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961. Reclaiming Israeli-Syrian Talks

Author:
Ufuk Ulutaş
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
The Israeli-Syrian track has been an important component of the Arab-Israeli peace talks due to its integral role in reaching comprehensive peace in the Middle East. The latest round of indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria was initiated under the sponsorship of Turkey on May 21, 2008, and by the end of 2008 both sides were ready to start the direct talks. However, in protest of Israeli aerial and ground offensive in Gaza in December 2008, Syria halted the indirect talks with Israel. Several factors, including the lack of American endorsement; Olmert's weak prospect in Israel due to the ongoing corruption investigation; approaching early elections, and the rise of rightist parties in Israel, topped by the Israeli offensive in Gaza, rendered the conciliation efforts futile.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Treaties and Agreements, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, Israel, Arabia, Gaza, and Syria

962. The Palestinians in Israel and Operation Cast Lead: A View from Haifa

Author:
Hisham Naffa'
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
A Few Hours After Israel launched its assault on the occupied Gaza Strip on Saturday, 27 December 2008, two large crowds of angry demonstrators set out from different points of the Galilee town of Nazareth, the “Capital of the Arabs in Israel.” Supporters of the Communist party and affiliated coalitions carried red banners along with Palestinian flags, while the Islamist demonstrators carried green banners interspersed with the national flag. Both loudly proclaimed their identification with Gaza and their rejection of Israel's military crimes against the Palestinian people of Gaza. Eventually the two demonstrations converged on Nazareth's main street at the very spot where, a few years earlier, a bitter controversy with sectarian overtones had raged over the Muslim shrine of Shihab al-Din, adjacent to the Basilica of the Annunciation. But on this evening in late December, when the two groups commingled, memories of ideological difference and controversy were swept aside by feelings of solidarity and common purpose. Leaders from the various parties took turns addressing the demonstration, and their message was the same as the shouts that went up from the crowd: “Stop the massacre against our people in Gaza!”
Political Geography:
Israel and Arabia

963. Operation Cast Lead in the West Bank

Author:
Robert Blecher
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Palestinians Were Glued to al-Jazeera during the three weeks of Operation Cast Lead, which had killed 1,430 Gazans and wounded another 5,300 by the time Israel and Hamas declared cease-fires on 18 January 2009. The television screen was about as close as most West Bankers got to entering the fray. Despite the ferocity of the assault, the Jewish state's eastern flank remained largely quiet, if tensely so. The West Bank saw a single daylong strike (a second followed in East Jerusalem), a series of demonstrations in the larger cities, and a few scattered clashes with Israeli troops, which resulted in a handful of deaths. But security coordination between the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel continued apace, and while diplomatic negotiations formally were suspended “in light of the circumstances,” as a senior PA official put it, they were not severed.
Political Geography:
Israel

964. Made in the U.S.A.: American Military Aid to Israel

Author:
Frida Berrigan
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Enforcement of U.S. law concerning weapons exports and the disbursement of military aid are subject to highly politicized interpretations of concepts like "legitimate self-defense" and "safeguarding internal security." As illustrated by Israel's July 2006 war in Lebanon and its 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, Washington has essentially allowed Israel to define "self-defense" however it chooses. This overview of U.S. military aid to Israel, including weapons sales and related support of its domestic military industrial complex, examines in detail the mechanisms through which aid is funneled, the restrictions on aid that do exist, and the uses to which U.S. military aid has been put-particularly in terms of Israel's military operations and its exports abroad. Frida Berrigan is senior program associate of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC.
Topic:
Law
Political Geography:
United States, America, Washington, Israel, and Gaza

965. Israel's Assault on Gaza: A Transformational Moment? An Interview with Azmi Bishara

Author:
Mouin Rabbani
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Azmi Bishara (b. 1956 in Nazareth), an Israeli Arab politician and academic, earned a doctorate in philosophy from Humboldt University in Berlin in 1986 and for the next ten years was professor of philosophy at Birzeit University; he was also associated with the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem as a senior researcher. Politics, however, occupied him from an early age. In 1974, while still in high school, he established the first National Committee of Arab High School Students; two years later he was instrumental in founding the first National Arab Student Union, which he represented in the Committee for the Defense of Arab Lands when it declared Land Day in 1976. Bishara has been a dominant force in Israeli Arab politics since 1995, when he was a principal founder of the National Democratic Assembly (Tajamu` in Arabic, Balad in Hebrew), a "democratic progressive national party for the Palestinian citizens of Israel." He was elected to the Israeli Knesset for the first time in 1996-and in all subsequent elections through 2006-under the banner of the National Democratic Assembly, which soon became the spearhead of the national movement for the Palestinian community in Israel with its demands for cultural autonomy, recognition as a national minority, and equal rights. Within a few years, the slogan Bishara coined, "Israel as a state for all its citizens," had become a mainstream demand and the rallying cry of Israel's Palestinian community. A self-described Arab nationalist, Bishara has long been a thorn in the side of the Israeli establishment. Attempts to rein him in began in earnest in November 2001, when, following a visit to Syria and speeches supporting the right of people under occupation to resist, the Knesset revoked his immunity as a member of the Knesset, opening the way for a criminal indictment against him. The Israeli High Court dismissed the indictment in April 2003 and Bishara's parliamentary immunity was restored, but other actions followed. The National Democratic Assembly, was twice banned (in 2003 and 2006) from participating in parliamentary elections by Israel's Central Elections Committee. (The ban was lifted both times by the High Court, and both times the party won three seats.) Following Israel's 2006 Lebanon war, Bishara became the subject of a high-level security probe. Although he vigorously rejected allegations of "passing information to the enemy at time of war" as politically motivated fabrications, he resigned his Knesset seat and went into exile in April 2007. In spring 2009, a bill was introduced in the Knesset that, if passed, will allow the state to strip him of his citizenship. Since leaving Israel, Bishara divides his time between Amman, Jordan, and Doha, Qatar. In addition to writing (he has published three books in recent years), he is a prominent commentator on regional and international affairs in the Arab media and satellite TV and holds the Gamal Abdel Nasser Chair for Arab Thought at the Center for Arab Unity Studies in Beirut. He was interviewed in English in Doha on 17 February 2009 by Mouin Rabbani, an Amman-based independent analyst and a senior fellow of the Institute for Palestine Studies.
Political Geography:
Israel, Palestine, and Gaza

966. Voting for Apartheid: The 2009 Israeli Elections

Author:
Oren Yiftachel
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Focusing primarily on Israeli voter attitudes with respect to the Zionist-Palestinian conflict, this paper argues that the results of the 2009 elections highlight the structural entanglement of Israeli politics within a colonialist process of "creeping apartheid" not only in the West Bank but in Israel proper. The elections also demonstrated the continuing relevance of identity and class politics among Israeli voters and the trend among culturally and economically marginalized groups to support the colonialist agendas set mainly by the settlers, the military, and parts of the globalizing economic elites. In parallel, election results among Palestinians in Israel reflect their growing alienation from a political system that structurally excludes them from political influence. Oren Yiftachel is professor of political geography, urban planning, and public policy at Ben-Gurion University, Beersheba, and the author of a number of books, including Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine (Penn Press, 2006).
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
Israel

967. Shooting Gaza: Photographers, Photographs, and the Unbearable Lightness of War

Author:
Peter Lagerquist
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Barred entry to Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, Western photojournalists and TV crews found themselves confined to the Israeli side of the border during the assault, peering along the barrels of IDF artillery. The following essay reflects on what was said and heard among them on a sunny day in January 2009, how they and local Israeli spectators related to the violence, and how these two perspectives were tacitly elided in photographs of the war.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Israel and Gaza

968. Lead-Up to Cast Lead: Gaza at a Glance

Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Inhabited from the 4th millennium B.C., and later a strategic and commercial crossroads linking Egypt and Mesopotamia (and Africa and the Arabian Peninsula), Gaza became the center of one of the 16 districts of Mandate Palestine under British rule in 1922. The Gaza Strip constitutes that part of Palestine held by the Egyptian forces at the end of the 1948 Palestine war and then administered by Egypt from the signing of the 1949 Egyptian-Israeli Armistice Agreement to the June 1967 war. The Strip comprised 1.3% of Mandate Palestine, 27% of the Mandate's Gaza district. Israel occupied the Gaza Strip during the June 1967 war. In 1994, the Palestinian Authority assumed territorial and civilian jurisdiction over the Gaza Strip (except for the settlements and military areas) under the Gaza-Jericho agreement, signed that year by Israel and the PLO. Israel unilaterally withdrew all military installations and settlements from the Gaza Strip in August–September 2005, but retained control of airspace, territorial waters, and entry and exit points; consequently, it remains the occupying power.
Political Geography:
Israel and Egypt

969. Israeli Military Operations against Gaza, 2000–2008

Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 38, no. 3, p. 122
Political Geography:
Israel, Palestine, and Gaza

970. The Israeli Arsenal Deployed Against Gaza During Operation Cast Lead

Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The gross disparity between the military resources available to Israel and the Palestinian factions during Operation Cast Lead (OCL) could make a comparison between their two “arsenals” seem absurd. Yet this and the following document devoted to Palestinian weaponry not only highlight the imbalance but help the reader better appreciate the dynamics at play in the broader conflict.
Political Geography:
Israel, Palestine, and Gaza