Bitterlemons.org is a website that presents Israeli and Palestinian viewpoints on prominent issues of concern. It focuses on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and peace process. It is produced, edited and partially written by Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian, and Yossi Alpher, an Israeli. Its goal is to contribute to mutual understanding through the open exchange of ideas. Bitterlemons.org aspires to impact the way Palestinians, Israelis and others worldwide think about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Bitterlemons.org is directed toward the interested public and policymakers in the region and elsewhere. Each weekly edition of bitterlemons.org is posted on our website. Readers can obtain a free subscription by entering their email address in the space provided on the home page or by writing to subscribehtml@bitterlemons.org (for the HTML version) or subscribetext@bitterlemons.org (for the text version).

Other questions may be referred to bitterlemons@bitterlemons.org.

Each edition addresses a specific issue of controversy. Articles by Alpher and Khatib are accompanied by additional articles by, or interviews with, a prominent Israeli and a prominent Palestinian--selected by the appropriate editor. No intelligent and articulate views are considered taboo.

Bitterlemons.org maintains complete organizational and institutional symmetry between its Palestinian and Israeli components. It draws financial support from the European Union and additional philanthropic sources based outside the region.

Ghassan Khatib  ghassan@bitterlemons.org
Ghassan Khatib is coeditor of the bitterlemons.org family of internet publications. He is vice-president for community outreach at Birzeit University and a former Palestinian Authority minister of planning and labor. He holds a PhD in Middle East politics from the University of Durham. He is also the founder of the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, which specializes in research, opinion polling and media affairs, and was a member of the Palestinian delegation for the Madrid Middle East Peace Conference in 1991 and the subsequent bilateral negotiations in Washington from 1991-93.

Yossi Alpher  yossi@bitterlemons.org
is a writer and consultant on regional strategic issues, and director of the Political Security Domain (PSD), an independent NGO. He has served as director and acting head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University; as director of the American Jewish Committee's Israel/Middle East Office in Jerusalem; and as a senior official in the Mossad. While at the Jaffee Center, he coordinated and coedited the JCSS research project on options for a Palestinian settlement, and produced "The Alpher Plan" for an Israeli-Palestinian final settlement. Since 1992, he has coordinated several Track II dialogues between Israelis and Arabs. In July 2000 he served as special adviser to the prime minister of Israel, concentrating on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. In late 2001 he published (in Hebrew) And the Wolf Shall Dwell with the Wolf: the Settlers and the Palestinians.