Palestinian State Research Articles

Canada’s economic assistance to the OPT: ideology, politics, and flawed responses

ABSTRACT While Canada has been providing development assistance to the Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) since 1993, its economic development assistance program took shape in 2007 after the formation of the Palestinian technocratic government. Even though the Canadian government had access to substantial analysis regarding the most significant impediments to the economic development of the OPT, its chosen areas of focus were informed more by its ideology, politics towards the region, and a belief in maintaining a viable economy until such time that efforts to work out the political issues related to illegal settlements, access and movement, borders, and the final formation of a Palestinian state bear fruit. As demonstrated, Canada’s actions, along with that of other donors, have allowed for Israel to continue undertaking actions that have a significant economic cost for Palestinians and that make adequate economic development impossible and a long-term viable Palestinian economy less likely.

1988 – Palestinian Declaration of Independence: A Tale of Poetry and Statehood

In 2018 Palestine instituted proceedings against the United States of America before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an alleged breach of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (VCDR) after the US administration had relocated its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Palestine argues that Jerusalem is outside Israeli state territory and thus outside the ‘receiving state’ of the diplomatic mission. The US, however, had already stated in 2014, when Palestine acceded to the VCDR that Palestine did not qualify as a sovereign state and thus was not capable of acceding to the VCDR. Thus, the background to this dispute is the question of Palestinian statehood and the territorial boundaries of that state. 30 years prior to the start of the proceedings before the ICJ, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) had declared the independence of Palestine. As part of a series on “100 Years in Review: 10 Stories of International law”, this article revisits the Declaration of independence of 1988 and analyzes whether a Palestinian state has emerged under international law. First, this article provides a brief historical background to the territorial dispute that eventually ushered in the Declaration of Independence. Secondly, it highlights the relevant passages of the Declaration of Independence. Thirdly, it addresses the relevant theoretical legal underpinnings of the Declaration of Independence (self-determination and statehood). Finally, the article addresses whether Palestine fulfilled the criteria of statehood in 1988 or at a later stage.

Review

Review

The Implementation of Human Rights Conventions at the National Level: The Case of Palestine

The accession of the State of Palestine to seven core human rights conventions provides an opportunity for lawyers and judges for implementing those conventions at the domestic level, especially in a plural legal system with multiple traditions that contradict international standards. Lawyers may plead before courts to apply such conventions by relying on the interpretation endorsed by United Nations treaty bodies: general comments, concluding observations, and decisions on individual complaints. Lawyers and other legal practitioners may refer to reports of human rights Special Rapporteurs, along with the juridical interpretation methods, including official/authentic languages, preparatory works, historical sources, along with scholars’ opinions. This article deals with the relationship between international human rights conventions and domestic law in Palestine. Each section presents the measures that have been taken by Palestine in relation with the UN monitoring committees and comprises two hypothetical examples as cases to demonstrate the convention’s relation to existing legislation and practices.

Review of Uri Bialer, <em>Israeli Foreign Policy: A People Shall Not Dwell Alone</em>

Review of Uri Bialer, Israeli Foreign Policy: A People Shall Not Dwell Alone Daniel C. Kurtzer (bio) Keywords Israel, foreign policy, Zionism “Israel has no foreign policy, only a defense policy with international implications.” —Moshe Dayan “Israel has no foreign policy, only domestic politics.” —Henry Kissinger In the relatively few studies of Israel’s foreign policy conducted to date, much has been made of the centrality of domestic politics and national security concerns as driving forces. Why this should seem strange is a mystery, for the same could be said of almost every country: the centrality of securing the state and the degree to which domestic politics have an impact on what a state does are self-evident. Why, then, do the same characteristics appear to be more important when applied to Israel? There are at least three reasons why Israel’s pursuit of its national interests abroad may seem different from that of other countries. First and foremost, Israel has since 1948, and indeed even earlier, defined itself as a state under constant threat of extinction. The Zionist struggle for legitimacy during the British Mandate was marked by periodic mini-wars with the Palestinian Arabs who sought to destroy the Zionist movement and expel those who, in their view, had dispossessed them from their land. Immediately after the United Nations decision to support the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine, the Zionists faced war, first [End Page 95] from their Palestinian neighbors and then, after Israel’s declaration of independence, from five Arab nations. Arab enmity toward the very existence of Israel has been a constant feature in Israeli thinking and policymaking. The persistent fear that the next Holocaust is just around the corner cannot be dismissed lightly. To be sure, Israel has become the dominant military power in the region, and its economic strength is unchallenged. The gap is undoubtedly growing, given Israel’s world-class high technology sector. These strengths, however, are offset by a pervasive sense of existential concern. It is therefore unsurprising that security concerns not only dominate Israeli thinking but also inform virtually all aspects of its foreign relations. A second factor explaining the dominating role of security in the formulation and execution of Israeli foreign policy is the weakness of Israel’s foreign ministry and the degree to which Israel’s intelligence agencies have played an outsized role in conducting Israeli relations abroad. Even a cursory Google search of books on the subject reveals a preponderance of titles related to the activities of the Mossad, and a paucity of titles assessing the role of the foreign ministry. Israel has had some very professional and astute diplomats, but their impact on Israeli policy formulation and implementation has been far less prominent than that of their intelligence counterparts. No single volume can address this anomaly or correct the record with regard to how Israeli foreign policy is developed and executed. A good place to start, however, is Uri Bialer’s overview of Israeli foreign policy, a single address for the student and layperson interested in the history, dynamics and challenges of Israel’s efforts to secure its place among the family of nations. Bialer, a well-respected scholar, has drawn his information primarily from secondary sources, and he has integrated a vast amount of material in a readable volume that brings the story primarily into the 1990s, that is, the latest years accessible to historians in Israel’s classified archives. In his examination of the broad sweep of Israel’s national interests and policies, Bialer addresses a number of subjects that have long deserved analysis. For example, he devotes an early chapter to the diplomacy of the Yishuv, the community of Zionist and non-Zionist Jews who populated Palestine during the British Mandate. A substantial number of scholarly and popular books and articles have been published on daily life, Jewish immigration and land purchases, Zionist efforts to organize a government-in-waiting, origins of the Israeli army, and the like. Diplomacy has been a largely neglected topic, notwithstanding the prodigious efforts of such notables as Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion to navigate the halls [End Page...

Inter-State Communication Submitted by the State of Palestine against State of Israel (U.N. Comm'n on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination)

On December 12, 2019, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (the Committee) issued its decision on the question of jurisdiction in the inter-state communication submitted by the State of Palestine against Israel. It is among the three first inter-state communications ever before human rights treaty bodies and therefore sets numerous precedents on matters of procedure and in this case, on the question of jurisdiction and the unique nature of the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (the Convention)—the first of a series of treaties codifying and expanding the scope of human rights law.

Offline: A different kind of lockdown

In April, 2019, Dr Mai Alkaila became the first woman to be appointed Minister of Health in the occupied Palestinian territory. An obstetrician and gynaecologist by training, she later earned a PhD in health policy and systems. But she also had a taste for diplomacy and has served the State of Palestine as Ambassador to Chile and Italy. Perfect credentials, one might imagine, for a role that comes with already delicate political challenges. And then the COVID-19 pandemic struck. How was a divided land and a divided government under occupation going to handle a health emergency that was confounding even the most united of democracies? Last week The Lancet Palestinian Health Alliance held a virtual workshop to review the COVID-19 pandemic from local Palestinian and regional perspectives. The health system across the territory—the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem—is fractured. Services are delivered through a patchwork of providers: the Ministry of Health, the UN Relief and Works Agency, non-governmental organisations, and the private sector. Despite this fragmentation, Dr Alkaila described how Palestine enjoys high primary and secondary care coverage—for example, 749 primary care centres, almost two-thirds run by her Ministry of Health. The country's health indicators bear good comparison with other Arab nations in the region. Life expectancy is 74 years in Palestine, whereas the regional average is 71·4 years. When COVID-19 struck in China, Dr Alkaila set three goals. First, to ensure the continuity of essential health services. Second, to provide specific preventive and diagnostic services for COVID-19. And third, to strengthen the health system in preparation for COVID-19. She set up a command and control crisis management apparatus—the National Emergency Committee—that coordinated surveillance, health system responses, emergency protocols, and research. Crisis management teams were set up at district level. And WHO's Office for the occupied Palestinian territory, led by Gerald Rockenschaub, provided additional technical assistance. The first cases of COVID-19 were reported in March. Sporadic spread with small clusters of cases took place from April to June, but community transmission took grip in July. Clear and consistent communication to ensure community awareness has been a high priority, with print, social media, radio, and television campaigns to emphasise the importance of personal hygiene, physical distancing, and self-isolation if contacted. Triage and quarantine centres were set up in each Palestinian governorate. A mobile app was developed—Amankom: Fight Covid-19 in Palestine—for contact tracing. Laboratory testing capacity was expanded. Seven special treatment centres were built to create over 600 COVID-19 beds. Intensive care capacity was increased to over 150 beds and 189 ventilators. National protocols for treatment were developed with the assistance of WHO. Supplies of personal protective equipment were procured. Infection control in hospitals was strengthened. Cases began to rise in the West Bank during June, peaking in September, with most infections being reported among people aged 20–29 years. And by contrast with many other countries, women made up a majority of cases (55%). The R0 value reached almost 2 in June. It now stands at 0·95. As of Nov 3, almost 60 000 infections have been reported in the West Bank and 7000 in the Gaza Strip. These figures are likely underestimates, of course. And numbers of infected health workers are now increasing. Palestinians have faced unique challenges during the pandemic. Control of borders, restriction of movement between districts, barriers to referring patients, limited access to East Jerusalem, the geographical separation between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and worsening social determinants of health. Add to these difficulties a financial crisis for the Palestinian state, shortages of health workers, pre-existing stresses to the health system, and community resistance to the reality of the pandemic. But, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have a COVID-19 death rate of 11·2 per 100 000 persons. The UK's death rate is 73·9. In the USA, the figure is 72·6. Something has so far gone right for Palestine. Professor Abdullatif Husseini, Director of the Institute of Community and Public Health at Birzeit University, said “We are lucky.” The situation could change. But he also noted, “We learned again how to work together.”

Birinci Dünya Savaşı Öncesinde Osmanlı Devleti’nin Dış Politikasını Belirleyen Bazı Şartlar

There are many pre-war developments affecting the foreign policy of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. The issue of minorities, the Armenian Project, the Kurdistan Project, the rebellions of the Arab separatists, the project of the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine, the existence of oil in the territories of the Ottoman Empire, and so on. Each of these conditions can also be considered as the conditions affecting the causes of the First World War and the pre-war alliance attempts of the Ottoman Empire. Individual studies have also been conducted on each of these issues. It will be appreciated that the handling and examination of all these issues will far exceed the limits of an article. For this reason, in this article, only four headings of the issues affecting the foreign policy of the Ottoman Empire were discussed and examined. These; The Turkish Foreign Policy in the Historical Process, the Orient Question adopted by the western states gathered in Vienna in 1815, the views of the Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihat ve Terakki), the place and importance of it, and the Issue of Foreign Debts.

Geopolitical Challenges, Complexities, and Future Uncertainties in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Land and Population’s Perspectives

Geopolitical challenges, complexities, and future uncertainties have greatly and adversely affected all aspects of life, as well as the well-being of the Palestinian citizens living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), comprised of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. The OPT were militarily occupied by the Israeli forces in June 1967 and, since then, the Israeli military rules have been applied to the OPT. The demographic issues in the OPT have gained a great importance at the political, geopolitical, social, economic, environmental, educational, health-wise, and housing, as well as at other aspects of life. This is due to the fact that demographic issues, along with the land, are the main determinants of the Palestinian choices towards sustainable development in a future, sovereign, independent, stable, and secure state of Palestine to be established in the OPT, with East Jerusalem as its capital. So, because of the limited areas of land which Palestinians have access to; because of the limited natural resources that are available to them; and because of the narrowing of the political horizons and choices available to the Palestinians, the real Palestinian wealth in the OPT is the human being. This article investigates and analyses several geopolitical challenges, complexities, and future uncertainties in the OPT, with a focus on key demographic issues, including human trends and socioeconomic trends, which include marital status, housing, education, and health. Additionally, the article examines the historical background of the present situation. It also provides important recommendations and supporting elements towards developing Palestinian national policies related to the well-being of the Palestinian citizens and institutions within the OPT.

Geopolitical Challenges, Complexities, and Future Uncertainties in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Land and Population’s Perspectives

Geopolitical challenges, complexities, and future uncertainties have greatly and adversely affected all aspects of life, as well as the well-being of the Palestinian citizens living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), comprised of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. The OPT were militarily occupied by the Israeli forces in June 1967 and, since then, the Israeli military rules have been applied to the OPT. The demographic issues in the OPT have gained a great importance at the political, geopolitical, social, economic, environmental, educational, health-wise, and housing, as well as at other aspects of life. This is due to the fact that demographic issues, along with the land, are the main determinants of the Palestinian choices towards sustainable development in a future, sovereign, independent, stable, and secure state of Palestine to be established in the OPT, with East Jerusalem as its capital. So, because of the limited areas of land which Palestinians have access to; because of the limited natural resources that are available to them; and because of the narrowing of the political horizons and choices available to the Palestinians, the real Palestinian wealth in the OPT is the human being. This article investigates and analyses several geopolitical challenges, complexities, and future uncertainties in the OPT, with a focus on key demographic issues, including human trends and socioeconomic trends, which include marital status, housing, education, and health. Additionally, the article examines the historical background of the present situation. It also provides important recommendations and supporting elements towards developing Palestinian national policies related to the well-being of the Palestinian citizens and institutions within the OPT.

Geopolitical Challenges, Complexities, and Future Uncertainties in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Land and Population’s Perspectives

Geopolitical challenges, complexities, and future uncertainties have greatly and adversely affected all aspects of life, as well as the well-being of the Palestinian citizens living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), comprised of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. The OPT were militarily occupied by the Israeli forces in June 1967 and, since then, the Israeli military rules have been applied to the OPT. The demographic issues in the OPT have gained a great importance at the political, geopolitical, social, economic, environmental, educational, health-wise, and housing, as well as at other aspects of life. This is due to the fact that demographic issues, along with the land, are the main determinants of the Palestinian choices towards sustainable development in a future, sovereign, independent, stable, and secure state of Palestine to be established in the OPT, with East Jerusalem as its capital. So, because of the limited areas of land which Palestinians have access to; because of the limited natural resources that are available to them; and because of the narrowing of the political horizons and choices available to the Palestinians, the real Palestinian wealth in the OPT is the human being. This article investigates and analyses several geopolitical challenges, complexities, and future uncertainties in the OPT, with a focus on key demographic issues, including human trends and socioeconomic trends, which include marital status, housing, education, and health. Additionally, the article examines the historical background of the present situation. It also provides important recommendations and supporting elements towards developing Palestinian national policies related to the well-being of the Palestinian citizens and institutions within the OPT.

The judicial control over the constitutionality of laws in the State of Palestine

This article aimed to explore judicial control over the constitutionality of laws in the State of Palestine. The article problem was represented in the authority involved with judicial control over the constitutionality of laws in Palestine, and what is the legal effect of ruling on the unconstitutionality of specific legislation. The judicial control is meant the constitutional judiciary undertakes to examine the constitutionality of laws and regulations issued by the Legislative Council or the President of State, to determine whether they are in conformity with the constitution or are in violation of it. This article uses normative legal research using the legislation approach and doctrinal approach. The importance of this article is that it has been discussed the legal framework governing judicial control of the constitutionality of laws in Palestine, and sheds light on the concept of judicial control, its mechanisms, nature, and effects to ensure the protection and consolidation of constitutional texts. In order to achieve the objective of this study, the socio-legal research using the qualitative approach was engaged to describe and analyze the opinions of jurists, legal texts, and rulings of constitutional courts in Palestine. Among the most important results that the author reached is that the state of law cannot be established without adopting the principle of judicial control over the constitutionality of laws to protect the legal texts that exist within the constitution, which is the supreme law within the legislative hierarchy.

Investigating Students’ Attitudes Towards Listening and Speaking in the English Classroom at Al Istiqlal University: An Action Research

This study sought to investigate students’ attitudes towards listening and speaking in the English classroom at Al Istiqlal University. The researchers noticed that freshmen students at Al Istiqlal University were de-motivated and reluctant to get involved in listening and speaking activities in the English classroom. One root cause may be students’ prior experience of learning English in Palestinian state schools where Arabic is the dominant language (Hamdallah, 1999) and where there may be little provision of speaking and listening to English. The researchers sought to experiment with innovative teaching methods to address these problems. These included using group work, giving students clearly defined roles, using technological applications and drawing on students’ personal lives as strategies to motivate students and change their attitudes towards listening and speaking activities. A stratified–purposeful sample consisting of 18 freshman students was selected. The researchers used a quantitative approach to measure changes. The researchers also used qualitative instrument for the purpose of the study. A questionnaire was administered at the beginning and end of the study to determine changes in students’ attitudes. Also, interviews were organized to decide and get comments on the influence of the strategies which were used. Results indicated that there was a significant difference in students’ attitudes towards listening and speaking activities in English class. When the researchers used different strategies such as: role plays cards, group activities, technology and different assessment forms, students expressed positive feelings, enjoyment and fun. The researchers recommend that teachers in similar university-level context should implement different strategies such as: group wok, role plays, cards, videos and some applications i.e. Padlet to motivate students bridge the gap between school life and university life. It was also found that such strategies help to change students’ attitudes to listening and speaking.

Menachem Begin and the Israel-Egypt Peace Process: Between Ideology and Political Realism

Menachem Begin and the Israel-Egypt Peace Process: Between Ideology and Political Realism

For “a no-state yet to come”: Palestinian urban place-making in Kufr Aqab, Jerusalem

This article explores Palestinians’ place-making in Jerusalem under the constant threat of displacement and dispossession. I center my focus on Kufr Aqab, a neighborhood that was cut off from Jerusalem by the construction of Wall in 2003 while remaining inside the borders of the city’s municipality. After 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the borders of Jerusalem’s municipality expanded and Kufr Aqab village was annexed as a neighborhood inside Jerusalem’s newly formed borders. Since its occupation, a matrix of displacement and dispossession consisting of policies and practices was put in place to oversee the domination of the Palestinians in the city. In my research, I explore the possibilities of reconceptualizing Palestinian urban spaces and place-making in Kufr Aqab between the gap in settler-colonial governance and the Palestinian future of no-state. I show how the urban space emulates a camp-like space that I describe as an “affective infrastructure” of a camp. Being on the Israeli settler-colonial frontier, I argue that Kufr Aqab dwellers are kept suspended in time in a liminal zone between the ghost of displaceability from the Israeli state and in a deep suspension of no-state. I conclude by suggesting that the case of Kufr Aqab speaks to the space-making, displacement, and statelessness of the present as well as futurity of the West Bank (and East Jerusalem), where the future of the Palestinian state is far from being seen in the horizon and debilitated sovereignty is exercised on a limited scale in fragmented territories of governance.

Continuing or Settled? Prosecution of Israeli Settlements under Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute

Abstract This article provides a definitional framework for the concepts of instantaneous, continuous and continuing crimes, drawing from domestic and international legal authorities and applying these definitions to article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which criminalizes transfer of population by the Occupying Power into an occupied territory. The article focuses on the interpretation of article 8(2)(b)(viii) as an instantaneous, continuous or continuing crime with reference to the Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank in order to assess whether the transfer of settlers into the West Bank prior to June 2014 – i.e. the date that the temporal jurisdiction of the ICC starts in the territory of the State of Palestine, can be investigated and prosecuted.

Comparative Analysis of Terrorists’ Objectives Hierarchies

To develop effective counterterrorism strategies, it is important to understand the capabilities and objectives of terrorist groups. Much of the understanding of these groups comes from intelligence collection and analysis of their capabilities. In contrast, the objectives of terrorists are less well understood. In this article, we describe a decision analysis methodology to identify and structure the objectives of terrorists based on the statements and writings of their leaders. This methodology was applied in three case studies, resulting in the three objectives hierarchies of al-Qaeda, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and Hezbollah. In this article, we propose a method to compare the three objectives hierarchies, highlight their key differences, and draw conclusions about effective counterterrorism strategies. We find that all three terrorist groups have a wide range of objectives going far beyond the objective of killing and terrorizing people in the non-Muslim world. Among the shared objectives are destroying Israel and expelling Western powers from the Middle East. All three groups share the ambition to become a leader in the Islamic world. Key distinctions are the territorial ambitions of ISIL and Hezbollah versus the large-scale attack objectives of al-Qaeda. Objectives specific to ISIL are the establishment of a caliphate in Iraq and Syria and the re-creation of the power of Sunni Islam. Hezbollah has unique objectives related to the establishment of a Palestine State and to maintain the relationship with and support of Iran and Syria. Al-Qaeda’s objectives remain focused on large-scale attacks in the West. We also note a recent shift to provide support for small-scale attacks in the West by both al-Qaeda and ISIL. Our method can be used for comparing objectives hierarchies of different organizations as well as for comparing objectives hierarchies over time of one organization.

Health care workers in conflict and post-conflict settings: Systematic mapping of the evidence.

Health care workers (HCWs) are essential for the delivery of health care services in conflict areas and in rebuilding health systems post-conflict. The aim of this study was to systematically identify and map the published evidence on HCWs in conflict and post-conflict settings. Our ultimate aim is to inform researchers and funders on research gap on this subject and support relevant stakeholders by providing them with a comprehensive resource of evidence about HCWs in conflict and post-conflict settings on a global scale. We conducted a systematic mapping of the literature. We included a wide range of study designs, addressing any type of personnel providing health services in either conflict or post-conflict settings. We conducted a descriptive analysis of the general characteristics of the included papers and built two interactive systematic maps organized by country, study design and theme. Out of 13,863 identified citations, we included a total of 474 studies: 304 on conflict settings, 149 on post-conflict settings, and 21 on both conflict and post-conflict settings. For conflict settings, the most studied counties were Iraq (15%), Syria (15%), Israel (10%), and the State of Palestine (9%). The most common types of publication were opinion pieces in conflict settings (39%), and primary studies (33%) in post-conflict settings. In addition, most of the first and corresponding authors were affiliated with countries different from the country focus of the paper. Violence against health workers was the most tackled theme of papers reporting on conflict settings, while workforce performance was the most addressed theme by papers reporting on post-conflict settings. The majority of papers in both conflict and post-conflict settings did not report funding sources (81% and 53%) or conflicts of interest of authors (73% and 62%), and around half of primary studies did not report on ethical approvals (45% and 41%). This systematic mapping provides a comprehensive database of evidence about HCWs in conflict and post-conflict settings on a global scale that is often needed to inform policies and strategies on effective workforce planning and management and in reducing emigration. It can also be used to identify evidence for policy-relevant questions, knowledge gaps to direct future primary research, and knowledge clusters.

Association between factor V Leiden mutation and recurrent pregnancy loss in the middle east countries: a Newcastle-Ottawa meta-analysis.

Heritable thrombophilia is a category of genetic disorders of the coagulation cascade with the increasing risk of thrombus formation and recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL). Factor V Leiden (FVL) (R506Q) mutation is the most common genetic cause of deep venous thrombosis, but its association with RPL has been inconsistent in studies arising from non-Western countries. The present metanalysis was aimed to determine whether an association exists between FVL and RPL in the Middle East. We searched PubMed, MEDLINE Web of Science, Scopus, and Embase, evaluating the association between the FVL and RPL. The Middle East countries (Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, The State of Palestine, Syria, Turkey, TheUnited Arab Emirates, and Yemen) were evaluated in succession. Raw data were extracted, and 19 case-control studies were included in our final analysis. Overall, 2513 cases and 1836 controls in the Middle East showed a prevalence of FVL mutation as 12.6% and 4.9% in patients and controls, respectively. To evaluate the relationship between FVL mutation and RPL, we used Forest plot (random effect model) with the overall random OR of 2.37 (CI 95%: 1.50-3.75). FVL mutation was associated with a higher risk of RPL. In Iran, the OR was 1.90 (95% CI 1.04-3.45), and in Turkey, the OR was 3.01 (95% CI 1.10-8.23). The results of our study support an association between FVL mutation status and RPL in women of the Middle East countries. It is recommended that specific policies include comprehensive testing for FVL mutation as a standard of care in women of the Middle East region with unexplained RPL.

The Impact of Incentives for Reconciliation in the Holy City – How International Aid for the Palestinians Contributed to the Expanding of Israeli Control over East Jerusalem

ABSTRACT This article analyses the implications of international aid for the failure of Palestinian-Israeli reconciliation in Jerusalem. Donors were motivated to contribute to efforts to reach a sustainable Palestinian-Israeli peace to be based on Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. In this article the main argument is that in practice, due to political considerations, international aid at least partially harmed the peace process and helped Israel enhance its control over East Jerusalem and harmed the efforts to reach a reconciliation in the holy city.