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Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Palestinians

Breaking the Fourth Wall—Reading Sadallah Wannous in a Time of Genocide
Sentence to Hope: A Sa’dallah Wannous Reader, by Sa’dallah Wannous, Robert Myers (Translation), Nada Saab (Translation)
MER Article

Breaking the Fourth Wall—Reading Sadallah Wannous in a Time of Genocide

Robert Myers and Nada Saab, Sentence to Hope: A Sa’dallah Wannous Reader, Yale University Press, 2019. At the end of Sadallah Wannous’ 1970 play, The Adventures of the Mamlouk Jabir’s Head, the action takes an abrupt, dark but entirely predictable turn. Wannous—a Syrian playwright who was born
Marya Hannun • 9 min read
Power Struggles—Energy as a Weapon of War, Domination and Resistance in Palestine
Palestinians living with limited electricity in Nuseirat Refugee Camp in the central Gaza Strip, December 24, 2024. Hassan Jedi/Anadolu via Getty ImagesOffice of the Quartet Energy Infrastructure Map, from Office of the Quartet Report to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, November 17, 2021.A Palestinian man charges phones at a station fed by a solar panel in a refugee camp in Rafah, January 2024. Due to worsening economic conditions and the lack of electricity, some young men who have solar panels are using them to run small businesses. Mohammed Talatene/dpa via Getty Images
MER Article

Power Struggles—Energy as a Weapon of War, Domination and Resistance in Palestine

The role of the grid in Israel's colonial domination.
Zachary Cuyler • 17 min read
Resisting Carceralism and Fighting for Freedom—A Roundtable
An Egyptian policeman near watch towers at Tora prison on the southern outskirts of Cairo. Picture taken during a guided tour organized by Egypt’s State Information Service on February 11, 2020, Khalid Desouki/AFP via Getty ImagesA demonstration in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, on August 3, 2024, in solidarity with Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons and the people of Gaza. Zain Jaafar/AFP via Getty Images
MER Article

Resisting Carceralism and Fighting for Freedom—A Roundtable

Four activists reflect on building a global anti-carceral movement.
Sahar Francis, Asim Qureshi, Kaouther Ferjani, Yara Sallam • 19 min read
Routes to Disruption—Supply Chain Sabotage and Israel's War on Gaza
Hundreds of protesters gathered at the Port of Oakland to demand an end to US support of Israel’s actions in Gaza and to oppose US aid to Israel, January 13, 2024 in Oakland, CA. Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty ImagesActivists installed a banner at Souda Bay, 2024. Courtesy the authors.
MER Article

Routes to Disruption—Supply Chain Sabotage and Israel's War on Gaza

Since October 7, at least three shipments of military-grade jet fuel (JP-8) have reached Israel from the United States, powering the fighter jets and Apache helicopters that have, for more than nine months now, continued to decimate Gaza. Each shipment carried 30,000 barrels of fuel—enough to refuel a
Elia El-Khazen, Charlotte Rose • 6 min read
A Day as Ordinary as Any Other
The Israeli settlement of Pisgat Zeev (L), built in a suburb of East Jerusalem, and the Palestinian Shuafat refugee camp (R) behind Israel’s separation wall, 2020. Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty ImagesThe cover of the US edition.Israel’s System of Segregated Roads in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Courtesy Visualizing Palestine, Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND 3.0.
Current Analysis

A Day as Ordinary as Any Other

Nathan Thrall's Newest Book Offers a Timely Window into Israel's Infrastructure of Occupation.
Joost Hiltermann • 9 min read
Terra Infirma – Dead Sea Sinkholes – A Photo Essay
The Occupied Territories. A string of Dead Sea sinkholes in the West Bank are seen just north of the 1949 Armistice Line but south of the Israeli military checkpoint that Palestinians cannot cross without visas, Israeli or international passports or laissez-passer documents. The linear pattern of the sinkholes, which began appearing in the area in the 1980s, gave a clue to their origin. The lines of sinkholes parallel underground faults, where deposits of salt left over from the ancient Lake Lisan were dissolving as hypersaline Dead Sea water receded and fresh groundwater saturated the salt deposits.Israel. This sinkhole looks very different. Underneath the sun baked, uneven pavement of what was Route 90, the north-south highway that runs the length of the Jordan River Valley from the Red Sea to the Golan Heights, a large cavern has appeared. Though the highway runs through the West Bank, it is one of many highways in Palestine that are off limits to Palestinian cars. The road surface above this sinkhole near Kibbutz Ein Gedi never collapsed because of an iron plate installed under it, which was itself compromised when the Israeli government cut a hole in the plate to investigate the sinkhole. The sinkhole’s presence underground has crippled the flow of traffic along Route 90, as freight, tourists, scientists, settlers and employees of Dead Sea industries wait their turn to be escorted by a lead car along a narrow side road through an archaeological site, hiking trail, date grove and water bottling plant to get around this compromised stretch of road.The Occupied Territories. This sinkhole is one of many near a tourist beach that was owned and operated by the West Bank Israeli settlement Mitzpe Shalem until sinkhole activity forced the beach to close. Here, an American student studying in Tel Aviv has come to visit the sinkholes with his professor and the rest of the class. For him and for most members of the class, this was the first time they were knowingly in the West Bank.The Occupied Territories. These sinkholes, part of the same cluster as the one above, took out much of the infrastructure to the settlement-operated tourist beach, including electricity. With the tourist beach closed for good, these sinkholes have inhibited a kind of extraction on occupied land.The Occupied Territories. Once the settlement-owned tourist beach in the West Bank was closed to tourists, the sinkhole problem escalated. Six months into the closure, a sinkhole swallowed these buildings once used for expensive spa treatments. The Bedouin man hired by the settlement to keep tourists out of the beach says this sinkhole opened with a loud crash.The Occupied Territories. The edge of the sea at the settlement-owned tourist beach in the West Bank looks different after six months without tourists. The red flag buoy once marked the edge of the area lifeguards patrolled as a warning to swimmers. The salt crust seen here is delicate. It cannot form when the stones are constantly disturbed by the feet of tourists. Though it is a quintessential image in Dead Sea brochures and on Dead Sea cosmetics packaging, almost no tourist ever gets to see it in person. Thanks to the sinkholes at Mineral Beach, this tourist site now features the famous and elusive salt crust.The Occupied Territories. At the very north end of the Dead Sea (taken from the West Bank looking across to Jordan) lies manufacturing detritus of the only Palestinian-owned Dead Sea business, a table salt factory. The factory is hemmed in by Israeli military installations, including land mines, a small military base and barbed wire. On the other side of the barbed wire are the rickety remains of a pier, sun-bleached pylons now comically out of place hundreds of meters away from the water’s edge. The Dead Sea’s recession is strikingly obvious here, and it is that same movement of water that has catalyzed the sinkholes elsewhere along the shore.The Occupied Territories. Little remains of the Jordan River right before it flows into the Dead Sea, revealing one cause of the Dead Sea sinkhole problem. With most of the river water diverted upstream, what now feeds the Dead Sea is largely agricultural runoff and a small fraction of the river water that used to flow into the sea. The reduced water flow greatly exacerbates the depletion of the Dead Sea’s waters and accelerates the sinkhole problem. This photograph shows one of two sites speculated to be the place where Saint John baptized Jesus. On both sides of the river (itself an international border though it is now only a few feet wide), tourists and pilgrims can come dip themselves into the polluted water. On the West Bank side, the Israeli government has carved out a section of its Oslo Accords-negotiated closed military zone as a national park, one of several Israeli national parks in the Occupied Territories. Young Israeli Defense Force soldiers rotate through this site, guarding the border. They take photos with star-struck tourists, smiling next to their weapons.Israel. This image of the Dead Sea shows one of the causes of the sinkhole problem. The top and bottom lobes of the Dead Sea are connected only by narrow canals, which are used by mineral extraction companies to control the flow of sea waters from the northern section into large evaporation pools that make up the southern part of the sea. These canals are south of the 1949 Armistice Line. This photo was taken from Israel looking toward Jordan.Ghor al-Haditha, Jordan. These sinkholes have destroyed some of the famous tomato fields of the Jordanian town of Ghor al-Haditha. People still work the tomato fields in spite of the sinkholes. Residents began calling the holes hufur al-njoom, or star holes, when they started appearing in the 1980s. They looked like craters left by something that fell from the sky. In Ghor al-Haditha, the sinkholes were not blocked off, though the Jordanian government has tried to persuade residents to leave the area. One family told me they were forcibly settled here once by the government, and they are not keen to leave.
MER Article

Terra Infirma – Dead Sea Sinkholes – A Photo Essay

The colonial vision of terra nullius—unoccupied or empty land—is the epistemological basis of any settler colonial project. A vision of land as empty or null drives the dehumanization of indigenous communities and the violent elimination of existing land claims. A great deal of scholarly attention h
Simone Popperl • 7 min read
Voices from the Middle East: Palestinian Refugees in the West Bank Confront the COVID-19 Crisis
A man walks past closed shops as preventive measures are taken against the coronavirus, Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, March 6, 2020. Mussa Qawasma/Reuters
Covid-19 Coverage

Voices from the Middle East: Palestinian Refugees in the West Bank Confront the COVID-19 Crisis

Refugees everywhere are particularly vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic. Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza are legally under the protection of the UN and Israel. Are these authorities meeting their obligations? Amahl Bishara talks to Badil director Nidal Al-Azza to find out and to lear
Amahl Bishara, Nidal Al-Azza • 9 min read