MER Article From the Editors (January/February 1982) It is no easy task to comprehend the significance of religion in its political dimension. Here in the US, for instance, Black churches have played a vital and progressive role in the struggle for political and civil rights. More recently, fundamentalist and revivalist Christian churches have partici The Editors • 4 min read
MER Article Two Views of Said, The Question of Palestine Edward W. Said, The Question of Palestine (New York: Quandrangle, 1979). In the late 1950s, my political education began at the knees, or rather the soapboxes, of Union Square’s old lefties. Saturday morning meanderings among the Fourth Avenue bookstores were followed by afternoon “classes” in New Stu Cohen, Beshara Doumani • 12 min read
MER Article "The Palestinian Demand for Independence Cannot Be Postponed Indefinitely" Salim Tamari was born in Jaffa and now teaches sociology at Birzeit University, in the West Bank. He spoke with Penny Johnson, Peter Johnson and Judith Tucker in Boston in July 1981. The Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is entering its fifteenth year. How would you characterize Salim Tamari • 20 min read
MER Article A Palestinian Option Fred Halliday’s comments on the debate that constitutes the bulk of Towards a Socialist Republic of Palestine (1978) require a serious Palestinian response. Unwittingly, perhaps, Halliday’s comments tend to undermine this debate, and put a damper on Palestinian intellectual and passionate exploratio Khalil Nakhleh • 7 min read
MER Article Revolutionary Realism and the Struggle for Palestine The discussion of socialist strategy in Palestine recorded in Towards a Socialist Republic of Palestine has lost none of its pertinence despite the fact that it was recorded some time ago, in 1976. Sadat’s initiatives have not yet revised the basic terms in which the problem has been set since 1948. Fred Halliday • 27 min read
MER Article From the Editors (May/June 1981) The question of Palestine has consistently been of great importance to our work ever since the first issue of MERIP Reports was published ten years ago, in May 1971. More recently, in our introduction to “The PLO at the Crossroads” (July-August 1979), we wrote that MERIP is interested “in encouragin The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article Tuma and Darin-Drabkin, The Economic Case for Palestine Elias H. Tuma and Haim Darin-Drabkin, The Economic Case for Palestine (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978). This book does not seem destined to become a classic in the literature concerning a future Palestinian state. Its intent is both polemical and practical but because of its narrow economic sco Randee Brenner • 2 min read
MER Article Israel Previews "Autonomy" with Halhoul Curfew Muhammed Milham is the mayor of Halhoul, a West Bank town of mostly peasant farmers. In March 1979 the Israeli occupation authorities imposed a total curfew on the town for more than two weeks. The mayor here describes the events heading up to the curfew, its impact on the townspeople, and its impli Muhammed Milham • 10 min read
MER Article The PLO at the Crossroads Throughout the twentieth century history of Palestine, none of the numerous proposals for “partition” of the country have ever been accepted by any significant group of Palestinian Arabs in spite of the many proposals to that end prior to and following the forced dismemberment of the country in 1948 Sameer Abraham • 38 min read
MER Article Introduction to "PLO at the Crossroads" As Sameer Abraham points out in the article that follows, no proposal for the partition of Palestine has ever been accepted by any significant number of Palestinians. Such proposals have always had the intention of securing and legitimizing the Zionist presence in Palestine. But with the “transition Peter Johnson • 5 min read
