New Article: Adwan et al, Portrayal of the Other in Schoolbooks

Adwan, Sami, Daniel Bar-Tal, and Bruce E. Wexler. “Portrayal of the Other in Palestinian and Israeli Schoolbooks: A Comparative Study.” Political Psychology 37.2 (2016): 201-17.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/pops.12227

 

Abstract

The present study examined how Israelis and Palestinians present their narratives related to their conflict in school textbooks used by the state educational system and the ultraorthodox community in Israel and by all Palestinian schools in Palestinian National Territories. The focus was on how each side portrays the Other and their own group. The content analysis was based on a developed conceptual framework and standardized and manualized rating criteria with quantitative and qualitative aspects. The results showed in general that (1) dehumanizing and demonizing characterizations of the Other are rare in both Israeli and Palestinian books; (2) both Israeli and Palestinian books present unilateral national narratives that portray the Other as enemy, chronicle negative actions by the Other directed at the self-community, and portray the self-community in positive terms with actions aimed at self-protection and goals of peace; (3), there is lack of information about the religions, culture, economic and daily activities of the Other, or even of the existence of the Other on maps; (4) the negative bias in portrayal of the Other, the positive bias in portrayal of the self, and the absence of images and information about the Other are all statistically significantly more pronounced in Israeli Ultra-Orthodox and Palestinian books than in Israeli state books.

 

 

 

Thesis: Jadhav, GIS based application tool — Israel Palestine Conflict

Jadhav, Priyanka Sharad S. GIS based application tool — Israel Palestine Conflict, MS Thesis. San Diego: San Diego State University, 2015.
 
URL: http://gradworks.umi.com/16/06/1606015.html
 
Abstract

The objective of the thesis is to develop a GIS based application tool that gives insight into the ongoing controversial Palestine-Israel Conflict. The tool showcases the complete history of the conflict right from World War II through today. It also showcases the other conflicts in the Middle East, which involved Israel and Palestine.

Information about the rulers is provided and how the initial boundaries were chosen. The user can click on the important points on the Israel map. As the user clicks on the map points, Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) pages will be displayed which will have information about the key events during the conflict along with some more information about the ruler and their ruling period. Information about their contribution will also be described. The programming language used to develop this tool is JAVA. Different features to this tool are added using MOJO (Map Objects Java Objects), which is developed by ESRI (Environmental Science Research Institute). The map is also developed using MOJO.

The tool will also include a few customized features for the user to understand the Palestine-Israel conflict in an easy way. Customized features like pictures, videos will be added to the tool to make the tool more interesting and informing. This tool will help people to know more about the ongoing highly controversial Palestine-Israel conflict.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Report: National Library of Israel, 2015 activities

Click here for Hebrew version:

• David Grossman entrusts personal archive to National Library
• Prof. Jonathan Sarna, Scholar-in-Residence
• Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks: The Battle of the Book
• Piyut and Prayer Series (watch on YouTube)
• Documentary Film Festival
• Professional Training Courses for European Librarians and Archivists
• Summer Program for Children from East Jerusalem
• Launch of Young Curators Program Pilot
• Digitization of 670 pages from 56 Israeli journals (see database here)
• Archives of Jewish journalism online (click here for the archives)
• Collection of Israeli archives (see AZ website)
• Historic maps of Jerusalem on Wikipedia (see here)

New Article: Segalo et al, Engaging Memory and Imagination Within Decolonizing Frameworks

Segalo, Puleng, Einat Manoff, Michelle Fine. “Working With Embroideries and Counter-Maps: Engaging Memory and Imagination Within Decolonizing Frameworks.” Journal of Social and Political Psychology 3.1 (2015).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v3i1.145

 

Abstract

As people around the world continue to have their voices, desires, and movements restricted, and their pasts and futures told on their behalf, we are interested in the critical project of decolonizing, which involves contesting dominant narratives and hegemonic representations. Ignacio Martín-Baró called these the “collective lies” told about people and politics. This essay reflects within and across two sites of injustice, located in Israel/Palestine and in South Africa, to excavate the circuits of structural violence, internalized colonization and possible reworking of those toward resistance that can be revealed within the stubborn particulars of place, history, and culture. The projects presented here are locally rooted, site-specific inquiries into contexts that bear the brunt of colonialism, dispossession, and occupation. Using visual research methodologies such as embroideries that produce counter-narratives and counter-maps that divulge the complexity of land-struggles, we search for fitting research practices that amplify unheard voices and excavate the social psychological soil that grows critical analysis and resistance. We discuss here the practices and dilemmas of doing decolonial research and highlight the need for research that excavates the specifics of a historical material context and produces evidence of previously silenced narratives.

 

 

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 Article: Singer and Bickel, Women’s Walking Decisions and Ultra-Orthodox Enclaves in Jerusalem

Singer, Rachel and Rachel Bickel. ” Which Way to Go? Women’s Walking Decisions and Ultra-Orthodox Enclaves in Jerusalem.” Gender, Place and Culture 22.7 (2015): 987-1006.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2014.939153

 

Abstract

This article explores how material and ideological forms of social exclusion manifest at the borders of Ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem and play out in the walking patterns of surrounding (non-Ultra-Orthodox) populations. It is based on a pilot study that uses a mixed methods design consisting of mental maps and questionnaires to examine how (particularly female) residents living in close proximity to Ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods perceive these spaces, experience themselves in relation to the gender norms reproduced there and make wayfinding choices accordingly. This study builds on previous ones that have explored both the contested terrain of Jerusalem’s city center and the dynamic relationship between the social and the spatial to include a discussion of how religiosity and cultural politics express themselves in the commonplace, embodied act of the female pedestrian.

New Article: Safran, Haifa al-Jadida

Safran, Yair. “Haifa al-Jadida: The Surrounding Walls and the City Quarters.” Middle Eastern Studies 51.3 (2015): 452-61.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00263206.2014.976623

 

Abstract

`Haifa al-Jadida` (New Haifa) was erected in 1761 by order of the Bedouin ruler Daher el-Omar, governor of the Galilee. As part of the process of building the city, a wall was constructed to encircle it, with a tower overlooking it from above. After its establishment the ‘New Haifa’ became the urban core for the emergence of modern Haifa while the new city was gradually solidified and its characteristic outlines were moulded. From the end of the Ottoman period in 1918 until 1948, the urban expanse remained practically unchanged. In 1948 ‘New Haifa’ was almost destroyed except for the few ruins that were left. In spite of the centrality of the new city in the history of Haifa, very little is known about this area. This article reconstructs the image of ‘New Haifa’ by portraying the location of the city walls and the urban expanse. For the purpose of reconstruction, an 1841 sketch of the city is superimposed on an aerial photographmap of the area taken in 2008, and a map of the old city dated to 1937.

New Publication: Bonine et al., eds. Is There a Middle East?

Bonine, Michael E., Abbas Amanat, and Michael Ezekiel Gasper, eds. Is There a Middle East? The Evolution of a Geopolitical Concept. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011.

 

 

344 pp.
6 illustrations, 30 maps, 1 figure.

ISBN: 9780804775267
Cloth $80

ISBN: 9780804775274
Paper $24.95

 

 

URL: http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=17148

 

Abstract

Is the idea of the "Middle East" simply a geopolitical construct conceived by the West to serve particular strategic and economic interests—or can we identify geographical, historical, cultural, and political patterns to indicate some sort of internal coherence to this label? While the term has achieved common usage, no one studying the region has yet addressed whether this conceptualization has real meaning—and then articulated what and where the Middle East is, or is not.

This volume fills the void, offering a diverse set of voices—from political and cultural historians, to social scientists, geographers, and political economists—to debate the possible manifestations and meanings of the Middle East. At a time when geopolitical forces, social currents, and environmental concerns have brought attention to the region, this volume examines the very definition and geographic and cultural boundaries of the Middle East in an unprecedented way.

Cite: Miles, Border Pedagogy in Israel

Miles, William F.S. “Border Pedagogy in Israel.” Middle East Journal 65.2 (2011): 253-277.

 

URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mei/mei/2011/00000065/00000002/art00005

 

Abstract

Sense of geographical place is an essential element in students’ understanding of their own place in the world. For a country such as Israel, with numerous neighbors with which it has had contentious relations, the idea of place and especially the conception of “borders” takes on an even greater importance. This article examines in detail the teaching of borders in the Israeli secondary school curriculum by examining the maps and language used to describe the country’s physical (and mental) borders.