Palestinian Authority Research Articles

Foot and mouth disease viruses are recurrently introduced to Israel and spread by extensively reared sheep and cattle: Insights from a whole-genome sequence analysis

Despite routine vaccination, Israel experiences recurrent outbreaks of foot and mouth disease (FMD). We analyzed VP1 coding sequences of viruses isolated during FMD outbreaks from 2001 to 2011 in Israel and neighboring nations. The Israeli strains were aligned with strains from neighboring countries in corresponding years, implying repeated FMD virus incursions. In 2007 a large FMD epidemic, caused by a serotype O virus, occurred in Israel. Bayesian analysis of whole-genome sequences of viruses isolated during this epidemic revealed predominant transmission among extensively farmed beef-cattle and small ruminants. Small ruminants were key in spreading to beef-cattle, which then transmitted the virus to feedlot-cattle. Wild gazelles had a minor role in transmission. The results may suggest probable transmission of FMD virus from the Palestinian Authority to Israel. Targeting extensive farms via enhanced surveillance and vaccination could improve FMDV control. Given cross-border transmission, a collaborative FMD mitigation strategy across the Middle-East is crucial.

Effect of agricultural extension on technology adoption by Palestinian farmers under Israeli occupation in the West Bank

Even during the conflict, agricultural extension by the Palestinian Authority has played an important role in agricultural development in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The Ministry of Agriculture of the Palestinian Authority provided the necessary agricultural extension services for Palestinian farmers affected by the Israeli settlements and Segregation Wall. Despite such importance of agricultural extension, few quantitative studies have examined its effect on Palestinian farmers. Therefore, the objective of this study was to quantify the effect of agricultural extension on technology adoption by Palestinian farmers for appropriate evaluation of the agricultural policies by the Palestinian Authority. The microdata of 79,446 agricultural holdings from the Agricultural Census 2010, which was the only microdata officially published and available at the time of this study, was used. Then, the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method was employed to mitigate the endogenous bias caused by self-selection by farmers in receiving the agricultural extension. The results showed that agricultural extension has positively and significantly affected the adoption of five technologies, namely improved crop varieties, chemical fertilizers, organic fertilizers, pesticides, and biological control. The estimated increase in the adoption rate of those technologies as the average treatment effects on the treated (ATT) by the nearest-neighbor matching method were by 7.1, 7.7, 5.4, 6.8, and 3.8 percentage points respectively. This study proved that agricultural extension promoted the adoption of those technologies even in the conflict. Therefore, agricultural extension by the Palestinian Authority plays an important role in farming by Palestinian farmers. In order to maintain and improve farmers’ livelihoods sustainably, it is necessary to continue the agricultural extension by the Palestinian Authority in the future, considering the behavior of farmers.

Israel and the Palestinians: The Day After

Hamas’s unprecedentedly brutal and indiscriminate attack against Israel on 7 October 2023 has probably permanently derailed, or at least substantially delayed, prospects for a two-state solution. Israel is likely to conclude that its most fundamental demand for any peace agreement – ironclad security arrangements – cannot be achieved. Even if a centrist Israeli government emerges following the war, the most the Palestinians can probably hope for is heightened autonomy, not full independence. Israel may show greater willingness to consider civil disengagement – that is, the dismantling of settlements in those parts of the West Bank that it would not wish to retain in a final peace settlement, probably over 90% of them – but with the Israel Defense Forces fully deployed throughout the area. Saudi–Israeli normalisation has been postponed, but may be salvageable, especially if the Saudis take an active role in the peace process and in reinstating the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. Growing tensions could diminish the extraordinary US–Israeli strategic cooperation that arose immediately after the attack.

The effect of corporate income tax on financial performance: Evidence from Palestine

The purpose of this study is to investigate the corporate income tax effect on the financial performance of Palestinian firms. As Palestinian firms exist in an unstable situation and political risk with a fluctuating economy. It is worth studying to what extent the performance of these firms is affected by the corporate income tax (CIT) imposed by the Palestinian authority. This study is using panel data from 20 listed non-financial Palestinian firms during the period from 2016 to 2020. The random-effects model is used to empirically determine the effect of corporate income tax on financial performance after controlling for the most comprehensive macroeconomic factors, which have not been studied in the Palestinian context yet. This paper reveals a significant negative relationship between CIT and a firm’s performance. In contrast, the asset turnover ratio showed a significant positive relationship with financial performance. However, firm size is unrelated to financial performance, it shows up an insignificant relationship with the performance of Palestinian firms. This study proposes a further examination of the relationship between CIT and performance by extending empirical research on CIT performance determination using a different technique. This paper fulfills an identified need to study how an effective tax rate policy imposed in the Palestinian territory can sustain firms’ performance.

Applying Public-Private Partnership in the Palestinian Water and Wastewater Large-Scale Projects

Background: The Palestinian water and wastewater sector is suffering from inadequate clean water and wastewater service provision. Public Private Partnership (PPP) may present a successful framework that can be utilized to improve the water and wastewater services in Palestine. The purpose of this research is to explore the attraction and success factors for applying the PPP model in the water and wastewater sector in Palestine and to explore the obstacles that may hinder its application. Moreover, this study aims to determine the main characteristics of the environment that would enable an effective implementation of the PPP model in the mentioned sector in Palestine. Method: A questionnaire survey was utilized to collect the facts, perceptive, and attitudes of the respondents who were qualified experts with more than 15 years of experience in the field of water and wastewater projects in Gaza and the West Bank and having PPP knowledge and understanding. Results: This study has determined the attraction and success factors for applying a PPP model in the water and wastewater sector in Palestine and the obstacles that may constrain its application. Additionally, this study has determined the main features of the enabling environment that would support the success of the PPP model application in the mentioned sector. Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, it is concluded that the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) is not yet ready to implement largescale PPP projects. Thus, it is recommended that the PWA should take action, based on the findings of this study, to bridge the existing gaps for enabling a successful PPP in the water and wastewater sector in Palestine.

Novel Prion Protein Gene Polymorphisms in Awassi Sheep in Three Regions of the Fertile Crescent.

Scrapie is a fatal, neurodegenerative disease that affects sheep and goats, and genetic susceptibility to scrapie in sheep is associated with polymorphisms in the prion protein (PRNP) gene. The aim of this study is to identify PRNP polymorphism in Awassi sheep from Türkiye, the Palestinian Authority, and Saudi Arabia. A total of 150 healthy sheep were genotyped for PRNP, using Sanger sequencing. There were seven alleles and eleven genotypes observed based on codons 136, 154, and 171 of PRNP. The ARQ allele was predominant in all populations. The most resistant allele to scrapie, ARR, was present in all three regions. The VRQ allele, associated with the highest susceptibility to scrapie, was detected only in Türkiye at a low frequency. In this study, twenty-seven amino acid substitutions were found. Eight of them (R40Q, G65E, H88L, S98T, A118P, S138T, V192F and L250I) have not been previously reported. These data indicate that sheep breeds close to the sheep domestication center have maintained high genetic diversity in the PRNP region. Our findings on PRNP will provide valuable insights for sheep breeding programs, aiding in the selection of genotypes resistant to scrapie in Türkiye, the Palestinian Authority, and Saudi Arabia.

A geographically flexible approach for mapping the Wildland-Urban Interface integrating fire activity data

The Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) is the area where houses and natural vegetation meet or intermingle. WUI areas are exposed to an increased hazard of wildfires and have significantly expanded worldwide in the past few decades. In this study, we developed a new empirical approach for mapping the WUI by generating a WUI index based on the juxtaposition among buildings, vegetation, and the fire history of the study area. We first calculated the percentage coverage of buildings and three different fuel typologies within circular moving windows with radii of 100, 250, and 500 m, and then acquired the fire history data between 2012 and 2021 for Israel and the West Bank (Palestinian Authority) from the VIIRS active fires remote sensing product. We defined the WUI as cells where the combination of vegetation cover and building cover had more VIIRS fire detections than expected by chance. To assess the effects of using broad vs. local scale parameterizations on resulting WUI maps, we repeated this process twice, first using national-scale data, and then separately in four distinct geographic regions. We assessed the congruence in the amounts and patterns of WUI in regions as mapped by information from these two analysis scales. We found that the WUI in Israel and the West Bank ranged from 0.5% to 1.7%, depending on fuel type and moving window radius. The scale of parameterization (national vs. regional) affected the WUI patterns only in one of the regions, whose characteristics differed markedly than the rest of the country. Our new method differs from existing WUI mapping methods as it is empirical and geographically flexible. These two traits allow it to robustly map the WUI in other countries with different settlement, fuel, climate and wildfire characteristics.

K některým mezinárodněprávním otázkám spojeným s palestinskými ozbrojenými a teroristickými útoky

The paper is focused on some issues of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the point of view of international law. The main topic is terrorism, the question of the possibility of viewing terrorism as a new form of aggression is examined. This part is followed by a chapter on the internal structure of Palestinian representation. Attention is also given to more general issues of responsibility of some non-state actors, rebel movements, de facto authorities, de facto government, de facto regimes, and private individuals. This is followed by the main part of this paper, which is dedicated to the issues of the attribution of the actions of the Hamas movement to the Palestinian Authority.

التهجير والهجرة العائدة ودورهما في نموّ الشبكات الاقتصادية العابرة للحدود في فلسطين بعد العام 1994

Objectives: This paper seeks to explore the role of immigration in the growth of the “modern” Palestinian city. Specifically, this paper attempts to clarify the impact of asylum in 1948, displacement in 1967, and return migration after 1994 in re-forming the economic elite in the countries of asylum and diaspora, and then establishing economic networks that contributed to the economic growth of the city of Ramallah. Methods: This paper was based on a set of in-depth interviews conducted with fifteen elite investors in Jordan and the West Bank, specifically in Ramallah. Results: The paper concluded that the forced displacement of Palestinians in 1948 and 1967 scattered the economic elite that was concentrated in the coastal cities, specifically in Jaffa and Haifa, and destroyed the agricultural and industrial economy there. The economic elite was partially able to recover itself, especially in Jordan, and part of it built itself from scratch, as higher education and vocational training were able to create an economic elite. With the formation of the Palestinian National Authority after 1994, some of the elite’s owners were able to return and invest in the West Bank, especially in the city of Ramallah, where the authority’s institutions, ministries and foreign institutions are concentrated. The returnees’ investments were characterized as commercial services linked to the global market, lacking agricultural and industrial productivity. Conclusion: Economic networks are considered one of the most important networks that connect the Palestinian diaspora and the homeland, but they are weak because of their connection .

The Gulf-Israeli normalization, Causes and Results

For several decades, the Arab region has witnessed Western pressure to normalize Arab-Israeli relations. These pressures come in the context of the Western commitment to support Israel and led to the launch of the settlement process with Egypt in 1978, then the Palestinian Authority and Jordan in 1993 and 1994. However, the path did not produce many processes of reintegrating ‘Israel’ into the Arab region. After the American occupation of Iraq in 2003, most Arab countries found themselves facing internal and regional pressure to accept American offers for normalization with Israel.
 The so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ 2018-2020 is the largest step through which the United States sought to integrate ‘Israel’ into the region. This deal was marketed under the title of the existence of common regional threats that require normalization and cooperation, and it resulted in the accepting of four Arab countries: the Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco.
 This normalization process may lead to one of the following possibilities:
 
 Ending the existence of the Palestinian issue and accelerating the emergence of ‘Israel’ as a state integrated into the Arab regional system.
 The failure of the process of integrating “Israel” into the region and the re-emergence of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
 The continuation of the Palestinian issue for a longer period due to the complications associated with it.
 
 
 The last option is the most likely, despite the ongoing political and media obfuscation attempts on the Palestinian issue in the short run.

Состояние и факторы развития международного туризма в странах Ближнего Востока

Development of international tourism is a key direction for economic diversity of Middle Eastern countries. It provides favorable long-time economic aspects and enhances positive image of the region. The purpose of the research is to assess the current state and identify the factors of development of international tourism in the Middle East in order to validate priorities for tourism development applying specific features of each country. Based on comprehensive analysis of the main indicators of tourism, authors identified significant differentiation among countries and different contributions of tourism service exports to the development of national economies. The largest contribution of tourism service export is made by Lebanon, Jordan, Bahrain and the UAE to the national GDP and by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to the national exports. In terms of aggregate service exports the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq have the highest contributions. The leading countries in the region are the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, which account for two-thirds of the tourism service exports in the Middle East. Based on determining the average values for the region for each indicator, the authors ranked countries into "above average" and "below average" groups to account for the specific characteristics of tourism development in each country. Through the analysis, the authors justified and classified positive and destructive factors of tourism development in the region. The following priorities for tourism development were formulated for countries: focusing on the development of modern tourism infrastructure, especially in Yemen, Lebanon, Bahrain, and Kuwait; promoting tourist attractions; restoring tourist trust in the region's security (Syria, Iraq, Palestinian Authority, Israel, etc.); diversifying the tourism product (UAE, Qatar, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia); providing comprehensive services (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain); deepening intergovernmental cooperation and creating a joint regional tourism product (for all countries in the region).

The new Palestinian textbooks: A strategy for national identity and self‐determination

AbstractAs part of an effort to establish a national identity within the education sector, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) revised its 2018/2019 textbooks. This study seeks to understand the motivation behind the revisions, focusing on how the new content depict ‘the self’ and ‘the other’. Through our analysis, it was discovered that the textbooks should be seen as an extension of the Palestinian struggle for nation‐building and self‐determination. The PNA's strategy to curricula development represents a departure from the previous Oslo framework with a focus on historical Palestine and defining ‘the other’ on their own terms.

A telemetry study shows that an endangered nocturnal avian species roosts in extremely dry habitats to avoid predation

Describing animal space use is essential for understanding their ecological needs and for planning effective conservation schemes. Notably, certain biomes and life histories are understudied due to methodological challenges in tracking animals in their natural habitats. Specifically, both arid environments and nocturnal species are not sufficiently researched compared to diurnal species and to other biomes. This knowledge gap hinders our ability to properly prioritize habitats for species protection in areas undergoing human-related development. Here, we investigate the movement ecology of the Egyptian Nightjar (Caprimulgus aegyptius) in the arid Dead-sea region of Israel, the Palestinian Authority (the West Bank) and Jordan. This nocturnal insectivore is a cryptic desert-dweller and was considered locally extinct until it was rediscovered in 2016. For this work we tracked twelve individuals using GPS tags to determine how this resource-poor environment affects their home range, (predicting large areas), habitat use, and day-roost ecology. We found that the tracked Egyptian Nightjars had a much larger home range area than other Nightjar species, commuting nightly between foraging grounds and day-roosts. We found, as expected, intensive foraging activity at agricultural fields, where artificial irrigation likely supports higher resource (insect) density. Additionally, we found that individuals showed very high roosting site fidelity, often returning to the same specific site, located in extremely dry and exposed habitats, presumably for predator avoidance. This finding highlights the ecological value of these barren habitats that are often considered “lifeless” and therefore of lower priority for conservation. Consequently, our research demonstrates the importance of describing the space-use of nocturnal animals in arid habitats for conservation efforts.

The Palestinian youth of East Jerusalem – between Palestinian and Israeli identity

Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem after the 1967 War, created a complicated reality – especially for the residents of East Jerusalem, a population of 70,000 people at the time of the annexation. There are approximately 120,000 Palestinian youth in Jerusalem between the ages of 15–29 who make up approximately 30 per cent of the Arab population living in Jerusalem. Carrying out a trend analysis among Palestinian youth who live in Jerusalem is extremely complex. The purpose of this research is to point out the complex circumstances of the lives of the Palestinian youth who are living relatively satisfactory economic lives under Israeli rule. They are between Palestinian and Israeli identity, which contradict each other. Are the Palestinian youth in Jerusalem a part of the Palestinian minority in Israel, or, perhaps, they are a part of the youth of the West Bank which is partially under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA)? show

Depoliticised humanitarianism: critiquing the effectiveness of international aid for the Bedouin communities in the Jerusalem periphery

ABSTRACT Since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, Palestine has been the subject and recipient of significant humanitarian and development aid. This article critiques the humanitarian and developmental assistance provided by major donors in Palestine, with a particular focus on the E-1 area in the central West Bank, highlighting its depoliticisation and the misdiagnosis of the context of Palestine as a post-conflict situation, and showing how aid has had an adverse effect on Palestinians. This article, drawing on the Do No Harm approach, argues that aid has not only been ineffective in achieving its stated goals, but has also harmed Palestinians by entrenching the occupation and advancing settler colonialism.

تأثي ُر ال ح و كمة في اإلدار ة المحلي ة الفلسطينية نح و بنا ء قدرا ت اإلدار ة المحلي ة وتقلي ص الفساد في عه د السلط ة الفلسطينية

The study aimed to identify governance in local administration, and to identify the impact of governance in local administration towards building the capacity of local administration and reducing corruption, where the problem of the study was as follows: What is the impact of governance in the Palestinian local administration towards building the capacity of local administration and reducing corruption under the Palestinian Authority? The researcher also adopted the historical approach in order to understand the present and predict the future, where this approach helps us to follow the course of the Palestinian local administration on the one hand and on the other hand the present can only be studied and understood through understanding and understanding the past, and also adopted the descriptive approach in order to suit them with this type of studies. The content analysis approach uses this approach to analyse the actual contents of behavioural, social, economic and political phenomena in human societies, past, present and future, and has reached several conclusions, the most important of which is that there is a significant impact of governance in the Palestinian local administration towards building and developing the capacities of the Palestinian local administration and reducing corruption, In light of the researcher's findings, a number of recommendations can be reached, the most important of which are: activating the role of citizens and civil society institutions by participating in the decision-making process and formulating the local strategy

An Overview of Blood Transfusion Services in Palestine

Blood transfusion is a vital component of the health-care system, especially considering the ongoing violent Palestinian-Israeli conflict that increases the need to maintain sufficient availability of safe blood for medical emergencies. We assessed the elements of blood transfusion services (BTS) against the guidelines of the World Health Organization guidelines to identify the achievements and gaps of the Palestinian BTS. Before the provision of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, BTS was provided by one blood bank and lacked any legislative or regulatory framework. Currently, BTS is overseen by the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH). There are 32 functional blood banks in the West Bank. Fourteen functional blood banks are overseen by MoH including the Central Blood Bank, which takes the role of a reference blood bank and 13 hospital-based blood banks. BTS in Palestine still lacks some of the major components required for a good national effective and safe BTS such as legislative and regulatory frameworks that are integrated within the national health system, defined standards and national guidelines on the clinical use of blood components, a national comprehensive quality assurance program for BTS, and a hemovigilance system to capture data on adverse events. In addition, there are no national blood donor programs or educational programs for staff in place.

Palestine

Abstract During the last year, the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, has issued more than seventy decrees-by-law, which are legislative tools that the Palestinian Basic Law allows the President to use only in cases of emergency. However, the President has never shown in any of those decrees-by-law that they were issued to face an emergency, which is an immense, imminent danger that may solely be stopped with a decree-by-law. This is a significant increase in the number of decrees-by-law that the President has issued between 2007, the year in which the coup d’état occurred in Palestine, and 2021, which amounts to thirty decrees-by-law per year. This increase might be the result of Abbas’s clique attempt to shape the legal framework of the Palestinian Authority for its own benefits, fearing that the old, ill, Palestinian President would pass away in the near future, leaving a huge vacuum behind, particularly with regards to who might be his successor, amongst all of the rivalling senior figures of the regime.

Oslo: Three Decades Later

Abstract Contrary to the commonly held belief that the 1993 Oslo Accord was a peace treaty, this article shows that it was an imbalanced interim agreement that unsurprisingly failed. Three decades later, the Israeli-Palestinian reality is marked by a massive expansion of Israel's settlement project, a gradual erasure of the Green Line, a symbiosis between Israeli security forces and the settlers, and an authoritarian and divided Palestinian leadership, with the Palestinian Authority acting as Israel's sub-contractor. Israel's regime of control also separates between Palestinian groups, with each group given a different set of limited rights. While the Oslo process had the potential to transform a predominantly ethnic struggle into a conflict over land and borders, the ramifications of the one single regime that has replaced the Oslo order cannot be underestimated. After describing these developments, the article introduces the contributions to the special issue, which add new perspectives to the still ongoing debate on the genesis, interpretation, and implications of Oslo.

Language and Conflict in East Jerusalem: Arab Teachers’ Perspectives on Learning Hebrew

This study examines East Jerusalem teachers’ perceptions of and attitudes toward acquiring and communicating in Hebrew as a second language. The context of the study is a complex education system dominated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. East Jerusalem’s education system is divided between schools supervised by Israel’s Ministry of Education and those supervised by its Palestinian Authority counterpart. Israel’s Ministry of Education requires that teachers in its East Jerusalem public schools learn basic Hebrew language and communication at an Israeli institute of higher education. This research seeks to examine a sampling of East Jerusalem teachers’ perceptions and attitudes toward acquiring Hebrew as a second language and communicating in it with the majority Jewish society. Study participants, all Arab teachers from East Jerusalem who had studied Hebrew at an Israeli college, were asked about their command and usage of Hebrew in several open-ended questions provided on a structured questionnaire that offered the respondents the ability to elaborate on their thoughts. The responses were subsequently assessed qualitatively. The study found that the participants’ willingness to learn Hebrew for daily communication purposes was motivated primarily by instrumental and pragmatic considerations. According to the findings, the participants’ communication in Hebrew was accompanied by feelings that in the process of acquiring and using the language, they were jeopardizing their sense of Palestinian identity as Palestinian citizens under Israeli rule. These perceptions arose in the context of the precarious status of East Jerusalem. The finding that national identification appears to impede second language acquisition has important implications for national language policy in similar regions.