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281. MAKING EFFORTS TO IMPROVE UN PEACEKEEPING

Author:
Chiara Ruffa
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Political Violence @ A Glance
Abstract:
UN peacekeeping often works: overwhelming evidence tells us it saves lives, and—usually—keeps peace (see here, here, here, and here). Despite the successes of peacekeeping, scholars and policymakers alike continue to explore how to make peacekeeping even more effective. Several recent proposals have focused on improving procedures of the UN Security Council and mission mandates, as well as on increasing resources (as in the Cruz report’s call for “overwhelming force”). Such suggestions, however, neglect two critical facts about peacekeeping.
Topic:
United Nations, Peacekeeping, and Protection
Political Geography:
South Asia, Middle East, Kashmir, and Lebanon

282. Rethinking Orientalism

Author:
Nadje al-Ali
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), Rutgers University School of Law
Abstract:
The lecture will address the relevance of Edward Said’s Orientalism for the contemporary study of women and gender in the Middle East. What are the main challenges of researching and talking about gender in the Middle East? What are the continuities in our engagement with Orientalism and where do we find ruptures and limitations? Based on empirical research as well as activism in relation to Egypt, Iraq, Turkey and Lebanon, this lecture will discuss the centrality of a gendered analysis in understanding recent developments in the region. It will pay particular attention to the centrality of body politics in challenging authoritarianism.
Topic:
Politics, Authoritarianism, Women, Research, Orientalism, Activism, and Gender
Political Geography:
Iraq, Turkey, Middle East, Lebanon, and Egypt

283. ARAB STUDIES JOURNAL VOL. XXVI, NO. 2

Author:
Shehab Ismail, Reem Bailony, Neha Vora, Ahmed Kanna, Graham Auman Pitts, Judith Naeff, Maha Nassar, Benoit Challand, Jocelyn Sage Mitchell, David Gutman, Alexa Firat, Matthew L. Keegan, Matthew S. Hopper, Johan Mathew, and Thomas F. McDow
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Arab Studies Journal
Institution:
Arab Studies Institute
Abstract:
We are proud to feature a collection of pieces that innovate new methodological approaches, confront the relationship between knowledge and power, and speak to the urgent concerns of the present, infrastructure, ecology, migration, and war. In “Epicures and Experts: The Drinking Water Controversy in British Colonial Cairo,” Shehab Ismail explores taste, class, and the environment. When in 1905 the Cairo Water Company altered its source of intake to deep wells instead of the Nile, it pitted experts, officials, and the urban poor in a battle over knowledge, medical traditions, and water practices. In tracing the five year struggle in which the palate became a battleground, Ismail reveals how taste, as a mode of embodied knowledge became a site of confrontation between heterogenous epistemic persuasions. In “From Mandate Borders to the Diaspora: Rashaya’s Transnational Suffering and the Making of Lebanon in 1925,” Reem Bailony traces debates on the social, political, and economic constructions of Lebanon and Syria, both in the borders of the French Mandate and well outside of it. By placing mahjar studies and Middle East studies in close conversation, Bailony both calls for and provides a model for a methodology that transgresses the territorial confines of the nation-state. In doing so, she reveals the crucial role of the mahjar in consolidating Lebanon as nationally distinct from Syria and in need of different sectarian arrangements. Neha Vora and Ahmed Kanna contribute reflections on two decades of ethnographic experiences researching Dubai and other cities in the Arabian Penninsula. “De-exceptionalizing the Field: Anthropological Reflections on Migration, Labor, and Identity in Dubai,” explores and critiques scholarly identity and authority in a call to develop understandings of Gulf cities that address migration, diaspora, place, and belonging. Vora and Kanna thus put the individual experiences of politics, geography, racialization, and minoritization into conversation with the knowledge that is produced on these historical forces. Graham Pitts reveals how the “human ecology” of Lebanon evolved according to the logic of an expanding and retracting global capitalism in “The Ecology of Migration: Remittances in World War I Mount Lebanon.” In detailing the material and environmental history of migration as well as highlighting World War I, the famine, and remittances, Pitts traces a broader trajectory of Lebanon’s history. In “Writing Shame in Asad’s Syria,” Judith Naef analyzes how the Syrian author Khaled Khalifa built feelings of shame into the literary structure of his novel No Knives in the Kitchens of this City. She traces the multiple forms of shame and how, like rot, its pervasive spread unravels relations. Shame, she suggests, is at once contagious and repulsive, and is one site to both refect on and understand the unraveling of Syrian social landscapes under the Asads’ authoritarianism. We ofer as always a robust set of reviews and review essays that feature the latest contributions to the study of the Middle East.
Topic:
Migration, War, History, Labor Issues, Infrastructure, Capitalism, Colonialism, Anthropology, and Ecology
Political Geography:
Middle East, Palestine, North Africa, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Dubai

284. ARAB STUDIES JOURNAL VOL. XXVI, No. 1

Author:
Hussam R. Ahmed, Gil Z. Hochberg, Susanna Ferguson, Éric Verdeil, Louis Yako, Hend F. Alawadhi, Susanna Ferguson, Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins, Arbella Bet-Shlimon, Hilal Alkan, Marwan D. Hanania, Simon Davis, Chris Rominger, and Corinna Mullin
Publication Date:
05-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Arab Studies Journal
Institution:
Arab Studies Institute
Abstract:
We are proud to feature a diverse array of disciplines and approaches in this issue. In “Te Nahda in Parliament: Taha Husayn’s Career Building Knowledge Production Institutions, 1922-1952” Hussam R. Ahmed traces the bureaucratic and institutional force of one of the most infuential intellectuals of the twentieth century. He reveals new ways to think about the ties between intellectual work, knowledge production, pedagogy, and the Egyptian state. In “‘Jerusalem, We Have a Problem’: Larissa Sansour’s Sci-Fi Trilogy and the Impetus of Dystopic Imagination,” Gil Hochberg ofers a reading of both the colonial legacies of the sci-f genre and the potential for its radical upending. Hochberg ponders the question of Palestine in a futuristic post-factual and post-national time of becoming. In “‘A Fever for an Education’: Pedagogical Tought and Social Transformation in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, 1861-1914,” Susanna Ferguson explores education’s appeal and promise of stability and reform in the nineteenth century Arab world. In “Infrastructure Crises in Beirut and the Struggle to (Not) Reform the Lebanese State,” Éric Verdeil approaches public infrastructure as a site of political struggle. Verdeil challenges the conventional readings that assert the power of neoliberalism and sectarianism to marginalize state institutions, showing instead how infrastructural policy instruments accentuate Lebanese society’s gaps and inequalities. Finally, in “If We All Leave, Who Will Cut the String: Exiled Intellectuals in Ghada al-Samman’s Tought,” Louis Yako contributes an engaged read of exile, the role of the intellectual, and the possibilities of revolution. Tis issue also features the usual robust array of book reviews. With this issue, we bid farewell to a long-time pillar of Arab Studies Journal and its book review team. Allison Brown, an inimitable editor and thinker, will be departing afer a decade of teaching and leading our team with the intellectual depth and editorial precision that have made the journal what it is today. While she may not grace our pages, she will always be part of the ASJ family.
Topic:
Education, History, Infrastructure, Reform, Intellectual History, Colonialism, and Literature
Political Geography:
Middle East, North Africa, Lebanon, and Egypt

285. The Politics of Post-Conflict Reconstruction

Author:
Marc Lynch, Maha Yahya, Frances Brown, Steven Heydemann, Jacqueline Parry, Dylan O'Driscoll, Caroline Abadeer, Dalia Ghanem-Yazbeck, Deen Sharp, Frederic M. Wehrey, Peter Salisbury, Sune Haugbolle, Pietro Stefanini, and Reyko Huang
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
Reconstruction following the devastating wars and state failure which followed the Arab uprisings of 2011 has become an increasingly pressing issue. In Iraq, the liberation of territories from the Islamic State came at great human and infrastructural cost. In Syria, the reconquest of territories by the regime of Bashar al-Asad has been accompanied by international discussions of modest steps towards reconstruction, after a war which generated more the half of the world’s refugees and internally displaced whilst sowing devastation across much of the country. Yemen has endured the near complete destruction of its infrastructure and economy, leaving much of the population at risk of starvation and disease. Libya is devastated by its multiple conflicts and the successive disintegration of what is left of its institutional structures. While none of these wars has yet fully ended, international and expert attention is increasingly focused on the impending challenges of reconstruction, repatriation and reconciliation. It is difficult to exaggerate the extent of the destruction which these wars have left behind. These wars have unfolded across multiple levels. Millions of people have been dispossessed from their homes, driven into exile at home or abroad. Infrastructure has been devastated, with many cities and towns utterly destroyed. National economies have evolved into local war economies. State and local institutions have been fundamentally reshaped. Communal polarization around sectarian or political identities has progressed to extreme levels. Entire communities have been severely impoverished as health and educational attainments plummet. And the individual trauma suffered by tens of millions of people afflicted by conflict and violence will have enduring psychological and developmental effects.
Topic:
Security, Humanitarian Aid, War, Reconstruction, Authoritarianism, Islamic State, Transitional Justice, Conflict, Protests, Memory, Negotiation, Peace, and Police
Political Geography:
Middle East, Libya, Yemen, Gaza, Algeria, Lebanon, and Syria

286. September 2017 Issue

Author:
Ali Soufan, Paul Cruickshank, Don Rassler, Colleen McCue, Joseph T. Massengill, Dorothy Milbrandt, John Gaughan, Meghan Cumpston, Nicholas Blanford, and Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
Sixteen years after 9/11, al-Qa`ida has a new figurehead (if not a new face) in the form of Hamza bin Ladin. On September 14, the group released an audio statement from Usama bin Ladin’s son calling for jihadis to double down on jihad in Syria and against what he depicted as an American-Russian-Shi`a conspiracy against Islam. It is not clear where Hamza, who is now in his late 20s, is currently based. So protective has al-Qa`ida been that the group has not circulated images of him since he was a child. In our cover article, Ali Soufan tells Hamza’s life story based on a wide range of sources, including recently declassified documents from Abbottabad. He argues that Hamza bin Ladin has not only emerged as al-Qa`ida’s leader in waiting, but is also the figure best placed to reunify the global jihadi movement as the Islamic State’s fortunes wane. Soufan points out Hamza’s hardening rhetoric toward Shi`a may represent an effort to attract deflated Islamic State fighters back into the al-Qa`ida fold. In our interview, Brian Fishman, Facebook’s Counterterrorism Policy Manager, provides a detailed description of how Facebook is using artificial intelligence and a dedicated team of counterterrorism specialists to remove terrorism content from its platform. Given the emergence of a new generation of leadership within al-Qa`ida, it is critical to understand the evolving threat from the group in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Don Rassler outlines how arrest metrics in the mega-city of Karachi point to an uptick in activity by the resilient group. Colleen McCue, Colonel Joseph Massengill, Commander Dorothy Milbrandt, Lieutenant Colonel John Gaughan, and Major Meghan Cumpston outline how the Islamic State is “weaponizing children.” Nicholas Blanford reports from Lebanon on offensives this past summer by the Lebanese Armed Forces and Hezbollah against Sunni militants in the country. Aymenn al-Tamimi draws on newly obtained documents to examine the Islamic State’s posture toward Kurds.
Topic:
Terrorism, Armed Forces, Counter-terrorism, Radicalization, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Youth, Hezbollah, and Kurds
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, Middle East, and Lebanon

287. “The War As I See It:” Youth Perceptions and Knowledge of the Lebanese Civil War

Author:
Nour El Bejjani Noureddine
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
Abstract:
Since the negotiated political settlement that ended the war in 1990, no serious attempt has been made to deal with the war’s legacy. Accountability for human rights violations committed during the conflict has been absent. There has been no effective truth-seeking process, formal acknowledgement of victims’ suffering, or the establishment of an accurate and objective war narrative. This has allowed political and social factions to compete for control of the historical record, with the different sides blaming each other, resulting in multiple politicized and fragmented narratives. Because school curricula do not cover Lebanon’s war or recent history, today most accounts of the conflict are based on personal memories transmitted from generation to generation by family members and neighbors who survived the war. This has left young people without an official source of information about the war to help them to understand it and its legacy, although it often forms part of their personal history and identity. As a result, the post-war generation, and the larger public, does not know what really happened during the conflict. With waves of instability and political violence that risk spiraling out of control, recalling the prewar era for many who lived through the war, young people are left vulnerable to political manipulation.
Topic:
Civil War, Transitional Justice, Youth, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Middle East and Lebanon

288. Iran In Charge

Author:
Yaakov Amidror
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
Abstract:
A few seemingly unrelated incidents that took place across the Middle East this week all seem to point out that much of the regional unrest can be traced back to Iran, which is backing Shiite forces from Pakistan to Syria. That is unlikely to change.
Topic:
Terrorism, Military Strategy, Conflict, and Hezbollah
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon

289. The plight of Palestinian refugees in Syria in the camps south of Damascus

Author:
Metwaly Abo Naser
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
Abstract:
After they took refuge in Syria after the 1948 war, Palestinians refugees were treated in the same way as other Syrian citizens. Permitted to fully participate in the economic and social life of Syrian society, they had the same civic and economic rights and duties as Syrians, except that they could neither be nominated for political office nor participate in elections. This helped them to feel that they were part of Syrian society, despite their refugee status and active role in the global Palestinian liberation struggle against the Israeli occupation of their homeland. At the start of the anti-government movement in Syria, when the peaceful uprising against the Assad regime turned into an armed conflict, the inhabitants of most Palestinian refugee camps tried to remain neutral. But as the conflict grew more violent and regional alliances changed, the disparities and significant differences between the Palestinian factions, especially between Hamas and Fatah, led to divisions in their positions vis-à-vis the Assad regime. These divisions were enhanced by the reduction of the role of the Palestinian diaspora in the struggle against the Israeli occupation and the new relevance of the geographic location of Palestinian refugee camps in the growing Syrian conflict. This was particularly true for the camps south of Damascus, because they separated the area west of Damascus from East Ghouta, both of which were opposition strongholds. These divisions resulted in the camps becoming targets in the armed conflict, leading to their bombardment and blockade, and the displacement of many of their residents to Lebanon, Turkey, Europe, and other locations both inside and outside Syria.
Topic:
Refugee Issues, Refugees, Refugee Crisis, Displacement, Humanitarian Crisis, and Armed Conflict
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria

290. Gas in the maritime Exclusive Economic Zone of Israel and the transformation of the Regional Security Complex Levant

Author:
Melanie Carina Schmoll
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Security and resources are closely linked together. To broaden the category of security from strictly military and defense issues to include energy and resource security is not a new idea. Ultimately, “security is what actors make it.“ This definition of securityis a wide ranging one and includes political and military aspects as well as societies and their developments including many actors and different levels and sectors – so called `units`. This wide definition is also useful for analysing the Levant region, which is currently undergoing a period of transformation. On the one hand, developments since 2010 have applied increasing pressure on the actors of the so called sub-Regional Security Complex (RSC) Levant. On the other hand, new development can be observed in the level of interdependence in the substitution of natural resources like water, gas and oil. Internal transformation of the region has occurred and will lead to a transition of the region. The impact on security dynamics with regard to energy and resources will have consequences for the entire Levant and beyond.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Regional Cooperation, and Natural Resources
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Mediterranean, and Levant