Occupation
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.
The Peres-Arafat Agreement: Can It Work?
Within hours of the November 2 announcement that PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and the Israeli Minister of Regional Cooperation, Shimon Peres, had agreed to implement the understandings reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) at the October Sharm al-Sheikh summit, Israeli soldiers shot and killed teenage Palestinian demonstrator Khalid Rezaq in the village of Hizma near Jerusalem. Another Palestinian, Adli Abeid, succumbed to wounds sustained a day earlier at the Mintar/Karni crossing on the eastern border of the Gaza Strip.
Shows of Solidarity Forever
Egyptian President Husni Mubarak and his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Asad will convene an Arab summit in Cairo this weekend to formulate a common stance against the harsh Israeli response to the ongoing Palestinian uprising in the Occupied Territories and within Israel. The summit, the first in over a decade, reflects substantial pressure on Arab regimes from their own populations: large demonstrations in Egypt, Jordan and elsewhere manifest an unusually strong feeling of solidarity with the Palestinian cause on the Arab street.
The Iron Fist in the Peace Process
Televised images of Israeli combat soldiers killing unarmed Palestinian children and helicopters strafing Palestinian neighborhoods have publicly exposed the Israeli military force that undergirds and shapes the Oslo process.
Bethlehem Dispatch
Although millions of people around the world watched Bethlehem's millennial celebration on CNN, those not present on the scene missed some interesting background details. The event was held in an open square surrounded by five-story buildings, and by 10 PM, tens of thousands of people had crammed into the square. As we waited for the festivities to begin, a large, 20-foot high, bright neon sign flashed out the message: "The Municipality of Bethlehem Welcomes His Excellency President Yasser Arafat." I wish they would make up their minds: Is he king or president?
The Cost of Peace
We know the images well: ethnic cleansing in Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia, intra-communal violence in Northern Ireland, and competing claims to land rights spurring the forcible transfer of populations in Palestine and Israel. Claims to self-determination and minority rights, often found at the heart of intra-state disputes, draw actors to international law to determine the scope and nature of those rights. Indeed, the demands posed by ethno-nationalist disputes have moved the discourse beyond whether international law applies to ethnic conflict to how ethnic conflict has “shaped” interpretation of international law. [1] The ambiguity of the relevant international instruments has led some to question the relevance of international law.
Economic Deterioration in the Gaza Strip
On February 25, 1996, following several Hamas suicide bombings in West Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Israel imposed a heightened closure on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. [1] This most recent heightening of the closure has severely damaged the already precarious economy of the Gaza Strip and caused immense hardship and suffering to the local population. The overwhelming majority in the Gaza Strip have been left with no source of daily income. Many can no longer adequately feed their children. The struggle — no longer against Israel or even the Israeli occupation — is now against hunger and humiliation.
Human Rights Briefing
What has been the performance of human rights organizations during the first two years of the intifada? A fresh look at eight organizations surveyed prior to the uprising (MER 150) shows that overall coverage has increased, as one might expect based on the intensity and duration of the uprising, but coverage remains uneven. Some organizations that had been reporting on the Occupied Territories prior to November 1987 improved their coverage; others did not. Among those organizations that had in the past ignored Palestinian rights abuses, some saw the intifada as an opportunity to take up the issue. A notable few, however, have remained silent.
Prison Text, Resistance Culture
The Israeli prison apparatus is a critical and contested site in the manifold struggle to control communication and information in the Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation. During the two decades of occupation before the intifada, prisons in Israel and the Occupied Territories housed an average of 4,000 Palestinian political detainees at any one time. Since the start of the uprising this number has increased dramatically, with over 40,000 arrests. This put great pressure on the prison facilities and necessitated the opening of new prison camps such as Ansar III (Ketsi’ot) in the Negev desert, and detention centers like Dhahriyya, just outside of Hebron.
Eyeless in Judea
One of the major problems confronting the Israeli security forces during the Palestinian uprising was the disintegration, by June 1988, of Israel’s system of penetration and control over the clandestine national movement. First, the apparatus of the military government received a considerable blow with the wholesale resignation of the local police force and tax collectors during the first months of the intifada; second, in March and April 1988, the popular upheaval compelled many collaborators to recant publicly and surrender their weapons. These developments contributed to the paralysis of two major Israeli instruments of control over the Palestinians: the institutional and the coercive.
