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10021. Commentary: The Challenge for Turkey's True Friends: the AK Party Closure Case and the West

Author:
Joshua Walker
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
The recent closure case brought against the ruling Justice and Development Party is a direct assault on Turkey's democracy. For this reason, America should not lose the opportunity to swiftly and unequivocally repudiate the establishment's attempts to re-assert control over Turkish politics by undemocratic means. The lack of a concrete resolution on the part of the U.S. in regard to the case has already resulted in a credibility gap. Given America's emphasis on and interest in Turkey's democracy and attendant reform process, a simple re-affirmation of its commitment to citizen's choices in free and fair elections would send a powerful message to a country that is on edge. Instead, Turkey is left with 'friends' who lack credibility and resolve at the worst possible moment. If the ruling party and its leadership are banned from political life, not only will Turkey lose its credibility in the Middle East as the only indigenous Muslim-majority democracy, the United States will also lose credibility in the world theatre for failing to support democracy in Turkey.
Topic:
Civil Society, Democratization, Government, Islam, Politics, and United Nations
Political Geography:
America and Turkey

10022. Commentary: The EU Anchor, Turkish Democracy and the Future of the AK Party

Author:
Sevgi Akarçesme
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
This article analyzes relations between Turkey and the European Union (EU) in the aftermath of the closure case against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).The indictment targeting the governing party, which is widely considered to amount to a judicial coup, has received belated but strong criticism from EU officials in charge of relations with Turkey. Although the pace of reforms did decelerate in the period following the vigorous efforts of the early 2000s, the EU continues to serve as a catalyst for Turkish democracy. In this article, the possible impact of the indictment and the closure case on Turkish-EU relations and Turkish democracy at large is evaluated on the basis of the reactions it has elicited from both domestic and foreign actors. Despite the lack of genuine liberal democracy in Turkey, especially on the part its political parties, the EU anchor could still serve as a driving force for democratization if managed successfully.
Topic:
Democratization
Political Geography:
Turkey

10023. Commentary: Containing the Political Space: Party Closures and the Constitutional Court in Turkey

Author:
Yusuf Şevki Hakyemez
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
This article discusses the limits of the freedom of political parties in Turkey. The political party bans constitute one of the most important problems threatening the freedom of political parties in Turkey. The restrictions on the political parties come to the fore in two different forms: dissolution after the military coups and closure by means of legislation. In the current context of the case opened against the AK Party, it may be possible and advisable to apply an amendment, bringing Turkish jurisprudence in such matters in line with the standards of the European community. It is concluded that the Constitutional Court should interpret cases of the dissolution of political parties in the context of the principles of "secularism" and the "unitary state" in such a way as to take into account the requirements of the principle of "the rule of law" and to allow different political alignments to express themselves in a "human rights respecting" and "democratic" country.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, Human Rights, Politics, and Law
Political Geography:
Turkey

10024. Book Reviews

Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Turkey as a U.S. Security Partner by Stephen Larrabee / 146 Ömer Taşpnar Turkey and the European Union: Prospects for a Difficult Encounter Edited by Ezra LaGro, Knud Erik Jorgensen / 149 Natia Ejoshvili The Importance of Being European: Turkey, the EU and the Middle East Edited by Nimrod Goren and Amikan Nachmani / 151 Christopher Brewin Between Islam and the State: The Politics of Engagement by Berna Turam / 153 Tuba Kancı The Kemalists: Islamic Revival and the Fate of Secular Turkey by Muammer Kaylan / 156 Michael M. Gunter The Politics of Turkish Democracy: İsmet İnönü and the Formation of the Multi-Party System, 1938-1950 by John M. Vanderlippe / 158 Paul Kubicek The Ottoman Empire, the Balkans and the Greek Lands: Toward a Social and Economic History Edited by Elias Kolovos, Phokion Kotzageorgis, Sophia Laiou and Marinos Sariyyannis / 160 Fatma Sel Turhan
Topic:
Security and Islam
Political Geography:
United States, Turkey, and Middle East

10025. FROM THE EDITOR

Author:
Rashid I. Khalidi
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Sixty years ago the Zionist movement launched an all-out military offensive to establish a Jewish state in a country with a two-thirds Arab majority. Victories followed in quick succession as the well-organized,well-armed Haganah battled poorly coordinated Arab irregulars and local militias. On 18 April 1948, after the prelude of the Dayr Yasin massacre and the conquest of Arab villages in the Jerusalem corridor, the mixed Arab-Jewish town of Tiberias was captured and its entire Arab population bused to Transjordan. The attack against the Arab quarters of Haifa, Palestine's largest city, followed almost immediately; Haifa fell on 22 April. With the conquest of Arab Jaffa several weeks later, the fate of Palestine was sealed, and on 14 May 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed. This issue of JPS commemorates this first crucial phase of the 1948 war with two articles about those first key Zionist victories: Mustafa Abbasi's “The End of Arab Tiberias” and a reissue of Walid Khalidi's landmark 1959 article, “The Fall of Haifa,” with a new introduction and footnotes by the author. The two articles have different approaches, with Abbasi focusing especially on the background to the tragedy, tracing the deterioration of relations between Tiberias's Jewish and Palestinian communities, and Khalidi concentrating more on the immediate military and diplomatic background of the attack on Haifa and the progress of the battle itself. Both articles, however, highlight the extraordinary collusion between the Haganah and Britain, which in each case virtually turned the cities over to the Zionists. Sixty years after the Nakba, the political and physical fragmentation of what is left of Arab Palestine continues apace. The Palestinian national movement, meanwhile, is in tatters. The West Bank under the Palestinian Authority and Gaza under Hamas are totally cut off from one another. Gaza is under a draconian siege, facing a humanitarian disaster. With the PA leadership increasingly discredited by its cooperation with Israel, and internal Hamas leaders weakened by popular disapproval of their Gaza takeover, the need for reconciliation between the two has become urgent. Against this background, Hamas politbureau chief Khalid Mishal looms larger on the international stage. Mishal's extended interview with JPS, part I of which appears in the current issue, is thus particularly timely. While most interviews with the Hamas leader focus on the current situation, JPS has taken a longer view, foregrounding in particular his political formation, the influences that shaped him, and the founding of Hamas. The issue also contains the second installment of JPS's new Congressional Monitor, cataloguing all the initiatives pertaining to Israel and Palestine in the first session of the 110th U.S. Congress (January 2007 to January 2008). Once again, the cumulative impact of the initiatives is sobering, with little expected to change in the future. Finally, for the record, a special document file contains the main documents associated with the Annapolis Conference of November 2007.
Political Geography:
Israel, Palestine, Jerusalem, and Gaza

10026. ARTICLE: The End of Arab Tiberias: The Arabs of Tiberias and the Battle for the City in 1948

Author:
Mustafa Abbasi
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Tiberias was unique among Palestinian mixed cities for its unusually harmonious Arab-Jewish relations, even during periods of extreme tension like the 1936-39 Arab Revolt. Yet within hours of a brief battle in mid-April 1948, the town's entire Arab population was removed, mostly across the Transjordanian border, making Tiberias a wholly Jewish town overnight. In exploring how this took place, this article focuses on the Arab community's rigid social structure; the leadership's policy of safeguarding intercommunal relations at all costs, heightening local unpreparedness and isolating the town from the rest of Arab Palestine; the growing involvement of the local Jewish community with the Haganah's plans; and the British authorities' virtual abdication of responsibility as they began withdrawing their troops in the last month of the Mandate and as Plan Dalet was launched, engulfing the country in all-out war.
Topic:
Civil Society and War
Political Geography:
Middle East and Arabia

10027. SPECIAL FEATURE: The Fall of Haifa Revisited

Author:
Walid Khalidi
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Almost fifty years ago, Walid Khalidi published "The Fall of Haifa" in the December 1959 issue of the now-defunct Middle East Forum. On the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the fall of Haifa on 22 April 1948, a major landmark in the Palestine war, JPS is republishing the article, long unavailable, to which Professor Khalidi has added endnotes and an introduction.
Political Geography:
Middle East

10028. INTERVIEW (PART I): Khalid Mishal: The Making of a Palestinian Islamic Leader

Author:
Mouin Rabbani
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Khalid Mishal (Abu Walid), a founder of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the head of its politbureau since 1996, has been the recognized head of the movement since the assassination of Shaykh Ahmad Yasin in spring 2004. Despite his considerable influence within the organization, at least dating back to the early 1990s, Mishal did not attract attention in the West until he survived Israel's botched assassination attempt in Amman in September 1997, which made headlines when King Hussein (with possible help from U.S. President Bill Clinton) compelled Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to provide the antidote to the poison with which he had been injected in broad daylight by Mossad agents disguised as Canadian tourists. Mishal's prominence has only increased following the Hamas victory in the January 2006 legislative elections in the occupied territories. Despite the U.S.-led campaign to isolate the Islamist movement internationally, Mishal has functioned as the main interlocutor with regional and international actors seeking direct or informal contact with the organization, as well as with the international media.
Political Geography:
United States and Israel

10029. Does the Price of Watermelons Matter? Economic Performance and Political Legitimacy in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Author:
Nicholas Gossen
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
al Nakhlah
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Despite Ayatollah Khomeini's famous comment that the Iranian revolution was “not about the price of watermelons,” the Islamic Republic of Iran was in part founded on economic promises of redistribution, equality, and justice. The strength of this rhetoric has formed a core basis of political support for the regime, but it has also established public expectations that the Islamic Republic has been chronically unable to meet. Many analysts have cited Iran's poor economic performance since the revolution and resulting public dissatisfaction as a key weakness of the clerical regime and a potential source of its downfall. Indeed, this is a crucial element of the argument advanced by advocates of stronger multilateral economic sanctions against Iran in the dispute over its nuclear program. However, underlying this logic is an implicit assumption that regime legitimacy is tied to economic performance. While intuitively appealing, this assumption bears further scrutiny, particularly if it forms a basis for American policy decisions towards Iran. The primary goal of this paper is to examine the political and economic factors that have caused the gap between economic rhetoric and performance in Iran, and to assess the extent to which that gap has affected the political legitimacy of the Iranian regime.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
America, Iran, Middle East, and Beijing

10030. The Rise of Islamic Banking and Finance in Central Asia

Author:
Geoffrey F. Gresh
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
al Nakhlah
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and rise of new nation-states in 1991, the Muslim republics of Central Asia and the southern Caucasus have witnessed the arrival of Islamic banking and finance to the region. The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has been a catalyst for the increased spread of finance projects in the region that are compliant with Islamic principles like no usury or riba. This paper examines the important role of the IDB and other Islamic banking and financial institutions in promoting socio-economic development across the region. Moreover, a majority of the Central Asian and southern Caucasian republics view Islamic banking and finance as important tools with which to channel the energies of radical Islamic opposition groups. Despite moderate success in the region, the IDB has confronted significant obstacles in trying to propose Islamic finance to these governments because of a strong Soviet legacy and volatile politics. Although the Muslim republics remain influenced by elements from their Soviet past, including a command economy and one-party political system, Islamic banking and finance has grown in the last decade to become a significant force for positive change.
Political Geography:
California