Palestine–Israel Journal

The journal presents politics, economics, and culture through contributions from Israeli, Palestinian, and international writers. It describes its role as providing a joint platform for debate, analysis, and dialogue, while its editors openly support a negotiated two-state solution.[2] Library and bibliographic records list the serial under variants of its full title and identify its publication history as beginning in 1994.[5][6]

The project operates through Middle East Publications, the nonprofit name adopted during its registration process.[2] A separate account of its founding describes its central purpose as broadening support for peace through dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian civil societies.[3]

The Palestine–Israel Journal was founded in early 1994 by Ziad AbuZayyad, a Palestinian journalist, and Victor Cygielman, an Israeli journalist, during the Oslo peace process.[2] In a 25th-anniversary interview, AbuZayyad recounted that the two began discussing a joint publication after his Hebrew-language Palestinian newspaper Gesher and Cygielman's Israeli peace monthly New Outlook both ceased publication around the time the Oslo Accords were signed.[2] They wanted a publication that could support the accords, encourage discussion of sensitive peace-process issues, and provide decision-makers and negotiators with material about both peoples.[2]

The inaugural issue, Volume 1, No. 1, was published in 1994 under the title “Peace Economics.” Its editorial described the publication as the first Israeli-Palestinian quarterly of its kind and stated that it would follow negotiations, examine outstanding issues, search for common ground, and, where possible, outline compromise solutions. The issue focused on economic problems and opportunities arising from changing relations between Israelis and Palestinians.[7]

Registering the organization as a nonprofit with Israel's Ministry of the Interior proved difficult. AbuZayyad recounted that the initial application was refused because the proposed name included the word “Palestine.” Following legal proceedings and a compromise, the organization was registered as Middle East Publications, while the Palestine–Israel Journal name remained in use for the publication.[2] The Library of Congress lists the serial as Palestine-Israel journal of the politics, economics and culture and names Palestine-Israel Journal as its publisher.[5]

The journal says it is produced by a joint Palestinian-Israeli team working from a single East Jerusalem office.[8] Its editorial arrangement pairs one Israeli and one Palestinian in each of two roles: editor and managing editor.[2] It also describes its 26-member editorial board as equally divided between Palestinians and Israelis and says that the board meets every six weeks.[8] Ghassan Khatib has served on its editorial board, and a biographical record describes the publication as “a political journal offering Palestinian and Israeli perspectives.”[9]

Regular issues run approximately 128 pages and are devoted to a single theme related to the conflict and relations between the two peoples; double issues can reach 200 pages or more.[8] The journal reports average circulation of about 3,500, estimates readership at roughly three times that figure, and says one third of subscribers are based in the region.[8] It describes itself as an independent publication providing background and in-depth analysis from both sides' perspectives and a forum for academics, public figures, journalists, and civil-society participants.[8]

The journal's stated political platform supports a two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living in peace along the June 4, 1967 lines and Jerusalem serving as the capital of both states.[2] Its editors have said they do not publish contributions denying either Israelis' or Palestinians' right to exist. They also exclude articles by Jewish settlers in what the interview calls the Occupied Palestinian Territory because they regard the settlements and settlers as part of the infrastructure of Israeli military occupation.[2] These are the journal's declared editorial positions.

Since its first issue, the journal has addressed subjects connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its regional context. Abbas Shiblak's 1995 article “A Time of Hardship and Agony: Palestinian Refugees in Libya” appeared in volume 2, number 4.[10] Another cited item was “A U.N. Report: Economic Conditions in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — and the Gaza Strip,” published in volume 6, number 2 in 1999.[11]

An article titled “The Arab Image in Hebrew School Textbooks” appeared in volume 8, issue 2 (2001), pages 5–18.[12] It was later reproduced in Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism, edited by Hillel Schenker and Ziad Abu-Zayyad and published by Markus Wiener Publishers in Princeton; the book is cataloged as “A Palestine-Israel Journal book.”[12][13] Other documented subjects include children and violence in Palestinian society and land-related questions in Israeli law and policy.[14][15] The journal has also published material on women, youth as peacemakers, and life under occupation.[1]

Volume 24, issues 3–4 (2019) included “The Holocaust and the Nakba: Memory, National Identity and Jewish-Arab Partnership.”[4] Its 2008 double issue, Volume 15, Numbers 1 and 2, was titled “1948: Sixty Years After.”[16] Refereed academic work has appeared in its pages: Yitzhak Reiter's 2017/18 article “How to Live Together with the Clashing Narratives over the Holy Places” is categorized under articles in refereed journals in his publication record.[17] Tel Aviv University professor Khaled Furani published book reviews in the journal in volumes 12–13 (2005–2006) and volume 25 (2020).[18]

A 2018 terrorism-research bibliography separately lists the journal as a serial beginning in 1994 and names Ziad AbuZayyad and Hillel Schenker as editors.[6] Together with the academic publication records, this documents the journal's role as both a publication venue and a source cited in wider research.

The journal is published by Middle East Publications, which it identifies as an Israeli nonprofit with registration number 58-023862-4.[8] It has received international grant funding for dialogue activities. NGO Monitor records a European Commission grant awarded to Middle East Publications / Palestine–Israel Journal for 2004/5 under the title “Bridging the Dialogue Gap.” The listed action location was the West Bank and Israel, the duration was 24 months, the grant amounted to EUR 499,853, and it represented 80% of eligible action costs.[16]

After the Oslo process failed to produce a final agreement, the editors said the journal broadened its scope beyond direct support for negotiations to address wider issues affecting the future of both peoples.[2] They also described restrictions on movement and permits, opposition to joint activity, and declining international funding as practical difficulties facing Israeli-Palestinian cooperation. These are the editors' account of the pressures on the publication.[2]

NGO Monitor criticized the journal's 2008 double issue “1948: Sixty Years After” as presenting the Nakba “from a narrow Palestinian perspective only.” It argued that the Israeli contributors were left-wing and highly critical of Israeli policies and concluded that the issue “does not encourage mutual understanding and compromise.”[16] These are NGO Monitor's evaluative claims and reflect that organization's political perspective.

The Jewish Virtual Library reports that Palestinian political activists disrupted a journal-organized meeting in East Jerusalem convened to discuss the Arab Spring's impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The account gives no calendar date for the incident, referring to it only as occurring “this week.”[3] Its description and framing remain those of the cited source rather than an independently corroborated record.

The journal's editors have also acknowledged that their platform excludes articles by Jewish settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territory because they regard settlements and settlers as part of the infrastructure of Israeli military occupation.[2] The restriction is therefore part of the journal's expressly political editorial platform rather than a claim of viewpoint neutrality.

Managing editor Susie Becher has characterized the publication as “one of the few remaining Israeli-Palestinian joint ventures of its kind.”[1] The description, together with the editors' account of permit restrictions, opposition to joint work, and funding difficulties, reflects the challenging environment in which the project has operated.[2]