Our Fate, Our House Many Palestinian stories are the stories of sons: heroes or victims, Everyman or Superman. In the intifada, the rebellious young men, the shabab, have become the sons of all the people and their exploits legendary. Sahar Khalifeh’s stories, like her own life, are the stories of daughters, mothers a Sahar Khalifeh • 8 min read
Women, the Hijab and the Intifada Many accounts have suggested that the intifada has enabled Palestinian women to make great strides toward their social as well as political liberation. While some positive developments have occurred, it is also true that the intifada has been the context for a vicious campaign in Gaza to impose the Rema Hammami • 15 min read
"What Elections? When?" At the southernmost tip of the Gaza Strip, 35 kilometers south of Gaza City, lies the city of Rafah and its refugee camps. Of the total population of 110,000, 78,000 are refugees. A Rafah resident, ‘Isam Younis, interviewed a 28-year old worker from Rafah’s Shabura refugee camp. (Author not identified) • 2 min read
"The PLO Is Still Waging a Struggle for Recognition Rather Than for a Solution" ‘Ali Jarbawi, an associate professor of political science at Birzeit University, is the author of The Intifada and Political Leadership in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Beirut: Dar al-Tali‘a, in Arabic). MERIP contributing editor Penny Johnson interviewed him in Ramallah in late February 1990. You Penny Johnson • 5 min read
The Uprising's Dilemma As the Palestinian uprising enters its thirtieth month, it faces a crisis of direction. Its main achievement seems to lie behind: a spectacular ability to mobilize whole sectors of a civilian population, through networks of underground civilian resistance and communal self-help projects, challenging Salim Tamari • 13 min read
From the Editors The Palestinian uprising, along with its other achievements, has enabled Palestinian voices finally to reach the United States. Among the most eloquent of these voices are the many different expressions of Palestinian culture. In theater, film, music, art and literature, Palestinian cultural product The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article Enduring Intifada Injuries The nightmare started when 24-year-old Ahlam, from the village of Ya’bud in the Israeli-occupied territories, joined a march to commemorate the martyrdom of a fellow villager. “The situation was so tense that the Israeli army could not enter the village,” she recalled from her hospital bed in Amman Rania Atalla • 2 min read
MER Article Health as a Social Construction Three basic theoretical formulations frame the state of the health debate among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. The biomedical/clinical framework is generally espoused by the majority of the medical and allied health care establishment, most of whom have been trained in the Western medical t Rita Giacaman • 12 min read
MER Article Palestinian Expression Inside a Cultural Ghetto During the summer of 1986,1 spent a month in the West Bank, keen to learn for myself about the effects of Israeli restrictions on Palestinian forms of expression, particularly in the visual arts and local crafts. A quick look at different cultural products indicated that traditional aesthetic values Kamal Boullata • 16 min read
MER Article From Intifada to Independence The nineteenth session of the Palestine National Council, formally entitled the “intifada meeting,” was momentous and, in many great and small ways, unprecedented. There were fewer hangers-on, groupies and “observers” than ever before. Security was tighter and more unpleasant than during the 1987 PN Edward Said • 14 min read
MER Article A Bullet, A Lie ahmad had those wildly intense eyes that would stare through you as he spoke and would light up every now and then as he listened and would drive me crazy what does he want from me? i remember ahmad when he returned from prison to ya‘bad and his grandmother ululated in jubilation danced in happi Joost Hiltermann • 1 min read
MER Article Palestinian Communists and the Intifada Maher Al-Sharif, Al-Shuyu‘iyun wa Qadaya al-Nidal al-Watani al-Rahin [The Communists and Issues in the Current National Struggle] (Damascus: Center for Socialist Research and Study in the Arab World, 1988). The role of the Palestinian Communist Party (PCP) is one of the most important and least und Alain Gresh • 9 min read
