Bethlehem, April 2007: BADIL Resource Center announces the release of the spring 2007 issue of al majdal English-language quarterly magazine, which focuses on the definition of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict and the role of national and international actors.

Reports and analysis in this issue study the role of the United Nation, which has become a “house-divided” on the definition of the conflict and its solution, and the divorce from international law and democracy premised by the two-state model promoted by the United States, the European Union and other Western players. Articles also provide a critical analysis of the Palestinian understanding of the conflict and strategies to address its discriminatory nature.

Other writers raise the need to redefine the conflict under the terms of Israeli's racist, colonial and apartheid-like regime over the Palestinians in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT).

The applicability of the concept of apartheid to the conflict is addressed by a review of former US President Jimmy Carter's book Peace not Apartheid the latest report of Prof. John Dugard, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights on the OPT, and the concluding observations of the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

General articles include analysis of the Israeli high court's legalization of the Wall and its associated regime, the role of the universal jurisdiction in the fight against impunity, an update on the situation of Palestinian refugees in Iraq, and a report from a recent conference examining the right of return in the context of the refugee cases of Palestine, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Darfur.

An update of recent developments in the global civil society campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel (BDS) and the UN General Assembly resolution establishing the UN Register  of Damage caused by the Wall in the OPT are included in the documents section.

A PDF version of al-Majdal, issue 33, is available at: www.badil.org/al-majdal/2007/spring/majdal33.pdf

Annual subscriptions are available online (www.badil.org) or from admin@badil.org for Euro 25 (4 issues).