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Begin New Search Topic Pandemic Political Geography Middle East Content Type Journal Article

1. COVID-19 as a Green Light for the Regeneration of ISIS’ Forces in North-East Syria

Author:
Oskar Schaefer
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:
Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:
Following the fall of the so-called Islamic State in March 2019, tens of thousands of its fighters, along with their wives and children, were captured and detained in facilities controlled by Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria. Many of which were European. Based on the information provided by scientific institutes and journalists, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic had had a significant impact on the functioning of those facilities. Not only did it aggravate an already severe humanitarian crisis, pushing the detainees to reinforce their attempts of escaping and rioting against the guards, but it also lowered the security level in the controlled facilities, allowing a flourishing of criminal activities. Furthermore, the detainment of ISIS followers turned into a political game between the Kurdish coalition and the United States. The global health crisis put to the test the strategy of many Western governments of keeping European ISIS fighters in the Middle East while pressuring the international community to rethink its approach towards this crescent problem.
Topic:
Military Strategy, ISIS, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

2. Making Sense of Risky Haredi Behaviors in Israel During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Author:
Ferit Belder
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
Covid-19 not only posed a threat to the bodies of individuals or their mental health but also disrupted routines that are re-producing certain communities every day. This is particularly the case for communities with already securitized identities such as the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) society in Israel. Its authentic narrative, routines and practices that had been sustained thanks to their decades-long autonomy within the state, faced a substantial challenge when the state-led pandemic measures arrived in Haredi towns. This article seeks to explain the Haredi non-compliance with certain pandemic instructions like closing religious and educational centers, through the conceptual lens of an ontological security approach. It argues that the ontological security concerns of the Haredi leadership hampered them from fully complying with the state-led pandemic measures, even at the expense of risking the lives of individual Haredim.
Topic:
Public Health, Autonomy, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Middle East and Israel

3. Predictors of Fake News Sharing on Social Media during COVID-19 in South Asia: Evidence from Pakistan

Author:
Malik Adnan, Muhammad Bilal Nawaz, and Rao Shahid Mahood Khan
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
South Asian Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
Spread of fake news has been rapidly increased in recent months and the determinants that lead the sharing of misleading information is not well studied. Henceforth, this study analyzes the result of a Pakistani sample (n=385) regarding proliferation of fake news regarding COVID-19. This phenomenon was studied by using uses and gratification framework it was extended by the altruistic motivation. An explanatory research design was followed, data was collected through questionnaire based on prior studies and respondents were approached through different social media websites and answers were collected through Google forms by following convenient sampling technique. Acquired responses were analyzed through regression model to investigate the magnitude of effects among the six categories of study on the result of fake news sharing. Findings showed that altruistic motivation was the main predictor of fake news sharing of COVID-19. Furthermore, other predictors i.e. motivation for information sharing, socialization gratification, motivation for seeking information and passing time were contributing in sharing fake news about COVID-19, while no relationship was found between entertainment motivation. This research suggested some theoretical and practical implications.
Topic:
Media, Social Media, News Analysis, Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Fake News
Political Geography:
Pakistan and Middle East

4. Statelessness and COVID-19

Author:
Jamie Liew
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Statelessness & Citizenship Review
Institution:
Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Melbourne Law School
Abstract:
Throughout the past year and a half, we have witnessed how no person or community on this planet has been untouched by COVID-19. There are countless reports about the differential experiences that various communities face in access to healthcare but also how some public health measures meant to stem its spread may actually be harming particular persons. The pandemic has put into sharp focus the inequities and the gaping fractures in societies all over the world. Moreover, the pandemic has made many realise that we cannot ignore the marginalised in our community given the interconnectedness of our existence. This issue’s critique and commentary part presents a snapshot of how some stateless persons are coping during the pandemic but also features the work of grassroots organisations and emerging researchers. We take a look at five stateless communities: the Rohingya in Bangladesh;1 LGBTQ+ undocumented in Brazil;2those seeking reproductive healthcare in Canada;3 the Bidoon in Kuwait;4 and the stateless in Sabah, Malaysia
Topic:
Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Stateless Population
Political Geography:
Bangladesh, Malaysia, Middle East, Canada, Asia, Kuwait, Brazil, South America, and North America

5. COVID-19 and the Bidoon in Kuwait

Author:
Areej Alshammiry
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Statelessness & Citizenship Review
Institution:
Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Melbourne Law School
Abstract:
This piece outlines some of the conditions that the Bidoon(Kuwait’s stateless population) have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.1 As a former stateless Bidoon and a researcher settled in Canada, I have utilised my community connections in Kuwait to inform my writing. The information in this article is gathered from speaking with at least eight Bidoon activists and stateless persons. I chose to keep their names anonymous for their safety. This work would not be possible without their contributions. The exact number of the Bidoon is unavailable due to the contested nature of the statistics provided by the government. However, differing sources agree that this population is currently over 100,000 in Kuwait, excluding those who have migrated or have lived in exile since the 1990s.2 The Bidoon are indigenous to the Arabian Peninsula but were made stateless after the formation of the Kuwaiti state in the 1960s. The in situ stateless are prohibited from accessing many social services (including public education, proper healthcare, employment, documentation, subsidies and pension plans) and other basic human needs offered to citizens.3 The consequences of such deprivations are more severe for stateless people during a global crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. p
Topic:
Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Stateless Population
Political Geography:
Middle East, Kuwait, and Gulf Nations

6. June 2020 Issue

Author:
Paul Cruickshank, Don Rassler, Audrey Alexander, Chelsea Daymon, Meili Criezis, Christopher Hockey, Michael Jones, Mark Dubowitz, Saeed Ghasseminejad, and Nikita Malik
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
COVID-19 is arguably the biggest crisis the planet has faced since the Second World War and will likely have significant impacts on international security in ways which can and cannot be anticipated. For this special issue on COVID-19 and counterterrorism, we convened five of the best and brightest thinkers in our field for a virtual roundtable on the challenges ahead. In the words of Magnus Ranstorp, “COVID-19 and extremism are the perfect storm.” According to another of the panelists, Lieutenant General (Ret) Michael Nagata, “the time has come to acknowledge the stark fact that despite enormous expenditures of blood/treasure to ‘kill, capture, arrest’ our way to strategic counterterrorism success, there are more terrorists globally today than on 9/11, and COVID-19 will probably lead to the creation of more.” Audrey Kurth Cronin put it this way: “COVID-19 is a boost to non-status quo actors of every type. Reactions to the pandemic—or more specifically, reactions to governments’ inability to respond to it effectively—are setting off many types of political violence, including riots, hate crimes, intercommunal tensions, and the rise of criminal governance. Terrorism is just one element of the growing political instability as people find themselves suffering economically, unable to recreate their pre-COVID lives.” The roundtable identified bioterrorism as a particular concern moving forward, with Juan Zarate noting that “the severity and extreme disruption of a novel coronavirus will likely spur the imagination of the most creative and dangerous groups and individuals to reconsider bioterrorist attacks.” Ali Soufan warned that “although the barriers to entry for terrorists to get their hands on bio weapons remain high, they are gradually being lowered due to technological advances and the democratization of science.” The special issue also features five articles. Audrey Alexander examines the security threat COVID-19 poses to the northern Syria detention camps holding Islamic State members, drawing on a wide range of source materials, including recent interviews she conducted with General Mazloum Abdi, the top commander of the SDF, and former U.S. CENTCOM Commander Joseph Votel. Chelsea Daymon and Meili Criezis untangle the pandemic narratives spun by Islamic State supporters online. Christopher Hockey and Michael Jones assess al-Shabaab’s response to the spread of COVID-19 in Somalia. Mark Dubowitz and Saeed Ghasseminejad document how the Iranian regime has spread disinformation relating to the pandemic. Finally, Nikita Malik discusses the overlaps between pandemic preparedness and countering terrorism from a U.K. perspective.
Topic:
Communications, Governance, Counter-terrorism, Media, Islamic State, Crisis Management, Al Shabaab, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Disinformation
Political Geography:
Africa, United Kingdom, Iran, Middle East, Syria, and Global Focus

7. Introduction: Public Health and the Promise of Palestine

Author:
Danya M. Qato
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This introductory essay contextualizes the special collection of papers on the pandemic and seeks to map the terrain of extant public health research on Palestine and the Palestinians. In addition, it is a contribution in Palestine studies to a nascent yet propulsive conversation that has been accelerated by Covid-19 on the erasure of structures of violence, including those of settler colonialism and racial capitalism, within the discipline of epidemiology. Using public health as an analytic, this essay asks us to consider foundational questions that have long been sidelined in the public health discourse on Palestine, including the implications for health and health research of eliding ongoing settler colonialism. Rather than ignoring and reproducing their violence, this essay seeks to tackle these questions head-on in an attempt to imagine a future public health research agenda that centers health, and not simply survivability, for all Palestinians.
Topic:
Health Care Policy, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

8. Responding to Precarity: Beddawi Camp in the Era of Covid-19

Author:
Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
How are refugees responding to protect themselves and others in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic? How do these responses relate to diverse local, national, and international structures of inequality and marginalization? Drawing on the case of Beddawi camp in North Lebanon, I argue that local responses—such as sharing information via print and social media, raising funds for and preparing iftar baskets during Ramadan, and distributing food and sanitation products to help people practice social distancing—demonstrate how camp residents have worked individually and collectively to find ways to care for Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqi, Kurdish, and Lebanese residents alike, thereby transcending a focus on nationality- based identity markers. However, state, municipal, international, and media reports pointing to Syrian refugees as having imported the virus into Beddawi camp place such local modes of solidarity and mutuality at risk. This article thus highlights the importance of considering how refugee-refugee assistance initiatives relate simultaneously to: the politics of the self and the other, politically produced precarity, and multi-scalar systems that undermine the potential for solidarity in times of overlapping precarities.
Topic:
Nationalism, Refugees, Solidarity, Public Health, Humanitarian Crisis, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Iraq, Iran, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Kurdistan

9. Covid-19 Fault Lines: Palestinian Physicians in Israel

Author:
Osama Tanous
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This essay explores representations of Palestinian physicians in the Israeli health-care system during the Covid-19 pandemic and the dynamics that have played out in that system during the public health emergency from the perspective of a Palestinian physician. It argues that the health-care system, an essential pillar and infrastructural foundation of the settler-colonial project, is naively imagined as an apolitical, neutral sphere. As the site of a metaphorical battlefield against Covid-19, it has been window-dressed as an arena for brotherhood between Israeli Palestinians and Jews, and fantasized about as a gateway to political gain or equality for the Palestinian citizens of Israel (PCIs). Throughout the process, settler militarism, settler symbols, and settler domination have continued to be normalized.
Topic:
Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Medicine
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

10. Covid-19 and the Necroeconomy of Palestinian Labor in Israel

Author:
Sobhi Samour
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The situation of West Bank Palestinians working in Israel has highlighted a number of parallels with the conditions of global labor employed in essential sectors during the Covid-19 pandemic. Under capitalism, the compulsion to work, ostensibly to cultivate life, comes at the risk of being exposed to death, but is preferred over immiseration caused by unemployment. The pandemic has merely amplified existing structural features of such employment. For Palestinian workers, with the risk of infection in Israel being significantly higher, the perilous conditions experienced by Palestinian labor have turned the preservation of life enabled by such employment more firmly into the production of death. The Palestinian Authority (PA), too, faces a conundrum: to balance the economic benefits it derives from Palestinian disposability in the Israeli labor market with public health considerations limiting such employment. This essay argues that the Covid-19 pandemic lays fully bare the necroeconomy produced by the intersection of settler colonialism and capitalism, which also forms the bedrock of the necropolitical order in the West Bank.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Palestine