US Taxpayers and Palestine’s Forced Dependency on Israel
Energy production and distribution are a case-in-point of “increasing forced Palestinian dependence on Israel,” explains Al-Shabaka’s Commissioning Editor Jacqueline Sansour. “As a [U.S.] taxpayer, I want Americans’ $600 million-a-year contribution to the Palestinian Authority (PA) to help end this occupation, not make it easier for Palestinians to endure it.” Sansour’s study is also a guide to several other Al-Shabaka-exclusive critiques on the Palestinians and their embargoed energy resources.
As Abbas returns from US, critics say talks doomed to fail
Ma’an report quotes Al-Shabaka Director Nadia Hijab: “As Mahmoud Abbas left his meeting with US president Barack Obama today, did he reflect on the lessons of seeking peace without power?” — as well as Policy Advisor Sam Bahour: “There is not an iota of symmetry between a military occupying power and a supposedly protected occupied people. When the US stops putting Israel’s interests before its own and starts holding it accountable in proportion to the severity of its violations of international law, then maybe peace will have a chance.”
Obama, Abbas note challenges to ‘elusive goal’ of Mideast peace
Al-Shabaka Director Nadia Hijab is quoted: “As Mahmoud Abbas left his meeting with U.S. president Barack Obama today, did he reflect on the lessons of seeking peace without power?”
EU Aid to Palestinians: Help or Hindrance?
“Aid has not helped to fulfil Palestinians dreams, nor did it lead to sustainable development. Independence is today further away than 20 years ago,” Alaa Tartir, Al-Shabaka Program Director, told IRIN.
Aid will never buy peace
“…As someone who spent the last few years of his life in Europe pursuing postgraduate studies, I must say … the EU, its countries and institutions, deny their very own democratic principles and normative values … where they are not applied to Israel-Palestine. To do all of this, two prerequisites must exist: the political will, and the ability to challenge the dishonest broker in the peace process, the United States … These suggestions are not coming from a dreamer, but rather from a Palestinian who has lived three decades of his life under Israeli military occupation.” –AlShabaka Program Director Alaa Tartir in an interview that draws upon Al-Shabaka’s extensive economic policy analysis including Tartir’s latest brief, “Can Oslo’s Failed Aid Model Be Laid to Rest?“, co-authored with Jeremy Wildeman.
Kerry, Quartet $4B Plan Will Fail Palestinians, Economists Warn
Featuring Al-Shabaka Program Director Alaa Tartir:
The 2013 Global Go To Think Tank Index (GGTTI)
Al-Shabaka achieved high standing in the 2013 “Global Go To Think Tank Index” (GGTTI) published this week by UPENN’s Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program!
BDS leaders say Palestinian human rights are compatible with Israeli Jewish future
Five policy advisors of Al-Shabaka, including its director, contribute brief but important statements in Alex Kane’s excellent summary on the perceived dilemma yet mutual non-exclusivity of Palestinian rights and an Israeli Jewish future. For example, Noura Erakat: “If you can’t have a state that privileges Jewish people, then what does the state become … For advocates of pluralism and equality, it becomes a better state, but for those who consider Jewish privilege a national right, notwithstanding the violence it necessitates, it is an affront.”
Thousands of Jerusalem children denied basic services by Israeli apartheid
This report on children’s rights in East Jerusalem cites an Al-Shabaka policy brief with reference to registration restrictions on Palestinian children that remain in place in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip despite the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994.
