Israel Elects Sharon
Iran’s Conservatives Face the Electorate
In May, Iranians will go to the polls to pass judgment on the record of President Mohammad Khatami and the reform movement he symbolizes. Although observers of Iran typically characterize the Islamic Republic's factional divisions as a single left-right split dividing the regime into unified "reformist" and "conservative" blocs, a multitude of potential cleavages belie this simple dichotomy. Since the 1979 revolution, a variety of opinions have existed within the regime's accepted confines.
Almost Unnoticed
The Case of Azmi Bishara
Negotiating Over the Clinton Plan
Turkey’s Operation “Return to Life”
Beyond the Bibi Bill
December 18 the Knesset partially amended Israel's electoral law—the so-called "Bibi bill"—allowing Binyamin Netanyahu to run against Ehud Barak for prime minister. The law had stipulated that when a government resigns, as Barak's did December 9, elections are held for the prime ministership only, and that only Knesset members may present their candidacy. By the amendment, Netanyahu, who resigned from the Knesset after his 1999 defeat, could have run.
Editor’s Picks (Winter 2000)
Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif, ed. Beyond Colonialism and Nationalism in the Maghrib: History, Culture and Politics (New York: Palgrave, 2000).
Arat, Zehra F., ed. Deconstructing Images of “The Turkish Woman” (New York: Palgrave, 2000).
Armbrust, Walter, ed. Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000).
Jerusalem
Texts Reviewed
Salim Tamari, ed., Jerusalem, 1948: The Arab Neighborhoods and Their Fate in the War (Jerusalem: Institute of Jerusalem Studies and Badil Resource Center, 1999).
Meron Benvenisti, City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996).
Michael Dumper, The Politics of Jerusalem Since 1967 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
The Sneer of Memory
Olives, Stones and Bullets
On the evening of November 17, the villagers of Hares called and asked people from Gush Shalom to please come there. This Palestinian village is cut off from the world. The army is blockading it — no one is allowed to enter or leave. The olives, the only product of the village, are going to rot on the trees, especially in the orchard bordering the nearby Revava settlement. Anyone trying to harvest there is in mortal danger. A 14-year-old boy — alone in the orchard with his father — was shot and killed there only three days before. The villagers hope that the presence of Israelis will restrain the settlers and soldiers, allowing them to harvest the olives on which their livelihood depends.
Protest Amid Confusion
Beginning with Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and continuing during the first intifada in 1987-93, large numbers of Israelis took to the streets to express their clear rejection of the state’s military policies. 400,000 people angrily protested Israeli general Ariel Sharon’s complicity in the massacre of Palestinian refugees at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut. “Peace camp” demonstrations of varying size during the first Palestinian uprising happened regularly in the squares of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. But in the fall of 2000, commentators invariably point out the absence of the peace camp from public debate in Israel.
Israel’s Accountability for Economic Warfare
As Israel escalates the military conflict in the occupied Palestinian territories, brushing aside criticism of excessive force by the United Nations and human rights groups, it is tempting to conclude that international law is irrelevant to the real struggle being waged on the ground with bullets and blood. But the constant interplay between law and force — in both politics and economics — has always been, and will remain, a crucial factor shaping the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its just resolution.
Palestinians in Israel
The mass demonstrations of Palestinian citizens of Israel during the first week of October represent a new stage of resistance and a transformation in the Palestinians’ struggle in Israel. The demonstrations were the culmination of several years of political ferment during which Palestinians in Israel asserted their collective identity as Palestinians and as citizens.
“A Double Responsibility”
Azmi Bishara, a contributing editor of this magazine, represents the National Democratic Assembly (NDA), a party advocating cultural autonomy and civil rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel, in the Knesset. He spoke with Middle East Report on November 29, 2000, the day after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak preempted a likely vote of no confidence by calling early elections. In 1999, Bishara ran for prime minister on the NDA ticket.
In early October, Palestinians inside Israel protested very vocally in solidarity with the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Why did that happen this time around, when it had not happened so much during the last intifada?
Under Siege
By mid-November, Israel had imposed over 50 days of closure on the whole of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinian persons and goods were refused entry into Israel, or exit from the confines of the Occupied Territories. Mobility within Palestinian-controlled areas was also curtailed. According to available estimates, each day of ongoing closure represents a loss of $8.45 million — totaling $336 million as of November 7 — to the Palestinian economy. [1] If damage to physical assets and human lives were added, the losses would be still higher.
International Law and the al-Aqsa Intifada
Hebron Under Curfew
As I sit here writing on October 30, 2000, I hear voices outside — a rare occurrence these days. Our apartment is in H2, the Israeli-controlled part of Hebron. In 1997, an interim agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) split Hebron in two. 100,000 Palestinians live in H1, administered by the PA. Today the curfew imposed on October 1 — a 24 hour-a-day house arrest for the 40,000 Palestinians living in H2 — was lifted, supposedly for good. (The curfew was reimposed on October 31. At press time it had not been lifted.) “Or at least until the army changes their minds,” explained one of our friends. In H2, as many as 2,000 Israeli soldiers guard about 400 Jewish settlers.
Shatila Dispatch
"Before the intifada children used to mock me when I mentioned Palestine. They would say that Palestine was lost, that I was dreaming, that Arafat forgot about us," remarks Rabi' Zaaroura, 15. "Now they have become interested in politics." In the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila in Beirut, the revival of hope and politics is inscribed on the walls. Murals of Muhammad al-Durra — the boy whose televised shooting death at Netzarim crossing in the Gaza Strip became an icon of the new intifada. Pictures of Jerusalem and maps of Palestine fill every available space.
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 to the heart of the village. Thirty seconds later, the truck was a smoldering shell, hit by an anti-tank missile launched from an Israeli Apache helicopter. Abayat was killed instantaneously — as were two Palestinian women standing behind his van — and Salahat was severely wounded. The two men were the first victims of an Israeli policy of "initiated" assassinations aimed at taking out the "ground" leadership of the Palestinian intifada.
