Israel’s Clampdown Masks System of Control
Litmus Test
A Case for Concern, Not a Case for War
The Palestinian Elections That Never Were
January 20, 2003—the scheduled date of elections that existed on Palestinian Authority letterhead alone—passed with the incumbent presidential candidate nearly imprisoned in his offices in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Several weeks earlier, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat candidly told reporters that he craves a few minutes every day in the sun. With the Israeli army surrounding his compound, he only ventures outside when shielded by a bevy of journalists.
The Israeli Election Campaign Avoids the Issues
In the early stages of the campaign for the Israeli Knesset elections due to be held on January 28, there were no armed attacks by Palestinians on Israelis. During the same six weeks, Israeli forces shot dead some 75 Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This is what passes for a period of "calm" in Israeli parlance.
Sanctions No Longer Serve US Interests
The Bush administration renewed US sanctions against Libya earlier this month. The announcement, although expected, frustrated US oil companies, which had hoped to gain access to some of the world’s largest reserves of light crude oil. The rollover of sanctions comes despite the efforts of Libya’s erratic leader, Col. Muammar Qaddafi, to convince Washington he is an ally in the war on terrorism, and it stands in stark contrast to recent European moves to improve relations with his regime.
The Death and Life of Jarallah Omar
News of the shooting deaths of three American health professionals working for a Southern Baptist mission hospital in Yemen follows closely on the heels of the very public murder of a highly regarded figure in the Yemeni opposition.
Jarallah Omar, deputy secretary general of the Yemeni Socialist Party, was assassinated December 28, 2002, minutes after delivering a conciliatory speech to the Yemeni Congregation for Reform, known as al-Tajammu` al-Yemeni lil-Islah or simply Islah.
Editor’s Picks (Winter 2002)
An-Na’im, Abdullahi, ed. Islamic Family Law in a Changing World: A Global Resource Book (London: Zed Books, 2002).
Bennis, Phyllis. Before and After: US Foreign Policy and the September 11 Crisis (Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2002).
B’tselem. Operation Defensive Shield: Soldiers’ Testimonies, Palestinian Testimonies (Jerusalem, 2002).
Collins, John and Ross Glover, eds. Collateral Language: A Users Guide to America’s New War (New York: New York University Press, 2002).
Dannin, Robert, ed. Arms Against Fury: Magnum Photographers in Afghanistan (New York: powerHouse Books, 2002).
Iranian Documentary Cinemas between Reality and Fiction
Reading Palestine-Israel
Works Reviewed
Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Rhoda Ann Kanaaneh, Birthing the Nation: Strategies of Palestinian Women in Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).
Nadia Abu El-Haj, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
Learning Lessons from the Algerian War of Independece
On May 9, 2002, Tony Judt, professor of history at New York University, began an essay on Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation with a quote from Raymond Aron’s book on the 1954-1962 Algerian War of Independence from French colonial rule. [1] France, Aron argued, could not impose its administration on the Algerians indefinitely nor was it willing to integrate them into French society. Until they left Algeria, Aron argued, the French were harming themselves more than the Algerians.
Palestinians Debate “Polite” Resistance to Occupation
When an August 2002 opinion poll released by the US-based NGO Search for Common Ground showed that majorities of Palestinians would support a non-violent intifada, many residents of the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem greeted the results with suspicion. "They're trying to make us be 'polite,'" one leader of the Fatah youth movement laughed bitterly. The poll itself was dangerous, he suggested, possibly part of an insidious effort to convince Palestinians to give up resistance to the Israeli occupation.
The Makings of a Political Trial
The Marwan Barghouti case has been labeled a “political trial” by Israelis and Palestinians alike. In the courtroom, Israel is trying Barghouti for terrorism. In the court of public opinion, the Israeli government is using the prosecution of Barghouti to discredit the Palestinian leadership and Palestinian resistance to occupation. Barghouti, in turn, is using the event to put Israel on trial.
Living on the Edge
Difficulties and Dangers of Regime Removal
The swift success scored by the US in removing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was a catalyst for hawks in George W. Bush’s administration to advocate further experiments in regime removal surgery. But hawkish euphoria at this accomplishment may have been conducive to self-deception in Washington. Afghanistan is not the thesis that proves the viability of regime removal in Iraq; it is, in fact, the antithesis.
The Kurds’ Secret Scenarios
Never have the gardens of Sarchinar and the slopes of Mount Azmar welcomed so many Kurdish families fleeing the heat of Suleimaniya than during the exceptionally long Indian summer of 2002. Squatting on the ground or sitting around tables, grilling shish-kebabs on improvised barbecues or unpacking home-cooked dishes, women dressed in colorful robes mix with men in traditional attire, listening to the last cassette of the Kurdish crooner Omar Dizai, drinking yogurt mixed with water, tea, beer or raki, while children run around nearby. The crowd revels late into the night, seemingly without a care in the world. "For once," says Azad, an engineer, "we Kurds are on the right side of the fence."
Using and Abusing the UN, Redux
On September 12, 2002, George W. Bush delivered a forceful address to the United Nations General Assembly to rally support for an American campaign against Iraq. Challenging the UN to enforce its own resolutions, Bush warned the assembled delegates that failure to back the US war against Iraq would condemn the institution to irrelevance. While the speech contained little that was new — most notably, it failed to offer the long-promised evidence of Iraqi nuclear weapons — it did succeed in returning the UN to the center of the developing US-Iraqi showdown. Bush received numerous plaudits, even among those who oppose war, mainly for the simple fact that he approached the UN at all.
Two Miles into Limbo
As many as five million Sudanese displaced by the country’s 19-year civil war live in Egypt, many on the urban margins of Cairo. Mostly poor and unemployed, the Sudanese displaced get by in an environment where no one — the Egyptian government, civil society or the UN — seems willing or able to help them.
From the Editors (Winter 2002)
Uzbek Islamism
Addressing a joint session of Congress and a national TV audience on September 20, 2001, George W. Bush declared that the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) had “links” to Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the September 11 attacks in the United States. Henceforth, the US would consider the IMU an international terrorist organization, and a target in the administration’s “war on terrorism.”
