New Article: Kohn, Refugee Camp Narratives

Kohn, Ayelet. “Refugee Camp Narratives: The Role of ‘Eye-Witness Testimony’ in Journalists’ Travel Accounts.” Current Sociology 64.1 (2016): 83-100.

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URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0011392115587748

 

Extract

This article examines three narrative formats which Israeli journalists use to describe their tours in Palestinian refugee camps. The article aims to suggest possibilities for reporting patterns, carefully framing a sense of urgency, which attempt to form a right measure of proximity and distance from the sufferers which might motivate audiences into action. The discussion focuses on three narratives, one literary and the other an article which was published in a popular Israeli journal, both unique in their deliberate emphasis on writing style and their reflection of the ongoing tension between the reporters’ professional, creative and national identities. The third format is a testimony, given by the narrator in Ari Folman’s animated film Waltz with Bashir (2008). The film ends with a few minutes of documented events, filmed at Sabra and Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon in 1982. While all three narratives use direct showing, personal testimonies and a variety of written, illustrated and photographed portraits, the written narratives focus on the reporters’ central role and on the Israeli readers, while Waltz with Bashir challenges the possible feeling of guilt on the Israeli side and invokes the viewer’s human empathy through a direct encounter with personal comments and shocking images.

 

 

 

New Article: Salem, The Arabs and the Confrontation with Israel

Salem, Walid. “The Arabs and the Confrontation with Israel: A Contribution to Crystallizing the Interim Goal and Determining Strategy.” Contemporary Arab Affairs (early view; online first).

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URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17550912.2015.1118914

 

Extract

This article may contribute to clarifying the Palestinian-Arab interim goal regarding the issue of Palestine and reduce its ambiguities. This is a goal that cannot use the erosion of time and the facts that Israel has created on the ground as excuses to say the goal has come to an end. The history of the world and current experiences in it demonstrate that there are no unchangeable events given the availability of a capable transformative agent and a clear and gradual plan in this direction.

Palestine has seen a violent conflict between the Israeli action, on the one hand, and the Palestinian-Arab action, on the other hand. The results of this conflict will determine the fate of 1967-occupied Palestine. This will either put Palestine on the global map due to the success of the Palestinian-Arab transformative action, or it will give rise to a greater Israel and achieve a new expulsion of the Palestinian people if the other transformative action succeeds.

 

 

 

New Article: Tauber, The Arab Military Force in Palestine Prior to the Invasion of the Arab Armies, 1945–1948

Tauber, Eliezer. “The Arab Military Force in Palestine Prior to the Invasion of the Arab Armies, 1945–1948.” Middle Eastern Studies 51.6 (2015): 950-85.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2015.1044896

 

Abstract

The article examines the size, structure, composition and modi operandi of the Arab military forces which fought the Jews in the 1948 war, before the invasion of the Arab regular armies, based first and foremost on the Arab sources themselves. An attempt is made to assess the substantial reasons behind the Arab defeat in the first ‘civil war’ phase of the campaign, including a comparison of the number of combatants, which also explains the outcome.

 

 

New Article: Eames, Thatcher’s Diplomacy and the 1982 Lebanon War

Eames, Anthony M. “Margaret Thatcher’s Diplomacy and the 1982 Lebanon War.” Mediterranean Quarterly 25.4 (2014): 27-44.

 

URL: mq.dukejournals.org/content/25/4/27.short

 

Abstract

The year 1982 emerged as pivotal in the Atlantic Alliance and the relationship between President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. On 6 June 1982, Israeli Defense Forces breached the Lebanese border in a maneuvre to eradicate the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The campaign opened a violent episode in the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict. Almost immediately the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office recognized the challenge to the international community. The crisis in the Middle East occurred during a period of substantial turnover in the foreign policy communities of both London and Washington. Subsequent improved bilateral relations between the United States and the United Kingdom paved the way for greater cooperation in international diplomacy between respective national executives.

New Book: Hanafi et al, UNRWA and Palestinian Refugees

Hanafi, Sari, Leila Hilal, and Lex Takkenberg, eds. UNRWA and Palestinian Refugees. From Relief and Works to Human Development. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2014.

 

 

URL: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415715041/

 

Abstract

Exploring the evolution of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), this book fills a lacuna in literature on the agency. It employs recent fieldwork in order to analyse challenges in programmes and service delivery, protection, camp governance, community participation, and camp improvement and reconstruction. The chapters examine the way UNRWA is adapting to a changing social, political and economic context, mostly within urban settings – a paradigmatic shift from understanding the Agency’s role as simply a provider of relief and services to one comprehensively supporting the human development of Palestinian refugees.

Examining the refugee debate using new disciplines and research frameworks, this collection aims to emphasise the centrality of the Palestinian refugee issue for Middle East peace-making and to contribute a better understanding of a unique agency. This book will be a useful aid for students and researchers with an interest in Middle East Studies, Politics, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Table of Contents

Part I: Meeting Challenges in Programmes and Service Delivery

1 Realizing Self-Reliance through Microfinance – Allex Pollock

2 UNRWA’s ‘Traditional’ Programmes as a Catalyst for Human Development – Tjitske de Jong & Miriam Aced

Part II: Protection: From Concept to Practice

3 Incorporating Protection into UNRWA Operations – Mark Brailsford

4 Advancing Child Protection in Jordan, Lebanon, Occupied Palestinian Territory and Syria – Laurent Chapuis

Part III: Governance: The Camps and UNRWA

5 From Chaos to Order and Back: The Construction of UNRWA Shelters and Camps 1950- 1970– Kjersti Gravelsaeter Berg

6 UNRWA as ‘Phantom Sovereign’: Governance Practices in Lebanon – Sari Hanafi

Part IV: Civic Participation and Community Engagement

7 From Beneficiary to Stakeholder: An Overview of UNRWA’s Approach to Refugee Participation– Terry Rempel

8 Community Participation and Human Rights Advocacy: Questions Arising from the Campaign about the Right to Work of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon – Sergio Bianchi

Part V: Camp Improvement/Reconstruction and Development

9 Dynamics of Space, Temporariness, Development and Rights in Palestine Refugees’ Camps– Mona Budeiri

10 Talbiyeh Camp Improvement Project and the Challenges of Community Participation: Between Empowerment and Conflict– Fatima Al-Nammari

11 Implementing the Neirab Rehabilitation Project: UNRWA’s Approach to Development in Syria’s Palestinian Refugee Camps– Nell Gabiam

12 The Urban Planning Strategy in Al-Hussein Palestinian Refugee Camp in Amman: Heterogeneous Practices; Homogeneous Landscape– Lucas Oesch

Part VI: Palestinian Refugees and Durable Solutions: A Role for UNRWA

13 UNRWA as Avatar: Current Debates on the Agency and their Implications – Rex Brynen

14 The Role of UNRWA in Resolving the Palestinian Refugee Issue – Leila Hilal

Conference program: MESA, Washington, DC (22-25 Nov, 2014)

Israel Studies events at the annual conference of MESA, Washington, DC, November 22-25. For full program click here (PDF).

 

AIS–Association for Israel Studies Reception

Saturday, 11/22

Reception, 8:30-10:30pm, McKinley (M)

 

(3681) Settler-Colonialism and the Study of Zionism: Erasure, Transfer and Assimilation

Sunday, November 23, 11am-1pm

Organized by Arnon Degani

Sponsored by Palestinian American Research Center (PARC)

Chair: Gabriel Piterberg, UCLA

 

Discussant: Lorenzo Veracini, Swinburne Inst for Social Research

Susan Slyomovics, UCLA–“The Object of Memory” and Settler Colonialism Studies 16 Years Later

Honaida Ghanim, Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies–Judaization and De-Indigenization: Settler-Colonialism in East Jerusalem

Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, Mada Al-Carmel–The Zionist Left and Settler-Colonialism in Marj Ibn ‘Amer: Land, Population and Property

Arnon Degani, UCLA–Non-Statist and Bi-Nationalist Zionism as Settler-Colonial Agendas

 

(3756) Rule of Experts?: Revolutions, Doctrines, and Interventions in the Middle East

Sunday, November 23, 2m-4pm

Organized by Osamah Khalil

 

Seth Anziska, Columbia University–Israel, the United States and the 1982 War in Lebanon

 

(3925) World War One and Its Aftermath

Sunday, November 23, 2m-4pm

Chair: Weston F Cook, Jr, UNC Pembroke

 

Roberto Mazza, Western Illinois U–Cemal Pasha, Zionism and the Alleged Expulsion of the Jews from Jaffa in April 1917

 

(3792) Israel Studies in the Arab World

Sunday, November 23, 4:30m-6:30pm

Organized by Johannes Becke

Discussant: Elie Podeh, Hebrew U of Jersusalem

 

Hassan A. Barari, U Jordan–Israelism: Arab Scholarship on Israel, a Critical Assessment

Mostafa Hussein, Brandeis U–Israel Studies in the Arab World Between Two Dictums: ‘Whosoever Learns People’s Language Avoids Their Plot’ and ‘Know Your Enemy’

Johannes Becke, U Oxford–Hebrew in Beirut: Studying Israel in the Last Arab Frontline State

Hebatalla Taha, U Oxford–The Politics of ‘Normalisation’: The Israeli Academic Centre in Cairo

Amr Yossef, American U Cairo–Egyptian Israelists: The View from Israel

 

(3886) Social Media, the Digital Archive, and Scholarly Futures

Sunday, November 23, 4:30m-6:30pm

Organized by Ted Swedenburg

Chair/Discussant: Elliott Colla, Georgetown U

 

Rebecca L. Stein, Duke U–The Perpetrator’s Archive: Israel’s Occupation on YouTube

 

 

(4006) Special Session

Abandoned Yet Central: Gaza and the Resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Sunday, November 23, 4:30m-6:30pm

Organized by Sara Roy

Chair: Sara Roy, Harvard University

 

Chris Gunness, UNRWA, Office of the Commissioner General, Jerusalem

Paul Aaron, Political Analyst and Consultant, Gaza Community Mental Health Program

Bill Corcoran, American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA)

Ilana Feldman, George Washington University

Brian Barber, University of Tennessee

Susan Akram, Boston University School of Law

 

This session will present an overview of the past summer’s violent clashes between Israeli and Hamas forces and the ensuing destruction in Gaza. Representatives from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) will provide an “on-the-ground” analysis of the destruction and human toll of the 50-day war. Scholars will further place the recent violence in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and examine the prerequisites for a sustainable resolution of the conflict.

 

 

 

(3737) Religious Inclusivity and Civilizational Identity: Expanding Iranian Identities Along Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Lines

Monday, November 24, 8:30am-10:30am

Organized by Lior Sternfeld

Chair/Discussant: Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, U Toronto

 

Lior Sternfeld, U Texas Austin–Iran is My Homeland, Jerusalem is My Qiblah: Iranian Jews Between Zionist and Iranian Identities

 

(3643) Israel, the United States and a Changing Middle East

Monday, November 24, 11am-1pm

Organized by Robert O. Freedman

Sponsored by Association for Israel Studies

Chair/Discussant: Robert O. Freedman, Johns Hopkins U

 

Eyal Zisser, Tel Aviv U–Israel and the Arab World – Who’s First – Syria, Egypt or Lebanon?

Ilan Peleg, Lafayette Col–Israel, Netanyahu & the Palestinians: Is the Third Term the Charm?!

Rami Ginat, Bar Ilan U–The Israeli-Egyptian-American Strategic Triangle: A Reassessment in Light of the Arab Uprising

Joshua Teitelbaum, Bar-Ilan U–Israel and the Gulf Cooperation Council: New Opportunities for Cooperation?

Uzi Rabi, Tel Aviv U–Iran and Israel: Post 2013 Elections

 

 

(3697) Bridging the Rupture of 1948: The “Decolonization” and Erasure of Mandate Palestine

Monday, November 24, 2:30pm-4:30pm

Organized by Jeffrey D. Reger and Leena Dallasheh

Sponsored by Palestinian American Research Center (PARC)

Chair: Zachary Lockman, New York U

Discussant: Shira Robinson, George Washington U

 

Jeffrey D. Reger, Georgetown U–Uprooting Palestine: Olive Groves, Mass Dispossession, and Peasant Resistance, 1945-1955

Hilary Falb Kalisman, UC Berkeley–Learning Exile: Palestinian Students and Educators Abroad, 1940-1958

Leena Dallasheh, Rice U–Defying the Rupture, Affirming Presence: Palestinians in Nazareth Surviving 1948

Rephael Stern, Princeton U–Israel’s Postcolonial Predicament and Its Contradicting Jurisdictional Claims in 1948

 

 

(3917) Perilous Peacemaking: Israeli-Palestinian Relations Since Oslo

Monday, November 24, 5pm-7pm

Chair: Timothy Schorn, U South Dakota

 

Elie Podeh, Hebrew U Jerusalem–Missed Opportunities in the Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Case of the Arab Peace Initiative (2002-2014)

Maia Carter Hallward, Kennesaw State U–Choosing to Negotiate Under Sub-Optimal Conditions: The 2013 Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations

Gabriele Mombelli, U Florence–The Palestinian National Authority Security Sector: An Operational Overview

Karam Dana, U Washington–Twenty Years after Oslo: What Do Palestinians Think?

Andrew Barwig, Department of State–“New Blood” in Israel’s Knesset: Elite Circulation and Parliamentary Resilience

 

 

 

(3867) Urbanism and the Politics of the Mandate Period, Local versus Imperial Interests

Tuesday, November 25, 11am-1pm

Organized by Harrison Guthorn

Chair: Elizabeth F. Thompson, U Virginia

 

Noah Hysler Rubin, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design–Planning Palestine: British and Zionist Plans for Tiberius and Nathanya

 

(3893) Public Opinion in the Middle East

Tuesday, November 25, 11am-1pm

Organized by Yael Zeira

 

Devorah Manekin, Arizona State U–Carrots and Sticks: Policy Instruments and Public Opinion in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

 

(3919) Palestinian Resistance: Spaces and Standpoints

Tuesday, November 25, 11am-1pm

Chair: Timothy Schorn, U South Dakota

 

Timothy Seidel, American U–Narrating Nonviolence: Postcolonial Interrogations of Resistance in Palestine

Maya Rosenfeld, Hebrew U Jerusalem–The Movement of Palestinian Political Prisoners and the Struggle Against the Israeli Occupation: A Historical Perspective

Sharri Plonski, SOAS U London–Transcending Bounded Space: The Struggle for Land and Space by the Palestinian Citizens of Israel

Julie Norman, McGill U–Prisoners Dilemma?: Prison-Based Resistance and the Diffusion of Activism in Palestine

Maryam Griffin, UC Santa Barbara–Movement as/and Non-Movement in Palestine

 

(3949) Transnational Cultural Production

Tuesday, November 25, 1:30pm-3:30pm

Chair: Zeynep Seviner, U Washington

 

Isra Ali, Rutgers, State U of New Jersey–Adaptation: Cultural Alliances and Television Production in Israel and the United States

Robert Lang, U Hartford–Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir: Whose Trauma?

ToC: Israel Affairs 20.3 (2014)

Israel Affairs, Volume 20, Issue 3, July 2014 is now available online on Taylor & Francis Online.

This new issue contains the following articles:

Articles
The ‘Arab Spring’: implications for US–Israeli relations
Banu Eligür
Pages: 281-301
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.922802

The effects of the ‘Arab Spring’ on Israel’s geostrategic and security environment: the escalating jihadist terror in the Sinai Peninsula
Yehudit Ronen
Pages: 302-317
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.922807

Consolidated monarchies in the post-‘Arab Spring’ era: the case of Jordan
Nur Köprülü
Pages: 318-327
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.922803

Turkish foreign policy after the ‘Arab Spring’: from agenda-setter state to agenda-entrepreneur state
Burak Bilgehan Özpek & Yelda Demirağ
Pages: 328-346
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.922806

Myth and reality, denial and concealment: American Zionist leadership and the Jewish vote in the 1940s
Zohar Segev
Pages: 347-369
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.922808

Middle Eastern intellectual correspondence: Jacob Talmon and Arnold Toynbee revisited
Amikam Nachmani
Pages: 370-398
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.922804

Fiscal allocation to Arab local authorities in Israel, 2004–12
Tal Shahor
Pages: 399-409
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.922809

‘Spring of Youth’ in Beirut: the effects of the Israeli military operation on Lebanon
Dan Naor
Pages: 410-425
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.922805

Book Reviews
Bohaterowie, hochsztaplerzy, opisywacze: wokół Żydowskiego Związku Wojskowego [Heroes, hucksters, storytellers: the Jewish Military Organization
Yehuda Bauer
Pages: 426-429
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.897470

Israel: a history
David Rodman
Pages: 430-431
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.897025

Holy war in Judaism: the fall and rise of a controversial idea
David Rodman
Pages: 431-432
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.897027

Saturday people, Sunday people: Israel through the eyes of a Christian sojourner
David Rodman
Pages: 433-434
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.897028

The Arab Spring, democracy and security: domestic and international ramifications
David Rodman
Pages: 434-436
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.897029

Operation Damocles: Israel’s secret war against Hitler’s scientists, 1951–1967
David Rodman
Pages: 436-437
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.897030

A Jew’s best friend? The image of the dog throughout Jewish history
David Rodman
Pages: 437-438
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.897031

2048
David Rodman
Pages: 438-440
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.897032

Tested by Zion: the Bush administration and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
David Rodman
Pages: 440-441
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.897033

Routledge handbook of modern Israel
David Rodman
Pages: 441-442
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.897034

Israel’s clandestine diplomacies
David Rodman
Pages: 442-444
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.897026

Erratum
Erratum

Pages: 1-1
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937589

New Article: Henkin, Multidirectional Warfare in the Second Lebanon War

Henkin, Yagil. “On Swarming: Success and Failure in Multidirectional Warfare, from Normandy to the Second Lebanon War.” Defence Studies 14.3 (2014): 310-32.

 

URL: www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14702436.2014.901663

 

Abstract

Abstract

In recent years, the idea of ‘swarming’ – that is, simultaneous multidirectional attack or maneuver by large number of independent or semi-independent small units – became a subject of a heated debate. Some believe this is the future of warfare, while others see this belief as ridiculous and dangerous. In the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), specifically, swarming was heralded as the new way of war before the 2006 Second Lebanon War. But during and after the war, the word itself was turned into a derogatory term, symbolizing all that was wrong with the IDF’s performance: relying on new, untested and unrealistic concepts to pretend that the Army has a silver bullet which will solve its problems quickly and easily, ignoring reality in the process. This article draws on six historical case studies, from the American airborne operation in the Normandy Invasion to the Second Lebanon War, to examine the method of swarming, its relevance and its uses. Finally, the article concludes that Swarming is not a revolutionary method, and not ‘The future of conflict’. However it is a very useful method in certain situations, provided that commanders know and understand its possibilities and limitations.

New Article: Kaufman, The Trans-Arabian Pipeline and the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Kaufman, Asher. “Between Permeable and Sealed Borders: The Trans-Arabian Pipeline and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 46.1 (2014): 95-116.

 

URL:  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9173781

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S002074381300130X

 

Abstract

The Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline), which extended from Dhahran in Saudi Arabia to Zahrani in Lebanon and operated from 1950 to 1982, was haunted by the Arab–Israeli conflict throughout the years of its operation. The route of the pipeline—which traversed Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon—was chosen so as to circumvent Palestine/Israel. However, following the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights in the 1967 war, Israel became an active participant in this project, with the full consent of the transit states and Egypt. This article uses Tapline as a means to analyze the interconnected world facilitated by oil pipelines, which defies common wisdom about state sovereignty or the function of interstate boundaries. In addition, Tapline demonstrates how this interconnected network created possibilities for Arab–Israeli cooperation that might have seemed inconceivable initially, given the hostile dynamics of the conflict.

New Publication: Matar and Harb, Narrating Conflict in the Middle East

Dina Matar (author), Zahera Harb (author), eds. Narrating Conflict in the Middle East: Discourse, Image and Communications Practices in Lebanon and Palestine. London: Tauris, 2013.

The term conflict has often been used broadly and uncritically to talk
about diverse situations ranging from street protests to war, though the
many factors that give rise to any conflict and its continuation over a
period of time vary greatly. The starting point of this innovative book
is that it is unsatisfactory either to consider conflict within a
singular concept or alternatively to consider each conflict as entirely
distinct and unique; Narrating Conflict in the Middle East explores
another path to addressing long-term conflict. The contributors set out
to examine the ways in which such conflicts in Palestine and Lebanon
have been and are narrated, imagined and remembered in diverse spaces,
including that of the media. They examine discourses and representations
of the conflicts as well as practices of memory and performance in
narratives of suffering and conflict, all of which suggest an embodied
investment in narrating or communicating conflict. In so doing, they
engage with local, global, and regional realities in Lebanon and in
Palestine and they respond dynamically to these realities.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Approaches to Narrating Conflict in Palestine and Lebanon: Practices, Discourses and Memories Dina Matar and Zahera Harb

      Practices

Just a Few Small Changes: The Limits of Televisual Palestinian Representation of Conflicts within the Transnational ‘Censorscape’ Matt Sienkiewicz

Mediating Internal Conflict in Lebanon and its Ethical Boundaries Zahera Harb

Negotiating Representation, Re-making War: Transnationalism, Counter-hegemony and Contemporary Art from Post-Taif Beirut Hanan Toukan

Narratives in Conflict: Emile Habibi’s al-Waqa’i al-Ghariba and Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention Refqa Abu-Remaileh

      Discourses

Islam in the Narrative of Fatah and Hamas Atef Alshaer

Al Manar: Cultural Discourse and Representation of Resistance Rounwah Adly Riyadh Bseiso

The Battle over Victimhood: Roles and Implications of Narratives of Suffering in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Kirkland Newman Smulders

The ‘I Love…’ Phenomenon in Lebanon: The Transmutations of Discourse, its Impact on Civil Society, the Media and Democratization Carole Helou

      Memories and Narration

Making Sense of War News among Adolescents in Lebanon: The Politics of Solidarity and Partisanship Helena Nassif

Narrating the Nakba: Palestinian Filmmakers Revisit 1948 Nadia Yaqub

Bearing Witness to Al Nakba in a Time of Denial Teodora Todorova

 

USE discount code for special offer on paperback: BOUNDARIES

New Publication: Harris and Omer-Sherman, eds., Narratives of Dissent

Harris, Rachel S. and Ranen Omer-Sherman. Narratives of Dissent. War in Contemporary Israeli Arts and Culture. Detroit : Wayne State University Press, 2012.

 

 

 

URL: http://wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/narratives-dissent

The year 1978 marked Israel’s entry into Lebanon, which led to the long-term military occupation of non-sovereign territory and the long, costly war in Lebanon. In the years that followed, many Israelis found themselves alienated from the idea that their country used force only when there was no alternative, and Israeli society eventually underwent a dramatic change in attitude toward militarization and the infallibility of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces). In Narratives of Dissent: War in Contemporary Israeli Arts and Culture editors Rachel S. Harris and Ranen Omer-Sherman collect nineteen essays that examine the impact of this cultural shift on Israeli visual art, music, literature, poetry, film, theatre, public broadcasting, and commemoration practices after 1978.

Divided into three thematic sections-Private and Public Spaces of Commemoration and Mourning, Poetry and Prose, and Cinema and Stage-this collection presents an exciting diversity of experiences, cultural interests, and disciplinary perspectives. From the earliest wartime writings of S. Yizhar to the global phenomenon of films such as Beaufort, Waltz with Bashir, and Lebanon, the Israeli artist’s imaginative and critical engagement with war and occupation has been informed by the catalysts of mourning, pain, and loss, often accompanied by a biting sense of irony. This book highlights many of the aesthetic narratives that have wielded the most profound impact on Israeli culture in the present day.

These works address both incremental and radical changes in individual and collective consciousness that have spread through Israeli culture in response to the persistent affliction of war. No other such volume exists in Hebrew or English. Students and teachers of Israeli studies will appreciate Narratives of Dissent.

 

 

Table of Contents (from Library of Congress)

Introduction: zionism and the culture of dissent / Ranen Omer-Sherman — Private and public spaces of commemoration and mourning — "Music of peace" at a time of war : Middle Eastern music amid the second intifada / Galeet Dardashti — Privatizing commemoration : the helicopter disaster monument and the absent state / Michael Feige — "Cyclic interruptions" : popular music on Israeli radio in times of emergency / Danny Kaplan — Consuming nostalgia : greetings cards and soldier-citizens / Noa Roei — The photographic memory of Asad Azi / Tal Ben Zvi — "We shall remember them all" : the culture of online mourning and commemoration of fallen soldiers in Israel / Liav Sade-Beck — Poetry and prose — Bereavement and breakdown : war and failed motherhood in Raya Harnik’s work / Esther Raizen — From IDF to .pdf : war poetry in the Israeli digital age / Adriana X. Jacobs — "Unveiling injustice" : Dahlia Ravikovitch’s poetry of witness / Ilana Szobel — War at home : literary engagements with the Israeli political crisis in two novels by Gabriela Avigur-Rotem / Shiri Goren — Forcing the end : apocalyptic Israeli fiction, 1971-2009 / Adam Rovner — Oh, my land, my birthplace : Lebanon war and intifada in Israeli fiction and poetry / Glenda Abramson — Vexing resistance, complicating occupation : a contrapuntal reading of Sahar Khalifeh’s wild thorns and David Grossman’s The smile of the lamb / Philip Metres — Gender, war, and zionist mythogynies : feminist trends in Israeli scholarship / Esther Fuchs — Cinema and stage — Representations of war in Israeli drama and theater / Dan Urian — From national heroes to postnational witnesses : a reconstruction of Israeli soldiers’ cinematic narratives as witnesses of history / Yael Munk — A woman’s war : The Gulf War and popular women’s culture in Israel / Rachel S. Harris — Beaufort the book, beaufort the film : Israeli militarism under attack / Yaron Peleg — Shifting manhood: masculinity and the Lebanon war in Beaufort and waltz with Bashir / Philip Hollander — List of contributors — Index.

Cite: Haddad, What Leads Some Lebanese Shiis to Support Hizballah?

Haddad, Simon. “What Leads Some Lebanese Shiis to Support Hizballah?” Comparative Strategy 32.1 (2013): 71-87.

 

URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/ucst/2013/00000032/00000001/art00005

 

Abstract

In this article, I report the results of a survey of 176 Lebanese Shiis living in metropolitan Beirut administered during the months of December 2010 and January 2011. The data reveal that adherence to Hizballah is associated with personal piety, political alienation, and the frequency of service provision by the party. These findings suggest that those Shii respondents endorse the organization not only for its military capabilities but also as a political party largely for its social services or religious piety, or as a vehicle for change, or for some combination of these and other factors. Therefore, the legitimacy that this popular support provides compounds the challenges of limiting Hizballah’s influence by consensus. Accordingly, removing Hizballah from Lebanon would require the removal of its civilian constituency.

Cite: Childs, Israeli and Lebanese Military Integration Policies

Childs, Steven J. “Points of the Star, Branches of the Cedar: Israeli and Lebanese Military Integration Policies.” Democracy and Security 8.3 (2012): 247-65.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17419166.2012.710149

 

Abstract

The use of military policy to foster the political integration of ethno-religious minorities has long been assumed to aid in the formation of national identities in heterogeneous societies. Recent scholarship has challenged this notion in emphasizing the role of political contestation. Using a contrast of contexts research design of Israeli and Lebanese military integration policies, this research looks to the relationship of the military in relation to its society before considering the distinction between the identity and ideology of ethnic minorities. In exploring these facets, a renewed focus on the nexus of identity and ideology is warranted.

Cite: Haas, Missed Ideological Opportunities and George W. Bush’s Middle Eastern Policies

Haas, Mark L. “Missed Ideological Opportunities and George W. Bush’s Middle Eastern Policies.” Security Studies 21.3 (2012): 416-54.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09636412.2012.706499

 

Abstract

Numerous analysts have criticized George W. Bush’s Middle Eastern policies for their strong ideological content. This article agrees with a core premise of these critiques, but it does so for very different reasons from most analyses. Ideological rigidity on some issues, paradoxically, prevented the Bush administration from taking advantage of the full range of ways in which ideologies shape international relations. There were three major opportunities to advance US interests in the Middle East during Bush’s presidency that were created by the effects of ideologies. First, liberalizing parties in otherwise illiberal regimes tended to be significantly more supportive of US interests than other ideological groups in the same country at the same time. Second, major ideological differences among different types of illiberal enemies of the United States enhanced America’s ability to adopt “wedge” strategies toward various hostile coalitions. Finally, the existence of different types of ideological enemies in the Middle East created incentives for some illiberals to align with the United States because of mutual ideological enmity for a third ideological group. The Bush administration, however, failed at key times to take advantage of these openings. If Bush administration officials had been less ideologically dogmatic while, somewhat paradoxically, making better strategic use of ideologies’ major international effects, America’s security would have been significantly advanced in critical cases.

Cite: Aran, Containment and Territorial Transnational Actors: Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas

Aran, Amnon. “Containment and Territorial Transnational Actors: Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas.” International Affairs 88.4 (2012): 835-855.

 

URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/inta/2012/00000088/00000004/art00011

 

Abstract

Containment has been salient in intellectual and policy debates for 60 years. It informed US foreign policy towards the USSR and, later, the so-called rogue states. The endurance of containment beyond the Cold War suggests that it possesses the quality of transferability, the capacity of a grand strategy from the past to transcend the circumstances that gave rise to it, to suggest what should be emulated and what avoided in future policies. Drawing on the notion of transferability and on the method of structured, focused comparison, this article uses Israel’s foreign policy towards Hezbollah and Hamas to argue that containment is transferable from the state level to a state/territorial transnational actor (TNA) relationship, albeit with permutations. This argument is examined in relation to four issues: the circumstances under which containment arises; its applicability to territorial TNA; the objectives sought by implementing containment; and the role of legitimacy as a component of containment. In so doing the article seeks to make a contribution to the debate on containment. While there is a rich literature on state containment, research on containing territorial TNA has been extremely limited.

Cite: Rowe, Appropriation of Dabkeh by Zionism, Pan-Arabism, Palestinian Nationalism

Rowe, Nicholas. “Dance and Political Credibility: The Appropriation of Dabkeh by Zionism, Pan-Arabism, and Palestinian Nationalism.” Middle East Journal 65.3 (2011): 363-380.

 

URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mei/mei/2011/00000065/00000003/art00002

 

Abstract

This article examines how the rural folkdance dabkeh has, in the last century, been appropriated and reinvented as a tradition in order to construct the imagined communities of Zionism, pan-Arabism, and Palestinian Nationalism within Palestine/Israel. This appropriation has led to extensive debates and suppositions on the source, meanings, and cultural ownership of dabkeh. The following historical narratives, emerging from interviews with dance practitioners and dance advocates in the West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon, and from literature in libraries and archives in the West Bank, Israel, and Great Britain, draw attention to the salient links between dance and politics and the multiple ways in which collective identities can be constructed and deconstructed. These histories further raise questions about how local cultural autonomy and sustainability within the Occupied Palestinian Territories have been affected by the process of political appropriation.

Cite: Tenenboim-Weinblatt, Mediated Negotiations

Tenenboim-Weinblatt, Keren. “Mediated Negotiations: A Case Study of a Transcultural Exchange between Lebanon and Israel.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 8.2 (2011): 165-185.

 

URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/rccc/2011/00000008/00000002/art00004

 

Abstract

This article examines the strategies and practices by which the Israeli news media negotiated and (re)appropriated a Lebanese documentary that was produced in cooperation with a French company and was purchased and broadcast by an Israeli commercial channel. Using this transnational textual event, the article explores the dynamics, opportunities and pitfalls associated with transcultural exchanges that take place in a conflictual, translocal context, and the ways in which such exchanges are shaped by an interplay of material-institutional and discursive-symbolic dimensions. The article also provides a multi-layered framework for analyzing the broadcasting and journalistic practices surrounding such textual events, and establishes the relationship between appropriation and witnessing strategies. I show how the Israeli media—driven by commercial interests and applying complex forms of witnessing and appropriation—worked to sustain national myths and suppress the potentially disruptive aspects of the documentary, while at the same time exposing the weaknesses of these myths, as well as the limits of the State’s power. Emerging from this case study is a complex picture of the multifaceted roles played by national news media in a transnational economy, and of the ways in which commercial media interests serve as both hegemonic and disruptive forces within the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Cite: Yosef, Memory, Trauma, and the Archive in Cedar’s Beaufort

Yosef, Raz. "Traces of War: Memory, Trauma, and the Archive in Joseph Cedar’s Beaufort." Cinema Journal 50,2 (2011): 61-83.

 

URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/cinema_journal/summary/v050/50.2.yosef.html

 

Abstract

One of the most striking phenomena in contemporary Israeli cinema is the number of films that explore repressed traumatic events from the First Lebanon War—events that have been denied entry into the shared national past. This essay analyzes Joseph Cedar’s film Beaufort (2007), arguing that the film exposes a traumatic rupture between history and memory. Yet at the same time, Beaufort nostalgically expresses an impossible yearning for lost archival collective national memory.

 

Keywords: Film / Cinema, Lebanon, Lebanon Security Zone, Joseph Cedar, Trauma, Violence, Memory, Archive, Collective Memory, Nostalgia, War Films, Suffering, Pain, Psychic Trauma, Motion Pictures, Israeli Culture, יוסי סידר, רז יוסף, בופור, לבנון

Cite: Lesch, The Evolution of Bashar al-Asad

David W. Lesch. "The Evolution of Bashar al-Asad." Middle East Policy 17.2 (2010): 70-81.

 

URL: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123508060/abstract

ToC: Israel Affairs, 16,3 (2010)

Israel Affairs: Volume 16 Issue 3 is now available online at informaworld^TM.
This new issue contains the following articles:

Original Articles

The relationship between electoral systems and political marketing: Israel 1988-2003
Pages 335 – 364

Authors: Yehudith Auerbach; Talya Yehuda

DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2010.487724

Local government training in England and Wales, Denmark and Israel
Pages 365 – 385

Author: Moshe Maor

DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2010.487726

From At Tiri to Qana: the impact of peacekeeping in Lebanon on Israeli-Irish bilateral relations, 1978-2000
Pages 386 – 405

Author: Rory Miller

DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2010.487728

Israel’s energy security: the Caspian Sea and the Middle East
Pages 406 – 415

Author: Gawdat Bahgat

DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2010.487729

Vanunu, The Sunday Times, and the Dimona question
Pages 416 – 433

Author: Yoel Cohen

DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2010.487730

The Israeli volunteering movement preceding the 1956 war
Pages 434 – 454

Author: Moshe Naor

DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2010.487732

The missing currency of Israeli/Palestinian negotiations
Pages 455 – 465

Author: Lloyd Cohen

DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2010.487733