Current Analysis Weary, Guarded Hope in Gaza There is a bullet hole in the door of the Sufi family's diwan. The windows are newly replaced. Inside the clan's gathering place, a large rectangular room lined with cushions and small tables, there is further evidence of life on the front line in the Gaza Omar Karmi • 10 min read
Current Analysis Another "Historic Day" Looms in Iraq Yet another "historic day" will dawn in war-weary Iraq on January 30. As interim prime minister Iyad Allawi told Iraqi television viewers, "For almost the first time since the creation of Iraq, Iraqis will participate in choosing their representatives in complete freedom." Not to be outdone, Preside Chris Toensing • 10 min read
Current Analysis The "Olive Branch" That Ought to Cross the Wall The autumn olive harvest used to be a time of celebration in this West Bank village. Entire families would spend days together in the groves. Even Israelis would make special trips here at this time of year to buy our olive oil. But with new Israeli restrictions on access to the fields, Palestinian Abdul-Latif Khaled • 3 min read
Current Analysis Gaza's Wars of Perception Operation Days of Penitence, launched on September 29, 2004, is the Israeli military's most extensive incursion into the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the current Palestinian uprising and its largest offensive within the Occupied Territories since the 2002 reconquest of West Bank cities during Operation Defensive Shield. Mouin Rabbani • 8 min read
Current Analysis The Gaza Strip: From Bad to Worse To say that things are getting worse in Gaza, one of the poorest places on Earth, is a bit like saying it is getting hotter in hell. But over the past few years, things have gotten significantly worse in this sliver of Palestinian territory along the Mediterranean Sea—with alarming implications for Maren Milligan • 2 min read
Current Analysis World Court's Ruling on Wall Speaks with Utmost Clarity The International Court of Justice has rendered its advisory opinion on "the legal consequences arising from the construction of the wall being built by Israel, the occupying power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem." Though the near-term fate of the wall Nidal Sliman • 8 min read
Current Analysis Support for Wall Mocks International law What is most remarkable about the International Court of Justice decision on Israel’s “security barrier” in the West Bank is the strength of the consensus behind it. By a vote of 14-1, the 15 distinguished jurists who make up the highest judicial body on the planet found that the barrier is illegal Richard Falk • 3 min read
Current Analysis Stubborn Stalemate in Western Sahara On June 11, 2004, the United Nations announced that former Secretary of State James Baker had resigned his position as the secretary-general's personal envoy to the Western Sahara. Despite his personal prestige and the explicit backing of the US government, Baker failed to bring the Moroccan government around Jacob Mundy • 7 min read
Current Analysis No Jordan Option Could the plan of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to "disengage" from the Gaza Strip "include a Jordanian presence" in the West Bank? So Sharon told his cabinet on June 1, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz. Since then, rumors about such a role for Jordan, Marc Lynch • 11 min read
MER Article Doing Time in the Theater of Occupation The photograph fetched from a back room in the narrow two-story house on the edge of Bethlehem’s Aida refugee camp shows a precociously handsome adolescent, posing in a baseball cap and sports jacket against a faux backdrop of the Versailles palace gardens. A kaffiyya is tucked around his neck; his Peter Lagerquist • 3 min read
MER Article On the Importance of Thugs From late 2000 to 2004, the most common form of Palestinian resistance to occupation has simply been getting there -- refusing to allow Israeli checkpoints and sieges to shut down daily life. The unlikely symbols of that resistance are checkpoint workers -- van drivers and porters -- whose impromptu Rema Hammami • 21 min read
MER Article Acts of Refusal Rela Mazali, an Israeli writer and feminist peace activist, is a founder of New Profile, a group challenging the militarization of Israeli society and opposing the occupation. Joel Beinin, an editor of Middle East Report, spoke with her in Herzliya, Israel on January 6, 2004 and continued the conver Joel Beinin • 9 min read
