MER Article An Uprising at a Crossroads More than eight months have passed, and over 500 lives have been lost, since the second intifada broke out in September 2000, but few, if any, of the uprising's original goals have been achieved. Instead, the iconic enemy of Palestinian nationalism, Ariel Sharon, was elected Israeli premier at Jamil Hilal, Rema Hammami • 15 min read
MER Article Toward a War of Attrition in Palestine As the second intifada in the Occupied Territories approaches its sixth month, the activities of increasingly effective armed cells have been supplanting civil forms of resistance. This gradual "Lebanonization" of the conflict poses a challenge to Israel. For all his bluster about refusing to negotiate under fire, putting Mouin Rabbani • 7 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 Under Siege By mid-November, Israel had imposed over 50 days of closure on the whole of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinian persons and goods were refused entry into Israel, or exit from the confines of the Occupied Territories. Mobility within Palestinian-controlled areas was also curtailed. According to Leila Farsakh • 10 min read
MER Article Hebron Under Curfew As I sit here writing on October 30, 2000, I hear voices outside -- a rare occurrence these days. Our apartment is in H2, the Israeli-controlled part of Hebron. In 1997, an interim agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) split Hebron in two. 100,000 Palestinians live in H1, admin Natasha J. Krahn • 4 min read
MER Article Fatah's Tanzim On November 9, 2000, Hussein Abayat and Khalid Salahat, along with around 50 other Palestinians, were visiting one of the seven houses hit by Israeli tank shells the previous night in the West Bank village of Beit Sahour. They then climbed into their Mitsubishi pickup truck to drive back up the hill Graham Usher • 6 min read
MER Article Anatomy of Another Rebellion Anyone watching the widespread clashes that engulfed the Occupied Territories in October and November 2000 must experience a sense of deja vu. The dramatic elements seem like a restaging of events twelve years ago. Young men armed with stones face the mightiest army in the Middle East, mothers mourn, nationalist Rema Hammami, Salim Tamari • 30 min read
Current Analysis After the Sharm al-Sheikh Summit Details of the understandings reached between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Yasser Arafat are trickling slowly out of Sharm al-Sheikh, the Egyptian resort where President Bill Clinton convened an emergency international summit October 16. The Israelis and the PA say they will both take " Mouin Rabbani • 5 min read
Current Analysis The Iron Fist in the Peace Process Televised images of Israeli combat soldiers killing unarmed Palestinian children and helicopters strafing Palestinian neighborhoods have publicly exposed the Israeli military force that undergirds and shapes the Oslo process. Roger Normand • 5 min read
MER Article Stifling Democracy Within Palestinian Unions In well-furbished offices overlooking downtown Nablus, Shahir Sa'd, General Secretary of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) sells his vision of the post-Oslo labor movement. "With the return of the Palestinian Authority (PA) we could concentrate on workers' issues, rather tha Nina Sovich • 6 min read
MER Article Al-Haq On a crisp November day in 1984, I first stepped into the small apartment on Ramallah's main street that housed the offices of what was then known as Law in the Service of Man (a somewhat ungainly translation of the more universal al-qanoun min ajal al-insan -- Law in the Service of the Human Being) Joost Hiltermann • 8 min read
MER Article The Transformation of Islamist NGOs in Palestine "It's over for this generation of Islamic activists. We tried and failed, but time is on our side. We must plant the seeds for an Islamic future in the next generation through social change. We must alter the mindset and mentality of people through an Islamic value system. We do this through example Sara Roy • 9 min read
