If Kerry fails, what then?
“We need to break free of the divisive and increasingly stifling one-state-versus-two-states straightjacket that tends to polarize debate and in practice ends up perpetuating the status quo.”
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.
Analysis: An illegitimate leadership can sign away rights
Ma’an News Agency republishes Al-Shabaka member Zachariah Sammour’s commentary on the latest round of US-driven negotiations. As Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Mahmoud Abbas went to Washington in March to meet U.S. President Barack Obama, Palestinians have been fast approaching a critical juncture in the U.S.-driven negotiations with Israel.
What Role for Law in the Palestinian Struggle for Liberation?
Palestinians are divided over whether law can serve a positive function in their quest for self-determination. Jadaliyya republished this Al-Shabaka policy brief by Policy Advisor Noura Erakat, who argues that law’s value is wholly contingent on the broader political framework that gives it meaning. She proposes that Palestinians adopt a complementary approach that includes using the law when justice can be served and political avenues when the law itself entrenches unjust outcomes.
In ‘Goliath,’ the Past Is Always Present for Palestinians
Al-Shabaka Director Nadia Hijab reviews Max Blumenthal’s new book, “Goliath,” “an important touchstone,” with its “fast-paced journalistic style,” its “constantly juxtaposing past and present,” its “moments of hope,” its “keen sense of absurdity,” and its twin threads: Israeli “extreme right-wing nationalists’ consolidation of power since the collapse of the peace process,” and the “direct line between the Zionist ideology of the late 1800s and the racist state of today.”
Kerry’s billions: US economic plans for occupied Palestine
Development planning since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1993 has followed a non-participatory, top-down approach that conforms to the policy perceptions of international financial institutions, and marginalizes the very people it is supposed to benefit.
The Palestinian Capitalists That Have Gone Too Far
While most Palestinians living under Israeli occupation are struggling to survive, a powerful group of Palestinian capitalists is thriving and growing in political, economic and social influence. They deal with the Israelis as though they were a “normal” business partner rather than an occupying power.
The State of Play in Palestine: A Roundtable
Al-Shabaka policy advisors Mouin Rabbani and Sam Bahour contribute to this roundtable discussion on peace talks containing plenty of terse judgment for a weak and self-serving Palestinian leadership. Bahour: “[The] leadership is playing with fire … For more than three decades PLO leaders have played the same losing game, trying to convince the US to do the right thing and exert pressure on Israel, without fully leveraging the few tools the Palestinians have available to them.”
Palestinians united?
A debate includes three Al-Shabaka Policy Advisors on the best strategies for the Palestinian national movement.
