Suchergebnisse

In this revised edition, Usher updates his original text with a new chapter covering the turbulent events that have occurred since 1995

Obama's first veto in defense of Israel at the UN was of a Security Council draft resolution that condemned Israeli settlements in language reflecting the administration's own stated policy. The draft, supported by all other UNSC members, forced the U.S. to choose between undermining its credibility internationally and alienating constituencies at home. For the Palestinians, insistence on tabling the draft in defiance of Washington was seen by some as a first step in an "alternative peace strategy" involving a turn away from the Oslo framework in favor of the UN. After reviewing the context of the resolution, the author analyzes the stakes for the various players, the repercussions of the veto, and the diplomatic prospects in its wake.

The Palestinian Authority's application to become a full member state at the United Nations represents the latest stage in its "alternative peace strategy" born of the collapse of the U.S.-sponsored Oslo peace process. But—argues the author—the new strategy remains overly dependent on diplomacy and uncertain Palestinian allies like the European Union. If it is to achieve a balance of power for future negotiations more favorable to the Palestinians, however, it will need to be anchored in a greater national consensus at home and in the diaspora, and allied more closely to the emerging democratic forces in the region.

This article examines the lead-up to the recent Palestinian legislative elections, looking especially at the Fatah's long-brewing internal crisis, born of Fatah's inability to reconcile its role as a national liberation movement with that as ruling party of the Palestinian Authority. The author assesses the impact of the new reality presented by Hamas's victory on Hamas, Fatah, and the international community, specifically addressing the post-election strategy put forward by certain Fatah elements, and backed by the United States, to undermine Hamas's victory by shifting power away from the Hamas-dominated legislative branch to the executive under the presidency of Mahmud Abbas.

Israel's construction of a separation wall through the West Bank and East Jerusalem represents the latest stage in Zionism's attempts to resolve its 'native problem'. By confining Palestinians to a series of disconnected cantons, it deprives them of political and territorial contiguity. But the wall also embodies a demographic rationale: it is the threat of a majority Arab population under Israel's charge that determines the wall's route and its exclusion of areas where Palestinians are concentrated. The logic is one of a unilateral imposition of Israel's borders, bound up with the deferral of final status negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. Thus marginalised, the Authority is reduced to a 'Palestinian state with provisional borders' - not a sovereign state, but a municipal provider of services. Following the finding of the International Court of Justice on the wall's illegality, the challenge for the Palestinians is how to develop an effective strategy of resistance to the wall and the occupation of which it is part.