Fouad Moughrabi

A Year of Discovery

Returning to Palestine for a lengthy stay for the first time since he left, the author reflects on the changes he has found in his society, the distortions resulting from the Israeli elections, the emerging political culture in the new Palestinian entity, and the possibilities of coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians.

Palestinians on the Peace Process

In November 1988, the Palestinian parliament-in-exile, the Palestine National Council (PNC), adopted at its Algiers meeting a series of bold and historic resolutions in which the Palestinians indicated for the first time and in a formal manner their acceptance of the principle of partition of the historic land of Palestine. At the same time they accepted, based on the principle of mutual recognition, Israels right to exist in part of what they consider their own patrimony, renounced the use of political violence, and declared the establishment of their state in exile to be eventually concretized in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital. Absent from this political vision was a detailed Palestinian conceptualization of how to bring it about. What kind of state do the Palestinians want to have? Will it be like the other Arab states in the region? Will it be democratic or authoritarian? Will it be secular or religious? What kind of economic system do the Palestinians have in mind? Is it likely to be a viable entity, or a ward of the international community? Will it be demilitarized, or will it insist on having a military force? What kinds of relations will it have with its neighbors, Israel and Jordan? Do the Palestinians expect to have this

In Honor of Naseer H. Aruri (1934–2015)

In the remembrance that follows, we pay tribute to the late Naseer H. Aruri, who passed away on 10 February 2015. After serving on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth for over three decades, Aruri retired as chancellor professor (emeritus) of political science in 1998. Aruri, who was born in Palestine in 1934, came to the United States as a twenty-year-old to pursue his college education and he devoted the rest of his life to the study and advancement of Middle Eastern, and particularly Palestinian, politics, as well as U.S. Middle East foreign policy, and human rights. His stature both as a scholar and unswerving advocate of justice and equality for all in the land of his birth and further afield earned him the unconditional admiration and love of his many students, colleagues, and fellow intellectuals.