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2. Are the Palestinians More Violent in Ramadan?
- Author:
- Hillel Frisch
- Publication Date:
- 02-2023
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
- Abstract:
- Israeli officials and the media continuously warn about the dangers of the upcoming Ramadan, on the assumption that Palestinians are more violent during that period. However, this assumption is highly problematic in analyzing the data on Palestinian violence during Ramadan compared with the rest of the year.
- Topic:
- Religion, Media, Discrimination, and Violence
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Palestine, and Israel
3. The Struggle for De Facto Sovereignty over the Temple Mount
- Author:
- Udi Dekel
- Publication Date:
- 05-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for National Security Studies (INSS)
- Abstract:
- 19 Israelis were murdered in the terrorist attacks that occurred around the month of Ramadan, and once again al-Aqsa and the Temple Mount were the cause inciting the terrorists. Israel has yet to internalize that a campaign is underway for sovereignty over al-Aqsa. How should Israel act in advance of what are expected to be highly charged weeks ahead?
- Topic:
- Religion, Sovereignty, and Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Jerusalem
4. With Ramadan Approaching, the Fear of Escalation
- Author:
- Yohanan Tzoreff
- Publication Date:
- 03-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for National Security Studies (INSS)
- Abstract:
- The recent terrorist attacks are a tangible illustration of the growing concern in the security establishment and among the public of possible escalation approaching and during Ramadan. Israel has a few possible ways to act to lower the flames, including political and security moves that can be taken by virtue of improved ties with states in the region
- Topic:
- Religion, Terrorism, ISIS, Conflict, and Escalation
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Israel
5. Understanding political violence in Jerusalem
- Author:
- Eran Tzidkiyahu
- Publication Date:
- 08-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies
- Abstract:
- The current issue of Bayan is being published a few months after the tension in Jerusalem surrounding the Holy Esplanade / al-Aqsa Mosque. In his article, Dr. Eran Tzidkiyahu examines the roots of the religious and national tension on the Holy Esplanade in Jerusalem from a historical perspective and surveys the waves of violence between Jews and Palestinians during the last hundred years.
- Topic:
- Political Violence, Religion, History, and Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Jerusalem
6. How Religious Diplomacy and Pan-Islamic Organizations Can Help Stabilize Afghanistan
- Author:
- Hussam R. Ahmed
- Publication Date:
- 08-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS)
- Abstract:
- The United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 was followed by a surprisingly quick takeover by the Taliban, the predominantly Pashtun, Islamic fundamentalist group that had initially been ousted in 2001. Their triumphant return to power 20 years has raised numerous questions about what led to the US and Western failure in Afghanistan, the implications for regional and global security, and the policy options now available to Europe and the United States. As of now, the West has no plans to engage with the Taliban government, but continued inaction could result in dire consequences for Afghan citizens as well as for Western interests at large. A severe humanitarian crisis has gripped Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover, pushing nearly 20 million people to the verge of famine. The United Nations Development Programme fears Afghanistan will face near “universal poverty” by the end of 2022 with 97 percent of the population living below the international poverty line. There is also a growing threat that a Taliban regime could enable terrorist organizations to operate more openly on Afghan soil, paving the way for new, aggravated threats to regional and global security. The withdrawal has also compelled European to re-evaluate their partnership with the United States on Afghanistan and to fear that the fallout from the Taliban’s resurgence will be most severe for Europe, including more immediately with social and economic costs of dealing with more refugees. There is widespread agreement in the West that engagement in Afghanistan needs to continue but not the way it was done in the past. To explore what that reimagining Western engagement can look like, this paper presents an analysis of a foreign policy approach that has largely remained absent from the discussion: religious diplomacy. This form of Track Two diplomacy is deeply rooted in religious texts, practices, and traditions, and it is oriented toward the active role of faith leaders in politics, conflict resolution, and peace-building. In Afghanistan, where the sociocultural and political realities have historically remained deeply intertwined with it, an insufficient understanding of religion has led some to argue this was a major blind spot in the Western foreign policy approach. There is a need to revisit religion’s centrality to the war and how religious diplomacy offers an underappreciated peace-building framework that can be operationalized through faith-based organizations that share existing relationships with Afghanistan, a common religious language and cultural affinities with its people, and moral capital to draw from. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Muslim World League, in particular, are two highly influential pan-Islamic nongovernmental organizations, that have leveraged their religious legitimacy and moderate interpretations of Islamic teachings to provide a counter narrative to radical ideas that promote violent extremism, to facilitate dialogue, to mediate conflicts, and to initiate peace-building in previous and ongoing conflicts in the Muslim world. Drawing on their experience, this paper argues that creative religious diplomacy through them can be an effective policy option for the Europe and the United States for a sustainable future engagement in Afghanistan. The paper therefore offers recommendations that flesh out the form this could take.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Religion, Political stability, Domestic Politics, Society, and Community-based Organizations
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and South Asia
7. A New Middle East
- Author:
- Yaakov Amidror
- Publication Date:
- 08-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
- Abstract:
- Changing Israel’s relationship with Arab countries is vital for its regional legitimacy, but it is also in the best interests of the Arab world. Sunni Arab countries want relations with Israel to create a safer region and better tools to deal with the complex reality they face after the “Arab Spring,” in the face of Iranian aggression and American hesitancy.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, Religion, and Arab Spring
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Israel
8. Life, Death, and Beyond: The Belief in Reincarnation and the Phenomenon of Notq in the Druze Community
- Author:
- Maha Natoor
- Publication Date:
- 05-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies
- Abstract:
- In the first issue of our new magazine al-Durziyya, Dr. Maha Natoor deals with the belief in reincarnation among the Druze and examines the phenomenon of notq, the remembering and talking about a previous life, as a mechanism which embodies the Druze identity and contributes to the preservation and definition of its boundaries. Al-Durziyya is a digital magazine co-published by the Druze Heritage Center and the Moshe Dayan Center, in Hebrew and English. Al-Durziyya provides different perspectives on the social, cultural and historical affairs of the Druze in the Middle East.
- Topic:
- Religion, Druze, and Reincarnation
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Israel
9. Estimating the Effect of Christian Messages on Civic Engagement: Evidence from a Community-Collaborative Study in Zambia
- Author:
- Elizabeth Sperber, Gwyneth McClendon, and O'Brien Kaaba
- Publication Date:
- 04-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Kellogg Institute for International Studies
- Abstract:
- A significant literature suggests that religious conviction can drive political participation, perhaps because religious people internalize a moral obligation to act toward the common good and/or because religious conviction gives people a sense that their actions will make a difference. This paper presents findings from a community-collaborative pilot study in Zambia that examines these ideas. Zambia is an overwhelmingly Christian state experiencing dramatic democratic backsliding. Zambian churches are among the major providers of civic engagement education and programming. Together with our community partners, we randomly assigned Zambian youth (aged 18-35) volunteers into one-time civic engagement workshops. Identical basic civic educational material was presented in each workshop. Yet, we ended this curriculum with two different sets of pre-recorded Christian motivational messages: In 50% of the workshops, these messages emphasized a religious obligation to sacrifice for the common good. In the other 50%, the messages emphasized the power of faith to make change in the world. We found that the latter message (emphasizing the power of faith) moved workshop participants to be more willing to participate in peaceful protest, to disavow political violence, and to critically evaluate other people who choose not to participate in electoral politics. By contrast, the message focused on sacrifice for the common good did not affect political participation relative to baseline. We discuss how the study advances research on religion and political participation as well as knowledge about Christian civic education programs, which are prevalent but understudied throughout.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Politics, Religion, Democracy, and Youth
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Zambia
10. Violence in Post-Revolutionary Mexico
- Author:
- Gema Kloppe-Santamaría
- Publication Date:
- 05-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Kellogg Institute for International Studies
- Abstract:
- Despite the formal end of civil war and armed conflict, Mexico continued to experience significant levels of violence during the 1930s and 1940s. This period has traditionally been associated with the process of pacification, institutionalization, and centralization of power that enabled the consolidation of rule in post-revolutionary Mexico; a process epitomized by the marked national decline in levels of homicide that began during the 1940s and continued throughout the second half of the twentieth-century. However, the dynamics of coercion and resistance that characterized state-society relations during this period, particularly at the regional and local levels, reveal that violence pervaded all aspects of society and that it was perpetrated by a multiplicity of actors, including vigilantes, pistoleros, private militias, lynch mobs, military, police, and others, including violent entrepreneurs. Violence was used both as a means to contest the legitimacy of the post-revolutionary state project and as an instrument of control and coercion on behalf of political elites and local power brokers. Conversely, violence superseded the realm of traditional politics and constituted a central force shaping Mexican society. Violence against women in both the public and private sphere, violence driven by economic interests, and violence incurred in citizens’ attempts to control crime and social transgressions, reveal that citizens—and not only state actors—contributed to the reproduction of violence. Although violence in post-revolutionary Mexico was neither centralized nor exercised in a top-down manner, impunity and collusion between criminal and political elements were central to the production and perpetuation of violence, both within the Mexican state and within civil society. When examined in light of these two decades of the post-revolutionary period, the character and levels of violence in contemporary Mexico appear less as an aberration and more as the latest expression of a longer historical trajectory, uneven and nonlinear, of decentralized, multifaceted, and multi-actor forms of violence.
- Topic:
- Security, Religion, Culture, Peacekeeping, Democracy, Conflict, and Violence
- Political Geography:
- Latin America, North America, and Mexico