Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Palestine

111. Trumps Dangerous Vision for Palestine

Author:
Khaled Elgindy
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The Bahrain workshop and its associated economic plan are little more than elaborate smokescreens for U.S. president Donald Trump’s political vision centered on the broader goals of normalizing Israeli occupation, consolidating the “Greater Israel” agenda, and effectively foreclosing Palestinian political aspirations. By working together with the government of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to redefine the conflict and do away with the traditional ground rules of the peace process, including the two-state solution, Trump is attempting to turn back the clock to the pre-1967 era when Palestinians were viewed mainly as an economic, humanitarian, and security problem rather than a political one. For Palestinians to effectively confront this unprecedented challenge, they will need to put their political house in order, including ending the debilitating political division between Fatah and Hamas, reviving institutional politics, and working to build a national consensus around a new strategy.
Topic:
International Security, International Affairs, and Populism
Political Geography:
Palestine

112. The Kushner Plan: Keeping Israeli-Palestinian Peace out of Reach

Author:
Paul R. Pillar
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The U.S. administration’s Israeli-Palestinian “peace plan,” under President Donald Trump, has so far yielded only an inconclusive talkfest about economic development. The underlying rationale of the plan—that economics must come before any addressing of core political issues—is fundamentally flawed for several reasons. The biggest impediments to Palestinian economic development stem from aspects of the Israeli occupation that would continue under the plan, which rejects a two-state solution and is a slightly revised and renamed version of the current arrangement of limited Palestinian autonomy under Israeli domination. The plan flows directly from the Trump administration’s policy of acquiescing in the preferences of the right-wing government of Israel. Accordingly, the political portion of the plan is indefinitely delayed and might never be announced. Keeping the full plan under wraps serves the Israeli government’s purpose of holding out the promise of—but never delivering—peace with the Palestinians, while more facts are created on the ground
Topic:
International Relations, International Affairs, Fragile States, and Populism
Political Geography:
Israel and Palestine

113. The Israeli Elections Just Got Interesting: Netanyahu’s Indictment and the New Center Left Alliance

Author:
Josh Dean
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
A little over a month ago, I wrote of an atmosphere of resignation in Israel among Netanyahu’s political opponents leading up to the Israeli parliamentary elections on April 9th. The smattering of center-left parties seeking to rival Netanyahu’s Likud at the ballot box were divided across a range of tickets, unable to put their egos aside and form a joint bloc capable of presenting a veritable challenge to the incumbent prime minister. The long-reigning Israeli leader’s tenure looked, therefore, set to extend even further. The question was not who will be the next prime minister, but rather “Who will be the next Bibi [Netanyahu]?” as Israeli comedian Tom Aharon quipped. But a lot can change in a day of Israeli politics, never mind a month. As political alliances shift rapidly, the announcement of Netanyahu’s indictment on fraud and corruption charges has further destabilized the already-turbulent atmosphere leading up to the April elections.
Topic:
Corruption, Politics, Law, and Elections
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

114. The Zombie Returns: Middle East Peace Plan Would Create Palestinian Bantustan

Author:
Edward Marks
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
The Trump Administration Middle East Plan appears to call for a Palestinian “Bantustan” (maybe two with Gaza) and legally enforced separation of communities based on ethnic grounds. It is difficult to believe that this resurrection from the discredited past could be acceptable to anyone but its authors, who appear to be completely oblivious to the history of South Africa. That includes Netanyahu, who has obviously been fully engaged in the plan’s development. However the plan will be unacceptable to everyone else, including Saudi Arabia and other Arab governments who have been flirting with Israel and the US in an informal anti-Iranian alliance. The plan would certainly exacerbate – if that is possible – the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians. The Kushner Plan would be like throwing oil on a fire; it will end badly for everyone concerned.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Apartheid, Development, Diplomacy, and Economic growth
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, North America, United States of America, West Bank, and Golan Heights

115. The Secret Testimony of the Peel Commission (Part 1): Underbelly of Empire

Author:
Laila Parsons
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The Peel Commission (1936–37) was the first British commission of inquiry to recommend the partition of Palestine into two states. The commissioners made their recommendation after listening to several weeks of testimony, delivered in both public and secret sessions. The transcripts of the public testimony were published soon afterward, but the secret testimony transcripts were only released by the United Kingdom’s National Archives in March 2017. Divided into two parts, this article closely examines the secret testimony. Part I discusses how the secret testimony deepens our understanding of key themes in Mandate history, including: the structural exclusion of the Palestinians from the Mandate state, the place of development projects in that structural exclusion, the different roles played by British anti-Semitism and anti-Arab racism, and the importance of the procedural aspects of committee work for understanding the mechanics of British governance. Part II extends this analysis by focusing on what the secret testimony reveals about how the Peel Commission came to recommend partition.
Topic:
Nationalism, Developments, Zionism, Colonialism, Empire, and Anti-Semitism
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

116. U.S. Security Coordination and the “Global War on Terror”

Author:
Jeannette Greven
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The U.S. Security Coordinator (USSC) mission in Jerusalem was created in 2005 to help implement security sector reform within the Palestinian Authority (PA). With a single-minded focus on “counterterrorism,” Washington considered the USSC an ancillary mechanism to support U.S. diplomatic and political efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Despite upending long-standing U.S. policy and cutting all other forms of aid to the Palestinians, the Trump administration has maintained the USSC in the run-up to the “Deal of the Century.” This article draws on original interviews with security personnel responsible for enacting USSC interventions. It uses their insights to highlight how the mission tethered Israeli political aims to its remit, and the distorting ramifications that have ensued for Palestine and the Palestinians. In uncovering the full parameters of Washington’s securitization policy, this history also points to the ways in which the PA has consequently been woven into the U.S.-led “global War on Terror.”
Topic:
Security, Sovereignty, International Security, Military Affairs, Negotiation, and Settler Colonialism
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, Palestine, and Jerusalem

117. Postwar Nakba: A Microhistory of the Depopulation of Zakariyya, 1950

Author:
Dan Tsahor
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This study follows the events that caused the depopulation of the village of Zakariyya, south of the Jaffa-Jerusalem road, during the summer of 1950. Using documents from state and military archives, the article constructs the story of the villagers’ expulsion and explores the role of the little-known Transfer Committee in initiating and promoting postwar expulsions of Palestinians from the newly established State of Israel. A close reading of the actions of individual committee members over the course of events uncovers both the Transfer Committee’s modus operandi and the ostensible rationale for the postwar depopulation of the village. The article argues that by packing the committee with representatives of major Israeli power centers, Chair Yosef Weitz in effect laid the groundwork for the continuing expulsion of Palestinians from Israel after the establishment of the state.
Topic:
Migration, Population, Rural, Settler Colonialism, and Nation-State
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, and Palestine

118. Special Document File: The Erasure of the Nakba in Israel's Archives

Author:
Seth Anziska
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
A 2019 investigation by the Israeli NGO Akevot and Haaretz newspaper has uncovered official suppression of crucial documents about the Nakba in Israeli archives. The Journal of Palestine Studies is publishing print excerpts and a full online version of the buried “migration report,” which details Israel’s depopulation of Palestinian villages in the first six months of the 1948 war, a document that clearly undermines official Israeli state narratives about the course of events. In methodical fashion, this report provides contemporaneous documentation of Israeli culpability in the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and the systematic depopulation of so-called Arab villages in the first six months of the war. Alongside a discussion of key revelations in the newly available document, this introduction situates the broader pattern of erasure within historiographical debates over 1948 and questions of archival access. It examines how accounts of Israel’s birth and Palestinian statelessness have been crafted in relation to the underlying question: who has permission to narrate the past?
Topic:
Security, Migration, Population, Ethnic Cleansing, Settler Colonialism, and State Building
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, and Palestine

119. Power, Politics, and Community: Resistance Dynamics in the Occupied Golan

Author:
Munir Fakher Eldin
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
In 1967, Israel occupied the western section of Syria’s Golan Heights, expelling some 130,000 of its inhabitants and leaving a few thousand people scattered across five villages. Severed from Syria, this residual and mostly Druze community, known as the Jawlanis, has been subjected to systematic policies of ethno-religious identity reformulation and bureaucratic and economic control by the Israeli regime for half a century. This essay offers an account of the transformation of authority, class, and the politics of representation among what is now the near 25,000-strong Jawlani community, detailing the impact of Israeli occupation both politically and economically. During an initial decade and a half of direct military rule, Israel secured the community’s political docility by restoring traditional leaders to power; but following full-on annexation in 1981, new forces emerged from the popular resistance movement that developed in response. Those forces continue to compete for social influence and representation today.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, National Security, Population, Occupation, Ethnic Cleansing, and Settler Colonialism
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, and Palestine

120. The False “Nakba” Narrative

Author:
Raphael G. Bouchnik-Chen
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies (BESA)
Abstract:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The term “Nakba,” originally coined to describe the magnitude of the self-inflicted Palestinian and Arab defeat in the 1948 war, has become in recent decades a synonym for Palestinian victimhood, with failed aggressors transformed into hapless victims and vice versa. Israel should do its utmost to uproot this false image by exposing its patently false historical basis
Topic:
Corruption, Post Colonialism, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Palestine