Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Palestine Publishing Institution Institute for Palestine Studies

191. The Goldstone Report: Excerpts and Responces

Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Whatever the ultimate fate of the Goldstone report's recommendations, the report itself, in the fierce emotions and controversy it has unleashed, will stand as a fitting coda to the event it investigates. Operation Cast Lead (OCL), Israel's military assault on the Gaza Strip launched 27 December 2008 with the avowed intention of stopping Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel, left some 1,400 Palestinians (mostly civilians) and 13 Israelis (including 3 civilians) dead. In the weeks and months that followed the operation's end on 18 January 2009, numerous human rights organizations published investigations of violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed during the conflict, principally on the Israeli side, but none was awaited with such anticipation or attracted such attention as the report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, otherwise known as the Goldstone report.
Political Geography:
Palestine

192. Monterescu and Rabinowitz: Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities: Historical Narratives, Spatial Dynamics, Gender Relations and Cultural Encounters in Palestinian-Israeli Towns

Author:
Elizabeth Faier
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This edited collection of essays examines how processes of modernity and nationalism intersect in the production and shaping of urban spaces. By focusing on "mixed towns" in Israel/Palestine, the authors illuminate the varied ways in which individuals and groups articulate identity, conflict, collective memory, nationalism, and daily life. Unlike much literature on the Middle East that favors homeland/Holy Land dichotomies or other static models, this volume eschews such tidy frameworks and instead reveals what the editors describe as "a fascinating array of contradictions, overlaps, collusions, protrusions" (p. 2) that characterize interpersonal and structural interactions between Jewish and Palestinian urbanites in both historical and contemporary contexts. Strikingly, the chapters demonstrate how the realization of one set of national goals comes directly in the face of "the other," often involving processes of erasure that rewrite the city. As editors Daniel Monterescu and Dan Rabinowitz argue, the "competition over space, including urban space, was part and parcel of reality from the initial stages of the bifurcated national effort".
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

193. Yacobi: The Jewish-Arab City: Spatio-Politics in a Mixed Community

Author:
Nimer Sultany
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The Palestinian citizens of Israel live mostly in separate Arab communities. Only a minority lives in so-called "mixed cities." Thus, one would think that if there was any actual, or any hope for potential, coexistence inside Israel between the Jewish majority and the Palestinian minority it would be found in these cities. But what does the notion of "mixed city" really signify?
Political Geography:
Palestine and Arabia

194. Seward: Jerusalem's Traitor: Josephus, Masada, and the Fall of Judea

Author:
Keith W. Whitelam
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Desmond Seward, who normally specializes in popular historical works on medieval and early modern European history, has set out to provide an account of the life and work of Josephus, the first century C.E. Jewish historian, for general rather than academic readers. This departure was inspired by his father's experiences as a British Royal Air Force pilot in Palestine during World War I, which instilled in him a love of William Whiston's translation of Josephus's The Jewish War (London, 1736) and "a respect for the fighting qualities of the Jews in both ancient and modern times".
Political Geography:
Europe and Palestine

195. Schanzer: Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine

Author:
Khaled Hroub
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine belongs to that genre of sensational and populist journalism that eschews objective analysis and has no use for academic rigor. Packaging prejudice and hatred against Palestinians under the guise of academic work, Jonathan Schanzer, a director of policy at the Jewish Policy Center and counterterrorism analyst at the U.S. Department of Treasury, aims to build an anti-Palestinian polemic whose vulgarity would stun many readers, including many mainstream Israelis. Anti-Palestinianism infests the book from cover to cover as the author recycles every tired Zionist misconception about the Palestinians in a new disguise: the Hamas-Fatah rivalry. Thus, we read that the PLO and its factions "became the preeminent model for terrorism in the modern era" and that "violence in the name of Palestinian nationalism has led to death and destruction in nearly every territory that the Palestinians have inhabited" (p. 8). All military activities against Israel and its armed forces are naturally labeled "terrorist attacks," but Israeli atrocities, say, against the unarmed village of Samu' in November 1966, in which "more than 70 people" (p. 18) were killed, is not.
Political Geography:
Israel and Palestine

196. Hoffman: My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet's Life in the Palestinian Century

Author:
Khaled Furani
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
In telling the story of Taha Muhammad Ali, Adina Hoffman captures with remarkable sensitivity the sadness, hilarity, mysteries, absurdities, and absences that have made up the life of an extracanonical Palestinian poet, whose reputation in English surpasses his reputation in the Arab world. Born in 1931, Taha, as Hoffman refers to him, hails from the vanquished village of Saffuriyya and for decades sold trinkets to Christian pilgrims, only a few kilometers from his obliterated birthplace, in Nazareth, where he and his family made their home after a brief refuge in Lebanon.
Political Geography:
Palestine and Lebanon

197. Laidi-Hanieh: Palestine, rien ne nous manque ici

Author:
Sarah A. Rogers
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Palestine, rien ne nous manque ici is a collection of memoirs, poetry, short prose, interviews, and reproductions of photographs, art, and posters. Some contributions have been previously published; others are translated from Arabic and English into French; and many represent leading Palestinian writers, artists, and intellectuals working in the occupied territories and its diasporas with a select number of foreign authors in the mix. Together, the pieces document the vibrant steadfastness of Palestinian cultural production, one that significantly refrains from a tone of either uncritical celebration or victimization. Instead, the compilation presents a complex glimpse into the emotional, ethical, and sociopolitical issues at stake in the contemporary conditions of Palestinians and the ways in which these larger issues inflect individual experience.
Political Geography:
Palestine

198. Isaksen: Literature and War: Conversations with Israeli and Palestinian Writers

Author:
Lital Levy
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
In the vast sea of literature on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rarely do we find literature on literature itself. Major Israeli writers such as David Grossman and AmosOz are well known in the West. But aside from the late poet Mahmud Darwish, even many Middle East scholars would be hard-pressed to name a Palestinian writer. What is the role of literature in the conflict? Could literature serve as a "cultural backdoor" to a deeper understanding of the "other" and the conflict? Could it even serve as an avenue for reconciliation? Runo Isaksen's Literature and War: Conversations with Israeli and Palestinian Writers attempts to answer these questions by means of interviews with prominent Israeli and Palestinian authors. This is a book of many, perhaps too many, stated goals, which nonetheless provides an important perspective on both the possibilities and limits of literature as a tool of conflict resolution.
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

199. Arab Views (cartoons from al-Hayat)

Publication Date:
12-2010
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, Palestine, and Arabia

200. Photos from the Quarter

Publication Date:
12-2010
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