Tariq Dana, Author at Al-Shabaka

Focus On: Palestinian-Israeli Security Coordination

March 21, 2017

The Palestine Liberation Organization’s top leadership body, the Central Council, called for a halt to Palestinian security coordination with Israel in 2015. Yet PLO Chair Mahmoud Abbas has described it as sacred despite the breakdown of the peace process to end Israel’s 50-year military occupation and colonization of Palestinian territory. The killing by Israeli forces of activist and youth leader Basil Al-Araj, whom the Palestinian Authority had previously imprisoned – raising accusations that his jailing was part of its so-called revolving door policy - has refocused public attention on the issue. In the selection of pieces below, Al-Shabaka policy analysts discuss the origins and pillars of Israeli-PA security coordination as well as its consequences for the Palestinian people, who experience it as an additional layer of oppression to the multiple violations of their rights under occupation, within Israel, and in exile.

Roundtable Politics

Palestinian Democracy Denied

December 7, 2016

The failure to conduct local elections in the occupied territories and the Fatah conference, which largely reaffirmed a moribund status quo, are the latest examples of stymied Palestinian democracy. Al-Shabaka analysts examine the notion of democracy under military occupation, the factors constraining it, and the form that makes sense for the Palestinian people.

Policy Brief Economic Issues

Corruption in Palestine: A Self-Enforcing System

August 18, 2015

Palestinians take part in a protest outside the ministers council headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah

81% of the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation rank the problem of corruption second only to the occupation itself. Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Tariq Dana analyzes the systems and actors involved, arguing that corruption is a structural problem with longstanding political roots that cannot be tackled through adopting codes of conduct and other technical solutions.

Policy Brief Economic Issues

The Palestinian Capitalists That Have Gone Too Far

January 14, 2014

A powerful group of Palestinian capitalists is thriving in the occupied Palestinian territory even as most of the population is struggling to survive. Too often, they owe their wealth to economic collaboration with Israel. Drawing on recent research, Al-Shabaka Policy Member Tariq Dana analyzes the ways in which these "crony capitalists" influence policy, use indebtedness for social control, and normalize the occupation. Click below for the full brief or read the executive summary.

Policy Brief Civil Society

Palestinian Civil Society: What Went Wrong?

April 14, 2013

Palestinians under Israeli occupation led the civil resistance that culminated in the First Intifada of the 1980s. By the mid-1990s, much of civil society was “NGO-ized” draining the Palestinian national movement of leadership. Al-Shabaka Policy Member Tariq Dana examines the shift in organizational agendas and tactics and recommends ways to reverse course.