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152. B. B'Tselem , "Three Years since Operation Cast Lead: Israeli Military Utterly Failed to Investigate Itself," Jerusalem, 19 January 2012.
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- The document below was published by the Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B'Tselem, on 19 January. Though in the wake of Operation Cast Lead the Israel Defense Forces insisted that an independent investigation of its activities was unnecessary, the B'Tselem report details the failure of the Israeli military to investigate either policy choices or the conduct of the forces in the !eld in particular cases three years after the operation. The footnotes have been omitted for space. The document was obtained from http://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip/20120118_3_ years_after_cast_lead.
- Political Geography:
- Israel and United Nations
153. C. Khaled Elgindy, "The Middle East Quartet: A Post-Mortem," Washington, D.C., February 2012 (excerpts)
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- It has been ten years since the four most powerful players in the Middle East peace process-the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations-came together under the diplomatic umbrella known as the Quartet. Formed in response to the outbreak of the second intifada in late 2000 and the collapse of peace negotiations a few months later, the Quartet appeared ideally suited for dealing with the seemingly intractable con!ict between Israelis and Palestinians. Its small but powerful membership allowed it to act swiftly and decisively, while its informal structure gave it the !exibility needed to navigate crises and adapt to changing developments on the ground.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, Europe, Washington, Middle East, and United Nations
154. Bibliography of Periodical Literature
- Author:
- Norbert Scholz
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This section lists articles and reviews of books relevant to Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Entries are classified under the following headings: Reference and General; History (through 1948) and Geography; Palestinian Politics and Society; Jerusalem; Israeli Politics, Society, and Zionism; Arab and Middle Eastern Politics; International Relations; Law; Military; Economy, Society, and Education; Literature, Arts, and Culture; Book Reviews; and Reports Received.
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Arabia
155. Chronology
- Author:
- Michele K. Esposito
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This is part 113 of a chronology begun in Journal of Palestine Studies (JPS) 13, no. 3 (Spring 1984). Chronology dates reflect North American Eastern Standard Time. For a more comprehensive overview of regional and international developments related to the peace process, see the Quarterly Update on Conflict and Diplomacy in JPS 163.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Palestine, and North America
156. From the Editor
- Author:
- Rashid I. Khalidi
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- As this issue went to press, prospective Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney delivered himself of a glaring series of gaffes and insults about the Palestinians in a speech in Jerusalem whose level of pandering led even some of the mainstream media to wince, and the Daily Show (31 July 2012) to gleefully exploit his blunders. Romney grossly misstated the per capita GDP of both Palestinians and Israelis (a strange misstep for a candidate whose claim to fame is his business acumen), and ascribed the yawning economic gap between them to “culture” and the hand of Providence. But his failure to mention forty-five years of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories as a factor holding the Palestinians back economically is lamentably not anomalous for an American politician. Romney is only one among many engaged in a dizzying race to the bottom when it comes to pandering to the most extreme Israeli positions and denigrating the Palestinians. Ignoring the elephant in the room, whether it is the occupation, or the failure of a so-called “peace process” to deliver peace for more than two decades, is par for the course in American political campaigns where Palestine is concerned.
- Topic:
- Culture
- Political Geography:
- America, Israel, Palestine, and Jerusalem
157. Gaza's Tunnel Phenomenon: The Unintended Dynamics of Israel's Siege
- Author:
- Nicolas Pelham
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This article traces the extraordinary development of Gaza's tunnel phenomenon over the past decade in response to Israel's economic asphyxiation of the small coastal enclave. It focuses on the period since Hamas's 2007 takeover of the Strip, which saw the industry's transformation from a clandestine, makeshift operation into a major commercial enterprise, regulated, taxed, and bureaucratized. In addition to describing the particulars of the tunnel complex, the article explores its impact on Gaza's socioeconomic hierarchy, strategic orientation, and Islamist rule. The larger geopolitical context, especially with regard to Israel, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Nile Valley, is also discussed. The author argues that contrary to the intentions of its architects, the siege precipitated the reconfiguration of Gaza's economy and enabled its rulers to circumvent the worst effects of the blockade.
- Political Geography:
- Israel and Gaza
158. The Politics of International Aid to the Gaza Strip
- Author:
- Tamer Qarmout and Daniel Beland
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- International aid to the Palestinian Authority is conditioned in part on democratization and good governance. However, since Hamas' victory in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections and its takeover of the Gaza Strip, aid agencies have supported the international boycott of the Hamas government. This article argues that aid agencies, by operating in Gaza while boycotting its government, subvert their mandates and serve the political interests of donors and the PA rather than the humanitarian and development needs of Gazans. As a consequence, assistance has, inadvertently and unintentionally, increased Gazans' dependence on humanitarian aid, impeded economic development, and enabled Israel to maintain its occupation and the blockade of Gaza.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine and Gaza
159. Israel, the Palestinians, and the 2012 Republican Primaries: Fantasy Politics on Display
- Author:
- Lawrence Davidson
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This essay looks at the 2012 Republican primaries through the lens of "localism" and how candidates and lobbies manipulate for their own purposes the ignorance of their voting constituencies on issues not relevant to their everyday lives. After a discussion of the wider process, the piece focuses on the eight leading candidates in the presidential primary race with regard to Israel and Palestine, with an overview of their positions and advisers. It ends with some reflections on the consequences of the peculiarly American mix of localism, national politics, and special interest groups.
- Topic:
- Politics
- Political Geography:
- America, Israel, and Palestine
160. Two Portraits in Resistance: Abu 'Umar and Mahjub 'Umar
- Author:
- Jehan Helou and Elias Khoury
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- The word "Palestinian" today, at least in the realm of politics, almost automatically attaches itself to the word "Authority." This calls forth images of an entity that in fact has no sovereignty, no real jurisdiction, painfully limited authority, and precious little dignity, dwarfed as it is by its Israeli and U.S. overseers and patrons. In such circumstances, it may be difficult to recall that there was a time when the word "Palestine" spontaneously evoked another word, "Resistance," and a far different set of associations.
161. Not Just a Soccer Game: Colonialism and Conflict among Palestinians in Israel
- Author:
- Grant Aubrey Farred
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Magid Shihade's Not Just a Soccer Game: Colonialism and Conflict among Palestinians in Israel turns on a "small" incident. On 11 April 1981, a football ("soccer") match took place between teams from Kafr Yassif (predominantly Christian) and Julis (predominantly Druze), two Arab villages in Galilee, Israel. "During the match,"fighting broke out between the rival supporters, causing injuries, and one fan from each village was killed (p. 2). Despite an early promise of a negotiated resolution, the Julis leadership later refused to engage in sulha(reconcilation) so that a hudna(truce) might be achieved. Eventually, "aggressors from Julis" attacked Kafr Yassif-causing considerable damage to the village-while "police forces .stood watching the violence unfold and did not intervene" (p. 6). Calls for an independent investigation were ignored, and eventually the Israeli government absolved the tactics of its police force, at once angering the Kafr Yassif com-munity and affirming their view that the Israeli state supported the Druze, in no small measure because of their conscription into the Israeli army.
- Political Geography:
- Israel
162. My Life in the PLO: The Inside Story of the Palestinian Struggle
- Author:
- As'ad Abukhalil
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- The memoirs of Shafiq al-Hout are the story of the Palestinian national movement in the twentieth century. Al-Hout lived a long life and was at the center of the Palestinian political struggle. He used to tell George Habash of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine that he was a communist (in his youth) when everyone around him was an Arab nationalist, then he became an Arab nationalist (in the 1960s) when everyone around him became a communist. During those political transformations, al-Hout remained a progressive and loud voice for Palestinian struggle.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine and Arabia
163. 'This Time We Went Too Far': Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion (Revised and Expanded)
- Author:
- Sara Roy
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Palestinian life in Gaza and the West Bank is defined by Israel's oppressive occupation, and this will not change until the occupation ends. Yet, after more than two and a half decades of research and writing on Israeli-Palestinian issues, I remain stunned by the lack of attention, indeed aversion, to context as an explanatory variable. By stripping issues and events of their current and historical framework, many scholars have failed to address the human dimensions of the occupation, which are central to understanding political, economic, and social behavior among Palestinians. Instead, dominant and essentialzing conceptualizations of the conflict that ignore Palestinian suffering and the reasons for it are constantly produced and reproduced despite their failure to illuminate or resolve. And in Palestine specifically these defining and recycled paradigms are further characterized by a willingness to legitimize Israel's occupation as long as there is no accepted agreement to end it. Even the word "occupation" seems to have been expunged from the lexicon of the conflict as irrelevant and obsolete.
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Palestine, and Gaza
164. Hamas and Civil Society in Gaza: Engaging the Islamist Social Sector
- Author:
- Nubar Hovsepian
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Sara Roy's new book on the relationship between the social and political spheres in Gaza is meticulously researched and clearly written. As always, Roy manages to give voice and agency to Palestinians individually and collectively. Roy combines scholarly rigor and moral clarity to examine and challenge "the conventional frame that defines Hamas only as a terrorist organization". She avoids simple binaries of religious versus secular. Instead, she identifies the role of Islamic-inspired organizations in creating civic space that promotes civism to cement and consolidate society, economy, and polity. But she quickly warns that the Islamist movement in Gaza is not homogeneous, but rather highly variegated. The social institutions in Gaza did not so much seek to widen their religious congregations as to create "civic communities" through incremental reform couched in a cultural and universal discourse that is not limited by religious terms.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine and Gaza
165. The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel
- Author:
- Magid Shihade
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- In his latest work, Pappé attempts to bring attention to the history of the Palestinian citizens of the state of Israel, an ignored group that "has been dubbed traitors both by the Palestinian movement in the 1950s and by current Israeli political forces". For Pappé, theirs is a story of almost impossible navigation in a sea of "[Zionist] colonialism, [Jewish] chauvinist nationalism, [Jewish] fanatic religiosity and international indifference," and a history of "discrimination and dispossession but also of self-assertiveness and steadfastness". According to Pappé, it is important to study the '48 Palestinians because "it is only through a history of the Palestinian minority of Israel that one can examine the extent to which the long-lived Zionist and Israeli desire for [Jewish] ethnic supremacy and exclusivity" explains the Israeli position vis-à-vis all Palestinians.
- Political Geography:
- Israel and Palestine
166. Unsettling Gaza: Secular Liberalism, Radical Religion, and the Israeli Settlement Project
- Author:
- Gil Anidjar
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Some binary oppositions-the stuff of much scholarly work way back when-remain difficult to undo. These days we may think more readily in terms of exception or emergency, but the underlying logic, the deictic (or denunciatory) procedure, persists. Now is the moment to act. Or it was all happening then. Over there is where the problem lies. If only these people stopped making trouble. A concomitant, and equally pervasive, habit of thought has to do with the conviction that, if not a god, the plural will save us now. A strange response to "essentialism," and no doubt a symptom of its "unfinished project," we think ourselves safer in the vicinity of the many than in that of the one. There is a Right and there is a Left. There is liberalism and there is religiosity. And there is a profusion of modernities, countless capitalisms, and very many kinds of colonialisms.
- Political Geography:
- Israel and Gaza
167. Rethinking Israeli Space: Periphery and Identity
- Author:
- Nasser Abourahme
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- To say that Zionism is an acutely spatial project is to run the risk of stating the obvious. It is not only-as is any other settler-colonial enterprise-irreducibly territorial, but also politically mechanized largely through architecture. "Facts on the ground" remain its modus operandi, and cement probably its most devastating weapon. With this in mind it is perhaps not surprising that some of the most trenchant Israeli critiques of the Zionist project have come from geographers and urbanists (E. Weizman, Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation [London: Verso, 2007]; O. Yiftachel, Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006]) trying to parse the relationship between logic and form.
- Political Geography:
- Israel and London
168. Israel's Dead Soul
- Author:
- Matthew Abraham
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- In Israel's Dead Soul, Steven Salaita skillfully examines the many lamentations over the state of Israel's soul, exploring what these lamentations reveal about the integrity of intellectual debates about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Adding to Salaita's already impressive list of books (Anti-Arab Racism in the U.S.A., Holy Land in Transit, and Uncultured Wars), Israel's Dead Soul exposes the problematic tendency among Israel's liberal defenders to justify Israeli military adventurism by anguishing over Israel's supposed existential predicament.
- Political Geography:
- United States and Israel
169. Preparing the Mothers of Tomorrow: Education and Islam in Mandate Palestine
- Author:
- Andrea L. Stanton
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Ela Greenberg's first book is a gracefully written work of scholarship that highlights an important but overlooked aspect of Mandate Palestinian history: girls' education. With a deftly woven, richly sourced text that brings together gender, religion, social class, nationalism, and politics, she presents the history of girls' education in Mandate Palestine as a key lens through which to read some of the era's most critical issues.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine
170. Arab Views (cartoons from al-Hayat)
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This section aims to give readers a glimpse of how the Arab world views current events that affect Palestinians and the Arab-Israeli conflict by presenting a selection of cartoons from al-Hayat, the most widely distributed mainstream daily in the Arab world. JPS is grateful to al-Hayat for permission to reprint its material.
- Political Geography:
- Arabia
171. Selections from the Press
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Nowhere is the relationship between environmental protection and social justice displayed more clearly than between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The Israeli government takes great care to guarantee that its citizens enjoy the benefits of a clean and comfortable environment. The opposite is true in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, over which Israel has maintained ultimate control for almost 45 years. There, Israel has instituted an exploitative regime that disregards the needs of the local population and ignores the occupier's responsibility as a custodian of the environment as stipulated by the Geneva Conventions. This is particularly evident in how Israel distributes water, permits the environmentally destructive behavior of Israeli settlers and prevents Palestinian development on the land it directly controls.
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Palestine, and Gaza
172. Photos from the Quarter
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This small sample of photos, selected from hundreds viewed by JPS, aims to convey a sense of the situation on the ground in the occupied territories during the quarter.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine, Gaza, and Syria
173. Update on Conflict and Diplomacy
- Author:
- Michele K. Esposito
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- The Quarterly Update is a summary of bilateral, multilateral, regional, and international events affecting the Palestinians and the future of the peace process. More than 100 print, wire, television, and online sources providing U.S., Israeli, Arab, and international independent and government coverage of unfolding events are surveyed to compile the Quarterly Update. The most relevant sources are cited in JPS's Chronology section, which tracks events day by day. JPS Chronologies are archived on the JPS web site at www.palestine-studies.org.
- Political Geography:
- United States, Israel, and Arabia
174. Settlement Monitor
- Author:
- Geoffrey Aronson
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This section covers items-reprinted articles, statistics, and maps-pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material.
- Political Geography:
- Washington, Middle East, and Gaza
175. Congressional Monitor
- Author:
- Paul James Costic
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- CongressionalMonitor.org, the companion site to this JPS section, provides in-depth analysis of the bills and resolutions listed here. Published annually, the Congressional Monitor summarizes all bills and resolutions pertinent to Palestine, Israel, or the broader Arab-Israeli conflict introduced during the previous session of Congress. It is part of a wider project of the Institute for Palestine Studies that includes the Congressional Monitor Database (CongressionalMonitor.org).The database contains all relevant legislation from 2001 to the present (the 107th Congress through the 112th Congress) and is updated on an ongoing basis. The monitor identifies major legislative themes related to the Palestine issue as well as initiators of specific legislation, their priorities, the range of their concerns, and their attitudes toward the regional actors. Material in this compilation is drawn from www.thomas.loc.gov, the official legislative site of the Library of Congress, which includes a detailed primer on the legislative process entitled "How Our Laws Are Made."
- Political Geography:
- Palestine and Arabia
176. A1. International Crisis Group, Report on Israel's Arab Minority and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Nazareth/Jerusalem/Ramallah/Brussels, 14 March 2012 (excerpts).
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- For over six decades, Israel's Palestinian citizens have had a unique experience: they are a Palestinian national minority in a Jewish state locked in conflict with its Arab neighbors but they also constitute an Israeli minority enjoying the benefits of citizenship in a state that prizes democracy. This has translated into ambivalent relations with both the state of Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and beyond. They feel solidarity with their brethren elsewhere, yet many Arabs study in Israeli universities, work side-by-side with Jews, and speak Hebrew fluently-a degree of familiarity that has only made the discrimination and alienation from which they suffer seem more acute and demands for equality more insistent.
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Palestine, and Arabia
177. A2. International Criminal Court, Response to the Government of Palestine's Request to Become a Party to the Rome Statute, The Hague, 3 April 2012.
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- In January 2009, in the wake of Israel's Operation Cast Lead (OCL) against Gaza, the Palestinian Authority (PA) wrote to the International Criminal Court (ICC) formally acknowledging the ICC's jurisdiction over the occupied territories and asking to become a signatory to the ICC's founding treaty, the Rome Statute. The purpose was twofold: to lay the procedural groundwork to be able to request an international war crimes tribunal to investigate Israeli actions during OCL; and to build the case for international recognition of Palestinian statehood. The wording of the Rome Statute is such that only states may join and submit appeals to the ICC.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine and Italy
178. B. Palestinian Pres. Mahmud Abbas, Letter to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Ramallah, 14 April 2012.
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Reports that Palestinian Authority Pres. Mahmud Abbas was drafting a letter to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu with the aim of breaking the diplomatic stalemate began circulating in mid-March 2012. Delayed by assorted diplomatic and other considerations (see Quarterly Update in this issue for details), the letter was finally delivered to Netanyahu by Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat on 17 April. The letter was not released, but a draft, reproduced below, was leaked to the press and published in The Times of Israel on 15 April. Netanyahu sent a written response to Abbas on 12 May, which reportedly reiterated the call for an immediate resumption of talks, without preconditions. The Abbas letter was taken from the Times of Israel website at www.timeso!srael.com.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine
179. C1. Naftali Bennett, "The Israel Stability Initiative," February 2012.
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This "proposed solution" to the conflict was first circulated in late February 2012 to Israel's political and military elites, who reportedly (Jerusalem Post 2/23) gave it "high praise." Its author, a self-made multimillionaire and a "rising star" in the religious-Zionist-nationalist right, was Netanyahu's chief of staff (2006-8), and for two years (until January 2012) head of the YESHA settlers council. Bennett is also founder and head of the extra-parliamentary movement My Israel. The Israel Stability Initiative is posted on the One State Israel website at www.onestateisrael.com.
- Political Geography:
- Israel
180. C2. Ami Ayalon, Orni Petruschka, and Gilead Sher, Call for Israel to Adopt "Constructive Unilateralism" toward the Palestinians, New York Times, 24 April 2012.
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Former lead Israeli peace negotiator Gilead Sher, former Israeli Security Agency head Ami Ayalon, and Israeli entrepreneur Orni Petruschka (organizers of a new group called Blue White Future) made the following proposal in a New York Times op-ed titled "Peace without Partners." While most of the steps recommended by the authors are already being undertaken by the Netanyahu government or have previously been discussed among Israelis in the course of the peace process, the initiative is notable for openly labeling them as unilateral steps to determine final status and urging the Israeli imposition of a solution "regardless of whether the Palestinians leaders have agreed." The op-ed appeared online on 23 April, and in print the following day. The op-ed was obtained from the New York Times website at www.nytimes.com.
- Political Geography:
- New York and Israel
181. D1. U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, Remarks at the AIPAC Conference, Washington, 4 March 2012 (excerpts)
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Every time I come to AIPAC, I'm especially impressed to see so many young people here. . . . You carry with you an extraordinary legacy of more than six decades of friendship between the United States and Israel. . . . And for inspiration, you can look to the man who preceded me on this stage, who's being honored at this conference-my friend, President Shimon Peres.
- Political Geography:
- Washington and Israel
182. D2. Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney, Remarks at Annual AIPAC Conference, Washington, 6 March 2012 (excerpts).
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Below are excerpts from former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's address to the annual AIPAC policy conference in Washington on 6 March 2012 (the same day as the Super Tuesday primary voting). Romney did not attend the conference but spoke via video link from the campaign trail. The full transcript can be obtained from the AIPAC website at www.aipac.org. This year, we are gathering at a dangerous time for Israel and for America. Not since the dark days of 1967 and 1973 has the Middle East faced peril as it does today. This is a critical moment. America must not-and, if I am President, it will not-fail this defining test of history.
- Political Geography:
- America and Washington
183. Bibliography of Periodical Literature
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This section lists articles and reviews of books relevant to Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Entries are classified under the following headings: Reference and General; History (through 1948) and Geography; Palestinian Politics and Society; Jerusalem; Israeli Politics, Society, and Zionism; Arab and Middle Eastern Politics; International Relations; Law; Military; Economy, Society, and Education; Literature, Arts, and Culture; Book Reviews; and Reports Received.
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Palestine, and Arabia
184. Chronology
- Author:
- Michele K. Esposito
- Publication Date:
- 08-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This is part 114 of a chronology begun in Journal of Palestine Studies ( JPS) 13, no. 3 (Spring 1984). Chronology dates reflect North American Eastern Standard Time. For a more comprehensive overview of regional and international developments related to the peace process, see the Quarterly Update on Conflict and Diplomacy in JPS 164.
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Palestine, and North America
185. From the Editor
- Author:
- Rashid I. Khalidi
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- No abstract is available.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine
186. Salvage or Plunder? Israel's "Collection" of Private Palestinian Libraries in West Jerusalem
- Author:
- Gish Amit
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- No abstract is available.
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Palestine, and Jerusalem
187. Israeli Supreme Court Doctrine and the Battle over Arab Land in Galilee: A Vertical Assessment
- Author:
- Geremy Forman
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- In the mid-1950s, the overwhelmingly Arab central Galilee became the first regional focus of Israeli land-claiming in the context of state efforts to Judaize the region. This article examines the land-related judicial doctrines adopted by the Israeli Supreme Court through the early 1960s that facilitated this endeavor. While previous academic work on the evolution of these doctrines depicts a “horizontal” process proceeding from one SC precedent to another, this article employs a “vertical” approach that focuses on the role of litigant argument and lower-court rulings. The main finding is that in these disputes, SC justices did not merely rule in favor of the state, but consistently adopted the legal arguments advanced by the state, transforming them into SC doctrine and the law of the land. IN THE LATE 1950s, the central Galilee became the site of a judicial battle over land rights between the Israeli government and the region's Palestinian inhabitants. The thousands of legal disputes were products of the ongoing struggle between Jews and Arabs over land in the country that began under Ottoman rule and intensified during the British Mandate over Palestine. With the flight and expulsion of much of the country's Arab population and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the struggle was transformed into one between the new Jewish state and its Palestinian minority, with Israeli officials using state-held land to intensify Jewish control and state law to expand beyond recognition the stock of land available for this purpose. A pivotal component of Israeli law that enabled the state to increase its landholdings, first in the Galilee and subsequently in other regions, was the land-related judicial doctrines institutionalized by the Israeli Supreme Court (SC) in the early 1960s, just as the judicial struggle over land in the Galilee was reaching its height. These doctrines expanded the legal definition of state land employed during land-title settlement and limited the ability of private claimants to acquire title, thereby strengthening the hand of the government at the expense of local residents. Because the lion's share of unregistered land in Israel was located in predominantly Arab areas, and because most land registered in the name of the state during the process was designated for Jewish settlement, these doctrines must be understood as having helped provide the territorial foundations for Judaization and shape Jewish-Arab ethnonational geographies of power in the young country. Although these doctrines' histories have been explored elsewhere, this article examines their evolution from a different perspective. Instead of approaching the doctrines primarily as SC creations and following their evolution “horizontally,” from one SC precedent to another as most legal scholars do, I focus on the origins of the fundamental principles by investigating the sources of the key ideas advanced by the authoring justices. This line of inquiry is particularly relevant, because a major point of contention in the writings of Israeli legal scholars has been the degree to which these justices were influenced by state interests and Zionist ideology, an arguably futile debate considering the absence of documentary evidence regarding the justices' inner thoughts and motivations at the time. However, by expanding exploration “vertically” beyond legal scholarship's traditional focus on upper-court rulings and incorporating the lower courts into our analysis, we gain a relatively clear understanding of where justices got their ideas. Although this vertical approach makes intuitive sense, I was nonetheless surprised by the consistency of my findings. In each doctrine examined for this article—the admissibility of aerial photographs, the “50-percent rule,” and the tripartite changes regarding Mewat land—lower-court rulings were by far the most important source of the arguments advanced by the authoring justices. And these rulings, in turn, most often replicated the arguments of Israeli state attorneys. In this way, doctrines evolved not only horizontally from one SC ruling to another, but also (and, in most cases, primarily) vertically, between the lower court (in this case, the Haifa District Court) and the SC. Moreover, while focusing on the horizontal evolution of these doctrines based on SC rulings alone may leave the sources of justices' ideas shrouded and unclear, exploring their vertical evolution based on lower-court and SC archives reveals a clear flow of doctrinal components from initial litigant arguments before the lower courts to the institutionalization of binding judicial doctrine. A vertical approach to the evolution of judicial doctrine has far-reaching implications for our understanding of Israeli executive-branch influence on the land-related judicial doctrines of the late 1950s and early 1960s. In contrast to previous scholarship, which concentrates on the degree to which doctrines favored state claims, factors motivating justices' rulings, and SC interventions, this approach focuses on the role of litigant argument and lower-court rulings in doctrine evolution. My main finding is that, in these disputes, SC justices did not simply rule in favor of the state but rather consistently adopted the legal arguments advanced by the state, transforming them into SC doctrine and the law of the land. The State of Israel v. the Palestinians of the Galilee: “Playing for Rules” during the Special Land Settlement Operation By the mid-1950s, the overwhelmingly Arab central Galilee had become the focal point of the Jewish-Arab struggle over land and the first regional focus of Israeli state land-claiming. There were two reasons for this. First, the area was almost all Palestinian in population and land ownership and had not been allocated to the proposed Jewish state by the 1947 UN partition plan. Although the Galilee (like most Arab areas of the country) remained under military rule between 1948 and 1966, many Israeli officials still regarded the demographic and sociospatial conditions there as a threat to Israeli security and sovereignty. It was in this context that efforts to “Judaize the Galilee” through Jewish settlement began in the early 1950s. Second, the region had not yet undergone settlement of title, or “land settlement”—a comprehensive system of survey, mapping, private and state land-claiming, and land registration initiated by the Mandate government and adopted by Israel in 1948. According to the terms of the system, this meant that the state's recognition of ownership rights in the region had not yet been finalized. From the outset, securing title of state-owned land to ensure sufficient territory for Judaization of the Galilee was a major Israeli concern. To this end, government agencies embarked on a systematic campaign of state land-claiming in the region. The land claimed by the state in the Galilee fell into two general categories: 1) privately owned Palestinian land expropriated en masse in the wake of the 1948 war, claimed by the Custodian of Absentee Property (CAP) and the Development Authority; and 2) “unassigned state land,” a term used by state authorities to refer to various types of land to which bare title was held by the state and to which individuals were unable to establish private rights to the satisfaction of the authorities. Israeli officials were troubled by the incomplete nature of the Galilee land registries and their belief that, since 1948, Galilee Arabs had “seized” large areas of state land. In 1954, these officials began calling on the government to accelerate Galilee land settlement to clarify the situation.
- Political Geography:
- Israel and Arabia
188. Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Discourse on the Right of Return, 1948–59
- Author:
- Maha Nassar
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This article traces the evolving discourse on the "right of refugee return"among the Palestinian citizens of Israel during the first decade of Israeli statehood, with emphasis on the role of the local Arabic press in shaping and reflecting that discourse. More particularly, it focuses on al-Ittihad, the organ of the communist party (MAKI), which paid the greatest attention to the refugee issue. In tracing the party's shift from a humanistic/anti-imperialist stance on the issue to one emphasizing the refugees' inalienable right to return, the article sheds light on MAKI's political strategy vis-à-vis the Palestinian minority. It also illustrates the political vibrancy in the early years of the community, generally viewed simplistically in terms of a pre-1967 quiescence and post-1967 politicization. In late autumn 1959, Saliba Khamis, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Communist Party (ha-Miflagah ha-Komunist ha-Yisra'ilit-MAKI) central committee, wrote an essay in the party's Arabic-language newspaper, al-Ittihad (The Union), reviewing the ongoing attempts to compensate and resettle Palestinian refugees outside Israel. In his view, such offers would never succeed because of "the vigilance of the refugees themselves and their strong insistence on their right to return to their country." Khamis's invocation of "rights" (huquq) permeated his analysis, appearing fourteen times in his half-page essay.# His comments also reflected a shift in thinking of many Palestinian MAKI leaders during the first decade of Israeli statehood. As the only legal non-Zionist party during the 1950s, MAKI was the political home for many Palestinian citizens of Israel who held Arab nationalist beliefs but had no other outlet for political expression. Like its predecessor, the Palestine Communist Party (PCP), MAKI's platform stressed internationalism and Arab-Jewish brotherhood, though disagreements over the party's attitude toward Arab and Jewish nationalism occasionally led to tensions within the party. In 1944, Arab leaders broke away from the PCP to form the National Liberation League (NLL), which had a closer affinity to Arab nationalist positions. Although the Jewish and Arab branches reunited in 1948 to form MAKI, such disputes once again led to the party's split in 1965 into the predominantly Jewish MAKI and largely Arab RAKAH parties. During the period under review, MAKI's Arab and Jewish leaders worked together to maintain an internationalist outlook while tailoring their political messages to appeal to their respective communities. Given the disproportionately large Arab makeup of the party, MAKI's Arab leaders used their party's publications to enhance their reputation as the champion of Israel's Palestinian minority and to convince readers to vote for MAKI in parliamentary elections. While we cannot know with certainty how widespread the views expressed in al-Ittihad actually were, a close review of the paper gives us insight into the political positions MAKI leaders believed would resonate in the Palestinian community, thus providing us with a useful lens through which to examine Palestinian political discourse in Israel during its early years. Reports and editorials that appeared in al-Ittihad throughout this period show how two threads in the discourse on return developed, crystallized, and ultimately converged. Initially, the few articles written on this subject were by party leaders with a strong pro-Soviet tilt and were aimed at convincing Israeli decision makers to allow refugees to return to their original homes and lands on humanistic and anti-imperialist grounds. However, by 1959, a host of regional and domestic factors led al-Ittihad to emphasize the collective and inalienable right of Palestinian refugees-both the "external" refugees mainly in the surrounding states and the "internal" refugees still in Israel but prevented from returning to their villages-to do so. These factors included mounting Palestinian calls for the right of return, which, coupled with growing Soviet support on the issue, gave MAKI some of the political cover it needed to take a stronger stance. At the same time, competition with the newly formed Arab nationalist group al-Ard and the leftist-Zionist party MAPAM for the political support of Palestinian Israelis, along with pressure from internal refugees themselves, further convinced MAKI's Arab leaders to emphasize the refugees' right of return-a position they have held ever since. This confluence of domestic and regional developments makes 1959 a useful endpoint for our discussion of MAKI's transformation. Understanding how and why these changes occurred not only gives us keen insight into the dynamics of Palestinian activism in Israel during this early period but also demonstrates that the direction of this activism was often bottom-up rather than top-down. Furthermore, it shows how al-Ittihad helped connect the geographically and politically isolated Palestinians in Israel to the rest of the Arab world, paving the way for a reunited Palestinian political entity in the post-1967 era. The refugee issue is one of the most contentious of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Palestinians have long argued they have a legal right to return to their homes in historic Palestine. This was based in part on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provision, "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country," as well as on UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (III), which recognizes "that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property."Israel, however, has maintained that Palestinians do not have a legal right to return and that a solution to the refugee problem must be part of a broader peace agreement focused on the resettlement of refugees. While Israel did allow a few thousand refugees to be repatriated under family reunification provisions negotiated at the Lausanne conference in 1949, it has resisted pressures to accept large numbers of refugees since then. Much of what has been written on the Palestinian refugees has focused on the origins of the problem and their prospects for return. Studies of internal Palestinian refugees in Israel have outlined the mechanisms by which they were deprived of access to their lands and their own attempts to return. Less attention has been paid to how Palestinians in Israel viewed the refugee issue as a whole, especially during the early years of the state. One reason for this may be the fact that Palestinian citizens of Israel are often viewed as having been quiescent prior to 1967, whereas after 1967, exposure to Palestinians in the newly occupied territories and in exile led them to challenge government policies more forcefully. This was certainly true to some degree: the military government imposed on the community between 1948 and 1966, coupled with land confiscations, economic discrimination, and travel restrictions, greatly hindered any attempt at political mobilization during that period. Nonetheless, bisecting the political history of Palestinian Israelis into "pre-1967" and "post-1967" periods glosses over more nuanced developments within the community during the early years of the state. Among the aims of the present study is to determine when the concept of "right of return" became commonly used in MAKI's discourses on refugees.
- Topic:
- United Nations
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Palestine, and Arabia
189. Palestine in Egyptian Colloquial Poetry
- Author:
- Noha Radwan
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Shi'r al-'ammiyya is a poetry movement whose emergence in Egypt in the early 1950s coincided with the heyday of Nasser's revolution, when the Palestine question was a national concern. With numerous practitioners today, the movement has yielded a large corpus of colloquial poetry that has become a significant part of Egypt's cultural landscape. This article presents a historical survey of shi'r al-'ammiyya's best known poets—Fu'ad Haddad, Salah Jahin, and 'Abd al-Rahman al-Abnudi—and their poems on Palestine. Among the essay's aims is to dispel the common misconception that the use of colloquial Egyptian ('ammiyya denotes parochial rather than pan-Arab concerns, with the standard (fusha) Arabic seen as a signifier of pan-Arab identity. In an essay on the poetics of Arab nationalist literature, Palestinian scholar Yasir Suleiman recalled a scene from his childhood: I remember as a little boy going to see an Egyptian film about Jamila with my cousins in . . . Jerusalem in the late 1950s. The whole cinema was in tears and people spoke about Jamila's legendary courage and the barbarity of the French for weeks after that. The film helped make the struggle of the Algerian people 'real' and made us all feel 'Algerian.' When we related the story of the film to my mother, she said 'We are all in the same boat.' We all understood what she meant: Algeria is Palestine and Palestine is Algeria. As a tool of mobilization, the film was very successful indeed. < The film to which Suleiman is referring is Jamila al-Jaza'iriyya (Jamila The Algerian, 1958) by the Egyptian director Yusuf Chahine. That the movie was a “tool of mobilization” against the Zionist occupation of Palestine as well as against the French occupation of Algeria was not an accident, any more than was the choice of Egyptian colloquial, 'ammiyya, for the movie dialogue. There is no need to speculate about whether the Algerian people's struggle would have been any less “real” for the Jerusalem audience if Chahine had chosen to use the literary, fusha, register for his film, or about whether the Jerusalemites would have identified more with the “Algerians” had the actors spoken the Algerian dialect, impenetrable to Palestinians. It is enough to point out that the choice of the Egyptian colloquial seemed so “natural” that it did not even warrant mention by Suleiman, whose interest in the film lay in its emotive and political impact on a Palestinian audience. Chahine's Jamila spoke to the entire Arab audience from the “ocean to the gulf” in a language familiar to them from Egypt's robust cinema industry and radio, the period's most powerful tool of mass communication. As Albert Hourani wrote, This was the age of radio too. Radio sets were imported on a large scale in the 1940s and 1950s. By 1959 there were 850,000 in Egypt and half a million in Morocco, and each set might be listened to by dozens of people, in cafes or village squares. . . . Every government had its own radio station. . . . A large proportion of the programmes sent out by all stations—talks, music and plays—originated in Cairo, and they too spread a knowledge of Egypt and its ways of speech. . . . Certain Egyptian voices became familiar everywhere—that of the country's ruler, Jamal 'Abd al-Nasir, and that of the most famous of Egyptian singers, Umm Kulthum; when she sang, the whole Arab world listened. It was in this sociolinguistic milieu that shi'r al-'ammiyya al-misriyya, an Egyptian poetry movement, one of whose main characteristics is its use of colloquial Egyptian, emerged in the early 1950s. A Modern Movement and Its Antecedents Shi'r al-'ammiyya poets wrote on a variety of themes, but the poems analyzed in this article concern only the Zionist occupation of Palestine, its calamitous consequences, and Arab reaction to these events. These poems establish their authors' commitment to the Palestinian struggle for liberation and the role Egypt must assume in this struggle, a commitment taken here as signifying an embrace of a pan-Arabist political agenda. Any ostensible discrepancy between embracing a pan-Arabist agenda and the choice of the colloquial over the literary language hailed as a hallmark of Arab identity can be dispelled through knowledge of the special status enjoyed by the Egyptian colloquial since the 1940s. On the literary spectrum, it is important to note that shi'r al-'ammiyya is not an extension of earlier traditions or movements using colloquial verse. Rather, it is a modern movement that originated in the 1950s in the poetry of Fu'ad Haddad (1927–1985) and Salah Jahin (1930–1986), poets infused by the new poetic sensibilities of the wider movement of modern/modernist Arabic poetry of the late 1940s. Colloquial poetic expression has existed in multiple folkloric forms at least since the early Abbasid period in the ninth century, and many of these forms continue to enjoy wide popularity in Egypt and other parts of the Arab world. As will be seen below, the poets of shi'r al-'ammiyya at times engage these colloquial traditions, but as part of the engagement with tradition shared by modern/modernist Arabic poetry movements as a whole. In this respect, it is important to distinguish shi'r al-'ammiyya from two earlier movements of colloquial Egyptian verse that were part of the Egyptian cultural landscape at the time when shi'r al-'ammiyya's emerged. The first is a modern manifestation of the poetic genre zajal as practiced by Bayram al-Tunisi (1893–1961) and an earlier generation of zajal composers whose works were widely published between the mid-nineteenth and the early decades of the twentieth century. The second is best represented by the poems of Louis 'Awad (1915–1994), an Oxford-educated Egyptian writer, critic, and professor of English literature in his collection Blutuland wa qasa'id ukhra (Plutoland and Other Poems), in which several of the poems are in the colloquial register. The zajal genre had been most popular during the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries in many parts of the Arab world and survives today, especially as a Lebanese folkloric tradition. In mid-nineteenth-century Egypt, zajal reemerged in a large number of popular newspapers. Its practitioners, known as zajjalun, were mostly urban and well versed in the literary register, but they found in zajal's colloquial register an effective medium of communication and mass mobilization in the service of social and political reform. Among the best known zajjalun of that period were 'Abdallah al-Nadim (1854–1896) and Ya'coub Sannu' (1839–1912). But it was in the hands of al-Tunisi that the Egyptian zajal, deployed in the service of social reform and the assertion of the Egyptian national character, reached an unprecedented degree of versatility and popularity. A number of al-Tunisi's zajals remain an important part of Egyptian popular culture. In contrast, Awad's poetry was part of a short-lived call by some Egyptian intellectuals to adopt the colloquial as a means to disengage Egyptian literature from the larger Arabic literary tradition and thus give it a distinctive and separate Egyptian national character. This went counter to the Arab nationalist identity then gaining ground, which insisted on the use of a common literary Arabic. Sati' al-Husri's (1880–1968) statement that “Every Arabic-speaking people is an Arab people” remains the most widely accepted definition of Arab identity. Al-Husri regarded the colloquial as divisive and called upon all Arab literati “to understand fully the umma's (nation's) need for a unified and unifying language and to hold on to fusha.” Resistance to this linguistic affiliation was fomented in Egypt by writers and intellectuals such as Salama Musa (1887–1958), who argued that “standard Arabic cannot serve as a medium of the national literature of Egypt and should therefore give way to a refined colloquial language.” 'Awad's call in his introduction to Blutuland for a break from Arabic poetics and the standard literary Arabic was a continuation of this ideological stance, but neither Awad's poetry nor his larger cause found much appeal with the Egyptian public.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt
190. Why Can't the Palestinians Recognize the Jewish state?
- Author:
- Ahmad Samih Khalidi
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Israel's relatively recent demand for recognition as a “Jewish state” or “homeland for the Jewish people” has important implications for the Palestinians (whether refugees, citizens of Israel, or residents of the occupied territories) with regard to their history, identity, rights, and future. This essay explores the moral and practical reasons why they cannot accede to this demand, or even accept Israel's self-definition as a matter of exclusive Israeli concern.
- Political Geography:
- Israel and Palestine
191. In Pursuit of My Ottoman Uncle: Reimagining the Middle East Region as One
- Author:
- Raja Shehadeh
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- In April 2011, Raja Shehadeh visited the United States to promote the U.S. edition of his new book, A Rift in Time: Travels with my Ottoman Uncle (OR Books, 2011). JPS heard several of his presentations, during which he read passages from his book and reflected on its genesis, major themes, and how writing it changed his thinking about the future of the region. In response to our request, he agreed to allow us to compile the typed notes for his various lectures into a single integrated essay, which he later edited and expanded with additional reflections and comments. A London-trained lawyer with numerous cases in Israel's military courts to his credit, Shehadeh first gained prominence as a human rights advocate and cofounder (in 1979) of al-Haq—the West Bank affiliate of the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists and the first human rights organization in the occupied territories—and for his legal writings. He has written a number of memoirs, one of which—Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape—won the Orwell Prize, Britain's top award for political writing, in 2008. When I finished writing Palestinian Walks about the vanishing hills around Ramallah, I felt confined, both by the narrow territory of the West Bank and by a time frame that logically begins with the 1967 war. The West Bank was the arena of that book, yet the Palestine problem, my overriding concern, neither began there nor can its meaning be contained within the four decades of the post-1967 period. The Israelis have perfected the art of “maintained uncertainty,” which consists of repeatedly extending and then contracting, through an unpredictable combination of changing and selectively enforcing regulations and controls, the space in which Palestinians can maneuver. This exacts a heavy psychological toll, inducing a sense of perpetual temporariness. At the same time, the proliferation of settlements, bypasses, and roadblocks that Israel constructs has succeeded in convincing the occupied of the permanence of the fragmentation, as if a truly new geography had been put into place. It suits Israel to elude political resolution, to keep negotiating borders (or talking about negotiating borders) while counting on the resulting uncertainty to maintain the population's quiescence. I wanted to escape all this. I needed to travel in a wider area and to write, so to speak, on a larger canvas in terms of both space and time. One of my abiding interests, which was at the base of Palestinian Walks, is the relationship that exists between people and the landscape. I wanted to continue this exploration. I had always been fascinated by the Great Rift Valley, created by a fault in the geology of the earth that extends from the Taurus mountains in southern Anatolia all the way to Mozambique in central Africa, forming a series of smaller rift valleys along the way. In its eastern Mediterranean segment, the valleys and plains through which the Orontes, Litani, and Jordan rivers flow are part of that system, as are the mountains and hills that lie to either side. Thus our stretch of the Great Rift Valley runs from modern Turkey in the north through Syria, Lebanon, Palestine/Israel, and Jordan, all the way down to the tip of the Hijaz in modern-day Saudi Arabia—all lands once part of the Ottoman Empire. As early as the mid-1990s, when the disappointment of the Oslo process was becoming obvious, my thoughts had begun to turn to the past. I considered writing a book that looks at the relations between the Turks of Ottoman times and the other peoples and lands of the eastern Mediterranean. When I proposed the idea to my publisher, he said this would be not one book but three. But I kept thinking about how I could frame such material and make of it a coherent story. In the meantime, I discovered a memoir written by a great-great uncle of mine, Najib Nassar, an important historical figure of late Ottoman and Mandate Palestine, who was one of the first to publish a book in Arabic about the dangers of Zionism. Though he defined himself the same way any Palestinian, or Turk, or Syrian, or Jew would have defined himself at the time, as an Ottoman, his memoir recounts his “great escape” from the Ottoman police during World War I. His “escape” took him from Haifa through the Galilee and down the Jordan Valley and into the desert wilderness east of the Jordan River. As I read about him, I saw we had a number of things in common: a strong interest in agriculture, an affinity to people who live close to the land, and a preoccupation with a cause. He was also a writer whose writings advocated for that cause. The two ideas—the Great Rift Valley and my great-great uncle's story—coalesced when I began to look for a subject to write about after finishing Palestinian Walks. The result was A Rift in Time: Travels with my Ottoman Uncle. It's a book about two journeys: the great escape of my great-great uncle from 1915 to 1917, which basically followed the Great Rift Valley, and my own modern-day explorations, starting out from Ramallah, of the places where he had been. And so it is also a book about two rifts—the Great Rift Valley that begins in Asia Minor and the “rift in time”—the century that separated our two journeys, and how the land has been transformed in the course of that century. More broadly, this book is my attempt to escape the confining reality of occupied Palestine, to free myself to see another reality beneath the present reality that tries to impose itself on our minds in every way, driving home its immutability. It seemed to me that it might be possible to emerge from the political despair that has become our lot by going back into the past and reimagining our region, concentrating on the Rift Valley and its physical integrity, and thinking how that continuity might one day return to reflect the political wholeness that the region once had. It was an act of imagination that I wanted to invite others to share, with the hope that they might come to see, like me, that the present is not permanent and that it is possible to rethink our land and what its future might look like.
- Political Geography:
- United States, Middle East, London, and Palestine
192. Hidden Histories: Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean
- Author:
- Keith W. Whitelam
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- No abstract is available.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine
193. The Political Economy of Aid in Palestine: Relief from Conflict or Development Delayed?
- Author:
- Sara Roy
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- No abstract is available.
- Topic:
- Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Palestine
194. The Statehood of Palestine: International Law in the Middle East Conflict
- Author:
- Diana Buttu
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- No abstract is available.
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Palestine
195. State of Siege
- Author:
- Jeffrey Sacks
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Reviewed work(s): State of Siege by Mahmoud Darwish; Munir Akash; Daniel Abdal-hayy Moore DOI: 10.1525/jps.2011.XL.4.104
196. Arab Views (cartoons from al-Hayat)
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This section aims to give readers a glimpse of how the Arab world views current events that affect Palestinians and the Arab-Israeli conflict by presenting a selection of cartoons from al-Hayat, the most widely distributed mainstream daily in the Arab world. JPS is grateful to al-Hayat for permission to reprint its material.
- Political Geography:
- Israel and Arabia
197. Selections from the Press
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This section includes articles and news items, mainly from Israeli but also from international press sources, that provide insightful or illuminating perspectives on events, developments, or trends in Israel and the occupied territories not readily available in the mainstream U.S. media.
- Political Geography:
- Israel
198. Photos From the Quarter
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This small sample of photos, selected from hundreds viewed by JPS, aims to convey a sense of the situation on the ground in the occupied territories during the quarter.
199. Quarterly Update on Conflict and Diplomacy
- Author:
- Michele K. Esposito
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- The Quarterly Update is a summary of bilateral, multilateral, regional, and international events affecting the Palestinians and the future of the peace process. More than 100 print, wire, television, and online sources providing U.S., Israeli, Arab, and international independent and government coverage of unfolding events are surveyed to compile the Quarterly Update. The most relevant sources are cited in JPS's Chronology section, which tracks events day by day. 16 February–15 May 2011
- Topic:
- Diplomacy
- Political Geography:
- Israel and Arabia
200. Settlement Monitor
- Author:
- Geoffrey Aronson
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This section covers items—reprinted articles, statistics, and maps—pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material.
- Political Geography:
- Washington, Middle East, Jerusalem, and Gaza