Alaa Tartir

Palestinian parties remain entrenched in the political system despite their splits and weaknesses. What role can they play within - or outside - the PLO and what other avenues exist for national or local leadership? While some Al-Shabaka policy analysts offer ideas beyond the current political set-up, others suggest ways to make the current structure work.

The Palestinian Authority’s security sector has grown faster than any other part of the government, potentially putting Palestine on track to a police state. With the unity government moving into Gaza after Israel’s terrible 51-day assault, Al-Shabaka Policy Member Sabrien Amrov and Program Director Alaa Tartir call for the urgent need to reform the donor-driven “reform” of a sector that only serves Israel’s colonization project. Read the policy brief or the executive summary.

Israel's brutal crackdowns on Palestinians living under its occupation dominate the news, but other longer-term trends are equally worrying. The Palestinian Authority is confiscating more and more land from Palestinian farmers in order to build industrial zones, which strips farmers of their right to grow their own food and further increases Palestinian dependency on Israel. Al-Shabaka Guest Author Vivien Sansour and Al-Shabaka Program Director Alaa Tartir argue that sustained community efforts are needed to preserve one of the most important elements of resistance that Palestinians have.

The Oslo Accords not only left the Palestinian people much worse off politically; they also devastated the economy of those living under Israeli occupation despite the $23 billion-plus that donors have poured into the territory. What’s worse, Wildeman and Tartir found no signs of a change in donor policies in their recent study.

Industrial zones are criticized in the Arab region and beyond. The problem is much worse in the occupied Palestinian territory because the zones help Israel “normalize” its occupation, as Al-Shabaka Programme Director Alaa Tartir sets out in this trenchant commentary. He calls on the Palestinian youth movement and civil society to use the issue in a call for a completely different approach to development under occupation.

The recent World Bank growth report frankly concludes that the Palestinian economy is fragile and dependent on foreign aid: No surprises there. Far more surprising – not to say shocking – are the Bank’s irrelevant and sometimes harmful recommendations, as Al-Shabaka Program Director Alaa Tartir and Guest Author Jeremy Wildeman reveal in this compelling analysis. The Bank’s prescriptions are all the more worrying given the influence it exercises over the donor community’s approach to Palestinian development.

For Palestinians, agriculture is more than a source of income or an economic category in budgets and plans. It is tied to the people’s history, identity, and self-expression, and drives the struggle against Israel’s Separation Wall. In this brief, Lebanese activist, author, and agronomist Rami Zurayk joins Al-Shabaka Policy Advisors Samer Abdelnour and Alaa Tartir to tackle the almost spiritual significance of the land to the Palestinians and the deliberate Israeli efforts to break the link between farmers and their crops. Click below for the full brief or read the executive summary.

In an important recent piece - Economic Hallucination - Ramallah-based Al-Shabaka policy advisor Sam Bahour exposed the charade played by both Western donors and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to cover up the occupied territory’s inexorable economic meltdown after decades of Israeli military occupation. Arguing that the combined donor-PA approach poses major obstacles to freedom and rights, Bahour concluded: “It’s time for a new economic model, one built on economic justice, social welfare, solidarity, and sustainability.” What would such an economic model look like and how can Palestinians living under occupation move from today’s grim reality to an economy that sustains the quest for self-determination? Al-Shabaka policy advisors Alaa Tartir and Samer Abdelnour join Bahour to debate these questions and explore alternatives.