Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Palestine

121. Fracturing Communities :Aid Distribution in a Palestinian Camp

Author:
Perla Issa
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This article examines the practices of humanitarian aid distribution from the perspective of aid recipients rather than providers through an immersion in the daily home life of Palestinian residents of Nahr al-Barid refugee camp (north Lebanon) in 2011. It argues that in the name of distributing aid fairly, humanitarian aid providers put in place a pervasive system of surveillance to monitor, evaluate, and compare residents’ misery levels by relying on locally recruited aid workers. This regime of visibility was designed to be one directional; NGOs never disclosed how much aid they had available, nor when or how it would be distributed. The inclusion of local aid workers in this opaque framework turned a process that relied on community and neighborhood ties into an impersonal machine that fostered doubt and suspicion and ultimately hindered the community’s ability to engage in collective political action.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid, International Security, International Affairs, and Occupation
Political Geography:
Palestine

122. From Haifa to Ramallah (and Back): New/Old Palestinian Literary Topography

Author:
Amal Eqeiq
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This article explores border crossing and the Palestinian city as a literary metropolis—two major themes in the works of emerging Palestinian novelists in Israel. It looks at the “re-Palestinization” of urban space by writers who belong to a post-Oslo generation of Palestinian intellectuals that left villages and small towns in Israel to go and study, work, and live in the city. What distinguishes the literature of this generation is its negotiation of border crossing in a fragmented geography and its engagement with the city as a space of paradoxical encounter between a national imaginary and a settler-colonial reality. Based on a critical reading of their works, the article argues that Adania Shibli and Ibtisam Azem challenge colonial border discourse, exposing the ongoing Zionist erasure of the Palestinian city and creating a new topography for Palestinian literature. The article also traces the role of these writers in the “twinning” of Haifa and Ramallah starting in the late 1990s, and it examines how this literary and cultural “sisterhood” informs spatial resistance.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Palestine

123. Ibrahim Nasarallah's Palestine Comedies: Liberating the Nation Form

Author:
Nora Parr
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Conceptually linked, noncontiguous, and undeniably national, Ibrahim Nasrallah’s book series Al-milhat al-filastiniyya (The Palestine Comedies) breaks conceptual ground. Told across twelve volumes, the Comedies represents the long-called- for Palestinian national novel, though in unconventional form. The series uses diverse literary devices, including intertextuality and the archetype of the twin, to demonstrate how formal innovations can redirect assumptions about what constitutes not only a national novel, but also a nation. The series reimagines relationships between space, time, and people, giving narrative shape to a community so often imagined as fragments. Abandoning the retrospective prerequisite of bounded sovereign space and homogeneous, linear time, the Comedies imagines a “nation constellation.” A close examination of two novels within the series, A‛ras amna (2004) and Tifl al-mimhat (2000), shows how Palestinian relationships can be imagined outside existing national logics. It reads the constellation as an alternative nation form that can both encompass colonial frameworks and free the delimitation of Palestine from the dominance of power structures that only begin with the nation-state
Topic:
International Affairs, Power Politics, and Linguistics
Political Geography:
Palestine

124. Richard Falk: "Citizen Pilgrim" In the role of UN Rapporteur

Author:
Mandy Turner
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Richard Falk’s quest to combine academic scholarship with political activism is witnessed throughout his lifework, but perhaps especially so during his tenure as United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, a position he held from 2008 to 2014. Falk is a vocal critic of Israel’s occupation and a staunch supporter of Palestinian self- determination, positions that have drawn strong condemnation from Israel and its supporters, but praise from Palestinians and their supporters. There is little doubt that Falk’s work has had a huge influence on public debate and activism pertaining to this issue, both within Israel-Palestine as well as globally. This article outlines Falk’s scholarship and activism regarding Palestine, analyzes the post of UN special rapporteur in general, reviews both criticism of and support for Falk’s work, and assesses Falk’s concept of the “citizen pilgrim.” It concludes by reflecting on what this reveals about the experience of praxis for politically engaged academics.
Topic:
International Organization and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Palestine

125. U.S Recognition of Golan Heights Annexation: Testament to Our Times

Author:
Victor Kattan
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
On 25 March 2019, U.S. president Donald Trump signed a proclamation recognizing the occupied Golan Heights as part of Israel. The Golan Heights proclamation, which endorses Israel’s annexation of the territory captured from Syria in the 1967 war, was issued two weeks before the Israeli general election in a photo-op with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. Undermining internationally agreed-upon norms prohibiting states from recognizing the annexation of territory by force, the proclamation could have detrimental consequences for the international legal order, providing a precedent for other states to take steps to annex territory they claim is necessary for their defense.
Topic:
International Political Economy, International Affairs, and Occupation
Political Geography:
Israel and Palestine

126. A Human Rights Approach to Conflict Resolution

Author:
Claudia Fuentes-Julio and Raslan Ibrahim
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
The role of human rights abuses in the causes, dynamics, and consequences of conflict illustrate the importance of a human rights approach to conflict resolution:1 if human rights are part of the problem, they must be part of the solution. This essay aims to show how a human rights perspective can improve the odds of transforming violent conflicts into sustainable peace by enhancing the design and implementation of peace processes and conflict resolution practices. In doing so, we will clarify the main characteristics of a human rights approach to conflict resolution and identify a set of human rights standards to guide its implementation. We will then briefly analyze the Colombian and the Israeli-Palestinian peace processes, each through the lens of the human rights approach. These two cases illustrate opposite ends of the spectrum when considering the inclusion of human rights in conflict resolution. At one end, the Colombian peace process illustrates how negotiations and a final agreement can recognize peace as a human right, highlighting the need to transform the structural conditions of injustice and human rights violations that give rise to armed conflict. At the other end, in the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, human rights are virtually absent despite the fact that systematic abuses are among the main underlying causes and consequences of the conflict. In the conclusion, we address one of the main criticisms and challenges of a human rights–based approach to conflict resolution.
Topic:
Human Rights, Conflict, and Peace
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Colombia, Palestine, and South America

127. Trump and Palestine: The Crowning of an American Approach

Author:
Dan Tschirgi
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
Institution:
Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
Abstract:
The American approach to the problem of Palestine long rested on several recognizable pillars: a basic sympathy with the Zionist program, a sincerely felt belief that Palestinian Arabs had largely been victimized by historical forces that the United States itself had found it necessary to serve, and an unstated—but real—feeling of guilt over the key role Washington played in the 1948 birth of the Jewish state. Donald Trump’s presidency upended the long-held US posture on the Palestine issue, making Washington far more amenable to Israel’s growing appetite for Arab Lands taken in 1967. In his first two years in office Trump instituted a series of administrative and economic measures apparently designed to force the PLO’s acceptance of a still-unannounced peace plan. This article suggests that Trump’s strategy will fail.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Geopolitics, Peace, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Jerusalem, and United States of America

128. Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances, Tricia Bacon

Author:
Victor Asal
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
Over the last 20 years, research in the area of terrorism studies has expanded enormously in many directions, including studies focusing on terrorist events as well as on individual behavior and the behavior and characteristics of organizations. One of the topics that has been of great interest to researchers of terrorist organizations is the nature, impact, and cause of terrorist organizational alliances. From Marc Sageman’s groundbreaking book Understanding Terror Networks and a growing body of articles and books, researchers are trying to understand the impact of such connections on terrorist organizations. There is still a lot of research, though, that needs to be done in this area. For example, Sageman’s book focuses more on internal connections and especially on jihadist organizations. Much of the other literature focuses on organizations allying in the same milieu. In Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances, Tricia Bacon expands on this perspective by exploring why terrorist organizations would form connections beyond their domestic competition and make the effort to ally with other groups internationally. This is an interesting and important effort in the literature on terrorist alliances given the regular focus on like organizations making alliances with like. The book is well laid out and explains its argument and the supporting evidence in a clear and useful manner.
Topic:
Terrorism, Non State Actors, Book Review, and Alliance
Political Geography:
Middle East, Palestine, and Egypt

129. Russia in the Middle East and the Palestinian Problem

Author:
B. Dolgov
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:
East View Information Services
Abstract:
The Palestinian Problem is one of the worst headaches of the middle east and one of the greatest geopolitical challenges. The Soviet Union/Russia, which was present when it originated, was one of the countries that tried to resolve problems related, among other things, to Israeli and Palestinian statehood and the fact that Palestine is the cradle of three world religions – Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
Topic:
Diplomacy, International Cooperation, Religion, Territorial Disputes, and Statehood
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

130. Lens on Palestine: Stitching Palestine discussion with Nusayba Hammad

Author:
Nusayba Hammad
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Middle East Institute (MEI)
Abstract:
The Middle East Institute's Arts and Culture program is proud to present a documentary series highlighting the voices of Palestinian women in collaboration with Filmlab: Palestine. Twelve resilient, determined and articulate Palestinian women speak about their lives, memories and identities before their exile. Their narratives are connected by the enduring thread of the Palestinian tradition of embroidery, directed by Carol Mansour. A conversation with Nusayba Hammad, managing director of the D.C. Palestinian Film and Arts Festival, on Emwas and Stitching Palestine followed the screening.
Topic:
Arts, Women, Film, and Material Culture
Political Geography:
Middle East, Palestine, and United States of America