In the near 20 years since the Oslo peace process began, Palestinians have suffered losses—socially, economically and politically—arguably not seen since 1948. This altered reality has, in recent years, been shaped by critical paradigm shifts in the way the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is understood and addressed. These shifts, particularly with regard to international acceptance of Palestine's territorial fragmentation, the imperative of ending Israel's occupation, the de facto annexation of West Bank lands to Israel, and the transformation of Palestinians into a humanitarian issue—have redefined the way the world views the conflict, diminishing the possibility of a political resolution.

This essay argues that the climate of intimidation and fear surrounding a more critical discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the United States has begun to change. Despite the obstacles that still remain, a counterdiscourse challenging dominant conceptualizations and understandings of the conflict, particularly Israel's role, has not only emerged but also gained growing legitimacy and weight. These changes can be found in academia (at all levels of the educational hierarchy), civil society, and policy circles. Some of the most dramatic changes have occurred within the U.S. Jewish community in which an oppositional movement——in part, generational——has grown increasingly strong and well organized, ending any notion of a Jewish consensus on Israel.

This essay discusses the role of the intellectual in writing on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, exploring the relationship between scholarship and politics and the writer's moral and political responsibility. A personal account based both on the literature and on the author's two decades of experience researching and writing on Palestinian-Israeli issues, the essay addresses three recurring themes——objectivity and partisanship, process, and dissent. In so doing, it challenges the essentialist positions that argue against the role of individual judgment and subjectivity in the conduct of research, especially on politically sensitive issues. The essay addresses the critical tasks of the humanist scholar who writes on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the ways in which scholarship can play both a pedagogical and moral role.

Israel's disengagement plan is widely hailed by the international community, led by the United States, as a first step toward the final resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. This essay is a refutation of that view. After presenting the current situation of Gaza as the result of deliberate Israeli policies of economic integration, deinstitutionalization, and closure, the author demonstrates how provisions of the plan itself preclude the establishment of a viable economy in the Strip. Examining the plan's implications for the West Bank, the author argues that the occupation, far from ending, will actually be consolidated. She concludes with a look at the disengagement within the context of previous agreements, particularly Oslo——all shaped by Israel's overwhelming power——and the steadily shrinking possibilities offered to the Palestinians.

The years since the Oslo agreement have seen a marked deterioration in Palestinian economic life and an accelerated de-development process. The key features of this process have been heightened by the effects of closure, the defining economic feature of the post-Oslo period. Among its results are enclavization, seen in the physical separation of the West Bank and Gaza; the weakening of economic relations between the Palestinian and Israeli economies; and growing divisions within the Palestinian labor market, with the related, emerging pattern of economic autarky. In the circumstances described, the prospects for sustained economic development are nonexistent and will remain so as long as closure continues.