Palestine
Documenting Land Ownership in the Palestinian Authority
The Protocol Concerning Civil Affairs, an annex to the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip of September 1995, formalized the process by which Israeli authorities would transfer responsibility over land matters to the Palestinian Authority (PA). The first Oslo agreement had called for the establishment of a “Palestinian Land Authority” that could administer property matters in the areas under Palestinian self-rule. These matters include registration, surveying, and state and “absentee” lands. [1]
Settlement Expansion Update
With the recent election of the Netanyahu government, the issue of settlements has again emerged in the media as an issue in the “peace process.” Settlement leaders have proposed spending $4 billion to expand settlements by as many as 120,000 housing units to accommodate an additional 500,000 people by the year 2000. Ariel Sharon recently proposed immediately allowing 100,000 new settlers to settle the West Bank. The new government has already transferred $6.5 million for the construction of bypass roads, and announced the immediate construction of 3,800 new housing units on the West Bank. Netanyahu claims that the Oslo agreement’s wording is loose enough that this in no way violates the final status negotiations.
Electoral Systems and Democracy
This year has witnessed some important electoral developments in the Middle East and surrounding areas, with elections being held in Palestine, Israel, Turkey, Bangladesh and Bosnia. [1] Some of these elections have been especially interesting in terms of what they have revealed about the potential for electoral systems — the rules by which winners are determined — to shape public policy, communal identity and how groups — be they ethnic, religious or political — interact. The different electoral systems newly instituted in Palestine and South Africa have had a profound impact on shaping electoral outcomes in their respective political systems and, arguably, on social and political policy and communal identity.
Thwarting Palestinian Development
The preamble of the Protocol on Economic Relations between the Government of the State of Israel and the PLO, signed on May 4, 1994, states:
This protocol lays the groundwork for strengthening the economic base of the Palestinian side and for exercising its right of economic decision making in accordance with its own development plan and for exercising its right of economic decision making in accordance with its own development plan and priorities.” [1]
Palestinian Political Prisoners
Since the Oslo accords came into effect in May 1994, Israel’s treatment of Palestinian political prisoners has been a litmus test for a viable, just end to the Israeli occupation. Today the prisoners’ crisis continues to reflect an agreement that entrenches Israel’s remote control over Palestinians and commissions Yasser Arafat to deliver local compliance with the new order.
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.
From the Editors (Spring 1996)
The first month of 1996 saw election monitors and “democratization” consultants falling over each other in the West Bank. Along with the flood of media witnesses, they certified that, in former President Jimmy Carter’s words, “The Palestinian people had an historic opportunity to choose their leaders yesterday, and they did so with enthusiasm and a high degree of professionalism.”
Tourists with Agendas
One bizarre aspect about life in Palestine is the scrutiny to which we are subjected by journalists, researchers and political tourists who descend daily. Birzeit University is particularly attractive to researchers who come to “do Palestine.” At first glance, the benefits would seem great: publicity, access to the media and protection against institutional harassment by the Israelis. Indeed, this was important during the intifada, when the university was closed for four and a half years.
Recent Books on Palestinian Society
Marianne Heiberg and Geir Ovensen et al, Palestinian Society in Gaza, West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem: A Survey of Living Conditions (FAFO, 1993).
Ziad Abu-Amr, Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza: Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Jihad (Indiana, 1994).
Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal, Palestinians: The Making of a People (Free Press, 1993).
Ebba Augustin, ed., Palestinian Women: Identity and Experience (Zed, 1993).
Photo Books on Palestine
George Baramki Azar, Palestine: A Photographic Journey (California, 1991).
J. C. Tordai, Into the Promised Land (Cornerhouse, 1991).
Both of these books present photographs taken in the West Bank and Gaza Strip between 1988 and 1990 that transcend the usual images of stone-throwing youths and gun-wielding soldiers. Both photographers portray newly destitute families around their demolished houses, lines of people at UNRWA food distribution centers, children studying in dilapidated classrooms, peaceful rallies and demonstrations, and the painful wait for the wounded outside hospitals.
Homecoming
I was afraid. Why should I be? But once I stood in front of the young women in the white and blue-striped shirt I was reduced to shivering with a tongue as dry as the Negev. She asked me insistently, “Why are you here?” I had earlier thought of two or three convincing answers, but suddenly I could not decide on any of them and I stood there looking at her with empty eyes, trying to control my sweating hand.
Stacking the Deck
For many Palestinians, the political success or failure of the Palestinian Authority (PA) hinges on its ability to bring rapid economic improvement to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where peoples’ livelihoods have been seriously eroded by the Israeli occupation, the intifada and the repercussions of the Gulf war. Some improvements in basic living standards after 30 years of occupation might stave off political opposition to the agreements sufficiently so as to give them a chance of working.
An Interview with Usama Halabi
Usama Halabi, a lawyer, works with the East Jerusalem Quaker Legal Aid Program and is the author of The Druze in Israel: From Sect to Nation (Jerusalem: Golan Academic Association, 1989) [Arabic]. Barbara Harlow interviewed him in Jerusalem in December 1994.
In November, the Israeli military court in Jenin issued a death sentence for a Hamas leader, the first time such a sentence has been issued by a military court in the Occupied Territories. Does this signal a change in policy?
Transfers and Powers
The Declaration of Principles (DOP), signed between Israel and the PLO on September 13, 1993, provided the “agreed framework for the interim period.” [1] This was to be based on the establishment, through elections, of a Palestinian interim self-governing authority for a transitional period not exceeding five years. The jurisdiction of the council was to cover the West Bank and Gaza Strip with the notable exception of Israeli settlements.
Palestinian Trade Unions and the Struggle for Independence
Not so long ago, to visit the Erez checkpoint on Gaza’s “border” crossing with Israel was to witness a modem slave market. Tens of thousands of Palestinian workers would wake up at 3 am and gather at Erez for the privilege of working in their occupier’s economy, predominantly in construction and agriculture, undertaking the “dirty work” that Jewish workers would not do, for a wage on average a third less than their Jewish peers. At least 30 percent of Gaza’s GNP derived from wages earned in Israel.
An Interview with Mahmoud Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish, a well-known Palestinian poet, resigned from the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993. His most recent book in English is Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 (California, 1995). The following excerpts are from an interview with Mona Naim in Le Monde, March 12-13, 1995.
You have been opposed to the Declaration of Principles, but you have not joined any active opposition to the accord. Why?
