Press Releases

BADIL Resource Center
31 October 2003
For Immediate Release

Highlights from Al-Majdal, BADIL’s quarterly magazine

Coming soon:  another failed peace plan?

The history of the past 50 years is littered with failed Middle East peace plans.  The last 10 years alone has seen Oslo, the “road map” and now Geneva. 

Why do they fail?  The latest issue of BADIL’s quarterly magazine Al-Majdal says the plans make no reference to four essential components: best practice in successful peace plans elsewhere, past experience of why plans collapsed or succeeded, the rule of law and community participation. 

Al-Majdal’s editorial “Back to Basics” calls for building durable solutions to the Palestinian refugee issue from the ground up.  A following article reports on the relaunch of inter-generational grassroots initiatives in the West Bank to strengthen the voice of refugees against pressures to surrender their rights.

These days, Palestinian refugees are continually polled and studied.  Al-Majdal reports on a poll asking them what they want in terms of the right of return.  The magazine concludes that the polling organization didn’t ask the right questions.  But a University of Geneva report on Palestinian perceptions of their living conditions provides a useful look at the socioeconomic dimension of the refugee question, says Al-Majdal.

The issue also looks at a positive Jewish-Israeli initiative on Palestinian-Israeli reconciliation.  Conversely it analyzes the new Israeli law on family reunification that bans reunification for Palestinians from the Occupied Territories married to Israeli citizens and the Israeli court decision denying Palestinians living in Israel the right to return to their village Iqrit near the Lebanese border which they were ordered to evacuate in 1948 with the assurance of return within 15 days.

Al Majdal reports on the unprotected Palestinians of Egypt; evicted refugees in Iraq; relocation to Gaza of 4,500 Palestinians who were stranded in Egypt after the Egypt-Israel peace agreement and UNRWA which the magazine says is under attack and under-funded.  Regular features include Refugee Voices, dedicated this issue to Edward Said; In Memoriam, Palestinians killed by the Israeli military 1 June to 27 September; and Documents, recommendations of conferences in Ramallah and Tulkarem.

Print copies of Al-Majdal Issue no. 19 (September 2003) will be mailed shortly to subscribers and a PDF version is on: www.badil.org/Majdal/2003/majdal03.htm.

Annual subscriptions (four issues) are available from [email protected] for $20.

For further information contact: BADIL, P.O. Box 728, Bethlehem

Tel/Fax: 970-2-274-7346 or resource @badil.org