Current Analysis Lebanon One Year After the Israeli Withdrawal Quiet has apparently returned to the Lebanese-Israeli border after violent incidents last week marked the first anniversary of Israel's forced withdrawal from southern Lebanon. Israeli forces shot two Lebanese men who were throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers across the border, and downed a small plane flying into Israeli As'ad AbuKhalil • 8 min read
Current Analysis Walking into Israel's Trap? The most recent Hizballah cross-border attack in the Shebaa Farms area on April 14, and the subsequent Israeli air raid against a Syrian radar station on the Dahr al-Baidar ridge, have heightened fears of a regional conflict between Syria and Israel. These fears are probably unfounded, given the reluctance of Michael Young • 6 min read
Current Analysis Palestinians Prepare for the Worst Speaking on April 1, Palestinian Authority (PA) Minister of Information and Culture Yasser Abed Rabbo described the current Israeli-Palestinian relationship as "open warfare." While his characterization may have been premature, it was anything but an April fool's joke. During Ehud Barak's short and chaotic Mouin Rabbani • 6 min read
Current Analysis Violence and its Rhetoric One week after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's warm welcome to Washington, there can be little doubt of US support for continuing Israeli aggression in the Palestinian territories. On March 28, in response to a suicide attack just inside the Israeli border, Israeli helicopter gunships bombed the Palestinian Authority Rebecca L. Stein • 6 min read
Current Analysis Sharon's National Unity Government Ariel Sharon's governing coalition, embracing both Shimon Peres and hardline rejectionists, exposes the contradictions in the conventional left-right distinctions in Israeli politics. Over seven years after the Oslo accords, it is clear that Israeli leaders never envisioned a truly viable and sovereign Palestinian state, only a "peace& Jeff Halper • 6 min read
MER Article Sahrawi Demonstrations Within two months of the death of King Hassan II and the enthronement of his eldest son, King Mohammed VI in July 1999, a series of demonstrations erupted in the Western Sahara. This territory has been administered by the Kingdom of Morocco since 1976, though Morocco’s claim of sovereignty in the We John Damis • 9 min read
MER Article Gaza Agonistes To walk through Gaza is to penetrate the heart of the Palestinian uprising, to realize why it happened and why, sporadically, it endures. This is not simply because you sometimes have to enter Israel's vast, fortress-like Erez crossing into Gaza under fire from Palestinian guerrillas or stones thrown Graham Usher • 10 min read
Current Analysis Ethiopia-Eritrea Peace Process Creeps Forward Two months after Eritrea and Ethiopia signed a pact to end their two-year border war, an agreement to move ahead with its implementation has finally been ironed out. The 4,000 UN troops brought here to monitor the truce are preparing for deployment to the contested frontier. Meanwhile, hundreds of t Dan Connell • 4 min read
Current Analysis Israel Elects Sharon On February 6, Israel elected its first settler prime minister. Premier-elect Ariel Sharon, who has given his negotiators ten days to forge a "national unity" government with Labor, maintains an official residence in Old Jerusalem's Muslim Quarter. In a landslide victory, Sharon received 62.5 percent Oren Yiftachel • 6 min read
MER Article Jerusalem Texts Reviewed Salim Tamari, ed., Jerusalem, 1948: The Arab Neighborhoods and Their Fate in the War (Jerusalem: Institute of Jerusalem Studies and Badil Resource Center, 1999). Meron Benvenisti, City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996). Mic Thomas Abowd • 7 min read
MER Article Olives, Stones and Bullets On the evening of November 17, the villagers of Hares called and asked people from Gush Shalom to please come there. This Palestinian village is cut off from the world. The army is blockading it -- no one is allowed to enter or leave. The olives, the only product of the village, are going to rot on Uri Avnery • 4 min read
MER Article Israel's Accountability for Economic Warfare As Israel escalates the military conflict in the occupied Palestinian territories, brushing aside criticism of excessive force by the United Nations and human rights groups, it is tempting to conclude that international law is irrelevant to the real struggle being waged on the ground with bullets an Roger Normand • 9 min read
