For over six decades, Israel's Palestinian citizens have had a unique experience: they are a Palestinian national minority in a Jewish state locked in conflict with its Arab neighbors but they also constitute an Israeli minority enjoying the benefits of citizenship in a state that prizes democracy. This has translated into ambivalent relations with both the state of Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and beyond. They feel solidarity with their brethren elsewhere, yet many Arabs study in Israeli universities, work side-by-side with Jews, and speak Hebrew fluently-a degree of familiarity that has only made the discrimination and alienation from which they suffer seem more acute and demands for equality more insistent.
In January 2009, in the wake of Israel's Operation Cast Lead (OCL) against Gaza, the Palestinian Authority (PA) wrote to the International Criminal Court (ICC) formally acknowledging the ICC's jurisdiction over the occupied territories and asking to become a signatory to the ICC's founding treaty, the Rome Statute. The purpose was twofold: to lay the procedural groundwork to be able to request an international war crimes tribunal to investigate Israeli actions during OCL; and to build the case for international recognition of Palestinian statehood. The wording of the Rome Statute is such that only states may join and submit appeals to the ICC.
Reports that Palestinian Authority Pres. Mahmud Abbas was drafting a letter to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu with the aim of breaking the diplomatic stalemate began circulating in mid-March 2012. Delayed by assorted diplomatic and other considerations (see Quarterly Update in this issue for details), the letter was finally delivered to Netanyahu by Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat on 17 April. The letter was not released, but a draft, reproduced below, was leaked to the press and published in The Times of Israel on 15 April. Netanyahu sent a written response to Abbas on 12 May, which reportedly reiterated the call for an immediate resumption of talks, without preconditions. The Abbas letter was taken from the Times of Israel website at www.timeso!srael.com.
This "proposed solution" to the conflict was first circulated in late February 2012 to Israel's political and military elites, who reportedly (Jerusalem Post 2/23) gave it "high praise." Its author, a self-made multimillionaire and a "rising star" in the religious-Zionist-nationalist right, was Netanyahu's chief of staff (2006-8), and for two years (until January 2012) head of the YESHA settlers council. Bennett is also founder and head of the extra-parliamentary movement My Israel. The Israel Stability Initiative is posted on the One State Israel website at www.onestateisrael.com.
Former lead Israeli peace negotiator Gilead Sher, former Israeli Security Agency head Ami Ayalon, and Israeli entrepreneur Orni Petruschka (organizers of a new group called Blue White Future) made the following proposal in a New York Times op-ed titled "Peace without Partners." While most of the steps recommended by the authors are already being undertaken by the Netanyahu government or have previously been discussed among Israelis in the course of the peace process, the initiative is notable for openly labeling them as unilateral steps to determine final status and urging the Israeli imposition of a solution "regardless of whether the Palestinians leaders have agreed." The op-ed appeared online on 23 April, and in print the following day. The op-ed was obtained from the New York Times website at www.nytimes.com.
Every time I come to AIPAC, I'm especially impressed to see so many young people here. . . . You carry with you an extraordinary legacy of more than six decades of friendship between the United States and Israel. . . . And for inspiration, you can look to the man who preceded me on this stage, who's being honored at this conference-my friend, President Shimon Peres.
Below are excerpts from former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's address to the annual AIPAC policy conference in Washington on 6 March 2012 (the same day as the Super Tuesday primary voting). Romney did not attend the conference but spoke via video link from the campaign trail. The full transcript can be obtained from the AIPAC website at www.aipac.org. This year, we are gathering at a dangerous time for Israel and for America. Not since the dark days of 1967 and 1973 has the Middle East faced peril as it does today. This is a critical moment. America must not-and, if I am President, it will not-fail this defining test of history.
This section lists articles and reviews of books relevant to Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Entries are classified under the following headings: Reference and General; History (through 1948) and Geography; Palestinian Politics and Society; Jerusalem; Israeli Politics, Society, and Zionism; Arab and Middle Eastern Politics; International Relations; Law; Military; Economy, Society, and Education; Literature, Arts, and Culture; Book Reviews; and Reports Received.
This is part 114 of a chronology begun in Journal of Palestine Studies ( JPS) 13, no. 3 (Spring 1984). Chronology dates reflect North American Eastern Standard Time. For a more comprehensive overview of regional and international developments related to the peace process, see the Quarterly Update on Conflict and Diplomacy in JPS 164.
At its inception, Macalester College had a dual dream: on the one hand, to encourage students to cultivate their growth through rigorous study and critical self-reflection; on the other, to educate students for a condition of freedom, civic action, and a vocation of leadership. The pioneering works and lives of Edward Duffield Neill and James Wallace, two of the College's most significant founders and builders, captured this dream. Thus, in its Institute for Global Citizenship, Macalester keeps faith with the dream by creating with and for students, contexts conducive to a distinctive synthesis of intellectual intensity, self-monitoring, and preparation for public usefulness in a multi-civilizational global milieu.