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691. U.S. Security Coordination and the “Global War on Terror”

Author:
Jeannette Greven
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The U.S. Security Coordinator (USSC) mission in Jerusalem was created in 2005 to help implement security sector reform within the Palestinian Authority (PA). With a single-minded focus on “counterterrorism,” Washington considered the USSC an ancillary mechanism to support U.S. diplomatic and political efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Despite upending long-standing U.S. policy and cutting all other forms of aid to the Palestinians, the Trump administration has maintained the USSC in the run-up to the “Deal of the Century.” This article draws on original interviews with security personnel responsible for enacting USSC interventions. It uses their insights to highlight how the mission tethered Israeli political aims to its remit, and the distorting ramifications that have ensued for Palestine and the Palestinians. In uncovering the full parameters of Washington’s securitization policy, this history also points to the ways in which the PA has consequently been woven into the U.S.-led “global War on Terror.”
Topic:
Security, Sovereignty, International Security, Military Affairs, Negotiation, and Settler Colonialism
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, Palestine, and Jerusalem

692. Postwar Nakba: A Microhistory of the Depopulation of Zakariyya, 1950

Author:
Dan Tsahor
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This study follows the events that caused the depopulation of the village of Zakariyya, south of the Jaffa-Jerusalem road, during the summer of 1950. Using documents from state and military archives, the article constructs the story of the villagers’ expulsion and explores the role of the little-known Transfer Committee in initiating and promoting postwar expulsions of Palestinians from the newly established State of Israel. A close reading of the actions of individual committee members over the course of events uncovers both the Transfer Committee’s modus operandi and the ostensible rationale for the postwar depopulation of the village. The article argues that by packing the committee with representatives of major Israeli power centers, Chair Yosef Weitz in effect laid the groundwork for the continuing expulsion of Palestinians from Israel after the establishment of the state.
Topic:
Migration, Population, Rural, Settler Colonialism, and Nation-State
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, and Palestine

693. Special Document File: The Erasure of the Nakba in Israel's Archives

Author:
Seth Anziska
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
A 2019 investigation by the Israeli NGO Akevot and Haaretz newspaper has uncovered official suppression of crucial documents about the Nakba in Israeli archives. The Journal of Palestine Studies is publishing print excerpts and a full online version of the buried “migration report,” which details Israel’s depopulation of Palestinian villages in the first six months of the 1948 war, a document that clearly undermines official Israeli state narratives about the course of events. In methodical fashion, this report provides contemporaneous documentation of Israeli culpability in the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and the systematic depopulation of so-called Arab villages in the first six months of the war. Alongside a discussion of key revelations in the newly available document, this introduction situates the broader pattern of erasure within historiographical debates over 1948 and questions of archival access. It examines how accounts of Israel’s birth and Palestinian statelessness have been crafted in relation to the underlying question: who has permission to narrate the past?
Topic:
Security, Migration, Population, Ethnic Cleansing, Settler Colonialism, and State Building
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, and Palestine

694. Power, Politics, and Community: Resistance Dynamics in the Occupied Golan

Author:
Munir Fakher Eldin
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
In 1967, Israel occupied the western section of Syria’s Golan Heights, expelling some 130,000 of its inhabitants and leaving a few thousand people scattered across five villages. Severed from Syria, this residual and mostly Druze community, known as the Jawlanis, has been subjected to systematic policies of ethno-religious identity reformulation and bureaucratic and economic control by the Israeli regime for half a century. This essay offers an account of the transformation of authority, class, and the politics of representation among what is now the near 25,000-strong Jawlani community, detailing the impact of Israeli occupation both politically and economically. During an initial decade and a half of direct military rule, Israel secured the community’s political docility by restoring traditional leaders to power; but following full-on annexation in 1981, new forces emerged from the popular resistance movement that developed in response. Those forces continue to compete for social influence and representation today.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, National Security, Population, Occupation, Ethnic Cleansing, and Settler Colonialism
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, and Palestine

695. Palestinian Refugees of Syria’s Yarmouk Camp: Challenges and Obstacles to Return

Author:
Roger Asfar
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
On 22 September 2018, a boat carrying 39 refugees sank while sailing illegally from the Lebanese coast towards Cyprus. Five-year old Syrian-Palestinian Khaled Nejme drowned in the incident, drawing attention to the plight of Palestinian refugees from Syria seeking refuge in Lebanon. Once considered lucky compared to Palestinian refugees in neighboring countries, Palestinian refugees from Syria are now experiencing secondary displacement and are among the most vulnerable refugee groups in Lebanon.1 This paper attempts to provide a better understanding of the attitudes toward the return of Palestinian refugees displaced from Syria. More specifically, the paper addresses the challenges faced by Palestinian refugees displaced from Syria’s Yarmouk camp and currently residing in Lebanon. Since the Syrian regime and its allies have retaken control of Yarmouk, and amidst increasing calls from Lebanon for the “voluntary return of refugees”, what are Syrian-Palestinian refugees’ prospects of return? What are some of the major obstacles preventing their return? And what are some of the basic conditions to be met for a truly voluntary return to be encouraged? To answer these questions, the authors conducted a series of interviews in Shatila camp and Ain el-Hilweh between 26 June and 16 September 2018.2 The interviews were constructed in a way that allowed ample space for the representation of different political positions, ideological orientations, social backgrounds, and age groups.
Topic:
United Nations, Diaspora, Immigration, and Refugees
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Syria

696. Deal of the Century? Washington's 'Blind Spot' in Israel-Palestine

Author:
Khaled Elgindy
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), Rutgers University School of Law
Abstract:
Khaled Elgindy is an independent analyst and a nonresident fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, where he was also a resident scholar from 2010 through 2018. He is the author of the newly released book, Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump, published by Brookings Institution.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and History
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and United States of America

697. Youth Politics in the Middle East and North Africa

Author:
Sean Yom, Wael ak-Khatib, Begum Uzun, Matt Gordner, Giulia Cimini, Yousra Kadi, Dina El-Sharnouby, Sarah Fischer, Aziza Moneer, Curtis R. Ryan, Sara Ababneh, Yazan Doughan, Aydin Ozipek, Makiko Nambu, Sarah A. Tobin, Justin Gengler, and Sarah Anne Rennick
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
Youth political activism has been challenging Middle East and North African political systems frequently and forcefully over the last decade. This is not a new phenomenon, of course. Young people have historically stood at the forefront of popular uprisings and cultural movements. Demographic realities in the Middle East have increased the latent potential for disruptive youth activism. Nearly 60 percent of people in the region fall under the age of 30, half of whom are aged between 15 and 29, and in almost every country, unemployment for working-age youth exceeds the overall jobless rate. The failures of the 2011 Arab uprisings to achieve lasting democratic change revealed the limits of street protests, but the underlying problems remain profoundly unresolved. How are young people questioning, subverting, and transforming the boundaries of politics in the post-uprising Middle East and North Africa? In June 2019, the Project on Middle East Political Science convened a workshop on youth politics in Amman, Jordan, in cooperation with the Phenix Center for Economic and Informatics Studies. The workshop’s papers and deliberations sought to unpack the meaning of youth politics. What characterizes the latest wave of youth mobilization? How is youth activism, and youth politics, changing public attitudes and government policies? Can any generalizations be made about youthfulness, and the experience of being young and political, in the Middle East today? The essays contained in POMEPS Studies 36: Youth Politics in the Middle East and North Africa attempt to answer these questions. They come from scholars who, through intensive fieldwork in varying countries, study the origins and processes of activism among young people through diverse methodologies and orientations.
Topic:
Politics, Political Activism, Women, Youth, Protests, Sexual Violence, and Revolution
Political Geography:
Sudan, Turkey, Middle East, Israel, North Africa, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia

698. Trade Update 2019: Transfers, Transparency, and South-east Asia Spotlight

Author:
Michael Picard, Paul Holtom, and Fiona Mangan
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Small Arms Survey
Abstract:
Authorized small arms imports to South-east Asia were worth at least USD 443 million in 2016, a 48 per cent increase from 2015, as revealed by the Small Arms Survey’s Trade Update 2019: Transfers, Transparency, and South-east Asia Spotlight. This increase, combined with the diversification in their small arms trading partners, highlights the region’s growing significance for international small arms flows. The increased value of imports for South-east Asia mirrors the growth in the value of the global small arms trade, which was worth USD 6.5 billion in 2016—a 13 per cent increase compared to 2015 and the highest ever since the Small Arms Survey began collecting trade data in 2001. Almost 90 per cent of the USD 751 million global increase can be attributed to the world’s top tier of small arms exporters—most notably from Austria, Croatia, and Germany. The Small Arms Survey’s Trade Update features the 2019 edition of the Small Arms Trade Transparency Barometer—which scores the transparency of top and major exporters’ reporting on arms trade activities out of a maximum 25 points. The 2019 Barometer identifies Switzerland as the most transparent small arms exporter with 21.25 points for activities carried out in 2016, followed by Germany and the Netherlands with 19.5 points each, and Serbia and the United Kingdom with 18.25 points each. The least transparent major exporters were North Korea and Iran with zero points, Saudi Arabia with 0.5 points, and Israel with 1.25 points.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Weapons, Arms Trade, and Transparency
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Croatia, Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria, and Southeast Asia

699. Lebanon: Anger in Palestinian Refugee Camps Gives Rise to a New Mobilization for Dignity

Author:
Marie kortam
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
Those who visited Palestinian camps in Lebanon last month could not have missed a new upsurge in the popular mobilization on Palestinian streets. Their enthusiasm can be sensed in the spirits of the youth, their chants, and round-the-clock occupation of public spaces. This upsurge in mobilization was not only the result of the Lebanese Labour Minister’s implementation of his plan1 to combat businesses employing foreign labour without a permit – after giving them one month to regularize their situation.2 It was also the outcome of an accumulated sense of frustration, injustice, humiliation, indignation, deprivation and finally, anger that crystallized in these latest rounds of collective political action. The question then remains: why have Palestinians in Lebanon reached a breaking point at this stage, and why did the movement take this shape? There is no doubt that this anger accumulated gradually. First, it arose from the political-security arrangement for Palestinians in Lebanon, along with the historical absence of a socio-political contract with the Lebanese state. Second, it is the outcome of the deprivation, oppression, racism, and discrimination against Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, which was finally exacerbated by international resolutions hostile to the Palestinian cause, threatening the refugee cause and the right of return. Moreover, the economic situation of Palestinian refugees has deteriorated and was further compounded after the USA cut off its funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). However, alone these factors are not enough to fully explain this mobilization. These latest developments are also the product of a degree of practical awareness among the Palestinian youth and their discourse which explains their involvement in a movement demanding civil rights and an arrangement in which Palestinians are an agent of change against injustice. This movement is also proof of the existence of a new paradigm of the oppressed, who no longer identifies with the oppressors and becomes dependent on them, but instead seeks to break free from their oppression, and in so doing, spontaneously and effectively imposes a new social formula and project. This paper discusses the emergence of this popular mobilization and its transformation into a social movement, the challenges it has faced, and how its actors built a common framework for action to address their status as oppressed. It relies on field interviews – formal and informal – with actors and politicians, participatory observation, the analysis of organized groups, and contributions via WhatsApp and Facebook. The paper focuses on the movement in Ain al-Hilweh camp as one of the largest Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, with its political and security context that distinguishes it from other camps.
Topic:
United Nations, Diaspora, Social Movement, Refugees, Social Media, and Repression
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon

700. The Politics Of Maps: Mapping The West Bank Barrier

Author:
Christine Leuenberger
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
Maps and mapmaking have traditionally enjoyed the prestige of privileged and objective sources of knowledge. Within the geographic community and the public at large, it was assumed that the natural world was observable and could be rendered in pictorial form. Cartography is therefore not like psychoanalysis. It does not deal with internal phenomena hardly accessible to direct observation. Land and cityscapes do not need to be inferred or deduced. They are presumed to be susceptible to the scientific method in a most unproblematic fashion. Geographers, cartographers, historians of science, and science studies scholars, however, have increasingly questioned maps as objective representations. They have analyzed the social production of maps and maps’ link to society, culture, and geopolitics. They have found that mapmakers inevitably present a particular vantage point, one tied to certain social interests, values, and practices.
Topic:
Geopolitics, Occupation, Settler Colonialism, and Cartography
Political Geography:
Israel, Palestine, Gaza, and West Bank