Occupying Palestinian Space
Peteet’s main theoretical contribution is to show how the violent territorial expansion of Israeli settler-colonialism has developed mobility regimes that govern and restrict Palestinian movement through space.
Kushner’s Technocratic Vision and the Unlearned Lessons of Fayyadism
Jared Kushner unveiled the economic side of President Trump’s “deal of the century” for Palestinians in June 2019. In addition to its economic flaws is a technocrat’s aversion to confronting Israel’s entrenched occupation.
Russia Opens Digital Interference Front in Libya
The Middle East is increasingly awash with fake news and misinformation campaigns. Russia has become a major vector of these disinformation campaigns, affecting virtually every major flashpoint in the Arab world. It just opened a new info-war front in Libya.
Memoir of a Jewish Arab
Hayoun identifies himself as a Jewish Arab and traces his family history to show how Jewish Arabs were maliciously separated from their societies and how their identities were used in a game of colonial domination.
Countering the Surveillance State
While investigating the harmful impact of government surveillance on an Arab-American community a filmmaker turns the tables by offering a primer on counter-surveillance research.
Revealing State Secrets through FOIA Research
Making FOIA requests for classified government documents can be a powerful way to breach the wall of secrecy regarding state actions that would otherwise stay secret or await future historians to uncover. The basics of filing a FOIA request are simple and learning how to press for unredacted or withheld documents can sometimes bear fruit.
Protest Camp as Counter-Archive at a Moroccan Silver Mine
Eight years ago, residents of Imider in Morocco’s rural southeast shut down a silver mining company’s water pipe on a nearby mountain to protest the damages to their health and livelihoods. This direct action turned into the longest sit-in protest encampment in Moroccan history. Perched on a rugged mountain top, the camp has become a living archive of decades of struggle manifested in documents, drawings, poetry and songs.
Uncovering Protection Rackets through Leaktivism
The small Gulf Arab state of Bahrain is using digital-era tools of surveillance, deception and repression to quell popular dissent. But a group of well-meaning tech-savvy geeks are mobilizing new digitally enhanced methods to expose who is behind this repression and how it operates today.
Exposing Jordan’s Gas Deal with Israel
The Jordanian government has gone to great lengths to hide information about its 2014 multi-billion dollar gas deal with Israel from the public. But the government’s attempt to keep the public in the dark has only energized a popular campaign demanding full disclosure of its terms.
The Egyptian Revolution’s Fatal Mistake
Early in the 2011 Egyptian revolution, activists and protesters battled their way into state security archives around the country. But the revolutionaries handed over the documents to the army, who later took power. Inside the state security archives were the blueprints for uprooting the police state and making lasting structural change.
Paper Trails Pedagogy
In order to uncover the paper trails of the powerful, one has to first learn how to track down, read and decipher obscure planning documents that are often available in the public sphere.
The Secret Lives of UAE Shell Companies
The UAE’s growing number of free zones are providing secretive havens for offshore companies to avoid taxes, regulation and accountability at home. Shell companies and money laundering abound. But it is still possible for determined researchers to discover who controls and ultimately benefits from this expanding system.
An Archive of Literary Reconstruction after the Palestinian Nakba
A close reading of a literary journal’s table of contents in colonized Palestine reveals a vibrant culture of resistance and renewal in the midst of destruction and dispossession.
Israel’s Vanishing Files, Archival Deception and Paper Trails
The Israeli government is keeping many of the state’s archival documents classified, censored and out of the reach of potentially critical historians. But determined scholars continue to uncover tantalizing paper trails that challenge Israel’s air-brushed official narratives.
Weaponizing Iraq’s Archives
The Bush Administration’s exploitation of Iraqi state archives for atrocity material to justify its failing 2003 invasion of Iraq was based on precedent. The genealogy of exploiting Iraqi archives for political ends serves as a warning for how the self-evidently virtuous notion of human rights can be used to justify war.
The Politics of Paper Trails
States often hide their accountability in plain sight: in redacted documents, incomplete flight manifests, encrypted data, shredded memos and reclassified archives. They also go to great lengths to keep their internal affairs private: banning oppositional media,...Autopsy of Erdoǧan’s Istanbul Defeat
Turkey’s authoritarian President Erdoǧan’s attempt to manipulate Istanbul’s recent mayoral election led to a humiliating defeat. Despite the tight grip Erdoǧan and the AKP appear to have over Turkish politics, Turkey’s population is much more fractious and agitated by the regime than previously known.
Scholars, Spies and the Gulf Military Industrial Complex
A military-industrial complex is growing in the Gulf states. In May 2018, a British researcher Matt Hedges was arrested in the UAE and charged with espionage for researching this industry as a spy, not a scholar. His colleague Shana Marshall explains why.
The Imperious Rise of Gulf Capitalism
Hanieh’s book is valuable for anyone interested in understanding the growing power of Gulf monarchies across the Middle East.
Countering Christian Zionism in the Age of Trump
Behind President Trump’s fervent embrace of Israel are millions of Christian Zionists who believe that the establishment of a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine is a requirement for the fulfillment of end-times prophecies. But a growing movement of Christians is challenging this controversial theology.
