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
MER Article Gaza Dispatch The observance of International Women's Day this year led me to reflect upon celebrations past, which have frequently revealed huge gaps in reality: a wine and cheese reception at UNESCO headquarters in Paris where well-meaning bureaucrats sang feminist anthems modeled on "The Internationale," or a Hadani Ditmars • 4 min read
MER Article Palestinian NGOs Since Oslo The post-Oslo debate on Palestinian NGOs in the West Bank and Gaza recently came full circle in two respects: An earlier debate that had envisioned NGOs as possible democratic alternatives to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was largely laid to rest by the NGO movement itself. At the same time, Rema Hammami • 15 min read
MER Article Bethlehem Dispatch Although millions of people around the world watched Bethlehem's millennial celebration on CNN, those not present on the scene missed some interesting background details. The event was held in an open square surrounded by five-story buildings, and by 10 PM, tens of thousands of people had crammed in Maad Abu-Ghazalah • 2 min read
MER Article The WWW in Palestine Traditional forms of media divide those who make the news from those who present it. Large corporations and states monopolize and shape the media, delivering information in ways that serve their own interests, rather than as objective reporting on events. The pretence of the mainstream media's objectivity belies Adam Hanieh • 10 min read
MER Article Twenty-First Century Palestine Salim al-Shawamreh, his wife, Arabia and their six children live in the village of Anata, half of which is classified as Area B (under Palestinian municipal control) and half -- where Salim’s house sits -- as Area C (under full Israeli control). About a third of Anata’s 12,000 residents hold Jerusal Roni Krouzman • 8 min read
MER Article Faith, Money and the Millennium The solar eclipse on August 11, 1999 led some people to expect the end of the world. According to one report, three people committed suicide, sure the end was near. Others shut themselves in their homes expecting extraordinary events to usher in the eschaton (“end times”). Since a simple eclipse cou Naim Ateek • 7 min read
MER Article "The Land without the People" On September 14, 1999, the day after Oslo’s Final Status negotiations opened, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak visited Ma’ale Adumim, the largest Jewish settlement on the West Bank. There he declared that this Jewish “neighborhood” would remain part of Israel’s Jerusalem. “Every house you build,” h Tom Abowd • 11 min read
MER Article Economics of Palestinian Return Migration Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza have faced a series of economic shocks since the Gulf war. Each shock alone would have been difficult to weather, but combined they have led to a considerable worsening of economic conditions. These shocks included the Gulf war, Israeli closures of the W Ward Sayre, Jennifer Olmsted • 6 min read
MER Article Rediscovering Palestine Beshara Doumani, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) Ussama Makdisi • 2 min read
