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102. Arab Views (cartoons from al-Hayat)
- Publication Date:
- 01-2013
- 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
103. Selections from the Press
- Publication Date:
- 01-2013
- 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:
- United States and Israel
104. Photos from the Quarter
- Publication Date:
- 01-2013
- 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.
105. Bibliography of Periodical Literature
- Author:
- Norbert Scholz
- Publication Date:
- 01-2013
- 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.
- Topic:
- Economics
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Israel, and Palestine
106. From the Editor
- Author:
- Rashid Khalidi
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- As A wAve of revolution, unrest and upheaval sweeps slowly across the Arab world, one question has arisen repeatedly. This is the place of the question of Palestine in these ongoing tectonic shifts in the political map of the region. It has long been an article of faith for partisans of the status quo from which Israel benefits that this is an unimportant question, artificially sustained by corrupt unpopular regimes in order to distract their oppressed citizens. In her article on the place of the Palestine question in Egypt's revolutionary upheaval, Reem Abou-El-Fadl shows that in the case of Egypt the political forces that made the revolution (and those that have emerged in its aftermath) have long been deeply involved with the cause of solidarity with the Palestinians and opposition to the regime's policy of normalization with Israel. This important article highlights how central the question of Palestine and Israel is in Egypt, in spite of the overwhelming emphasis on domestic factors since the January 2011 revolution.
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Arabia, and Egypt
107. The Road to Jerusalem through Tahrir Square: Anti-Zionism and Palestine in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution
- Author:
- Reem Abou-El-Fadl
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This article addresses an aspect of Egypt's 2011 revolution almost entirely ignored in most Western media accounts: Israel and Palestine as prominent themes of protest. In reviewing Egyptian mobilization opposing normalization and in support of the Palestinian cause starting from Sadat's peace initiative of the mid-1970s, the author shows how the anti-Mubarak movement that took off as of the mid- 2000s built on the Palestine activism and networks already in place. While the trigger of the revolution and the focus of its first eighteen days was domestic change, the article shows how domestic and foreign policy issues (especially Israel and Palestine) were inextricably intertwined, with the leadership bodies of the revolution involved in both.
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Palestine, and Egypt
108. Digital Occupation: Gaza's High-Tech Enclosure
- Author:
- Helga Tawil-Souri
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- In disengaging from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel did not end the occupation but technologized it through purportedly “frictionless” high- technology mechanisms. The telecommunications sector was turned over to the Palestinian Authority under Oslo II and subcontracted to Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL), furthering a neoliberal economic agenda that privately “enclosed” digital space. Coming on top of Israel's ongoing limitations on Palestinian land-lines, cellular, and Internet infrastructures, the result is a “digital occupation” of Gaza characterized by increasing privatization, surveillance, and control. While deepening Palestinian economic reliance on Israel and making Palestinian high-tech firms into dependent agents, digital occupation also enhances Israel's territorial containment of the Strip.
- Political Geography:
- Israel and Palestine
109. The "Urban Redesign" of Jenin Refugee Camp: Humanitarian Intervention and Rational Violence
- Author:
- Linda Tabar
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- UNRWA's reconstruction of Jenin refugee camp following the massive destruction by Israel in April 2002 was the largest humanitarian intervention during the second intifada. This article uses the Jenin project as a lens through which to critically examine the minimalist humanitarian paradigm underwriting the agency's relief-centered mandate. Reviewing the negotiations between UNRWA planners and local refugee committees, the author highlights the tension between the agency's politically “neutral” technical vision and the refugees' needs and wishes. While recognizing UNRWA's crucial role, the author regrets that in expanding its operations beyond relief provision, the agency opted for a more traditional (liberal) community- based development framework rather than a rights-based approach, resulting in a depoliticization that undermines the community's struggle for its rights.
- Political Geography:
- Israel
110. The Right of Return Movement in Syria: Building a Culture of Return, Mobilizing Memories for the Return Anaheed Al-Hardan
- Author:
- Anaheed Al-Hardan
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- The Palestinian Right of Return Movement (RoRM) emerged among diaspora refugee communities following the Oslo accords and the perceived threat to the right of return. This article focuses on the RoRM in Syria in the context of the community's history and unique civil rights there. Based on extensive interviews in the Damascus area, it provides an overview of the heterogeneous movement, which, while requiring state approval, operates in an autonomous civil society sphere. RoRM activists translate visions of the return formulated in the Palestinian national arena into local community practices that mobilize memories of Palestine as resources (through oral history, village commemorations, etc.) with the aim of ensuring a future return by the new generation of refugees.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine and Syria
111. The Iron Wall Revisited
- Author:
- Avi Shlaim
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- More than a decade after the publication of his acclaimed The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, Avi Shlaim returns to Ze'ev Jabotinsky's theory as a framework for understanding Israel's Arab policies, this time focusing on the post-1967 period. The author revisits the theory's formulation by the leader of Revisionist Zionism in 1923 and its near total convergence with the (unacknowledged) strategy followed by Labor Zionism. Examining each Israeli government since 1967, he shows that all zealously followed stage one of Jabotinsky's strategy (constructing an “iron wall” of unassailable military strength) but that the lesser known stage two (serious negotiations with the Palestinians after being compelled by stage one to abandon all hope of prevailing over Zionism) has been completely ignored except by Yitzhak Rabin. Indeed, the recent periods have witnessed a full-blown return to the iron wall at its starkest, with increasing resort to violence and unilateralism.
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Palestine, and Arabia
112. Fieldnotes from Jerusalem and Gaza, 2009 – 2011
- Author:
- Elena Hogan
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Written by a humanitarian aid worker moving back and forth between the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem over a two-year period (May 2009– June 2011), the observations in these “fieldnotes” highlight the two areas as opposite sides of the same coin. Israel “withdrew” from Gaza and annexed East Jerusalem, but both are subject to the same degree of domination and control: by overt violence in Gaza, mainly by regulation in East Jerusalem.
- Political Geography:
- Israel
113. Mapping the Nakba
- Author:
- Ilan Pappé
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- In its first edition published in 2004, The Atlas of Palestine was already an essential item in the library of anyone seriously interested in the history of Palestine. At nearly 700 pages (almost 300 more than the earlier edition), the 2010 edition contains valuable information available nowhere else on 1,600 towns and villages, 16,000 landmarks, 30,000 place names, and much more. If I emphasize the richness of this car tographic representation of Palestine's modern history, it is because this Atlas is the strongest rebuttal yet of the Zionist cartographic representation of the country's history, exemplified in publications such as Martin Gilbert's Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Oxford University Press, 1993) and the various other atlases produced by Israeli geographers over the years. It challenges those projects both as a meta-narrative of Palestine's history and as a detailed project that rescues the native population from the invisibility to which they are condemned by Gilbert and others. In other words, this huge volume is a detailed refutation of the attempt to erase the Palestinians from the history of Palestine.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine
114. Staying Human Amidst Inhumanity
- Author:
- Edda Manga
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Vittorio Arrigoni (1975–2011) was an Italian journalist and peace activist who lived and reported from Gaza for the Italian newspaper Il Manifesto from 2008 until his death in April 2011. His book contains a day-by-day inside account of Operation Cast Lead, Israel's three-week military assault on the besieged and densely populated Strip
- Political Geography:
- Italy
115. The Meaning of Memorialization
- Author:
- Rosemary Sayigh
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Rochelle Davis tells us that she took ten years to research and write Palestinian Village Histories. For a Western scholar to have read and analyzed 112 of the 120 village histories published, as well as interviewed many of the authors, is in itself a rare achievement. If we add to this a range of scholarship that takes in the literature on memory, identity, postmodern anthropology, and Arab, Islamic, and Western historiography and textual criticism, we can only admire a tour de force. Davis's object of study is not the villages that the books memorialize but what their memorialization means, why this process began at a specific moment (the mid-1980s), how the books were produced, by whom and for what audiences, how they are read and responded to, and what power relations they reflect. While challenging dominant Zionist narratives, the village histories, she writes, also express "Palestinian men's authoritative perspectives within dominant definitions of what constitutes history . . . attempts at the ascendancy of certain families within local social structures; and . . . the pervasive and silencing presence of certain social values".
- Political Geography:
- Palestine and Arabia
116. Occupation, Fear, and State Discourse
- Author:
- Rahela Mizrahi
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- In Israel, “fear and suspicion not only permeate political rhetoric,” writes Ochs, “but also condition how people see, the way they move, and the way they relate to Palestinians” (book cover). Indeed, her study bears out her argument that “everyday security practices create exceptional states of civilian alertness that perpetuate—rather than mitigate— national fear and ongoing violence” (book cover).
- Political Geography:
- Israel and Palestine
117. It Only Takes One to Tango
- Author:
- Moshe Behar
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Think of a prominent Arab-Jewish scholar who had published dozens of books about themes pertaining to the modern history of his native Middle East (for example Murad Farag or Avra-ham Elmaleh). Imagine further that al-though he did not have a command of Latin, English, French, or German, our heuristic Arab-Jewish author proceeded to write a book about the his-tory of Western European Jewry during the past fourteen centuries, titling it In Jesus' House: A History of Jews in Christian Lands. Would academic presses be likely to entertain publication of such a work? Would scholars of Western European Jewry be likely to view such a text favorably or as being authoritative? These were my first thoughts after reading Sir Martin Gilbert's staggeringly ambitious book, aiming to survey the history of Jews from Morocco to Afghanistan, notwithstanding his lack of Arabic, Persian, or Ottoman Turkish.
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Arabia, and Germany
118. Uncovering Jerusalem
- Author:
- Mick Dumper
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- The short sixty-three years of Ayyubid rule in Jerusalem between 1187 and 1250 left few architectural and monumental traces, yet its impact on the city has been quite remarkable. Not only did the foundations of Mamluk Jerusalem lie in the construction work of the Ayyubids, as one of the contributors to Ayyubid Jerusalem, Mahmoud Hawari, concludes, but it was also a period in which the centrality of Jerusalem in Islam was reestablished. The Kurdish general and founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, Salahed Din, while basing himself in Egypt, made the liberation of Jerusalem a pious duty and the prime goal of his life's work. Reference to the contemporary revival of jihadi rhetoric around Jerusalem may be stretching too far the parallels that are suggested by this period, but it nevertheless pro-vides a rich context for understanding the power of the city in the imaginations of believers, as a range of Muslim leaders from the Hashemites to Shaykh Ra'ed Salah of Umm al-Fahm will attest. As interesting as this dimension is, we should not overlook the solid postliberation work undertaken by Salah ed-Din and his successors to consolidate the Muslim presence in the city through building works, endowments (waqfs), and incentives for migration. Both geography and the competing claims of other faiths appear to make this a never-ending task in Jerusalem.
- Political Geography:
- Egypt
119. Hizballah's Evolving Identity
- Author:
- Mouannes Hojairi
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- One of the notable elements missing from the literature on Hizballah's structure and military might is an in depth analysis of the party's inner mechanisms of identity formation. The process of generating identity and ideology from within the party has been largely ignored in favor of analysis of the party's performance and interaction within the regional politics of the Middle East, and within the Lebanese political system.
- Political Geography:
- Middle East
120. Refugee Culture
- Author:
- Steven Salaita
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- In Ethnic Identity of Palestinian Immigrants in the United States, Faida N. Abu-Ghazaleh does much to fill crucial gaps in the scholarship of Arab American communities, in particular the study of Palestinians in the United States. This sort of title, one focused on the cultural politics of Palestinian Americans, remains rare despite an increased emphasis among scholars on various practices of the Palestinian diaspora. This book is a welcome addition to the small corpus of scholarship that exists at present.
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, Palestine, and Arabia
121. High Technology and Palestinian Nationalism
- Author:
- Magid Shihade
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- In Palestine Online, Aouragh dis-cusses the use of Internet technology among Palestinians based on fieldwork in three different locations: Palestine in 2001–02, among Palestinian refugees in Jordan in 2003, and in Lebanon in 2003–04 (p. 30). Along with participant observations, she interviewed academ-ics, Internet café customers and own-ers, and some of those who lead the implementation of new technologies in Palestine.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine
122. Cartoons from al-Hayat
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- 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:
- Israel and Arabia
123. Selections from the Press
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- 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:
- United States
124. Photos from the Quarter
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- 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.
125. Update on Conflict and Diplomacy
- Author:
- Michele Esposito
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- 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.
- Political Geography:
- United States, Israel, and Arabia
126. Settlement Monitor
- Author:
- Geoffrey Aronson
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- 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 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 Israel
127. UN-Appointed Palmer Commission, Report on the Gaza Flotilla incident, New York, July 2011 (excerpts).
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- On 2 August 2010, in response to the continuing fallout over Israel's 31 May 2010 attack on a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for Gaza that resulted in the death of nine Turkish citizens, the UN Secretary formally established a panel of inquiry into the incident. The six-vessel flotilla, led by the Turkish-owned Mavi Marmara and heading toward Gaza with the stated intention of breaking Israel's siege, was boarded by Israeli forces some seventy-two nautical miles out to sea. The incident further strained Israeli-Turkish relations, which had deteriorated sharply over Israel's Operation Cast Lead in 2008–9.
- Political Geography:
- New York and United Nations
128. Middle East Quartet, Statement Urging the Resumption of Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks, New York, 23 September 2011
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- With the approach of the annual UN General Assembly (UNGA) session and the Palestinians not yet completely de- cided on whether to go ahead with a bid for full membership in the world body, the U.S. in late August 2011 stepped up efforts to avert the move. These included pressure on the Palestinians to accept a proposal by the Middle East Quartet (the U.S., EU, Russia, and the UN) to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talk in lieu of their statehood bid. U.S. envoys pre- sented several formulas, but the Pales- tinians found them insufficient and not serious, and said that even if a viable proposal were presented, the statehood bid would proceed (see Quarterly Update in this issue for details). The U.S. urged its Quartet partners to issue a statement on reviving talks nonetheless, believing it would give the U.S. leverage to argue that an alternative to the statehood bid still existed through negotiations, and that until all negotiating prospects were exhausted unilateral Palestinian steps should be opposed.
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, Europe, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and United Nations
129. Richard J. Goldstone, "Israel and the Apartheid Slander," New York Times, 31 October 2011.
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Judge Goldstone, who led the UN - commissioned investigation into allegations of war crimes committed during Israel's winter 2008–9 operation in Gaza (see Special Doc. File in JPS 154) and later, in a much-publicized move, repudiated one of the commission's major findings (see Doc. A1 in JPS 160), elicited further controversy with his op-ed in the New York Times defending Israel against accusations of apartheid. The op-ed was occasioned by the third session of the Russell Tribunal on Pales- tine (an “international people's tribunal” created by activists to promote peace and justice in the Middle East and funded by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation), scheduled to begin on 4 November in Cape Town, South Africa, which was to focus on the question of whether Israel's practices with regard to the Palestinians constitute apartheid differences (see un- der “Other” in this issue's Quarterly Up- date). See the first item in the “Selections from the Press” in this issue for reactions to the Goldstone op-ed.
- Political Geography:
- New York, Israel, South Africa, and United Nations
130. UN Security Council, Report of the Committee on the Admission of New Members Concerning Palestine's Application for Membership to the UN , New York, 11 November 2011.
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- The UN Committee on the Admission of New Members, comprising representatives of the fifteen serving members of the UN Security Council (UNSC), considered the Palestinian application at a number of meetings between 28 September and 8 November, the date it completed its final report. In addition to the five permanent members (the U.S., France, Great Britain, Russia, and China), the rotating members during this period were Bosnia, Brazil, Colombia, Gabon, Germany, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal, and South Africa. The report was formally accepted by the UNSC on 11 November.
- Political Geography:
- Britain, Africa, China, New York, Bosnia, Middle East, India, France, Brazil, Colombia, Palestine, Germany, United Nations, Nigeria, and Portugal
131. State of Palestine, Application for Admission to Membership in the UN and Accompanying Letters, Ramallah, 23 September 2011
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- The Palestinian application for admission to the United Nations, addressed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, consisted of three elements: a covering letter, the letter of application, and an appended declaration affirming that the State of Palestine accepts the obligations contained in the UN Charter, as required by the rules of procedure for both the Security Council and General Assembly. All three documents were signed by Mahmud Abbas in his dual capacities as president of the State of Palestine and chairman of the PLO Executive Committee, and the text of the latter two documents explicitly identifies the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The letter of application further specifies that the application is made “consistent with the rights of the Palestinian refugees.” This reference, and the emphasis on the PLO's status as the Palestinians' sole legitimate representative, were reportedly prompted by concerns that recognition of statehood could affect the rights of diaspora Palestinians and especially the refugees. The three documents submit- ted by the Palestinians were forwarded by the secretary-general with a covering letter to the serving president of the Security Council, Lebanese ambassador to the UN Nawaf Salam, who in turn conveyed all four items to all members of the Security Council as document S/2011/592 dated 23 September 2011. The documents were taken from the website of the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations at http://www.un.int/wcm/content/site/ palestine.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine and United Nations
132. Palestinian Pres. Mahmud Abbas, Address to the UN General Assembly on the Occasion of Palestine's Application for UN Membership, New York, 23 September 2011 (excerpts)
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- President Abbas's speech, which ended with the announcement that an application for membership in the United Nations had just been filed, consisted primarily of a comprehensive overview of the Palestinian position, past efforts, and current situation and included a clear statement of purpose, goals, and conditions for renewed negotiations. Addressing relentless settlement expansion and Israel's refusal to commit to terms of reference as called for by international law and UN resolutions, he stated frankly that it was "no longer possible to redress the issue of blockage of the horizon of the peace talks with the same means . . . that have been repeatedly tried and proven unsuccessful" and declared that negotiations were futile "without clear parameters and in the absence of credibility and a specific timetable," and in the continuing presence of an entrenched occupation that "continues to change the demography of our country in order to . . . alter the borders." Abbas was greeted enthusiastically upon his return home on 25 September by thousands of Palestinians who praised his actions at the UN General Assembly session as an assertion of Palestinian rights and principles, even while being skeptical that they would result in substantive change. The speech, delivered in Arabic, was taken from the PLO's Negotiations Affairs Department.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine and United Nations
133. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Address to the UN General Assembly on the Occasion of Palestine's Application for UN Membership, New York, 23 September 2011 (excerpts).
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech, which followed Palestinian pres. Mahmud Abbas's, was sharply critical of the United Nations, and emphasized Israel's unflagging efforts to reach a just peace in the face of multifold threats, the most recent and gravest being Islamist fanaticism. Though reiterating his often-expressed hope that the Palestinians will become a partner in peace and finally recognize Israel as a Jewish state, the speech was vague on specific reasons (beyond Palestinian intransigence) for the stalled negotiations. When Netanyahu took the podium following a standing ovation for Abbas, a number of delegates left the assembly hall, prompting him to state: "I did not come here to win applause. I came here to speak the truth." The speech was taken from the Israeli Prime Minister's.
- Political Geography:
- New York, Israel, Palestine, and United Nations
134. U.S. Ambassador to Jordan David Hale, Confidential Memo on the Debate in Jordan Concerning the Palestinian Right of Return, Amman, 5 February 2008.
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This confidential memo to Secy. of State Condoleezza Rice and the State Department's Near East Affairs Bureau was published by WikiLeaks on 30 August 2011, sparking controversy in Jordan for revealing the tensions between Jordanians of East Bank and Palestinian origin and the extent to which many Palestinian and Jordanian figures assume that the right of return has become unattainable. Titled "The Right of Return: What It Means in Jordan," the analysis was written by then-ambassador David Hale, currently the Obama administration's special envoy to the Middle East peace process. It summarizes the views of various Jordanians (East Bankers and Palestinians) regarding the Palestinian refugee population in the kingdom, and their concerns regarding Israeli-Palestinian final status. It has been described as "the best single short treatment of the topic in any language, drawing out the many tensions and nuances around the issue." The text was taken from the WikiLeaks website at www.wikileaks.org.
- Political Geography:
- United States, Middle East, and Palestine
135. U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, Address to the UN General Assembly, New York, 21 September 2011 (excerpts).
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Much of President Obama's speech was taken up with surveying the year's progress with regard to ending conflicts and realizing democracy and human rights (e.g., Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan, the Arab Spring). His remarks on the Israel-Palestine conflict, reproduced below, were less optimistic, and contrasted with his UN General Assembly address of September 2010, which gave a nod to the Palestinian demand for a settlement moratorium with tentative support. In this year's address, the burden of responsibility seemed to lie squarely with the Palestinians, leading some critics to speak of a "final capitulation to the Israeli position." The text of Obama's speech was distributed by the White House press office.
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, New York, Israel, Palestine, Arabia, United Nations, and South Sudan
136. State Department, Briefing in the Wake of UNESCO's Approval of Full Palestinian Membership, Washington, 3 November 2011 (excerpts).
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- The 31 October vote of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO) general assembly approving by a wide margin the Palestinian request for full membership in the organization (as opposed to observer status) was the starting point for the Palestine-related segment of the State Department's daily press briefing. Spokesperson Victoria Nuland was hammered on the U.S. defunding of UNESCO and progress on the peace process. The transcript was distributed by the State Department.
- Political Geography:
- United States, Washington, Palestine, and United Nations
137. Former U.S. Officials Robert D. Blackwell and Walter B. Slocombe, "Israel: A Strategic Asset for the U.S.," Jerusalem Post, 3 November 2011 (excerpts).
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Veteran U.S. foreign policy experts Robert Blackwell (a former senior State Department official and National Security Council aide) and Walter Slocombe (a former Pentagon official) wrote the following feature piece in the Jerusalem Post at a time when regional instability generated by the Arab Spring revived debate over whether Israel was a strategic asset or liability to the United States. The authors argue for maintaining the U.S. - Israel special relationship not only on the grounds of "shared values and morality" but also because of the benefits derived from bilateral security coordination. The excerpts below highlight the deep military and intelligence ties existing between Israel and the United States.
- Political Geography:
- United States, Israel, and Arabia
138. Bibliography of Periodical Literature
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- 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
139. JPS Responds to CAMERA's Call for Accuracy: Ben-Gurion and the Arab Transfer
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- In November 2011, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) alerted us to an erroneous citation in an article by Ilan Pappé published in the autumn 2006 issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies under the title "The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine." In that article, Dr. Pappé combined sections from several chapters of the manuscript that was soon to become his The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine , published in 2006 by One World Press of Oxford, England.
- Political Geography:
- America, Middle East, Palestine, Arabia, and England
140. Reflections on a Lifetime of Engagement with Zionism, the Palestine Question, and American Empire: An Interview with Noam Chomsky
- Author:
- Mouin Rabbani
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- What is perhaps most striking about Noam Chomsky is his consistency. Over the course of more than half a century of political activism, accompanied by a ceaseless output of books and articles as well as innumerable talks and interviews, he has-to the best of my knowledge-never changed his mind on a significant issue. This is all the more impressive when considering the astounding range of his political interests, which span the globe geographically as well as thematically.
- Political Geography:
- America and Palestine
141. From the Editor
- Author:
- Rashid I. Khalidi
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- THIS ISSUE OF the Journal of Palestine Studies goes to press between May 15 and June 7 2012, the sixty-fourth anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba and the forty-fifth anniversary of the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights. The lives of every Palestinian, and of many others, have been indelibly marked by these two seminal sets of events, which changed the course of the history of Palestine and the entire Middle East. These two markers of loss have defined many of the concerns of the Journal over its more than forty years of publication. During this time, it has been part of a broad effort to redefine the understanding of the meaning and valence of these two milestones.
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Palestine, and Sinai Peninsula
142. Western Interests, Israeli Unilateralism, and the Two-State Solution
- Author:
- Neve Gordon and Yinon Cohen
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This essay analyzes the impact of Israeli unilateralism-specifically that of its settlement project-on the two-state solution. After exploring the relationship between unilateralism and power, the authors show, inter alia, that in-migration has accounted for about half the settlement growth since the international embrace of the land-for- peace formula in 1991, that the level of in-migration does not fluctuate according to government composition (right or left), and that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have spurred rather than inhibited settlement expansion. The essay is framed by a contrast with the Palestinian bid for full UN membership, rejected as unilateralism by the Western powers but in fact aimed at undercutting Israeli unilateralism and creating the conditions for meaningful negotiations.
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Palestine, and United Nations
143. Liminal Loyalties: Ottomanism and Palestinian Responses to the Turkish War of Independence, 1919 -22
- Author:
- Awad Halabi
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- The imposition of British rule in Palestine following World War I did not immediately supplant one imperial system with another or Ottoman identities with national ones. Examining Palestinian responses to the Turkish war of independence, this article argues that the 1917-22 period should be seen as a "liminal" era suspended between imperial systems. Both Kemalists and Palestinians employed a discourse of loyalty to the Ottoman dynasty, Muslim identity, and resistance to European rule to frame their goals. It was only after the creation of the Turkish Republic and the promulgation of the British Mandate, the author argues, that nationalist identities displaced Ottoman ones for both Turks and Palestinians.
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Turkey, and Palestine
144. Compounding Vulnerability: Impacts of Climate Change on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank
- Author:
- Michael Mason, Mark Zeitoun, and Ziad Mimi
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Coping with (and adapting to) climatological hazards is commonly understood in intergovernmental and aid agency for a as a purely technical matter. This article examines the UN Development Programme's stakeholder consultations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in order to challenge the donor-driven technical-managerial framing of Palestinian climate vulnerability by showing how Israeli occupation practices exacerbate environmental stresses. While emphasizing the importance of social, economic, and political contexts in shaping populations' responses to climate change in general, the authors demonstrate the multiple ways in which the occupation specifically compounds hazards reveals it as constitutive of Palestinian climate vulnerability.
- Political Geography:
- Israel and United Nations
145. The Origins of Hamas: Militant Legacy or Israeli Tool?
- Author:
- Jean-Pierre Filiu
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Since its creation in 1987, Hamas has been at the forefront of armed resistance in the occupied Palestinian territories. While the movement itself claims an unbroken militancy in Palestine dating back to 1935, others credit post-1967 maneuvers of Israeli Intelligence for its establishment. This article, in assessing these opposing narratives and offering its own interpretation, delves into the historical foundations of Hamas starting with the establishment in 1946 of the Gaza branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (the mother organization) and ending with its emergence as a distinct entity at the outbreak of the first intifada. Particular emphasis is given to the Brotherhood's pre-1987 record of militancy in the Strip, and on the complicated and intertwining relationship between the Brotherhood and Fatah.
- Political Geography:
- Israel and Palestine
146. Reconceptualizing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Key Paradigm Shifts
- Author:
- Sara Roy
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- In the near 20 years since the Oslo peace process began, Palestinians have suffered losses-socially, economically and politically-arguably not seen since 1948. This altered reality has, in recent years, been shaped by critical paradigm shifts in the way the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is understood and addressed. These shifts, particularly with regard to international acceptance of Palestine's territorial fragmentation, the imperative of ending Israel's occupation, the de facto annexation of West Bank lands to Israel, and the transformation of Palestinians into a humanitarian issue-have redefined the way the world views the conflict, diminishing the possibility of a political resolution.
- Political Geography:
- Israel and Palestine
147. Nationalism, History, and the 1948 War
- Author:
- Weldon C. Matthews
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Efrat Ben-Ze'ev has produced a brief but thought-provoking response to the literature on the 1948 Palestine war that is bound by the parameters of official and academic nationalist narratives. Implicit in her book is a critique of the historical method that synthesizes textual and oral evidence to understand 1948 as the culmination of the Zionist project or the failure of the Palestinian Arab nationalist enterprise and seeks to assign culpability for the creation of the conflict to either of the nationalist movements. The production of these narratives deploys individuals' memories of 1948 as evidence, and those individuals' identities are consequently defined in terms of the nationalist narratives. Such a methodology obscures the instability of memory and the processes of reproducing it.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine and Arabia
148. Unearthing Ottoman Palestine
- Author:
- Dana Sajdi
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This collection brings together thirteen essays by established senior Ottomanists such as Butrus Abu-Manneh and younger scholars of Palestine such as Johann Büssow and Michelle Campos. The chapters cover various aspects of late Ottoman Palestine in the years between the Young Turk Revolt of 1908 and the final dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War.
- Political Geography:
- Palestine
149. Colonialism and Christianity in the Mandate Period
- Author:
- Anthony O'Mahony
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- The period of the British Mandate rule in Palestine is of great significance for the modern history of Christianity in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, because it represents an important transition point between the end of four centuries of Ottoman rule and the formation of the modern states of Israel and Jordan. It is surprising, however, that while the importance of the Mandate for the Christian churches is often noted, it has to date been an understudied area. Hence Laura Robson's book Colonialism and Christianity in Mandate Palestine is especially welcome.
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Palestine, and Jordan
150. Memory Narratives and Palestinian Women
- Author:
- Anaheed Al-Hardan
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Yitzhak Rabin was better known for his early role in the so-called peace process rather than for his role in the aerial bombardment, massacre, and expulsion of the people of al-Lydd and al-Ramlah in July 1948. The few families that survived and remained came under Israeli military rule. Fatima Kassam's book is an exploration of the life narratives of twenty of those women who remained in their natal towns of al-Lydd and al-Ramlah or sought refuge in towns from other destroyed localities.
- Political Geography:
- Israel and Palestine
151. Debating Israel's Palestinian Minority
- Author:
- Nimer Sultany
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- These two books, The Palestinians in Israel: The Conflict Within by Ilan Peleg and Dov Waxman and Arab Minority Nationalism in Israel: The Politics of Indigeneity by Amal Jamal, centralize the question of the status of the Palestinian minority inside Israel. Both books agree that minority members are granted an inferior second-class citizenship. This question is not merely consequential to the prospects of peace and reconciliation in the conflict between Zionism and the Palestinian national movement over the West Bank and Gaza. Rather, its ramifications extend to the character of the state of Israel independently of the peace process. In order to address this question, a significant change should occur. The books offer different perspectives regarding the nature of this change.
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Palestine, and Arabia
152. Militarism and Israeli Society
- Author:
- Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- The space between the military and society in Israel is the arena of a multifaceted and complicated relationship between the military and the civil sectors. As one of the contributors in Militarism and Israeli Society, Amir Bar- Or, declares: "Complexity is [a] key feature in civil-military relations in Israel" (p. 259). Militarism and Israeli Society is a collective attempt to understand this complexity. From the historian's point of view, the key strength of the book is its understanding of the way the space between Israel's civilian and military spheres changes-in scope and in nature-over time.
- Political Geography:
- Israel and France
153. Counter-State Zionism and Political Zionism
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Reviewed work(s): Nation and History: Israeli Historiography between Zionism and Post-Zionism, by Yoav Gelber. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2011.
- Topic:
- History
- Political Geography:
- Israel
154. Counter-State Zionism and Political Zionism
- Author:
- Ephraim Nimni
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Zionism: One or many? Obsolete? Irreconcilably divided? Ethnocentric? Is there a Zionism compatible with nondiscrimination of Palestinians? These two books, Nation and History: Israeli Historiography between Zionism and Post-Zionism by Yoav Gelber and Zionism and the Roads Not Taken: Rawidowicz, Kaplan, Kohn by Noam Pianko, present opposite points of view, one backward looking and abortive, the other forward looking, expressing hope for change. Both are grounded in historical discussions with considerable relevance to the present. Both draw legitimacy by adhering to a Zionist dream. The two opposing dreams, however, negate each other.
- Topic:
- Security and Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States, Israel, Soviet Union, Palestine, and Arabia
155. Arab Views
- Author:
- Habib Haddad
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- 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 con!ict by presenting a selection of cartoons from al-Hayat, the most widely distributed mainstream daily in the Arab world. The cartoons are by Habib Haddad. JPS is grateful to al-Hayat for permission to reprint its material.
- Political Geography:
- Israel, Palestine, and Arabia
156. Selections from the Press
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- 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.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Intelligence, and Islam
- Political Geography:
- United States and Ireland
157. Photos from the Quarter
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- 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:
- United Nations
158. Update on Conflict and Diplomacy
- Author:
- Michele K. Eposito
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- 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.
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, Israel, and Arabia
159. Settlement Monitor
- Author:
- Geoffrey Aronson
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- 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 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, Israel, and Egypt
160. A1. European Members of UN Security Council, Joint Statement on Jerusalem, New York, 20 December 2011
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- "We have just heard a brie!ng from Mr Fernandez-Taranco about the situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories. One of the themes that emerged was the severely damaging effect that increased settlement construction and settler violence is having on the ground and on the prospects of a return to negotiations. The UK, France, Germany, and Portugal are dismayed by these wholly negative developments.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- United States, United Kingdom, Israel, South Africa, and Brazil
161. A2. European Union, Internal Report on "Area C and Palestinian State Building," Brussels, January 2012 (excerpts)
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- In accordance with the Oslo Agreement the West Bank excluding East Jerusalem consists of three areas: . Area A (18% of territory, 55% of population) under Palestinian civil and security control. . Area B (20% of territory, 41% of population) under Palestinian civil and shared Israeli-Palestinian civil and security control. . Area C (62% of territory, 5.8% of population) under full Israeli security control and almost full Israeli civilian control.
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Israel, and Palestine
162. A3. EU Heads of Mission, Report on East Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 10 February 2012 (excerpts)
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Like the European Union (EU) report on Area C (Doc A2 above), this report was prepared for internal EU use and leaked, in this case to the British newspaper The Guardian. Prepared by the heads of mission of the EU member states in Jerusalem, it was approved by Brussels headquarters on 12 February. (A third internal EU document, on Israel's Arab minority, was prepared by the European embassies in Israel during the quarter, but not leaked in full. For a description, see Barak Ravid, "Secret EU paper aims to tackle Israel's treatment of Arab minority" in the "Selections from the Press" section.)
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Israel, and Arabia
163. 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
164. 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
165. 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
166. 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
167. 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
168. 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
169. 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
170. 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
171. 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.
172. 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
173. 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
174. '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
175. 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
176. 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
177. 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
178. 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
179. 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
180. 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
181. 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
182. 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
183. 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
184. 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
185. 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
186. 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
187. 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
188. 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
189. 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
190. 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
191. 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
192. 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
193. 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
194. 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
195. 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
196. From the Editor
- Author:
- Rashid I. Khalidi
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Can Palestine achieve liberation unilaterally by state-building and economic growth, despite the ongoing constraints of a suffocating occupation? Is a two-state solution of any sort still possible, and is it even desirable? What more can we learn about key turning points in Palestine's history like 1917 and 1948? The articles and essays in this issue of the Journal address these and other concerns about Palestine.
- Topic:
- Intelligence and World Bank
- Political Geography:
- Israel and Palestine
197. Neoliberalism as Liberation: The Statehood Program and the Remaking of the Palestinian National Movement
- Author:
- Raja Khalidi and Sobhi Samour
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- The Palestinian statehood-by-2011 program, framed through neoliberal institution building, redefines and diverts the Palestinian liberation struggle. Focusing on its economic aspects, and in particular the underlying neoliberal thought that goes beyond narrow economic policy applications, this essay argues that the program cannot succeed either as the midwife of independence or as a strategy for Palestinian economic development. Its weaknesses, the authors contend, derive not only from neoliberalism's inability to deliver sustainable and equitable economic growth worldwide, but also because neoliberal “governance” under occupation, however “good,” cannot substitute for the broader struggle for national rights nor ensure the Palestinian right to development.
- Topic:
- Human Rights
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Soviet Union, and Palestine
198. War-Time Contingency and the Balfour Declaration of 1917: An Improbable Regression
- Author:
- William Mathew
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- Rejecting deterministic views of the 1917 Balfour Declaration as an expression of the inevitable work of history returning Jews to their ancient homeland, this article argues that Britain's fateful endorsement of the idea of a national home for Jews in Palestine was, in fact, the result of a combination of fortuity and contingency related primarily to World War I and the concerns and personalities of the British politicians involved. The article highlights the historic improbability of the Declaration and its implementation in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, noting the regression it represented at a time when British imperial policy aspired to more flexible accommodations with colonial populations. FOR MANY ZIONISTS in the early twentieth century, the establishment of a national home for the Jews in Palestine through the British government's Balfour Declaration of 1917 and its League of Nations Mandate of 1922 represented, momentously, the now-imminent return of a diasporic people, comparative aliens in gentile societies, to their ancient home in the Levant. The mystic Zionist, Abraham Isaac Kook, saw it all as an expression of divine purpose, a great restorative sweep of God-driven history. Such ideas were rooted, albeit with a political twist, in the ancient Jewish sense of a “sacred” history and a related metaphysic of material events. There was an even grander reclamation: a “return to history” (ha-shiva la-historia) itself. Until that point, lacking territoriality and incoherent as a nation, the Jews had been, in David Ben-Gurion's words at the time of the Balfour Declaration, “extricated from world history.” Now, through the official agency of the British, they were poised for a dramatic reentry. REGRESSION To the disinterested historian, however, what commands attention is not some working through of ineluctable religious or secular historical forces but rather the sheer short-term contingency, much of it war related, of the enabling factors underlying both the Declaration and Britain's Mandate over Palestine in which it was ultimately incorporated. If there was any great movement of events, it was more a regression than an advance, involving as it did the establishment of a European settler community in an already well-peopled and well-charted territory. Britain's sponsorship of the Zionist project stood in contradiction to the “Wilsonian” spirit of the times, in which self-determination for formerly imperialized societies had been, notionally at least, a significant concern in post–World War I political dispositions. The British were remarkably explicit in their denial of democratic rights to the Palestinian Arabs. The author of the Declaration, Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, insisted, in an oft-quoted remark, that the aspirations of Zionists were “of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land,” and that Arab claims to Palestine were “infinitely weaker than those of the Jews.” These views were consistent with the Declaration's promise of protection for the “civil and religious,” but not “political,” rights of the so-called “non-Jewish” population of Palestine. Lord Alfred Milner, one of the drafters of the Declaration, suggested that history and tradition of “the most sacred character” made it “impossible . . . to leave it to the Arab majority . . . to decide what shall be the future of Palestine.” The prime minister, David Lloyd George, was more succinct: “You mustn't give responsible government to Palestine.” Nor could the indigenous population do much by way of effective complaint: Sir Ronald Storrs, successively military governor of Jerusalem and civil governor of Jerusalem and Judea between 1917 and 1926, observed that the Palestinian Arabs, in making pleas for political justice, had “about as much chance as had the Dervishes before Kitchener's machine guns at Omdurman.” There was, of course, a widespread failure on the part of European colonial powers to deliver self-determination to their subordinate societies: It took a second world war to bring that about. But there was a distinct sense in British imperial policy that aspired to more flexible accommodations with colonial populations—notably in India, Ireland, and Egypt. Winston Churchill as colonial secretary had, despite his own vigorous Zionism, a clear sense of the inflammatory inconsistency involved, declaring in 1922 that the problem with the idea of a Jewish homeland was “that it conflicted with our regular policy of consulting the wishes of the people in mandate territories and giving them a representative institution as soon as they were fitted for it.” Another friend of Zionism, Sir Mark Sykes, insisted in 1918: “If Arab nationality be recognised in Syria and Mesopotamia as a matter of justice it will be equally necessary to devise some form of control or administration for Palestine” that recognizes “the various religious and racial nationalities in the country . . . according equal privileges to all such nationalities.” The regression, however, was implemented, and proved to be of the greatest historical significance, with bloody consequences for the near-century ahead. The clear implication was that the Jewish national home in Palestine, inserted in newly conquered British territory, could survive only through radical moderation of its colonialist instincts and an historic compromise with the Arab majority; or, alternatively, by iron-fisted attempts to impose unmoderated Jewish political will. The second approach—the one that came to govern events—was well articulated by the “revisionist” Zionists, most notably by the Odessa-born Vladimir Jabotinsky. As Avi Shlaim indicates, Jabotinsky did not subscribe to the common, tendentious illusion that “backward” Arabs would welcome “modernizing” Jews into their midst. Conflict was bound to ensue, he maintained, and it was incumbent upon the arriving settlers to prepare psychologically and militarily for the battles to come. “Any native people,” Jabotinsky wrote in 1923, “views their country as their national home, of which they are complete masters. They will not voluntarily allow, not even a new master, but even a new partner. And so it is for the Arabs. . . . They look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and true fervor that any Aztec looked upon his Mexico or a Sioux looked upon the prairie.” The analogies were not happy ones.
- Political Geography:
- Britain, Palestine, and Arabia
199. Mahal and the Dispossession of the Palestinians
- Author:
- Dan Freeman-Maloy
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- The participation of thousands of overseas volunteers (the Mahal) in Zionist military operations conducted throughout the 1948 war has received insufficient critical attention. Mainly English-speaking World War II veterans recruited by the Zionist movement in the West for their expertise in such needed specializations as artillery, armored warfare, and aerial combat, the Mahal's importance to the military effort far exceeded their numbers. Situating their involvement within the broader historical context of Western support for the Zionist project, this article examines their role within the Haganah and Israel Defense Forces (particularly in aerial and armored units) in operations involving the violent depopulation of Palestinian communities. IN 1948, thousands of overseas volunteers traveled to Palestine to take part in Zionist military operations. While various accounts of their participation are available, the record of those Zionist combatants formally designated as Mahal (from the Hebrew Mitnadvay Hutz La'aretz, “volunteers from abroad”) has been distorted in deference to conventional Zionist historiography. The Mahal recruits are generally depicted as “forgotten heroes,” as historian David Bercuson describes them in The Secret Army. Providing the foreword to a study published amidst Israel's jubilee celebrations in 1998, Binyamin Netanyahu praises the “contribution to the struggle for liberation” made by Mahal fighters. “For them,” the authors of the study explain, “justice lay entirely on the side of the Jews”. The various memoirs written by volunteer combatants themselves likewise emphasize heroics in the service of a just cause. Yitzhak Rabin summarizes the standard narrative in his forward to one such volume: “The contribution of this small band of men and women is a glorious chapter in the story of Israel's struggle for freedom.” Estimates vary regarding the number of Mahal personnel interspersed throughout the Zionist forces. An initial Israeli census produced an estimate of 2,400, a figure now roundly considered low. Bercuson asserts that there were “more than 5,000 foreign volunteers who served with the Israeli forces”; Benny Morris cites an estimate of “more than 4,000.” A short study published by Israel's Ministry of Education in 2007 puts the figure at approximately 3,500. In any event, with total Israeli troop levels nearing 100,000 by the end of 1948, the significance of Mahal combatants did not lie in their numbers. “Mahal's special contribution,” in the words of David Ben-Gurion, “was qualitative.” Mostly English-speaking veterans of World War II, Mahal recruits devoted specialized skills to the Zionist military effort. Their expertise in modern military organization, artillery, armored warfare, naval, and aerial combat crucially facilitated the development (and early application) of Israeli military power. This “glorious chapter,” as Rabin calls it, has gradually been written into the “heroic version” of Israel's establishment. The role of foreign recruits in the political and demographic transformation of Palestine effected in 1948 merits a more critical recounting. What is recorded in the annals of Zionist historiography as Israel's War of Independence was experienced by Palestinians, some 750,000 of whom were displaced from their homes in the process, as colonial conquest. Widespread ethnic cleansing was among its principal features—a painful reality made more so by the denials, disinformation, and even celebrations that have surrounded it since. The present article reexamines the record of Mahal recruits in this light. THE POLICY OF COERCION AND ITS INTERNATIONAL UNDERPINNINGS From its establishment in 1897, the World Zionist Organization (WZO) pursued its ambitions concerning Palestine through organizational activity in Europe and North America and a strategic orientation toward the paramount imperial powers of the time. This approach succeeded in spectacular fashion during World War I when the Zionist movement secured British sponsorship for the creation of a Jewish “national home” in Palestine—a sponsorship given force by Britain's occupation of Palestine during the war and incorporated into its subsequent rule over Palestine under a Mandate approved by the League of Nations. With the growth of the prestate Jewish settlement (the Yishuv) during the period of British Mandatory rule (1922–1948), the center of Zionist decision making gradually shifted from Europe to Palestine. The WZO presidency of Chaim Weizmann, anchored in London, was overtaken by the leadership of David Ben-Gurion, based primarily “in the field.” But militarily as otherwise, the strength of the Yishuv remained heavily dependent upon international support. Funds from Western affiliates of the WZO—notably, the United Palestine Appeal (UPA), which channeled North American funds to Palestine through the Keren Hayesod (Foundation Fund)—were allocated according to the priorities of the Zionist Executive, including building military capacity. In matters of formal politics and diplomacy, the WZO operated in post-World War I Palestine as the Jewish Agency, which enjoyed formal juridical standing within the British Mandatory regime. Its military arm, the Haganah, though formally illegal, in practice also received important (albeit uneven) support from British authorities. This was most significant during the Palestinian Arab rebellion of 1936–1939, when sections of the Haganah were equipped and trained by the British to help put down the uprising within the framework of “Special Night Squads” and the Supernumerary Police force. Their experience bolstered the Haganah's capacities and contributed to shaping its military doctrine, particularly its preference for night-time assaults on Arab villages. By the late 1930s, as Nur Masalha has shown, leading Zionist decision makers were engaged in frank internal discussions regarding the prospect of forcibly expelling (or “transferring”) Palestinians to clear the way for a Jewish state. The fate of statist Zionism and its quest for a Jewish demographic majority would thus rest on coercive power. In a June 1938 discussion of transfer with the Jewish Agency Executive, Ben-Gurion emphasized that although the Zionist movement should seek Arab acquiescence, it “must enforce order and security and it will do this not by moralizing and preaching 'sermons on the mount' but by machine guns, which we will need.” “For Ben-Gurion,” writes biographer Shabtai Teveth, “the Yishuv's relationship with the Arabs of Palestine was now a military and not a political question.”
- Political Geography:
- Britain, Israel, and Palestine
200. The One-State Solution: An Alternative Vision for Israeli-Palestinian Peace
- Author:
- Ghada Karmi
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Palestine Studies
- Institution:
- Institute for Palestine Studies
- Abstract:
- This essay examines the one-state alternative to the commonly accepted two-state solution, which has been the basis of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process since 1993. It reviews the prospects for success of the two-state solution and sets out the arguments for and against such a settlement. The history and interpretation of the one-state alternative, whether binational or secular democratic, are explored, and the future chances of its success assessed. The author finds that to date no "road map" exists for how to implement the one-state solution, without which it is likely to remain an idealistic dream. THIS ARTICLE IS WRITTEN against the background of the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that began in Washington on 2 September 2010. The object of the talks, as of the peace process launched in 1993, is the termination of the conflict through the creation of a Palestinian state “alongside” Israel, that is, the two-state solution. However, changes on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territories since 1993 threaten to make such a solution unlikely, if not impossible. The Israeli colonization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem has so advanced as to make questionable the logistical possibility of creating a viable Palestinian state on the territory that remains. Yet there is an extraordinary reluctance on the part of most politicians concerned with the conflict to look the facts in the face and draw the obvious conclusion: A two-state solution that complies even with minimalist Palestinian requirements cannot emerge from the existing situation. Rather like Hans Christian Andersen's tale of the emperor's new clothes, none of them is willing to see the naked truth. As the feasibility of the two-state solution recedes, the debate has turned to the one-state alternative, often as an undesirable outcome of last resort failing implementation of the preferred option. Both sides have used it as a threat against those standing in the way of the two-state solution. Israel's former prime minister Ehud Olmert, for example, told Ha'Aretz on 30 November 2007 that if the two-state solution collapsed, leading to a South African-style struggle for equal rights, Israel would be “finished.” And former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qurai' declared in 2004 that if the two-state solution became impossible, Palestinians would have to aim for one state. Whatever the motivation, the idea of a unitary state has attracted renewed interest. In fact, the idea of sharing the land between Arabs and Jews is older than that of the two-state solution, which is a recent notion in Palestinian history that emerged in response to a series of defeats for the Palestinian national movement. Though never totally absent from the debate about a solution, the unitary state has increasingly become part of mainstream political discourse. A number of one-state groups have come into being, half a dozen conferences have been held, and a growing literature on the topic has appeared. Given the reality on the ground in what remains of Palestine, the uncertainty of success for peace negotiations aimed at two states, and the precariousness of the political situation, it would be irresponsible not to seriously examine the one-state alternative. THE EVOLUTION OF THE TWO-STATE IDEA The two-state solution has become something of a mantra for all those involved in the peace process. But the proposition that it is the ultimate solution, to the point of obviating the need to consider others, is neither true nor consonant with elementary notions of justice. Not only does it divide the Palestinians' historic homeland into grossly unequal parts, made possible by coercion and force of arms, it also forecloses any meaningful return for the refugees driven out. The idea that it could reasonably settle a conflict whose very basis is dispossession and injustice without addressing those issues is, to say the least, unrealistic. The two-state solution is in fact a recent position for Palestinians, who always rejected the idea of partition as a device used by Britain and later the UN and Western states for accommodating Zionist ambitions in the country. Today's Western support for a two-state solution springs fundamentally from the same motives. The Zionists first proposed partition to the Mandate authorities as far back as 1928, when the Jewish population of the country was 20 percent. In 1937 the Peel Commission, set up by the British Government to find a solution for the conflict between Jews and Arabs in Mandate Palestine, recommended that the country be divided into Jewish and Arab states. In 1947, the partition of Palestine was enshrined in UN General Assembly resolution 18, which was passed thanks to overwhelming U.S. pressure and against strong Arab opposition. The Palestinians at the time saw partition as an outrageous assault on the integrity of their country and an undeserved gift to a newly arrived immigrant Jewish minority imposed on them. This remained the Palestinian position after 1948, when the aim of the newly formed PLO in 1964 was “the recovery of the usurped homeland in its entirety,” as the preamble to the 1964 Palestine National Charter phrased it. It was the 1967 war, which spectacularly demonstrated Israel's superior military power, (not to mention its staunch Western support), that forced a change in the Palestinian position. The question of partition returned implicitly to the national agenda in 1974, precipitated by the peace negotiations that followed the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, offering hope of a comprehensive settlement and a role for the PLO. At its twelfth meeting, the Palestine National Council (PNC) formally resolved to set up a “national, independent and fighting authority on every part of Palestinian land to be liberated” from Israeli occupation. Although there was no mention of a Palestinian state as such, the resolution paved the way for new thinking about the future. This was reflected in the next PNC meeting in 1977, which called for “an independent national state” on the land with no reference to its total liberation. By 1981, the PNC had welcomed a Russian proposal for the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the idea of a two-state solution was gaining ground.
- Political Geography:
- Britain, Washington, Israel, Palestine, and Arabia