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Financial dependency and a trend in donor-driven gender equality and women’s empowerment projects in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) have undoubtedly had an effect on the way in which NGOs are working and evolving: often projects are designed to fulfill donor requirements – and thereby policies - instead of creating an agenda which is politically and socially “home grown”. This paper analyses the USAID gender policy paper (as an example of foreign donor policy) and interviews conducted with legal, programme and gender experts in the oPt, exploring the challenges and gaps between policy and practice. The research uses qualitative research methods to analyze USAID discourse - exploring concepts such as representation, ideology and power - and general assumptions and perspectives towards women’s equality and empowerment in the Opt versus how this translates into practice.

Israël est l’un des pays développés les plus féconds dans le monde et maintient un taux de fécondité stable depuis 1995. Il a échappé à la chute spectaculaire de la fécondité qui a été observée dans la plupart des pays occidentaux. Le taux de fécondité était de 2,96 enfants par femme en 2009 (Statistical Abstract of Israel, 2010, tableau 3.14). Le maintien d’une si forte fécondité pourrait être dû à l’immigration et à la “guerre démographique” qui sévit entre les différentes communautés vivant dans le pays (Sardon, 2006). Toutefois, on observe une différence significative entre les niveaux de fécondité des juifs d’Israël et de Cisjordanie depuis plusieurs années. Les études qui portent sur la fécondité en Israël sont faites au niveau national, ce qui ne fournit aucune explication sur cette différence. Pour ces raisons, l’étude de la fécondité en Israël mérite une attention particulière. Ce projet vise à identifier les différents facteurs qui ont une incidence sur la fécondité des femmes juives vivant en Israël et en Cisjordanie. Il contribuera à une meilleure compréhension des comportements liés à la fécondité de la population juive de la Cisjordanie et peut fournir des indices sur les mécanismes complexes qui régissent les relations entre Juifs et Arabes dans les territoires occupés. Grâce aux données recueillies dans l’Enquête sociale générale de 2004 d’Israël,des analyses descriptives et explicatives ont été produites. Dans un premier temps, les facteurs qui ont un impact sur la fécondité dans chaque région ont été déterminés et par la suite, une analyse de l’importance de ces facteur sur la fécondité a été produite. Le nombre d’enfants nés de femmes âgées de 20 à 55 ans constitue la variable d’intérêt et les variables explicatives retenues sont les suivantes: religiosité, éducation, revenu familial mensuel, statut d’emploi, pays d’origine, âge et état matrimonial. Cette étude a montré que les femmes juives qui résident en Cisjordanie ont un nombre prévu d’enfants de 13% supérieur à celui des femmes juives qui résident en Israël lorsque l’on contrôle toutes les variables. Il est notamment montré que la religion joue un rôle important dans l’explication de la forte fécondité des femmes juives dans les deux régions, mais son impact est plus important en Israël. L’éducation joue également un rôle important dans la réduction du nombre prévu d’enfants, en particulier en Cisjordanie. Tous ces facteurs contribuent à expliquer les différents niveaux de fécondité dans les deux régions, mais l’étude montre que ces facteurs ne permettent pas une explication exhaustive de la forte fécondité en Israël et en Cisjordanie. D’autres forces qui ne sont pas mesurables doivent avoir une incidence sur la fécondité telles que le nationalisme ou la laïcisation, par exemple. / Israel is one of the most fertile developed countries in the world and has had a stable fertility rate since 1995. The country avoided the dramatic fall in fertility that has been observed in most Western countries. The fertility rate was of 2.96 children per woman in 2009 (Statistical Abstract of Israel, 2010, table 3.14). Maintaining such a high fertility level could be due to immigration and the “demographic war” between the different communities living in the country (Sardon, 2006). However, a significant difference between the levels of fertility of the jewish population of Israel and the West Bank has been observed for several years. In the literature, studies of fertility in Israel are conducted at a national level, which neither reveals nor explains the difference. Accordingly, Israel’s high fertility deserves a particular attention. This project aims to identify the different factors that affect the fertility of Jewish women living in Israel and in the West Bank. It will contribute to a better understanding of the fertility behavior of the Jewish population of the West Bank and may shed light on the complex mechanisms that govern the relations between Jews and Arabs in the Occupied Territories. With data collected in the General Social Survey of Israel of 2004, descriptive and explanatory analyses were produced. In the first part, factors influencing fertility in each region have been determined and an analysis of the importance of each factor on fertility was conducted in the second part. The outcome of interest is the number of children ever born to women aged 20 to 55 and the independent variables are: religiosity, education, monthly family income, employment status, country of origin, age and marital status. This study showed that Jewish women residing in the West Bank have an expected number of children 13% higher than their counterparts residing in Israel. It is also shown that the intensity of religious interest plays an important role in explaining the high fertility of Jewish women in both regions but its impact is more important in Israel. Education also plays an important role in reducing the expected number of children, especially in the West Bank. All of these factors contribute to explaining the different fertility levels in the two regions but the study shows that these factors do not provide an exhaustive explanation of higher fertility in the West Bank. There must be other forces that have an impact on fertility but which are not measurable such as nationalism or secularization, for example.

Over the years the Madrid Peace Conference has been relegated to paragraphs within history books and the importance of the conference seems to have been all but forgotten. While this may be due to the perceived failure of the talks to produce tangible peace negotiations, what one must take into consideration is the fact that neither the Oslo Accords nor the more recent “Road Map” to peace would have been possible if it were not for that first steps taken in Madrid. One must also not forget the diplomacy and countless man hours that were put forth with tireless effort to achieve the goal of a peace conference that would be attended by all desired participants. When studying the Madrid Conference, one must look not only at the conference itself and the rhetoric conveyed by the delegates but also at their personalities and relationships with each other.

In the beginning of the 2000s, Israeli policies in the West Bank shifted from policies of control to policies of separation, which in turn led to the Transformation of West Bank communities into isolated urban islands. Current plans prepared for Palestinian localities by Palestinian planning institutions most often address these isolated islands without taking into account the Israeli-controlled areas surrounding these localities. Palestinians envision the entire West Bank as a contiguous area that will eventually form part of the Palestinian national state. However, most Palestinian plans take the boundaries imposed by Israel as a given and plan only for areas within the Israeli-controlled areas. This dissertation is about the Palestinian planning processes in the West Bank in an attempt to assess whether these processes are or could counteract Israeli plans of separation. Upon extensive research, it was found that Palestinian planning institutions have a very limited impact in countering Israeli plans. The only counter-planning activity that can be observed is the Palestinian National Authority’s latest orientation to plan in Palestinian areas classified as Area C (found in areas under complete Israeli Control). The aforementioned lack of counter-planning activities can be attributed to the inefficiency of a legal framework, lack of vision, lack of coordination, and deficiencies within Palestinian planning institutions.

Israël est l’un des pays développés les plus féconds dans le monde et maintient un taux de fécondité stable depuis 1995. Il a échappé à la chute spectaculaire de la fécondité qui a été observée dans la plupart des pays occidentaux. Le taux de fécondité était de 2,96 enfants par femme en 2009 (Statistical Abstract of Israel, 2010, tableau 3.14). Le maintien d’une si forte fécondité pourrait être dû à l’immigration et à la “guerre démographique” qui sévit entre les différentes communautés vivant dans le pays (Sardon, 2006). Toutefois, on observe une différence significative entre les niveaux de fécondité des juifs d’Israël et de Cisjordanie depuis plusieurs années. Les études qui portent sur la fécondité en Israël sont faites au niveau national, ce qui ne fournit aucune explication sur cette différence. Pour ces raisons, l’étude de la fécondité en Israël mérite une attention particulière. Ce projet vise à identifier les différents facteurs qui ont une incidence sur la fécondité des femmes juives vivant en Israël et en Cisjordanie. Il contribuera à une meilleure compréhension des comportements liés à la fécondité de la population juive de la Cisjordanie et peut fournir des indices sur les mécanismes complexes qui régissent les relations entre Juifs et Arabes dans les territoires occupés. Grâce aux données recueillies dans l’Enquête sociale générale de 2004 d’Israël,des analyses descriptives et explicatives ont été produites. Dans un premier temps, les facteurs qui ont un impact sur la fécondité dans chaque région ont été déterminés et par la suite, une analyse de l’importance de ces facteur sur la fécondité a été produite. Le nombre d’enfants nés de femmes âgées de 20 à 55 ans constitue la variable d’intérêt et les variables explicatives retenues sont les suivantes: religiosité, éducation, revenu familial mensuel, statut d’emploi, pays d’origine, âge et état matrimonial. Cette étude a montré que les femmes juives qui résident en Cisjordanie ont un nombre prévu d’enfants de 13% supérieur à celui des femmes juives qui résident en Israël lorsque l’on contrôle toutes les variables. Il est notamment montré que la religion joue un rôle important dans l’explication de la forte fécondité des femmes juives dans les deux régions, mais son impact est plus important en Israël. L’éducation joue également un rôle important dans la réduction du nombre prévu d’enfants, en particulier en Cisjordanie. Tous ces facteurs contribuent à expliquer les différents niveaux de fécondité dans les deux régions, mais l’étude montre que ces facteurs ne permettent pas une explication exhaustive de la forte fécondité en Israël et en Cisjordanie. D’autres forces qui ne sont pas mesurables doivent avoir une incidence sur la fécondité telles que le nationalisme ou la laïcisation, par exemple. / Israel is one of the most fertile developed countries in the world and has had a stable fertility rate since 1995. The country avoided the dramatic fall in fertility that has been observed in most Western countries. The fertility rate was of 2.96 children per woman in 2009 (Statistical Abstract of Israel, 2010, table 3.14). Maintaining such a high fertility level could be due to immigration and the “demographic war” between the different communities living in the country (Sardon, 2006). However, a significant difference between the levels of fertility of the jewish population of Israel and the West Bank has been observed for several years. In the literature, studies of fertility in Israel are conducted at a national level, which neither reveals nor explains the difference. Accordingly, Israel’s high fertility deserves a particular attention. This project aims to identify the different factors that affect the fertility of Jewish women living in Israel and in the West Bank. It will contribute to a better understanding of the fertility behavior of the Jewish population of the West Bank and may shed light on the complex mechanisms that govern the relations between Jews and Arabs in the Occupied Territories. With data collected in the General Social Survey of Israel of 2004, descriptive and explanatory analyses were produced. In the first part, factors influencing fertility in each region have been determined and an analysis of the importance of each factor on fertility was conducted in the second part. The outcome of interest is the number of children ever born to women aged 20 to 55 and the independent variables are: religiosity, education, monthly family income, employment status, country of origin, age and marital status. This study showed that Jewish women residing in the West Bank have an expected number of children 13% higher than their counterparts residing in Israel. It is also shown that the intensity of religious interest plays an important role in explaining the high fertility of Jewish women in both regions but its impact is more important in Israel. Education also plays an important role in reducing the expected number of children, especially in the West Bank. All of these factors contribute to explaining the different fertility levels in the two regions but the study shows that these factors do not provide an exhaustive explanation of higher fertility in the West Bank. There must be other forces that have an impact on fertility but which are not measurable such as nationalism or secularization, for example.

Wind resource assessment studies have been conducted in the Israeli side and the Palestinian side before; however, the previous studies were restricted with the political border either Palestinian or Israeli except one of them that was based on measurements dated to 1940-1983 (R. Shabbaneh & A. Hasan, 1997). Moreover, the studies were performed years ago, with simple techniques and based on old data (R. Shabbaneh & A. Hasan, 1997). Hence, the needs for a new study that is based on updated data, and using updated model is highly demanded. This study is intended to perform wind resource assessment in Palestine/Israel; the study has used two stages of assessment, primary one based on reference station data on both sides, Israeli and Palestinian. The second stage of wind resource assessment is based on WindPRO software. The wind resource assessment ends up with identifying sites with higher potential that are situated in four selected sites, North of Palestine/Israel, North of West-bank, Jerusalem, and Eilat, the higher potential was in Eilat area bearing mean wind speed of 9.88m/s at 100 m hub height.Moreover, the study recognized the importance of political situation assessment due to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Based on conducted survey, the political situation assessment concluded that international non-governmental organizations seem to be most capable of starting up wind power project in Palestine/Israel. Furthermore, the study concluded that supportive policies from both the Israeli and Palestinian governments are crucial to promote wind power projects in the region.

This essay seeks to explore to what extent Palestine can be described as a democracy. It uses political theorist Robert A. Dahl's model of Polyarchy, as laid out in his book Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, as theoretical framework, giving an account of Dahl's eight requirements for democracy, as well as his theoretical scale divided into the two dimensions liberalization and participation which allows one to determine how far a country has come in the process of democratization. A case study of Palestine is then conducted by comparing the polyarchic model with empirical findings, the central source being Freedom House. The conclusion is reached that Palestine is lacking in a number of key requirements for democracy, resulting in the classification of both the Gaza Strip as well as the West Bank as being best described as inclusive hegemonies, or near-inclusive hegemonies.

This dissertation poses a set of six questions about one of the Israel Lobby’s particular components, a Potential Christian Jewish coalition (PCJc) within American politics that advocates for Israeli sovereignty over “Judea and Samaria” (“the West Bank”). The study addresses: the profiles of the individuals of the PCJc; its policy positions, the issues that have divided it, and what has prevented, and continues to prevent, the coalition from being absorbed into one or more of the more formally organized components of the Israel Lobby; the resources and methods this coalition has used to attempt to influence U.S. policy on (a) the Middle East, and (b) the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular; the successes or failures of this coalition’s advocacy and why it has not organized; and what this case reveals about interest group politics and social movements in the United States. This dissertation follows the descriptive-analytic case-study tradition that comprises a detailed analysis of a specific interest group and one policy issue, which conforms to my interest in the potential Christian Jewish coalition that supports a Jewish Judea and Samaria. I have employed participant observation, interviewing, content analysis and documentary research. The findings suggest: The PCJc consists of Christian Zionists and mostly Jews of the center religious denominations. Orthodox Jewish traditions of separation from Christians inhibit like-minded Christians and Jews from organizing. The PCJc opposes an Arab state in Judea and Samaria, and is not absorbed into more formally organized interest groups that support that policy. The PCJc’s resources consist of support and funding from conservatives. Methods include use of education, debates and media. Members of the PCJc are successful because they persist in their support for a Jewish Judea and Samaria and meet through other organizations around Judeo-Christian values. The PCJc is deterred from advocacy and organization by a mobilization of bias from a subgovernment in Washington, D.C. comprising Congress, the Executive branch and lobby organizations. The study’s results raise questions about interest group politics in America and the degree to which the U.S. political system is pluralistic, suggesting that executive power constrains the agenda to “safe” positions it favors.

La pratique internationale montre que l'aide au développement est souvent attribuée à un État souverain, ce qui n'est pas le cas des territoires palestiniens, en dépit de leur statut d'État observateur non membre de l'ONU. La particularité du statut de la Palestine explique la nature singulière mais aussi ambivalente de l'aide de l'Union européenne, qui peut être relevée à tous les niveaux du processus de gestion. Selon les objectifs premiers, définis pour les territoires de Cisjordanie et de la Bande de Gaza, l'aide publique au développement (APD) contribue à la réalisation des accords de paix afin d'aider les protagonistes à parvenir à une solution viable en conformité avec le droit international et les résolutions de l'ONU. Pour la Communauté internationale, et tout particulièrement l'Union européenne, la «solution de deux États», israélien et palestinien, demeure la seule voie pour mettre un terme au conflit et garantir la sécurité d'Israël. Ces objectifs sont d'autant plus renforcés que depuis l'entrée en vigueur du traité de Lisbonne, la coopération au développement est devenue une compétence partagée entre l'Union et ses États membres, sa mise en œuvre étant arrêtée par le Parlement européen et le Conseil conformément à la procédure législative ordinaire. Or, une analyse fine de la structure de I' APD, objet de la présente recherche, démontre que l'Union européenne, premier donateur des territoires palestiniens de Cisjordanie et de la Bande de Gaza, n'est pas en mesure d'apporter une aide autre que financière ou humanitaire, ce qui l'empêche d'agir sur la construction d'un État palestinien, et de permettre aux territoires de se dégager de leur double dépendance à l'égard de l'aide européenne et de l'économie israélienne, notamment par la promotion de secteurs productifs. Pour autant, ces dernières années, l'Union s'efforce, certes laborieusement, de refonder son aide pour intégrer, de manière effective, le paramètre de l'occupation qui menace irrémédiablement le processus de paix. Hormis la place considérable qu'occupe le conflit proprement dit dans la mise en œuvre de I' APD, un certain nombre de contraintes, notamment d'ordre structurel et institutionnel, explique le défaut d'une stratégie établie en vue d'aider les Palestiniens et leur Autorité nationale à construire, de manière autonome et durable, les fondations de l'État. Aujourd'hui, confrontée à ces obstacles de fond majeurs, et compte tenu du blocage des négociations de paix, l'Union européenne peine à établir une cohérence dans sa stratégie d'aide, à destination des territoires palestiniens, tant au regard des objectifs initiaux de I' APD que du respect de ses principes et valeurs, dont la portée a pourtant été confortée par le traité de Lisbonne. / International practice shows that development aid is often attributed to a sovereign state, which is not the case of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (WBGS), despite their status of nonmember observer state in the UN. The special status of Palestine explains the unprecedented nature of the assistance of the European Union, which falls at all levels of the management process. According to the initial objectives set for the WBGS, official development assistance (ODA) contribute to the achievement of peace agreements in order to help the protagonists to reach a viable solution in accordance with the international law and UN resolutions. For the international community, particularly the European Union, the "two-state solution", Israel and Palestine remains the best way to end the conflict and ensure the security of Israel. These goals are all the more strengthened since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, development cooperation has become a shared competence between the Union and its Member States, its implementation being adopted by the European Parliament and the Council under the ordinary legislative procedure. However, a detailed analysis of the structure of ODA, purpose of this research, shows that the EU -first donor to Palestinian territories- is unable to provide assistance other than humanitarian or financial, which prevents influence the construction of a Palestinian state or to allow territories to be released from their dual dependence of EU aid and the Israeli economy, in particular through the promotion of productive sectors. Yet, in recent years, the Union has been trying, pitilessly, to rebuild its aid in order to effectively integrate the occupation parameter, which is an irreparable threat to the peace process. Apart from the large weight of the conflict itself in the implementation of ODA, a number of constraints, including structural and institutional order, explain the failure of a strategy clearly established to help Palestinians and their national authority to build, in an autonomous and sustainable way, the foundations of the state. Today, faced with these major obstacles, and given the stalemate in the peace negotiations, the European Union is struggling to establish coherence in its aid strategy for the Palestinian territories, both in terms of the initial objectives of ODA and with respect to its constituent principles and values, the scope of which was nevertheless strengthened by the Treaty of Lisbon.