Abdel-Malek, Kamal and David C. Jacobsen.
Israeli and Palestinian Identities in History and Literature (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999).
B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. On the Way to Annexation: Human Rights Violations Resulting from the Establishment and Expansion of the Ma’aleh Adumim Settlement (Jerusalem, July 1999).
B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. Human Rights Violations by Israeli and the Palestinian National Authority Following the Murders in Wadi Qelt (Jerusalem, May 1999).
Salim al-Shawamreh, his wife, Arabia and their six children live in the village of Anata, half of which is classified as Area B (under Palestinian municipal control) and half — where Salim’s house sits — as Area C (under full Israeli control). About a third of Anata’s 12,000 residents hold Jerusalem identity cards. The rest are considered West Bank residents, and thus cannot enter Jerusalem, including the section of Anata classified as part of Jerusalem.
The solar eclipse on August 11, 1999 led some people to expect the end of the world. According to one report, three people committed suicide, sure the end was near. Others shut themselves in their homes expecting extraordinary events to usher in the eschaton (“end times”). Since a simple eclipse could cause such panic, despite our considerable scientific knowledge, one wonders what the end of a millennium might do to people, individually and collectively.
On September 14, 1999, the day after Oslo’s Final Status negotiations opened, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak visited Ma’ale Adumim, the largest Jewish settlement on the West Bank. There he declared that this Jewish “neighborhood” would remain part of Israel’s Jerusalem. “Every house you build,” he promised residents, “every tree you plant here, will be Israel’s forever…”. [1] Final status negotiations represent the last stage of the Palestinian-Israeli “peace process” initiated six years ago. Long-deferred discussions about the future of Jerusalem, refugees, settlements and other issues are to be addressed by September 2000.
Glinting off the black Caucasus Mountains, the morning sun gives Stephanakert the gleam of a town freshly scrubbed. Everywhere roads are being laid and houses restored. Women wrapped in blue nylon overcoats and woolen leggings sweep away litter from the town square. And on Stephanakert's main Azatamartikneri (Partisans) Street, stores display fresh fruit and cheeses alongside refurbished restaurants and a new discotheque.
Although US interventionism is part of the collective Arab experience, NATO interventionism isn’t – at least not yet. According to NATO’s “New Strategic Concept,” however, this could change soon, with European forces being propelled into global military engagements – even in the Middle East.
The website of Jubilee 2000-United Kingdom lists 57 countries that have Jubilee 2000 campaigns for the cancellation of the unpayable debt of the poorest countries by the year 2000. [1] No country from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) appears on this list. [2]
As the year 2000 approaches, humanity has passed an important milestone, one that has nothing to do with the new Millennium, but which may have many more consequences than the Y2K bug. On October 12, the world’s population officially passed six billion. While pundits debated whether this was cause for concern or celebration, it is worth noting how we got here and where we’re headed. Population issues are particularly relevant in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), where the population has more than doubled in size since the mid-1960s and will likely increase by another 50 percent by the year 2025. [1]
Any attempt to summarize the direction of the Middle East at the cusp of the Millennium is hazardous indeed: We should long ago have resisted the temptation to see the region as a single, integrated political or socio-economic whole, or to reduce what are, perhaps now more than ever, contradictory regional trends. One of the besetting distortions of the region, replicated by Western stereotyping and local ideology alike, is that the region's politics and history can be explained by timeless cultural features, a Middle Eastern "essence" or an "Islamic mindset."
Although the Middle East's role as the cradle of Judeo-Christian-Islamic civilization figures prominently in the West's sense of historical time and its perceptions of the impending millennial transition, most people in the region, being Muslims and Jews, attach no significance to the current year. The Middle East nonetheless confronts several profound and far-reaching transitions–succession crises, economic realignments, demographic shifts, resource scarcity, ecological threats, new technologies and a changing geostrategic balance.
Recently, Egyptians have entertained dreams of political reform only to be crushed in October by a cosmetic ministerial reshuffle. President Hosni Mubarak ordered this reshuffle following a plebiscite approving him for a fourth presidential term; a massive wave of pre-election propaganda predictably failed to alter the electorate's persistent apathy.
During his meeting with Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat on September 23, President Clinton responded to a reporter who asked whether he would like to be the US President who helped achieve a Palestinian state by saying, "The question of the state is one to be resolved in the permanent status talks that have just begun. I think, obviously, the two sides will make an agreement on that or there wonât be an agreement." (New York Times, September 24, 1999). Days later it was reported that, in only its first three months in office, the newly installed Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Barak has sought bids for the construction of 2,600 new housing units in various West Bank settlements. The previous government of Benjamin Netanyahu had authorized "only" 3,000 new homes each year. President Clintonâs evasiveness and the accelerated pace of West Bank settlement construction illuminate the nature of the final status talks now underway between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
