ToC: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (May 2016): Israel’s Influence: Good or Bad for America?

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
May 2016
Israel’s Influence: Good or Bad for America?

ON THE COVER: Haaretz columnist and keynote speaker Gideon Levy addresses the conference, “Israel’s Influence: Good or Bad for America?”

5 Introduction

6 Welcoming Remarks Dale Sprusansky

7 PANEL 1: Israel’s Influence on Congress and Government Agencies — Moderator Grant F. Smith

7 Ten Ways the Israel Lobby “Moves” America — Grant F. Smith

11 Did Israel Steal U.S. Weapons-Grade Uranium and Did It Have Help From U.S. Citizens? — Dr. Roger Mattson

15 How Congress Shapes Middle East Policy, and How the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Shapes Congress — Prof. Kirk J. Beattie

20 Questions & Answers

22 KEYNOTE ADDRESS: What I Would Tell a Visiting Congressional Delegation — Gideon Levy

27 Questions & Answers

30 PANEL 2: Israel’s Influence on U.S. Foreign Policy — Moderator Dale Sprusansky

30 A Diplomatic and Military Perspective — Col. Lawrence Wilkerson

35 American Neoconservatives: A History and Overview — Jim Lobe

39 Israel and Foreign Policy Issues in the Presidential Campaign — Justin Raimondo

42 Questions & Answers

44 PANEL 3: Responding to Israel’s Influence on Campus and in Court — Moderator Janet McMahon

44 The Birth of Palestine Solidarity Activism at George Mason University — Tareq Radi

49 Concerted Attempts to Silence Criticism of Israel in the U.S. — Maria LaHood

53 Why We’re Suing the U.S. Treasury Department — Susan Abulhawa

57 Holding Israel Accountable for the Gaza Flotilla Raid — Huwaida Arraf

62 KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Voices Prohibited by Mainstream Media and Its Role Spreading Islamophobia — Rula Jebreal

66 PANEL 4: Israel’s Influence on Mainstream Media — Moderator Delinda Hanley

66 Mainstream Media Coverage of Israel and Palestine — Philip Weiss

70 “Valentino’s Ghost: Why We Hate Arabs” — Catherine Jordan

72 Questions & Answers

74 CLOSING REMARKS

75 CONCLUSION

78 ELECTION WATCH: Party Loyalty, Party Schmoyalty — Israel Comes First — Janet McMahon

79 Pro-Israel PAC Contributions to 2016 Congressional Candidates — Compiled by Hugh Galford

New Article: Agdemir, Growing Relations between Israel and Greece

Agdemir, A. Murat. “A New Partnership in the Eastern Mediterranean: The Growing Relations between Israel and Greece.” Mediterranean Quarterly 26.4 (2015): 49-68.

 
URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mediterranean_quarterly/v026/26.4.agdemir.html
 
Abstract

There have been important changes in the politics of the eastern Mediterranean since the discovery of energy resources and the disintegration of Turkish-Israeli relations. Israel upgraded its relationship with Greece and Cyprus after its ties with Turkey deteriorated. Since shortly after the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, the widening divergence in interests between Turkey and Israel have provided the geopolitical impetus for the development of a rapprochement between Greece and Israel. While political, military, and economic cooperation, in particular, between Israel and Greece have significantly developed, the relations have also blossomed over mutual concern about the energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean. This essay examines the burgeoning relationship between Israel and Greece since 2010 and considers whether this relationship constitutes an important strategic alliance in the eastern Mediterranean.

 

 

 

New Book: Kuntsman and Stein, Digital Militarism

Kuntsman, Adi, and Rebecca L. Stein. Digital Militarism. Israel’s Occupation in the Social Media Age, Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015.

 

 

Israel’s occupation has been transformed in the social media age. Over the last decade, military rule in the Palestinian territories grew more bloody and entrenched. In the same period, Israelis became some of the world’s most active social media users. In Israel today, violent politics are interwoven with global networking practices, protocols, and aesthetics. Israeli soldiers carry smartphones into the field of military operations, sharing mobile uploads in real-time. Official Israeli military spokesmen announce wars on Twitter. And civilians encounter state violence first on their newsfeeds and mobile screens.

Across the globe, the ordinary tools of social networking have become indispensable instruments of warfare and violent conflict. This book traces the rise of Israeli digital militarism in this global context—both the reach of social media into Israeli military theaters and the occupation’s impact on everyday Israeli social media culture. Today, social media functions as a crucial theater in which the Israeli military occupation is supported and sustained.

 

Table of Contents

Preface

1 When Instagram Went to War: Israel’s Occupation in the Social Media Age
2 “Another War Zone”: The Development of Digital Militarism
3 Anatomy of a Facebook Scandal: Social Media as Alibi
4 Palestinians Who Never Die: The Politics of Digital Suspicion
5 Selfie Militarism: The Normalization of Digital Militarism

Afterword: #Revenge

Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Adi Kuntsman is Lecturer in Information and Communications at Manchester Metropolitan University, and author of Figurations of Violence and Belonging: Queerness, Migranthood and Nationalism in Cyberspace and Beyond (2009).

Rebecca L. Stein is the Nicholas J. & Theresa M. Leonardy Associate Professor of Anthropology at Duke University, and author of Itineraries in Conflict: Israelis, Palestinians, and the Political Lives of Tourism (2008).

 

 

New Book: Burla and Lawrence, eds. Australia and Israel

Burla, Shahar, and Dashiel Lawrence. Australia and Israel. A Diasporic, Cultural and Political Relationship. Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2015.

 

 

Australia and the State of Israel have maintained a cordial if at times ambiguous relationship. The two countries are geographically isolated: strategic, economic and cultural interests lie increasingly with Asia for one, and with the US and the EU for the other. But for all that divides the two states, there is also much they share. Australia played an important role in the Jewish state’s establishment in 1948, and is home to the most Zionist centered Jewish diaspora globally. Jewishness for most Australian Jews has been shaped and defined by engagement with and support for Israel. At the heart of this engagement is a small but thriving Israeli community within the larger multicultural Australia.

Australia and Israel: A Diasporic, Cultural and Political Relationship draws attention to the important historical and contemporary nexus between this diaspora and its imagined homeland. The collection also considers the ways in which these two states mobilise national myths and share environmental challenges. In recent time relations between the two states have been tested by the illegal use of Australian passports in 2010, the mysterious death of dual national Ben Zygier, and growing disquiet within the ranks of the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens over Israel’s handling of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. One prominent world-wide issue is the Palestinian BDS (Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions) movement, which has attracted sympathy and support that has brought about substantive differences of opinion regarding its legitimacy within the Jewish Australian community. These issues demonstrate the multifaceted and complex picture of two very different nations, that nevertheless share an abiding connection.

 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Why the Book?
Shahar Burla and Dashiel Lawrence

Part One Australia and Israel – Diasporic Relationship

1 Rewriting the Rules of Engagement: New Australian Jewish
Connections with Israel
Dashiel Lawrence

2 The Personal, the Political and the Religious: Bnei Akiva
Australia and its Relationship with Israel
Ari Lander

3 Israeli Government and Diaspora Mobilisation: The Flotilla
to Gaza and the Australian Jewry as a Case Study
Shahar Burla

4 The Place of Hebrew and Israel Education in Australian
Jewish Schools
Suzanne Rutland and Zehavit Gross

5 The Ausraeli Approach: the Diasporic Identity of Israelis
in Australia
Ran Porat

Part Two Australia and Israel – Political and Cultural Relationship

6 Overcoming Water Scarcity and Inequity in Arid Lands:
Comparing Water Management in Australia and Israel
Dominic Skinner and Stephanie Galaitsi

7 Ben Zygier’s Story and Australia–Israel Relations
Ingrid Matthews

8 A Fight Worth Having: Rudd, Gillard, Israel and the
Australian Labor Party
Alex Benjamin Burston-Chorowicz

9 An Alliance of Forgetting: National Narratives of Legitimacy
on the Occasion of Israel–Australia’s Joint Stamp Issue
Commemorating the Battle of Beersheba
Micaela Sahhar

Part Three Australia, Israel and the Boycott Divestment and
Sanction Scheme

10 The Australian Greens and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict
Philip Mendes

11 Academic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions: Implications
for Australian–Israeli Relations
Ingrid Matthews and James Arvanitakis

Conclusion: First Cousinhood, Political Unease, and the Limits
of Comparison
Fania Oz-Salzberger

The Editors and Contributors
Index

 

Shahar Burla is a research Associate at the Sydney Jewish Museum. He is the author of Political Imagination in the Diaspora: The Construction of a Pro-Israeli Narrative (2013). He has received several awards, including a President’s Fellowship for outstanding PhD student, Bar-Ilan University and the Menahem Begin Foundation academic award.

Dashiel Lawrence is a doctoral candidate at the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne. His research interests include Jewish diaspora–Israel contemporary relations, and Jewish critics of Israel.

 

 

New Book: Tziampiris, The Emergence of Israeli-Greek Cooperation

Tziampiris, Aristotle. The Emergence of Israeli-Greek Cooperation. New York: Springer, 2015.

 

 

Table of Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Balance of Power and Soft Balancing 21

3 The Fraught Relationship Between Greeks and Jews 39

4 Greece, Israel, and the Rise of Turkey 55

5 The Beginning of the Israeli–Greek Rapprochement 77

6 The Intensification of Israeli–Greek Cooperation 103

7 The Beginning of Energy Cooperation Between Israel, Cyprus, and Greece 135

8 Conclusion 163

References 181

 

Reviews: Craig, International Legitimacy and the Politics of Security

Craig, Alan. International Legitimacy and the Politics of Security. The Strategic Deployment of Lawyers in the Israeli Military. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2013.

 

 

Reviews:

Bendor, Ariel. “Review.” Israel Studies Review 29.2 (2014): 155-157.

Belge, Ceren. “Review.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 47.1 (2015): 179-180.

New Book: Peterson, Palestine-Israel in the Print News Media

Peterson, Luke. Palestine-Israel in the Print News Media. Contending Discourses. Abingdon: Routledge, 2014.

URL: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781138781641/

Abstract

Israel-Palestine in the Print News Media: Contending Discourses is concerned with conceptions of language, knowledge, and thought about political conflict in the Middle East in two national news media communities: the United States and the United Kingdom.

Arguing for the existence of national perspectives which are constructed, distributed, and reinforced in the print news media, this study provides a detailed linguistic analysis of print news media coverage of four recent events in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in order to examine ideological patterns present in print news media coverage. The two news communities are compared for lexical choices in news stories about the conflict, attribution of agency in the discussion of conflict events, the inclusion or exclusion of historical context in explanations of the conflict, and reliance upon essentialist elements during and within print representations of Palestine-Israel. The book also devotes space to first-hand testimony from journalists with extensive experience covering the conflict from within both news media institutions.

Unifying various avenues of academic enquiry reflecting upon the acquisition of information and the development of knowledge, this book will be of interest to those seeking a new approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Language and the Printed News

2 Discourse and Theory

3 Nations, Publics, and the Print News Media

4 Covering Palestine-Israel

5 Evacuating Gaza from Two Sides of the Atlantic

6 The Palestinian Legislative Council Elections, 2006

7 Covering the Gaza War

8 The Flotilla Attack

9 The Journalistic Perspective: Covering Palestine-Israel in their own Words

10 Conclusion: Contending Discourses

 

 

Cite: Sumiala and Tikka, Netnography of the ‘Flotilla’ News on YouTube

Sumiala, Johanna Maaria and Minttu Tikka. “Broadcast Yourself—Global News! A Netnography of the ‘Flotilla’ News on YouTube.” Communication, Culture & Critique 6.2 (2013): 318-35.

 

URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cccr.12008/

 

Abstract

 this article, YouTube is examined as an evolving news medium in the context of global journalism. The article examines what the news is made of and YouTube’s distinctive features as an emerging news culture and style. The article is based on netnography, in which the construction and circulation of a news story have been tracked by tracing the so-called “flotilla” news event. It is found that YouTube promotes visually motivated, amateur-driven news culture that alters the truth claims of news and the professional hegemony of news making, and affects the ways in which we, as the audience, maintain relations with professional news institutions, people, places, and practices related to news making and the globalized world beyond “our own.”

Cite: Durna & Özçetin, Mavi Marmara on the News

Durna, Tezcan and Burak Özçetin. “Mavi Marmara on the News: Convergence and Divergence in Religious Conservative Newspapers in Turkey.” Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5.3 (2012): 261-281.

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URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/mjcc/2012/00000005/00000003/art00003

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Abstract

This article presents a discursive analysis of religious conservative daily newspapers’ response to Israeli commandos’ attack on a flotilla of aid ships that were attempting to break an embargo on traffic to Gaza on 31 May 2010. The event not only caused a serious rupture in Israeli-Turkish relations but also resulted in the rise of (already present) anti-Israeli sentiment in the conservative religious sectors of society. Conservative religious media, more specifically the Islamic newspapers, led the anti-Israeli campaign within this process. The authors emphasize that news does not simply represent reality, but, as an active process, works on it. The institutional dependence on regular and reliable institutional sources and the ideological character of language are two major dynamics of this process. The journalistic routine imposes the statements of the institutional sources, or the voice of the powerful, as the only reliable and viable definition of events. The language used in the news enhances this partiality through use of stereotypical, bitter and discriminatory expressions. This article discusses the way news texts influence reality by focusing on the primary and secondary definers in the news, newspapers’ oscillation between humanitarian and Islamic concerns, and between anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic positions.

Cite: Archibald and Miller, Israeli Attempts to Control Media Images of Gaza Flotilla

Archibald, David and Mitchell Miller. “Full-Spectacle Dominance? An Analysis of the Israeli State’s Attempts to Control Media Images of the 2010 Gaza Flotilla." Journal of War & Culture Studies 5.2 (2012): 189-201.

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URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/jwcs/2012/00000005/00000002/art00005

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Abstract

This article analyses the Israeli state’s attempts to control the images employed during the reporting of the Israeli navy’s interception of a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Palestine on 31 May 2010. In the ensuing 48 hours, widespread use of footage released by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) ensured that the Israeli state’s narrative dominated western reporting of the event. The authors coin the term `full-spectacle dominance’ to describe the Israeli state’s strategy in media-managing this event. Drawing on the work of Tagg, Cottle and de Certeau, the article reviews the efficacy of Israel’s attempts to prevent the circulation of images that challenge their narrative of events, and the promotion of images which substantiate these narratives. The article argues that mainstream media programmes, such as BBC Panorama’s Death in the Med, embedded these images within a biased,pro-Israeli interpretative framework, in contrast to an interpretative framework more sympathetic to the flotilla’s participants evident in Al-Jazeera’s A Voyage of Life and Death. The article also notes the use of social media platforms by pro-Palestinian bloggers and activists. Their use of this technology allowed images and eyewitness testimony to emerge, which challenged the initial pro-Israeli reporting. Thus, although the Israeli state was largely successful in dominating the reporting of the event, the spectacle of the conflict remained contested.