CFP: AJS 2016, “Socio-Political Boundaries in the Yishuv”

I am seeking participants and papers for a panel on social, political, and cultural boundaries and boundary making in the Zionist Yishuv.  This could include work on the analysis, perception, depiction, destruction or creation of boundaries in the areas of political policy, language, labor organization, religion, art, literature, or other areas.  The panel will focus on the basis and strength of boundaries as indicators of socio-political goals, values, and challenges in this period and their ramifications for future periods. The goal of this panel is to foster conversation and connections on the latest research in Israel Studies on the pre-state period.

Please contact me at aemarino@ucdavis.edu if you are interested in presenting a paper or serving as a chair or respondent.  I am open to revising the panel proposal to fit more closely with participants’ interests.  Since I am a graduate student this panel needs at least one presenter who is a faculty, so faculty proposals are especially welcome.  Thanks in advance.

New Article: Natanel, Militarisation and the Micro-Geographies of Violence in Israel–Palestine

Natanel, Katherine. “Border Collapse and Boundary Maintenance: Militarisation and the Micro-Geographies of Violence in Israel–Palestine.” Gender, Place & Culture (early view; online first).

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2015.1136807
 
Abstract

Drawing upon subaltern geopolitics and feminist geography, this article explores how militarisation shapes micro-geographies of violence and occupation in Israel–Palestine. While accounts of spectacular and large-scale political violence dominate popular imaginaries and academic analyses in/of the region, a shift to the micro-scale foregrounds the relationship between power, politics and space at the level of everyday life. In the context of Israel–Palestine, micro-geographies have revealed dynamic strategies for ‘getting by’ or ‘dealing with’ the occupation, as practiced by Palestinian populations in the face of spatialised violence. However, this article considers how Jewish Israelis actively shape the spatial micro-politics of power within and along the borders of the Israeli state. Based on 12 months of ethnographic research in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem during 2010–2011, an analysis of everyday narratives illustrates how relations of violence, occupation and domination rely upon gendered dynamics of border collapse and boundary maintenance. Here, the borders between home front and battlefield break down at the same time as communal boundaries are reproduced, generating conditions of ‘total militarism’ wherein military interests and agendas are both actively and passively diffused. Through gendering the militarised micro-geographies of violence among Jewish Israelis, this article reveals how individuals construct, navigate and regulate the everyday spaces of occupation, detailing more precisely how macro political power endures.

 

 

 

New Article: Kavaloski, Exploring Homeland through Miriam Libicki’s Jobnik!

Kavaloski, Laini. “Contested Spaces in Graphic Narrative: Exploring Homeland through Miriam Libicki’s Jobnik!: An American Girl’s Adventures in the Israeli Army.” Studies in Comics 6.2 (2015): 231-51.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/stic.6.2.231_1

 

Abstract

‘Contested spaces in graphic narrative’ argues that spatiality in graphic narratives is conducive to restructuring fraught landscapes. Through an exploration of the contested homelands of the Israeli Palestinian conflict in Miriam Libicki’s Jobnik!: An American Girl’s Adventures in the Israeli Army (2008), this article argues that graphic narratives have a unique ability to depict geographical spaces through lines, panels and various artistic devices. Like maps, such lines and boxes on a page physically create borders and represent corresponding location as bounded; they may represent existing political divisions, or they may subvert and push state-drawn boundaries. These devices within the graphic form open up a recognition of the ways that boundaries obfuscate the multifaceted representations of identity that include multiple nationalisms, ideological discontinuities, as well as human-centred spatial connections. Graphic form, then, becomes a landscape that allows for a complex visual understanding of affective attachment to the state through possibilities of graphic, bordered texts that cut across traditional understandings of territoriality and occupation. Libicki’s status as an outsider and as a woman in the Israel Defense Forces emphasizes her position of precarity in traditional conceptions of the Biblical Jewish homeland as well as in Israel, the modern Jewish state.

 

 

 

New Article: Kallius et al, Politics of the ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Hungary

Kallius, Annastiina, Daniel Monterescu, and Prem Kumar Rajaram. “Immobilizing Mobility: Border Ethnography, Illiberal Democracy, and the Politics of the ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Hungary.” American Ethnologist (early view; online first).

ְְ 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/amet.12260

 

Abstract

In the summer of 2015, more than 350,000 migrants moved through Hungarian territory. Almost immediately there emerged in response a dialectic between, on the one hand, depoliticizing narratives of crisis that sought to immobilize the migrants and, on the other, concrete political mobilization that sought to facilitate their mobility. While state institutions and humanitarian volunteer groups framed mobility in terms that emphasized a vertical form of politics, a horizontal counterpolitics arose by the summer’s end, one that challenged hegemonic territorial politics. The state’s efforts to immobilize resulted only in more radical forms of mobility. Outlining an ethnography of mobility, immobilization, and cross-border activism, we follow the dramatic yet momentary presence, and subsequent absence, of migrants in an evanescent rebel city marked by novel political solidarities.

 

 

 

ToC: American Quarterly 67.4 (2015): special issue on Palestine and American Studies

Forum

Introduction: Shifting Geographies of Knowledge and Power: Palestine and American Studies

pp. 993-1006

Rabab Abdulhadi, Dana M. Olwan

Solidarity with Palestine from Diné Bikéyah

pp. 1007-1015

Melanie K. Yazzie

Black–Palestinian Solidarity in the Ferguson–Gaza Era

pp. 1017-1026

Kristian Davis Bailey

Taking Risks, or The Question of Palestine Solidarity and Asian American Studies

pp. 1027-1037

Junaid Rana, Diane C. Fujino

Borders Are Obsolete: Relations beyond the “Borderlands” of Palestine and US–Mexico

pp. 1039-1046

Leslie Quintanilla, Jennifer Mogannam

Labor for Palestine: Challenging US Labor Zionism

pp. 1047-1055

Michael Letwin, Suzanne Adely, Jaime Veve

The Islamophobia Industry and the Demonization of Palestine: Implications for American Studies

pp. 1057-1066

Hatem Bazian

Zionism and Anti-Zionism: A Necessary Detour, Not a Final Destination

pp. 1067-1073

Keith P. Feldman

Throwing Stones in Glass Houses: The ASA and the Road to Academic Boycott

pp. 1075-1083

Bill V. Mullen

New Article: Saaty et al, A Structured Scientific Solution to the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict

Saaty, Thomas L., Luis G. Vargas and H. J. Zoffer. “A Structured Scientific Solution to the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict: The Analytic Hierarchy Process Approach.” Decision Analytics 2.7 (2015): 53pp.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40165-015-0017-3

 

Abstract

While the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has raged for decades, in all of its ramifications there has never been a totally structured or scientific approach to the conflict with all of its details. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) approaches the problem along these lines. There are a plethora of reasons why the traditional face to face negotiations have broken down over the years. This paper identifies a significant number of those impediments and indicates how the AHP can productively address them. A summary of the highlights of the AHP approach precedes how it has been applied to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. To date, the participants, significant members of both communities, have derived and agreed upon a solution that includes all the major issues, except for the refugee problem. That problem is currently being worked on, but will take an extended period because of the unique factors involved. What has been provided is an agreed upon solution to virtually all of the issues impeding past negotiations, including borders, settlements, the status of Jerusalem, the Holy Places, security and expectations of each side.

 

 

New Book: Del Sarto, The Israel-Palestine-European Union Triangle

Del Sarto, Raffaella A., ed. Fragmented Borders, Interdependence and External Relations. The Israel-Palestine-European Union Triangle. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

 

 

This edited volume investigates the complex relations between Israel, the Palestinian territories and the European Union. They are considered as three entities that are linked to each other through various policies, bonds and borders, with relations between any two of the three parties affecting the other side. The contributors to this study explore different aspects of Israeli-Palestinian-European Union interconnectedness, including security cooperation; the movement of people; trade relations; information and telecommunication technology; legal borders defining different areas of jurisdiction; and normative borders in the context of conflict resolution and international law. By assessing the rules and practices that establish a web of interlocking functional and legal borders across this space, together with their implications, this volume adopts a novel perspective and sheds light on the complex patterns of interdependence and power asymmetries that exist across these fragmented borderlands.

 

Table of Contents

PART I: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
1. Borders, Power, and Interdependence: A Borderlands Approach to Israel-Palestine and the European Union; Raffaella A. Del Sarto
PART II: SECURITY, SOVEREIGNTY, PEOPLE
2. EU-Palestinian Security Cooperation after Oslo: Enforcing Borders, Interdependence and Existing Power Imbalance; Dimitris Bouris
3. Visa Regimes and the Movement of People across the EU and Israel-Palestine; Raffaella A. Del Sarto
PART III: ECONOMIC BORDERS AND INFRASTRUCTURE
4. Territorial Borders and Functional Regimes in EU-Israeli Agreements; Benedetta Voltolini
5. Bordering Disputed Territories: The European Union’s Technical Custom Rules and Israel’s Occupation; Neve Gordon and Sharon Pardo
6. Between Digital Flows and Territorial Borders: ICTs in the Palestine-Israel-EU Matrix; Helga Tawil-Souri
PART IV: LEGAL AND NORMATIVE BORDERS
7. The Legal Fragmentation of Palestine/Israel and European Union Policies Promoting the Rule of Law; Asem Khalil, Birzeit University and Raffaella A. Del Sarto
8. The Legal Foundations of Normative Borders and Normative Orders: Individual and Human Rights and the EU-Israel-Palestine Triangle; Stephan Stetter
PART V: CONCLUSIONS
9. On Borderlands, Borders, and Bordering Practices; Federica Bicchi

Raffaella A. Del Sarto is a part-time professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, and an Adjunct Professor in Middle East Studies and International Relations at SAIS Europe, Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of Contested State Identities and Regional Security in the Euro-Mediterranean Area (Palgrave, 2006).

 

 

New Article: du Plessix, The Case of the (Future) Borders of Israel and Palestine

du Plessix, Caroline. “EU3 Resistance to Norms in External Action: The Case of the (Future) Borders of Israel and Palestine.” European Foreign Affairs Review 20.1-2 (2015): 103–21.

 
URL: http://www.kluwerlawonline.com/abstract.php?id=EERR2015027

 
Abstract

This article deals with the resistance of France, Germany and the United Kingdom (EU3) to comply with the EU norms regarding the (future) borders of Israel and Palestine. To do so, it focuses on two cases studies: the issue of Israel’s exports to the EU originating from the settlements, and EU companies operating in settlements in East Jerusalem. The EU3’s reactions differ when it comes to ensure the implementation of the EU soft law regarding the two state solution, and more particularly the issue of future borders. Yet, they all reflect the Member States’ resistance to directly enforce CFSP norms on this matter. In the case of a territorial dispute, the EU’s soft and hard laws are de facto intertwined through EU external action. As matter of fact, the rule of origin defined in EU free trade agreements with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority strongly relies on CFSP positions regarding their future borders. This article argues that conflicting objectives related to this issue between Member States and the EU and among national actors account for the EU3’s resistance attitudes. In other words, a certain form of cognitive distance – the fourth hypothesis of the introduction – between the content of EU norms and Member States’ objectives affects the implementation of CFSP norms. In this case, Germany’s reaction to the Brita case demonstrates its unwillingness to take direct responsibility for setting a precedent regarding the sensitive case of Israeli exports from the settlements, due to its special relationship with Israel. France’s cautious reaction is more particularly related to the latent conflict within its population about this issue. The United Kingdom’s preference for the labelling solution illustrates its liberal nature and its willingness to let British consumers assume the responsibility to decide, though this solution proves difficult to implement in fact. Yet, this article also shows that these resistance attitudes can also lead to the renegotiation of the means of implementation of CFSP norms on this matter, and potentially to their strengthening.

 

 

New Article: Aronoff & Aronoff, Spatial Narratives of Border Crossings between Israel, Jordan and Egypt

Aronoff, Eric and Yael Aronoff. “Bordering on Peace: Spatial Narratives of Border Crossings between Israel, Jordan and Egypt.” In The Design of Frontier Spaces. Control and Ambiguity (ed. Carolyn Loeb and Andreas Luescher; Farnham, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015), 129-55.

Excerpt

These questions about border narratives are the focus of this essay. Examining the border crossings between Israel and the two neighboring states with which it has open borders, Jordan and Egypt, we analyze the narratives created in these spaces through

the arrangement of space, iconography, and signage, as well as the legal elements that also regulate the flow of persons across the borders. These sites, in effect, constitute the first encounter of travelers with the new state about to be entered; as such, these spatial, visual and legal elements combine to create a “story” being told to that traveler (even if that traveler is a member of that community who is returning). That story may be intentional, the result of a conscious effort or policy on the part of the state, or unintentional as the ad hoc reflection of attitudes and ideas expressing themselves through the choices made “on the ground” by border personnel. That story is both about who “they” – the imagined community whose territory the traveler is about to enter – are and what they represent; it also simultaneously is about who “you,” the traveler, might be – why you might be there, the relationship imagined between “they” and “you.” Like a text, these spaces construct both their ideal “author” and their ideal “reader.”

In this way, like many of the chapters in this volume, our approach extends but also differs from much of the scholarship that makes up the recent resurgence of border studies. As many scholars have pointed out, rising attention across multiple disciplines to issues of globalism and transnationalism, as well as cultural studies approaches to concepts heretofore in the domain of social science, have resulted in increased interest in borders (Newman, 2011). Until relatively recently, borders have been approached within the fields of international relations or geography as static, empirical entities, largely in the context of examining relations between states (Sack, 1986; Taylor, 1994; Shapiro and Alker, 1996). More recent theories emanating from anthropology and cultural studies have emphasized the social construction of boundaries as processes for defining personal, group and national identities, through processes of inclusion and exclusion, defining the “self” and the “Other.” These approaches have broadened the concept of “borders” to include not only the actual borderline between states, but many other kinds of borders. In this conception, borders are everywhere, and the “border narratives” that constitute them are made up of multiple discourses and texts: newspapers, political speeches, posters, poems, plays, novels, everyday speech that give meaning to the border as the “construction of institutionalized forms of ‘we’ and the ‘other’ which are produced and perpetually reproduced in education texts, narratives and discourses” (Newman and Paasi, 1998, p. 196).

New Article: Mansfeld and Korman, Conflict Heritage Tourism along Three Israeli Border Areas

Mansfeld, Yoel and Tally Korman. “Between War and peace: Conflict Heritage Tourism along Three Israeli Border Areas.” Tourism Geographies 17.3 (2015): 437-60.
 
 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2015.1036916
 
 
Abstract

The construction and evolutionary processes of conflict-heritage tourism sites in border areas in transition between war and peace can be understood through a comprehensive study of the functional, spatial, political and tourism processes along three border areas between Israel and its neighbors. Using a qualitative approach, conflict-heritage sites are shown to represent a relatively large component within the overall tourism supply in the studied border areas. The essence of this type of tourism site is an outcome of equilibrium between actual historical locations of conflicts along the border, their cultural-national importance, their perceived level of security, and their proximity to the borderline. The pace of development of such sites is relatively slow and incorporates their tourism opportunities as well as the physical-social-security challenges faced by tourism stakeholders in those areas. The developmental character of such sites depends primarily on security, economic and planning factors. Based on the Israeli study, it can be concluded that the development of a larger variety of conflict-heritage sites in border areas requires a distance from the frontier, as a result of the security-political situation. In addition, the more time passes since the last conflict in that area, the more sites will be developed, offering complementary tourism activities, often functionally connected to other types of tourism in such areas. Lastly, the study supported the postulate that conflict-heritage attractions do not disappear – but they change only slightly in terms of function when the security situation in those areas calms down. Based on the above insights, the paper proposes further research to better understand processes of heritage tourism development in dynamic border areas.

 

New Article: Siniver, Abba Eban and the Development of American–Israeli Relations

Siniver, Asaf. “Abba Eban and the Development of American–Israeli Relations, 1950–1959.” Diplomacy & Statecraft 26.1 (2015): 65-83.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592296.2015.999625

 

Abstract

Abba Eban, Israel’s ambassador in Washington and representative at the United Nations from 1950 to 1959, had a central role in the transformation of American–Israeli relations during a period of frequent discord over key strategic issues. This analysis examines the influence of one prominent actor upon bilateral ties that would eventually become the American–Israeli “special relationship.” Eban’s oratory talent, linguistic skills, and effective style of diplomacy augmented both Israel’s image in the view of the American public and relations with official Washington. The article explores several critical elements of these relations during the 1950s, re-examining both Eban’s involvement in events such as Israel’s approach toward the problem of borders, its policy of military retaliation, and the response to severe American pressure following the 1956 Sinai campaign. Whilst not attributing the development of close relations between the two Powers solely to the works of a single individual, evidence suggests that Eban was the right man in the right place and time to provide the necessary foundations for the elevation of American–Israeli relations to “special” in the following decade.

 

 

 

 

Seminar: Newman, Deterritorializing the Two State Solution (U Manchester, Feb 11, 2015)

 

 

Research Seminar:

Wed 11 February

‘Rethinking Borders: Deterritorializing the Two State Solution’

DATE AND VENUE: 4pm Wed 11 February in A7, Samuel Alexander Building. (Building 67 on the campus map, see directions).

SPEAKER: Professor David Newman: Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and University Chair in geopolitics at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Following a career in geography, Newman founded the Department of Politics and Government in 1998, and the Centre for the Study of European Politics and Society in 2001. From 1998-2014 Newman was the chief editor of the International Journal of Geopolitics. His degrees are form the UK (University of London and Durham). Newman also writes a weekly political commentary column in the Jerusalem Post.

ABSTRACT: The Two State solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict necessitates the demarcation of borders which will separate the respective territories and sovereignties of both States. Given the increasing complexity of drawing a border in recent years, we examine alternative territorial configurations of a Two State solution involving cross citizenship, exclaves and flexible notions of borders.

This event is part of the Centre’s Israel Studies research seminar programme for 2015.

 

New Book: Peters and Newman, eds. The Routledge Handbook on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Peters, Joel and David Newman, eds. The Routledge Handbook on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. London and New York: Routledge, 2013.

 

URL: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415778626/

Abstract

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most prominent issues in world politics today. Few other issues have dominated the world’s headlines and have attracted such attention from policy makers, the academic community, political analysts, and the world’s media.

The Routledge Handbook on the Israeli- Palestinian Conflict offers a comprehensive and accessible overview of the most contentious and protracted political issue in the Middle East. Bringing together a range of top experts from Israel, Palestine, Europe and North America the Handbook tackles a range of topics including:

• The historical background to the conflict
• peace efforts
• domestic politics
• critical issues such as displacement, Jerusalem and settler movements
• the role of outside players such as the Arab states, the US and the EU

This Handbook provides the reader with an understanding of the complexity of the issues that need to be addressed in order to resolve the conflict, and a detailed examination of the varied interests of the actors involved. In-depth analysis of the conflict is supplemented by a chronology of the conflict, key documents and a range of maps.

The contributors are all leading authorities in their field and have published extensively on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict/peace process. Many have played a leading role in various Track II initiatives accompanying the peace process.

 

Table of Contents

Part 1: Competing Nationalisms

1. The Origins of Zionism Colin Schindler

2. The Palestinian National Movement: from self-rule to statehood Ahmad Samih Khalidi

Part 2:Narratives and Key Moments

3. Competing Israeli and Palestinan Narratives Paul Scham

4. The 1948 War: The Battle over History Kirsten E. Schulze

5. The First and Second Palestinian Intifadas Rami Nasrallah

6. The Camp David Summit: a Tale of Two Narratives Joel Peters

 

Part 3: Seeking Peace

7.The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process: 1967-1993 Laura Zittrain Eisenberg

8. Peace Plans: 1993-2012 Galia Golan

Part 4: Issues

9.Palestinian Refugees Rex Brynen

10. Jerusalem Michael Dumper

11. Territory and Borders David Newman

12. Water Julie Trottier

13. Terrorism Magnus Norell

14. Religion Yehezkel Landau

15. Economics Arie Arnon

16. Unilaterlaism and Separation Gerald M. Steinberg

17. Gaza Joel Peters

Part 5: Domestic Actors

18.The Palestine Liberation Organization Nigel Parsons

19. The Palestinian Authority Nigel Parsons

20. Hamas Khaled Hroub

21. Palestinian Civil Society Michael Schulz

22. Gush Emunim and the Israeli Settler Movement David Newman

23. The Israeli Peace Movements Naomi Chazan

Part 6: International Engagement

24. Palestinian Citizens of Israel Amal Jamal

25. The United States: 1948- 1993 Steven L. Spiegel

26. The United States: 1993-2010 Steven L. Spiegel

27. Russia Robert O. Freedman

28. Europe Rosemary Hollis

29. The Arab World P. R. Kumaraswamy

30. The Jewish Diaspora and the Pro-Israel Lobby Dov Waxman

Chronology Steve Lutes

New Article: Mendelson-Maoz, Borders, Territory, and Sovereignty in the Works of Contemporary Israeli Women Writers

Mendelson-Maoz, Adia. “Borders, Territory, and Sovereignty in the Works of Contemporary Israeli Women Writers.” Women’s Studies 43.6 (2014): 788-822.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00497878.2014.921511

 

 

Excerpt

The works of both Matalon and Govrin offer an unusual aesthetic, ethical, and female option, in regard to the questions of territory and sovereignty. In choosing the rhizome model, in which nomads create open spaces, throw bridges over borders, and enable flexibility in the subject’s never-ending becoming, both authors provide a revolutionary angle on representations of the Israeli society, the Occupation and the Intifada in Israeli literature. Because of the revolutionary nature of their gaze, and its implication, which threaten the core of political and gendered power, this option is doomed to failure. And so alongside the radical option, these works also propose a realistic view that portrays how the female and ethical alternative is crushed and threatened with violence. Ultimately, the release of sovereignty and possession cannot succeed in a place where men thirst for war, a place where weapons persist on assaulting Jerusalem again and again, rather than leave it fallow.

 

 

 

 

 

New Book: Elad, Core Issues in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

אלעד, משה. סוגיות הליבה בסכסוך הישראלי-פלסטיני. חיפה: פרדס, 2014.

URL: www.pardes.co.il/book.asp?pID=1198

תכנית החלוקה בנובמבר 47′ סדקה את הסדקים המשמעותיים הראשונים בסכסוך שבין התנועה הלאומית הפלסטינית לבין התנועה הציונית ומדינת ישראל. בבסיסה של המחלוקת אז ניצבה אי נכונותם של הערבים להתפשר על חלוקתה של ארץ ישראל. מלחמת השחרור הישראלית בשנת 48′, והנכבה הפלסטינית שבאה בעקבותיה, בקעו בקיעים רחבים נוספים בעימות הזה כשבמרכזו ניצבו סוגיית הפליטים והרס התשתיות הערביות.
מלחמת ששת הימים 67′ והעשור הראשון של הממשל הישראלי בגדה המערבית ובמזרח ירושלים, פערו בין הצדדים תהום שכמעט איננה ניתנת לגישור. רבדיה של תהום זו פרושים על פני סוגית הפליטים לרבות אלו שנוספו בשנת 67′, סוגית מזרח–ירושלים, סוגית ההתנחלויות, וסוגית הגבולות וההסדרים.
ספר זה המבוסס על עבודת דוקטורט שעסקה בממשל הישראלי בעשור הראשון שאחרי מלחמת ששת הימים, 1976-1967, מתאר את לידתן של ארבע סוגיות הליבה תוך הארת היבטים עכשוויים ואקטואליים ותוך ציון ההשלכות המעשיות האפשריות שלהן.

ד”ר משה אלעד, מזרחן, מרצה וחוקר המתמחה בתחום המנהיגות והחברה הפלסטינית ויחסי הגומלין שלהם עם החברה הישראלית מאז העלייה הראשונה בשנת 1882. בוגר החוגים להיסטוריה של המזרח התיכון ולימודי ארץ ישראל באוניברסיטת חיפה, שם גם כתב דוקטורט על הממשל הישראלי בגדה המערבית ובמזרח ירושלים בשנים 1976-1967. כמו כן הוא בוגר תואר שני במנהל ציבורי בבית הספר ג’והן קנדי לממשל באוניברסיטת הרווארד בארצות הברית.
שימש כחוקר וכמתאם מחקרים במוסד שמואל נאמן למחקרי מדיניות לאומית בטכניון.
אלוף משנה בצה”ל, ששימש בתפקידים בכירים בגדה המערבית ובלבנון. בין יתר תפקידיו שימש כראש המנגנון לתיאום ביטחוני עם הרשות הפלסטינית במסגרת “הסכמי אוסלו” (1998-1995).

 

 

ToC: Israel Affairs 20,1 (2014)

Israel Affairs, Vol. 20, No. 1, 02 Jan 2014 is now available on Taylor & Francis Online. This new issue contains the following articles: Articles Alternative energy in Israel: opportunities and risks Gawdat Bahgat Pages: 1-18 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.863078 The success of the Zionist strategy vis-à-vis UNSCOP Elad Ben-Dror Pages: 19-39 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.863079 Israel: ‘occupier’ or ‘occupied’? The psycho-political projection of Christian and post-Christian supersessionism Kalman J. Kaplan & Paul Cantz Pages: 40-61 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.863082 Misuse of power in Israeli intelligence Ephraim Kahana & Daphna Sharfman Pages: 62-74 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.863081 The birth of the core issues: the West Bank and East Jerusalem under Israeli administration, 1967–76 (Part 2) Moshe Elad Pages: 75-86 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.863080 One step forward or two steps back? Unilateralism and Israel’s Gaza disengagement in the eyes of the world Geoffrey Levin Pages: 87-103 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.863084 Between private property rights and national preferences: the Bank of Israel’s early years Arie Krampf Pages: 104-124 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.863083 Bandwagoning for profit and Turkey: alliance formations and volatility in the Middle East Spyridon N. Litsas Pages: 125-139 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.863085

Cite: Pullan, Conflict’s Tools. Borders, Boundaries and Mobility in Jerusalem’s Spatial Structures

Pullan, Wendy. “Conflict’s Tools. Borders, Boundaries and Mobility in Jerusalem’s Spatial Structures.” Mobilities 2013.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17450101.2012.750040

 

Abstract

Transformed communications and mobility have led to the reinterpretation of urban space, so that instead of regarding it as primarily bounded and geometrically definable, it may be understood as based on a series of relations and, thus, continuously open to its own temporality. So where does this leave contested cities where differences in civic populations are so often represented through the rigid division and bounding of territory? This article examines borders, boundaries and mobility regimes in Jerusalem in terms of the spatial qualities of the city that have formed from the deceptively simple formula of more borders/less mobility. Clearly, an unbalanced and inequitable city has developed, and the research reveals that the politically motivated planning system has stamped out the fluid ‘relational’ space needed to enhance diverse interactions. Not only Palestinians but also Israelis are subject to this extreme binary vision of the city.

Cite: Hatuka, The Power of Appearance along a Fragmented Border in Israel/Palestine

Hatuka, Tali. “Civilian Consciousness of the Mutable Nature of Borders: The Power of Appearance along a Fragmented Border in Israel/Palestine.” Political Geography [In Press, Corrected Proof, online since July 20, 2012]

 

URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629812000649

 

Abstract

Abstract

What is the role of citizenship in a protest? How are civilian rights used as a source of power to craft socio-spatial strategies of dissent? I argue that the growing civilian consciousness of the “power to” (i.e. capacity to act) and of the border as public space is enhancing civil participation and new dissent strategies through which participants consciously and sophisticatedly use their citizenship as a tool, offering different conceptualizations of borders. This paper examines the role of citizenship in the design and performance of dissent focusing on two groups of Israeli activists, Machsom Watch and Anarchists against the Wall. Using their Israeli citizenship as a source of power, these groups apply different strategies of dissent while challenging the discriminating practices of control in occupied Palestinian territories. These case studies demonstrate a growing civilian consciousness of the mutable nature of borders as designed by state power. Analyzing the ways actors consciously and sophisticatedly use citizenship as a tool in their dissent, which is aimed at supporting indigenous noncitizens, I argue that Machsom Watch and Anarchists against the Wall enact and promote different models of citizenship and understandings of borders, in Israel/Palestine.

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Highlights

► The paper analyzes how civilian rights are used to craft socio-spatial strategies of dissent. ► Analysis is focused on groups of Israeli activists, Machsom Watch and Anarchists against the Wall. ► Case studies demonstrate a civilian consciousness of the mutable nature of borders. ► Protests have the capacity to challenge the state’s model of citizenship.

 

Keywords

• Dissent;
• Israel;
• Space;
• Place;
• Spheres and principles of protests

Cite: Ball, Towards a Visual Politics of ‘Touch’ at the Israeli-Palestinian Border

Ball, Anna. “Impossible Intimacies: Towards a Visual Politics of ‘Touch’ at the Israeli-Palestinian Border.” Journal for Cultural Research 16.2-3 (2012): 175-195. [Special Issue: Arab Cultural Studies]

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14797585.2012.647668

Abstract

The West Bank Wall (or ‘Separation Fence’) constructed by Israel along much of its border with the occupied West Bank offers a potent visual signifier of the divisive, restrictive and intrusive ways in which the Israeli occupation touches the everyday lives of Palestinians. Consequently, the Wall has become a prominent site of representational concern in Arab visual culture. This article examines two particular visual representations of the Israeli-Palestinian border, Mona Hatoum’s sculpture ‘Grater Divide’ and Simone Bitton’s film Wall, in order to explore the complex politics of encounter and representation that circulate around the border in these works. In doing so, it seeks to establish a broader understanding of the ways in which discursive and cultural boundaries might be negotiated and crossed in the service of an interdisciplinary model of Arab cultural studies.

CFP: Narrative of Land of Israel, for AJS (Chicago 2012)

I am seeking participants for an AJS session on how ancient and contemporary narratives of the Land of Israel have shaped the contours of Israeli territorial politics. Papers that consider contemporary political applications of traditional Jewish sources on the boundaries of the Land of Israel, explore the impact of religious and secular narratives of Jewish homeland on popular Israeli (and diaspora Jewish) territorial discourse, or highlight debates between and within different sectors of Israeli society on "defensible borders", "land for peace," "the whole Land of Israel,"

Israel as a "Jewish state," etc. as they apply to the Jewish and/or Israel "national" experience are strongly encouraged to participate. Proposals are welcome from all disciplines.

 

Ariel Zellman

Northwestern University

 

write: azellman [at] gmail [dot] com