red Sea to the Golan Heights, a large cavern has appeared. Though the highway runs through the West Bank, it is one of many highways in Palestine that are off limits to Palestinian cars. The road surface above this sinkhole near Kibbutz Ein Gedi never collapsed because of an iron plate installed under it, which was itself compromised when the Israeli government cut a hole in the plate to investigate the sinkhole. The sinkhole’s presence underground has crippled the flow of traffic along Route 90, as freight, tourists, scientists, settlers and employees of Dead Sea industries wait their turn to be escorted by a lead car along a narrow side road through an archaeological site, hiking trail, date grove and water bottling plant to get around this compromised stretch of road.The Occupied Territories. This sinkhole is one of many near a tourist beach that was owned and operated by the West Bank Israeli settlement Mitzpe Shalem until sinkhole activity forced the beach to close. Here, an American student studying in Tel Aviv has come to visit the sinkholes with his professor and the rest of the class. For him and for most members of the class, this was the first time they were knowingly in the West Bank.The Occupied Territories. These sinkholes, part of the same cluster as the one above, took out much of the infrastructure to the settlement-operated tourist beach, including electricity. With the tourist beach closed for good, these sinkholes have inhibited a kind of extraction on occupied land.The Occupied Territories. Once the settlement-owned tourist beach in the West Bank was closed to tourists, the sinkhole problem escalated. Six months into the closure, a sinkhole swallowed these buildings once used for expensive spa treatments. The Bedouin man hired by the settlement to keep tourists out of the beach says this sinkhole opened with a loud crash.The Occupied Territories. The edge of the sea at the settlement-owned tourist beach in the West Bank looks different after six months without tourists. The red flag buoy once marked the edge of the area lifeguards patrolled as a warning to swimmers. The salt crust seen here is delicate. It cannot form when the stones are constantly disturbed by the feet of tourists. Though it is a quintessential image in Dead Sea brochures and on Dead Sea cosmetics packaging, almost no tourist ever gets to see it in person. Thanks to the sinkholes at Mineral Beach, this tourist site now features the famous and elusive salt crust.The Occupied Territories. At the very north end of the Dead Sea (taken from the West Bank looking across to Jordan) lies manufacturing detritus of the only Palestinian-owned Dead Sea business, a table salt factory. The factory is hemmed in by Israeli military installations, including land mines, a small military base and barbed wire. On the other side of the barbed wire are the rickety remains of a pier, sun-bleached pylons now comically out of place hundreds of meters away from the water’s edge. The Dead Sea’s recession is strikingly obvious here, and it is that same movement of water that has catalyzed the sinkholes elsewhere along the shore.The Occupied Territories. Little remains of the Jordan River right before it flows into the Dead Sea, revealing one cause of the Dead Sea sinkhole problem. With most of the river water diverted upstream, what now feeds the Dead Sea is largely agricultural runoff and a small fraction of the river water that used to flow into the sea. The reduced water flow greatly exacerbates the depletion of the Dead Sea’s waters and accelerates the sinkhole problem. This photograph shows one of two sites speculated to be the place where Saint John baptized Jesus. On both sides of the river (itself an international border though it is now only a few feet wide), tourists and pilgrims can come dip themselves into the polluted water. On the West Bank side, the Israeli government has carved out a section of its Oslo Accords-negotiated closed military zone as a national park, one of several Israeli national parks in the Occupied Territories. Young Israeli Defense Force soldiers rotate through this site, guarding the border. They take photos with star-struck tourists, smiling next to their weapons.Israel. This image of the Dead Sea shows one of the causes of the sinkhole problem. The top and bottom lobes of the Dead Sea are connected only by narrow canals, which are used by mineral extraction companies to control the flow of sea waters from the northern section into large evaporation pools that make up the southern part of the sea. These canals are south of the 1949 Armistice Line. This photo was taken from Israel looking toward Jordan.Ghor al-Haditha, Jordan. These sinkholes have destroyed some of the famous tomato fields of the Jordanian town of Ghor al-Haditha. People still work the tomato fields in spite of the sinkholes. Residents began calling the holes hufur al-njoom, or star holes, when they started appearing in the 1980s. They looked like craters left by something that fell from the sky. In Ghor al-Haditha, the sinkholes were not blocked off, though the Jordanian government has tried to persuade residents to leave the area. One family told me they were forcibly settled here once by the government, and they are not keen to leave.
MER Article

Terra Infirma – Dead Sea Sinkholes – A Photo Essay

The colonial vision of terra nullius—unoccupied or empty land—is the epistemological basis of any settler colonial project. A vision of land as empty or null drives the dehumanization of indigenous communities and the violent elimination of existing land claims. A great deal of scholarly attention h
Simone Popperl • 7 min read
Looking Beyond the Struggle for Palestinian Statehood
Palestinians stand next to a section of the Israeli barrier with a mural depicting George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis police custody, in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Mussa Qawasma/Reuters
MER Article

Looking Beyond the Struggle for Palestinian Statehood

It is difficult to overstate the crisis in which Palestinians find themselves over 100 years after the Balfour Declaration and over 70 years after the Nakba. Palestinians are living as refugees without civil rights in places like Lebanon. Refugees who had lived in relative stability in Syria have now been
Amahl Bishara • 10 min read