Analysis: Can Oslo’s failed aid model be laid to rest?
The first installment of a two-part policy brief from Al-Shabaka, first published in September 2013. 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, Al-Shabaka Guest Author Jeremy Wildeman and Program Director Alaa Tartir found no signs of a change in donor policies in their recent study. The Oslo aid model may be here to stay unless Palestinians forcefully demand change.
Review – Routledge Handbook on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
In this critical book review, Al-Shabaka Program Director Alaa Tartir discusses the new Routledge Handbook on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, arguing that it struggles to find a narrative for peace when power imbalances remain unchallenged at the conflict’s root. Tartir redirects the reader’s focus back upon that root: the dispossession and ethnic cleansing that have undergone honest treatment by other scholars.
Israel and the erosion of democracy: an Australian story
Al-Shabaka advisor Samah Sabawi believes that Israel is good for democracy insofar as “it exposes the hypocrisy and faults that are inherent within other democratic systems.” She writes of academic freedom’s endangerment after an Israeli law firm threatened two professors with legal action.
Palestinians in a Jewish State
“It is illogical for a country with mixed demographics to define itself on the identity of just one sector of society,” writes Nadim Nashif with coauthor Gareth Bridgewater. “The Obama administration should take every opportunity to remind [Benjamin] Netanyahu that the United States takes equal rights very seriously.”
Under lockdown, Palestinians in Gaza fear the worst
It has been widely reported that the Palestinian Authority (PA), bereft of a mandate in the West Bank, has succumbed to the pressure from the US administration insisting it return to negotiations. However, little has been said of the PA’s counterpart in Gaza. Also lacking a mandate, Hamas has felt the pressure of the Egyptian political turmoil that stripped it of what some had viewed as an ally in the Muslim Brotherhood-led government.
The Oslo Accords: A critique
In order to understand the Oslo Accords and the extreme damage they have wreaked upon the Palestinian cause, one needs a historical contextualisation of the so-called “peace process”.
Oslo’s Roots: Kissinger, the PLO, and the Peace Process
See the original publication of this policy brief by Al-Shabaka.
A Peek Inside Kerry’s ‘Peace’ Efforts Or Propaganda?
Al-Shabaka policy advisor Sam Bahour translates a recent unverified leak about the peace talks that indicates major, very worrying, Palestinian concessions to Israel and the U.S. Bahour analyses the impact on the Palestinians and the region if the leak has any truth in it.
Four Rules for Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks
Alaa Tartir, Al-Shabaka Program Director, discusses four rules for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, arguing that “for peace talks to succeed, negotiators must have a popular mandate. It is essential to build up a legitimate national body that represents all Palestinians … Otherwise, peace will be another form of colonialism wrapped up in modernity.”
