MER Article Palestinians Debate "Polite" Resistance to Occupation When an August 2002 opinion poll released by the US-based NGO Search for Common Ground showed that majorities of Palestinians would support a non-violent intifada, many residents of the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem greeted the results with suspicion. "They're trying to make us be 'polite,'" one le Lori Allen • 13 min read
MER Article The Makings of a Political Trial The Marwan Barghouti case has been labeled a “political trial” by Israelis and Palestinians alike. In the courtroom, Israel is trying Barghouti for terrorism. In the court of public opinion, the Israeli government is using the prosecution of Barghouti to discredit the Palestinian leadership and Pale Lisa Hajjar • 19 min read
Current Analysis Palestinian Uprising Cannot be Ended by Force Israel needs to halt its use of force that has claimed more than 60 Palestinian lives in the past few days. And unless an international investigation is launched into Israel’s brutal attacks on Palestinian demonstrators, more blood will be shed. So far, the United States has blocked U.N. Security C Ian Urbina • 2 min read
MER Article The Costs of Chaos in Palestine Israel has launched a comprehensive war of attrition in the Occupied Territories, whose objective is a decisive military victory leading to prolonged interim arrangements dictated by Israel. Facing these overwhelming odds, the Palestinians remain plagued by a crisis of leadership that has already ex Mouin Rabbani • 11 min read
Current Analysis Universal Jurisdiction No sooner had the dust settled in Gaza following Israel's July 23 assassination of Hamas leader Salah Shehada—an operation that took the lives of 15 civilians, many of them children—than Palestinian officials began declaring this act the first war crime committed since the inauguration of the Laurie King-Irani • 7 min read
MER Article Opening the Debate on the Right of Return A decade after Oslo, Palestinian negotiators have reached an impasse in the debate concerning refugee return. The discussion should be opened to creative ideas beyond the sacred positions. New ideas, even those that won’t work, can shake loose new possibilities. Sari Hanafi • 12 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 On Hold As Florida recounts distracted the international media, Israeli tanks and helicopters continued to bombard towns and villages throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Following the bombing of a settler bus, Israel launched a massive strike on Gaza November 20, in which helicopter gunships, boats and tanks shelled Gaza City, Jabaliya, Adam Hanieh • 5 min read
MER Article Dis/Solving the "Refugee Problem" “A displaced person owns nothing but the spot where he is standing, which is always threatened.” -- Murid Barghouti Israeli power, US backing, Palestinian weakness, Arab complicity -- these are the basic ingredients for a coercive settlement of the “refugee problem” based not on refugees’ rights bu Rosemary Sayigh • 12 min read
MER Article Palestinian Rights in Post-Oslo Israel Below are the proceedings of a roundtable discussion held in Nazareth, Israel, on June 24, 1996. The participants were: Aida Toma-Suliman, general director of Women Against Violence, Hala Espanioli Hazzan, chairperson of the Follow-up Committee on Arab Education in Israel, Hassan Jabareen, director (Author not identified) • 10 min read
MER Article Report from Amman When King Hussein announced last July that Jordan was severing its political ties with the West Bank, he implicitly acknowledged that his strategy of 20 years, to broaden and deepen his political base there, had been overtaken by the Palestinian uprising. The Palestinian revolt has asserted an indep Lamis Andoni • 5 min read
