About the bitterlemons family of publications

The bitterlemons publications reflect a joint Palestinian-Israeli effort to promote a civilized exchange of views about the Israel-Arab conflict and additional Middle East issues among a broad spectrum of participants.

The bitterlemons publications are produced, edited and in some cases written by Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian, and Yossi Alpher, an Israeli (see short CVs below). Complete organizational and institutional symmetry is maintained between the Palestinian and Israeli partners.

Every edition of each bitterlemons publication is posted on the relevant website. Readers can obtain a free subscription by entering their email address at each website home page. No personal information is required.

The bitterlemons project operates five websites:

bitterlemons.net is the web gateway to all our publications.

bitterlemons-api.org is our newest publication, inaugurated in November 2010. It features and promotes discussion of the Arab Peace Initiative.

Editions usually comprise four diverse articles that analyze the specific content of the API, the regional and international context (both current and historic), interaction between the API and inevitable emerging events and dynamics such as war, peace processes and internal political developments in the relevant countries, and specific country responses and aspects of the relevant peace processes that are absent from the API.

bitterlemons.org is our oldest publication. It first appeared in 2001. It presents Israeli and Palestinian viewpoints on prominent issues related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and peace process.

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.

bitterlemons-international.org is an internet forum for an array of world perspectives on the Middle East and its specific concerns.

For each edition, bitterlemons-international editors decide on a topic and invite four writers or interviewees to discuss that subject on our pages. bitterlemons-international is committed to presenting a range of views on the Middle East reflecting broad national interests and social concerns.

bitterlemons-dialogue.org is an internet forum for in-depth discussion of Middle East issues by prominent persons from the region or who deal with the region. Two persons with different perspectives are invited to address a relevant issue. Their interaction, over a period of time, generates a series of exchanges of views. The edited result is published on this website and emailed to subscribers. The bitterlemons-dialogue project is currently dormant.

Ghassan Khatib (ghassan@bitterlemons.org) is Palestinian coeditor of the bitterlemons family of internet publications. He is director of the Palestinian Authority Government Media Center, on leave from teaching 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 constitutes the Palestinian partner of bitterlemons. He 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 Israeli coeditor of the bitterlemons family of internet publications. He served as director 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. In July 2000 he served as special adviser to the prime minister of Israel, concentrating on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He is director of the Political Security Domain (PSD), an independent NGO that constitutes the Israeli partner of bitterlemons.