Variations in Height, Weight and Body Mass Index According to Generation, Place of Residence and Region in Palestinian Territories

Introduction: The relationship between second intifada and risk factors of chronic diseases was not studied before in PalestineAims: The aims of this study is to describe differences in height , weight and BMI between different generations of Palestinians who were born at different times in the armed conflict. Also we wanted to know whether weight and height in West Bank follow any social pattern.Methods: This study was retrospective analysis of pooled data from many previous studies where participants reported their weight, height, place of residence, region in west bank and income.Results: Almost 61% of our study were females. Among female 12.8% were born before first intifada, 6.4% around first Intifada and 80.8% were born around second intifada. For males; 12.2% before first intifada, 5.7% around first intifada and 82.9% around second intifada. The generation born around second intifada had 12 cm higher height relative to generation before first intifada, 5 cm more height relative to first intifada generation (p=0.001), whereas females born before intifada had 20 Kg more weight than the generation of second intifada (p< 0.0001). In multiple regression model done for the second intifada generation weight and height were related to place of residence and income and age significantly.Conclusion: Political conflict have detrimental consequence on Palestinians wellbeing

Gendering journalistic voices for gendered political violence? Agential representations of Palestinian female suicide bombers in UK broadcast news media

In the late twentieth century, the rise of the female suicide bomber phenomenon was prevalent in Chechnya, Lebanon and Sri Lanka. Arguably, in terms of academic engagement and visibility within the wider public consciousness, the first wave of Palestinian female suicide bombers during the second intifada (2000–05) encapsulates particular notoriety in relation to the perceived deviance of Palestinian female participation in political violence. Key to this construction is the role of news media as an agent of power. This article examines coverage of Palestinian female suicide bombers during the second intifada period within the scarcely examined medium of British terrestrial broadcast news media. This article determines the impact of individual journalists' gender in producing forms of discourse that delegitimize political agency. In particular, it shall establish if female journalistic voices are complicit in communicating intersectional gendered and Orientalist frameworks.

Archaeology of the present. Israeli art after the Al-Aqsa Intifada

The Al-Aqsa Intifada was the second Palestinian uprising that took place in 2000–2005. The dramatic record of the Intifada expressing itself in waves of recurring terror attacks and the construction of the separation wall on the border between Israel and Palestine overturned the Israeli-Palestinian relationship and triggered international public opinion. The article aims to determine how those events influenced the art scene. The study performs an overview of activities and artistic phenomena which occurred from 2000 through 2015 and problematized the events of the Second Intifada in various ways. The author focuses on individual works of art by both Israeli and international artists as well as art events and exhibitions of the leading kind. The analysis shows the extensive impacts of the Intifada on the artistic environment of that time and leads the author to the conclusion of the Intifada’s prevailing role in shaping politically engaged Israeli art at the beginning of 21 century. The dramatic events came up in creating a new aesthetic of the conflict, resulted in expanding a cultural boycott of Israel as well as challenged the position of politically engaged artists of Israel.

Malta X Anniversary and COVID-19

In December 2021, the Malta X Conference “Frontiers of Science: Innovation, Research and Education in the Middle East—A Bridge to Peace” will mark the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Malta Conferences. The first Malta Conference was held on the island of Malta in 2003 amidst the height of the Second Intifada. Since then, the Malta Conferences Foundation (MCF) has been a pioneer in using science diplomacy as a bridge to peace and sustainable development in the Middle East [1]. MCF uses science diplomacy to advance the following four UN Sustainable Development Goals: 1. Ensure inclusive and quality education for all (Goal 4) 2. Ensure access of Water and Sanitation for all (Goal 6) 3. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern Energy for all (Goal 7), and 4. Promote Peace and Justice, as well as inclusive societies (Goal 16). In 2016, MCF received the UN NOVUS Summit award for Goal 16: Peace and Justice [2]. The Summit was held in the UN General Assembly.

Palestinian Transnational Social Field and Diaspora Entrepreneurs

This chapter and the following Chapter 7 are interconnected as they both discuss Palestinian diaspora mobilizations. This chapter focuses on the transnational social field and the four types of diaspora entrepreneurs connected not simply to the West Bank and Gaza but also to Jerusalem, Palestinian camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and other fragile states in the Middle East. The 1948 ‘great dispersal’ of Palestinians became a pivotal point for refugee migration and subsequent commemoration in the diaspora. The PLO secularist nationalist movement and Islamic movements have developed rich exile politics since the 1970s–1980s. The 1993 Oslo Accords presented an opportunity for embedding the diaspora-based PLO into homeland territory and establishing an internationally endorsed local government under PNA leadership. Islamic networks existed in parallel, drawing more strength from the failed peace process and gaining momentum with the second intifada after 2000. It paved the way for Hamas to win elections in 2006 and establish alternative governance in Gaza, which has been disputed ever since. The polarization of domestic politics was transposed to the diaspora. There are many disagreements in this field on what is the main goal of the Palestinian cause beyond ending occupation of the Palestinian territories. For some, achieving statehood is important, advocating either a two-state or a one-state solution. For others, a solution for refugee return needs to be prioritized. This chapter presents data on migration in the Palestinian field, in the Middle East and globally, and specifies the individual profiles of Palestinian diaspora entrepreneurs.

Hard traveling: unemployment and road infrastructure in the shadow of political conflict

If political circumstances are an important cause of unemployment in the Middle East, does this tend to attenuate the influence of economic infrastructure? I approach this question by building a geospatial dataset of the West Bank, an area with high unemployment arguably linked to political problems. I find Israeli army road obstacles, deployed during the Second Intifada, obstructed peri-urban Palestinian commuters from accessing commercial centers and border crossings, inflicting employment losses that were substantially offset by employment gains among their more centrally located Palestinian competitors. The findings suggest that marginal economic interventions, such as removing obstacles or paving roads, have a good chance of altering the spatial distribution of unemployment, but may struggle to reduce overall unemployment levels absent political reform.

Evolution of the International Movement Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions – BDS

The article describes insight into the factors and conditions influencing the formation of the international movement BDS including its key subjects and its most effective strategies for achieving all the goals identified. From the authors’ point of view Israel itself, by its extremely cruel and asymmetric measures against the Palestinian resistance to occupation during the second intifada stimulated the rise of the BDS movement popularity and as well as anti-Israeli tendencies in Western democracies. Another, no less important reason for the formation of the BDS is the failure of the peace process for the solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in accordance with the agreements reached in Oslo. Under these complicated circumstances, Palestinian Arab civil society has called on the international community to end the Israeli occupation. The study provided a thorough overview of the main financial sources of the movement. The use of funds from the EU community budget, national budgets of a number of Western states, the largest charitable foundations, etc. is stated. The authors analyze the reasons for the popularity of the movement at the beginning of the 21st century, including in some structural divisions of the UN and the European Union. Special attention is focusing on measures to counter the movement by Israel, the US and some European states. In the conclusion, the study identifies and characterizes the current status of the movement, which is steadily losing its adherents at all levels, including academic and confessional spheres.

Trauma Processing in Israel’s Contemporary Documentary Cinema

This article investigates a new phenomenon in contemporary Israeli documentary cinema: the processing of war trauma. For the first time since the onset of the Second Intifada, films whose heroes suffer from PTSD are dealing with the processing of past experience. Using case studies, the article analyzes films directed by PTSD victims, which deal with the processing of war trauma, including among others One Battle Too Many (Joel Sharon, 2013) and Closed Story (Micha Livne, 2015). The films’ heroes are seeking to free themselves from the amnesia that is concealing the traumatic events deep within their memory. They manage to locate the repressed memory and then weave the traumatic story anew. The films propose various cinematic strategies for processing trauma, strategies that are meant to demarcate both the subjective traumatic past and the objective safe present and to place a defined aesthetic border between them. The films are analyzed by means of close reading of the cinematic aesthetic and the discussion of trauma in the Humanities. The interweaving of unrealistic and realistic symbolization practices dismantles the classic form of documentary cinema and facilitates an encounter between the viewer and the overwhelming nature of trauma.