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1392. The Tenth Korea-U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum
- Author:
- Walter H. Shorenstein
- Publication Date:
- 06-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
- Abstract:
- Meeting after North Korea had raised tensions on the Korean Peninsula in the spring, participants in the Tenth Korea-U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum focused on the implications for the Korean Peninsula of leadership changes in North and South Korea and especially China. Participants also focused on regional dynamics, including increased confrontation between China and Japan and various, sometimes conflicting, efforts to increase regional economic integration in Northeast Asia.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Bilateral Relations, and Sanctions
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, China, Israel, and Asia
1393. Apartheid, International Law, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory
- Author:
- John Dugard and John Reynolds
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Apartheid is a loaded term; saturated with history and emotion. It conjures up images and memories of discrimination, oppression, and brutality; indulgence, privilege, and pretension; racism, resistance, and, ultimately, emancipation. All of which come to us through the history of apartheid in South Africa. Although prohibited and criminalized by international law in response to the situation in southern Africa, the concept of apartheid was never given enormous attention by international lawyers. Following an awakening of interest in the international legal prohibition of apartheid as a potentially appropriate lens through which to view the situation of the Palestinians, this article examines the merits of such a claim in the context of Israeli law and practice in the occupied Palestinian territory.
- Topic:
- International Law
- Political Geography:
- Israel, South Africa, and Palestine
1394. Apartheid, International Law, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory: A Reply to John Dugard and John Reynolds
- Author:
- Yaffa Zilbershats
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- I accept the authors' premise in their article entitled 'Apartheid, International Law, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory' that apartheid, as practised in the former South African regime, remains today a crime against the law of nations applicable to states practising a similar regime. The obligation of a state and its officials to refrain from practising any policy of apartheid is considered a jus cogens norm under international law. Whoever practises apartheid bears international criminal responsibility and may be put on trial for committing that crime, either in any state in the world based on universal jurisdiction or before the International Criminal Court. However, the very gravity of the crime requires that accusations of apartheid be made with the greatest caution. The accusation that Israel practises apartheid against the Palestinian population in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza is unfounded and based on gross errors. In this article I expand on two of these errors - the failure to differentiate between the norms governing occupied and sovereign territory, and the authors' complete failure to address Israel's policies in the context of an armed conflict characterized by the Palestinians' use of terror. As I show, once the authors' errors are exposed and considered, it is clear that Israel's actions cannot be considered a basis for the crime of apartheid.
- Topic:
- International Law
- Political Geography:
- Israel, South Africa, and Palestine
1395. The Rebalance to Asia: U.S.-China Relations and Regional Security
- Author:
- Phillip C. Saunders
- Publication Date:
- 08-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Abstract:
- Upon taking office in January 2009, Obama administration officials proclaimed a U.S. “return to Asia.” This pronouncement was backed with more frequent travel to the region by senior officials (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's first trip was to Asia) and increased U.S. participation in regional multilateral meetings, culminating in the decision to sign the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and to participate in the East Asia Summit (EAS) at the head-of-state level. The strategic “rebalance to Asia” announced in November 2011 builds on these earlier actions to deepen and institutionalize U.S. commitment to the Asia-Pacific region.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Diplomacy, Economics, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- United States, Israel, and Asia
1396. Sailing Against the Current – China-U.S. Relations in the Next Stage
- Author:
- Yu Bianjiang
- Publication Date:
- 06-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
- Abstract:
- In recent years, “rebalancing” has been a buzzword in the U.S.'s Asia-Pacific policy and naturally also in U.S.-China relations. Some believe this rebalancing has been quite successful and refer to this as the hallmark of President Barack Obama's first-term foreign policy. At the same time, others, both within and outside of America, have expressed different opinions. The most critical point is that while the U.S. administration has argued that rebalancing is an integrated strategy with military, diplomatic, and economic initiatives intended to strengthen U.S. involvement in the Asia-Pacific area, in practice, rebalancing has been depicted and implemented in more military terms, with the United States shifting its troops and resources from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the Asia- Pacific region. “The military soundtrack has the volume turned up too loud.”.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Emerging Markets, Bilateral Relations, and Armed Forces
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, Israel, Asia, and Australia/Pacific
1397. The Role of Syria in Israeli-Turkish Relations
- Author:
- Dennis Ross and Moran Stern
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- This article argues that, since the end of the Cold War, developments in or associated with Syria have proved instrumental in determining Israeli-Turkish relations, for better and worse. Syria borders both Israel and Turkey. Not surprisingly, its geographic location, regional strategic conduct, relations with Israel's and Turkey's regional rivals, military capabilities and, more recently, the implications of its civil war have affected both Israel and Turkey, and their relationship with each other. While strategic cooperation between Turkey and Israel reached a high point in the 1990s, and then soured and largely dissipated over the last several years, Syria's civil war has posed a new set of challenges and opportunities for renewed Israeli-Turkish ties. Indeed, shared interests on Syria may propel new possibilities for cooperation between Turkey and Israel on security, economic and humanitarian issues. Through the historical analysis presented in this article, the authors attempt to explain the evolution of Israeli- Turkish relations through the prism of Syria. Understanding the historical background provided herein is relevant for contemporary analyses aimed at finding new ways to renew Israeli-Turkish strategic cooperation and assist in securing a stable post-war Syria.
- Topic:
- Cold War
- Political Geography:
- Turkey, Israel, and Syria
1398. Understanding Iran
- Author:
- John McNeil
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Institution:
- Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- William Polk, born in 1929, is one of the more successful scholar-diplomats in American life. He has written more than a dozen books, mainly on the modern Arab world, some for trade publishers and some for university presses. He taught Middle East and Islamic history at Harvard and the University of Chicago. He also served in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, on the State Department's Policy Planning staff and later as an adviser to McGeorge Bundy, President Johnson's National Security Adviser, charged with handling the aftermath of 1967's Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors. His latest book is his first on Iran. He has visited the country from time to time since 1956, and in the 1960s met the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and some of the Iranian political elite. Aware of the stalemate that bedevils U.S.-Iranian relations, and frustrated by what he sees as the narrowness of war-game exercises and the field of international relations, Polk wrote this book “to bring forward what war games omit: in short, what it means when we speak of Iran and Iranians.” He feels American policy-makers pay insufficient heed to the history and culture of Iran and Iranians, and are thereby baffled by what seems to them illogical behavior. If they had adequate grounding in things Iranian, he believes, they would better understand Iran, its government, its policies, and its people. Adequate grounding, in Polk's view, extends back 2,500 years. He maintains that even if the majority of Iranians alive have scant knowledge of the Achaemenid dynasty they are nonetheless influenced by it. Indeed, he writes, “I am certain that the inhabitants of Iran today are largely governed by their past regardless of whether they consciously remember it.” He appeals to Carl Jung's notion of “collective unconscious” and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's “social contract” to make his case.
- Topic:
- Islam
- Political Geography:
- America, Iran, Middle East, Israel, and Chicago
1399. Obama and the Middle East: The End of America's Moment?
- Author:
- Fawaz A. Gerges
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- WITHIN Fawaz Gerges' text, The End of America's Moment?-Obama and the Middle East, the author endeavors to examine President Obama's implementation of inherently stagnant policies towards the highly volatile and rapidly evolving Middle East. Furthermore, Gerges elaborates on the manner in which the globalists and the Israel-first school succeed in shaping public opinion in the United States about the Middle East and how this process perpetually cripples Obama.
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, Middle East, and Israel
1400. Modern Islamist Movements, History, Religion and Politics
- Author:
- Azzam Tamimi
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- THIS BOOK is an easy to read textbook that is structured to present readers with an historical overview of some of the prominent Islamic movements active in parts of the Muslim world, specifically in West and South Asia. It comprises an introduction, five chapters, and a conclusion. The first chapter is about Egypt's Islamism with the main focus on the Muslim Brotherhood. The second chapter is on the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel. A summary of the history of the conflict leads to a discussion of Hamas, Palestine's main Islamic group. The third chapter is on Saudi Arabia tracing the roots of Wahhabism to Najd. The fourth chapter is on Pakistan with an emphasis on Mawdudi and Jama'at-I Islami. And the fifth chapter is on Afghanistan and the rise of Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and Alqaida.
- Topic:
- Islam
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine, Gaza, and Saudi Arabia