‘Palestinians Live in a State of Despair’

"Palestinians are often pinioned between two opposing but equally harmful tendencies: to turn them into abstractions on a political stage, or to turn away from them because what they’re enduring is too horrendous to truly grapple with

coherent Palestinian identity, and the ability of the Palestinian people to clearly define for themselves who they are, what they want, and what values they stand for, is of course crucial for the security of Israel, the region, and the rest of the world, but it is mostly crucial for the future of the Palestinians themselves. The Palestinians must

Arab countries had continuously said that the Palestinian cause would be one of the central foci of the pan-Arab movement. Yet nothing had materialized. Arab states’ devotion to the Palestinian cause, Palestinian activists began to realize, was nothing but rhetoric. The Palestinians came to realize that if they were to make any progress, and partic

“Our problem is not that the Palestinians are not a people,” I told Kerry’s advisors. “It’s that they’re not a people ready to sustain statehood. Help them follow Israel’s model of creating viable institutions first and then erecting the state on top of them.”

From the perspective of Israel (and pretty much every world leader who has studied this topic) the solution cannot include the return of 5.6 million people to a country of 9 million people. It must include an “end of demands.” And it must affirm Israel’s right to exist in safety and security.

Stalled economic opportunity helped shift the dynamics of Muslim religiosity in the West Bank and in Gaza, as well. In many ways, Israeli rule had improved Palestinians’ economic lot. In the years after the Six-Day War, between 1967 and the 1980s, annual per capita income in the Gaza Strip increased from $80 to $1,700. In the West Bank, the GDP tri

may seem ironic that so soon after Israel offered the Palestinians nearly everything they and the international community wanted—a Palestinian state with Arab Jerusalem as its capital, return of the entire Gaza Strip and almost the entire West Bank, a fair and practical resolution of the refugee issue, and an end to Jewish settlements—it is now a p

The international community has tired of the conflict, and inside the Jewish state, many Israelis feel stuck. They believe that the occupation is proving Yeshayahu Leibowitz correct. They fear that occupying another people has forced Israelis to be something they did not want to be, and yet for many, it is not clear at present what the alternative