Follow Us
From the Editors
Jadaliyya Launches DARS Page: Daily Acts of Resistance and Subversion
Tadween Publishing Blog is here! Check it out
Jadaliyya's first book is now available! Click here.
Want to find out about new books? Visit our expanding NEWTON page. Click here.
Interested in writing a Review for Jadaliyya? Visit our Call for Reviews here.
الآن . . . القسم العربي بحلة جديدة
Jadaliyya Launches Photography Page (click here!)
Call for Photos: Become a Contributing Photographer at Jadaliyya
United States
O.I.L. Monthly Edition on Jadaliyya (November 2012)
[This is a monthly archive of pieces written by Jadaliyya contributors and editors on the Occupations, Interventions,and Law (O.I.L.) Page. It also includes material published on other platforms that editors deemed pertinent to post as they provide diverse depictions of O.I.L.-related topics. The pieces reflect the level of critical analysis and diversity that Jadaliyya strives for, but the views are solely the ones of their authors. If you are interested in contributing to Jadaliyya, send us your post with your bio and a release form to post@jadaliyya.com [click "Submissions" on the main page for more information] A Tale of Two Interviews, Habib ...
Keep Reading »No, Israel Does Not Have the Right to Self-Defense In International Law Against Occupied Palestinian Territory
![[Smoke over Gaza following an Israeli airstrike. Image by Scott Bobb. From Wikimedia Commons.]](/content_images/3/sm_95462168-gaza.jpg "[Smoke over Gaza following an Israeli airstrike. Image by Scott Bobb. From Wikimedia Commons.]")
On the fourth day of Israel's most recent onslaught against Gaza's Palestinian population, President Barack Obama declared, “No country on Earth would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.” In an echo of Israeli officials, he sought to frame Israel's aerial missile strikes against the 360-square kilometer Strip as the just use of armed force against a foreign country. Israel's ability to frame its assault against territory it occupies as a right of self-defense turns international law on its head. A state cannot simultaneously exercise control over territory it occupies and militarily attack that territory on the claim that ...
Keep Reading »Do Photographs Pose an Existential Threat to Israel?
![[Front page of the 15 November edition of the Washington Post newspaper featuring Majed Hamdan's photo of Jihad Masharawi mourning his son's death.]](/content_images/3/sm_WaPo_MasharawiMourns.jpg "[Front page of the 15 November edition of the Washington Post newspaper featuring Majed Hamdan's photo of Jihad Masharawi mourning his son's death.]")
One of the most wrenching images from the November 2012 conflict between Israel and Hamas was that of BBC journalist Jihad Masharawi holding the shrouded body of his eleven-month-old son. His face is gripped with agony, his eyes closed as he looks upward. We can imagine that he feels utterly alone in his grief, but he must also be aware of the men around him in this hospital room. Some or all of the men are likely fathers, uncles, or older brothers to young children. They reach out to touch Masharawi on his shoulder. In their downcast glances, I feel I recognize the strange shame of people who wish they could do more. Behind the camera, taking the picture, is a ...
Keep Reading »A New Mohawk
![[Artwork of a mohawk.]](/content_images/3/sm_wig-mohawk-green-and-black-099996036490(1).png "[Artwork of a mohawk.]")
Most of the Mohawks in America are unincorporated territories, areas that lie outside of any municipality or township. I didn’t even know these places still existed. Apparently, unincorporated territories are either so small, destitute, or isolated that no city, town, or respectably incorporated area has seen reason to claim them; neither have the people who live in these unincorporated territories seen fit to claim themselves. I still can’t figure quite why these places would all be named Mohawk, but maybe it has something to do with a Mohawk being a sort of inherently in between space. There’s Lake Mohawk, New Jersey; Mohawk, Indiana; Mohawk, Oregon; and Mohawk, ...
Keep Reading »Etel Adnan at the Base of the Mountain
Etel Adnan 12 September – 28 October 2012 Callicoon Fine Arts, Manhattan Roughly fifteen miles north of San Francisco, across the city’s iconic burnt-orange Art Deco masterpiece, is Mount Tamalpais, another Bay Area icon. In the surrounding areas of this unassuming mountain lived the Coastal Miwok Indians—a now landless people—who (as popular legend would have it) once claimed that an evil witch lived atop its peak in order to deter early European settlers from scaling its heights. It is also said that Mount Tamalpais was home to the Miwok coyote creator-god, who shook his blanket in each cardinal direction and brushed aside water in order to reveal dry land, ...
Keep Reading »America's Native Prisoners of War
![[Screen shot from video below. Photo by Aaron Huey.]](/content_images/3/sm_amercasprinsonerofwar.jpg "[Screen shot from video below. Photo by Aaron Huey.]")
Two years ago, photographer, activist, and storyteller Aaron Huey gave a presentation called America's Native Prisoner's of War at the University of Denver. The presentation is a mix of photography and narrative, and traces the ongoing history of settling and occupying indigenous American land. The format of TEDx talks makes in-depth and serious discussions about important topics almost impossible. However, this presentation is exceptional in both its argument and its emotional rawness. Today, three days after “Thanksgiving Day,” it is important to remember that in the United States, settler colonialism has been so complete, and so successful, that the world has ...
Keep Reading »Two Steps Back: How HR 35 Fails to Protect California Students
![[Jewish students protesting Israeli policy at UC Santa Cruz. Image from Tikkun.org]](/content_images/3/sm_DSC00192.jpg "[Jewish students protesting Israeli policy at UC Santa Cruz. Image from Tikkun.org]")
In August 2012, the California State Assembly passed House Resolution 35 (HR35). Although it is non-binding and carries no immediate legal implications, the resolution seeks to address anti-Semitism on University of California and California State University campuses by encouraging administrators to take greater initiative, including actions against students and faculty who express critical views of Israel. Representatives passed the resolution in response to an increase in the severity and frequency of anti-Semitic activities and discourses around the world. HR 35 encourages university administrators to increase “their efforts to swiftly and unequivocally condemn ...
Keep Reading »Letter Concerning US Department of State Decision to Freeze Scholarships for Students from Gaza
![[Logo for Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association. Image from MESA website]](/content_images/3/sm_Image-CAF-MESA.jpg "[Logo for Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association. Image from MESA website]")
[The following letter was issued by the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association concerning the decision by the US Department of State to freeze scholaships for students from Gaza seeking to study in the West Bank.] 13 November 2012 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton U.S. Department of State 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520 Dear Secretary Clinton: On behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), I write to express MESA’s concern about the recent decision by the US Department of State to freeze scholarships in the 2012-13 academic year for ...
Keep Reading »National Students for Justice in Palestine Conference Opposes “Normalizing” Israeli Human Rights Abuses
![[Noura Erekat during her keynote address to the conference. Image by Sara Jawhari via Flickr]](/content_images/3/sm_NSJP_Noura.jpg "[Noura Erekat during her keynote address to the conference. Image by Sara Jawhari via Flickr]")
Over three hundred student organizers from across the United States converged at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor over the weekend for the second annual National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) Conference. In addition to reaffirming the call for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against the State of Israel for its ongoing human rights violations against the Palestinian people, the student organizers passed a number of resolutions making way for effective national structures to assist in coalition-building, media promotion, fundraising, and other key aspects of the national student campaign for justice in Palestine. The conference also reaffirmed NSJP's ...
Keep Reading »O.I.L. Media Roundup (5 November)
![[Israeli checkpoint outside the city of Ramallah, among the many institutions Angela Davis criticizes in her talk at the American Public Health Association. Image from Wikimedia Commons.]](/content_images/3/sm_schmelzcheckpoint.jpg "[Israeli checkpoint outside the city of Ramallah, among the many institutions Angela Davis criticizes in her talk at the American Public Health Association. Image from Wikimedia Commons.]")
[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Occupation, Intervention, and Law and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the O.I.L. Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each biweekly roundup to OIL@jadaliyya.com by Monday night of every other week] News "Palestinian Cars Vandalized in Apparent Hate Attack", Agence France-Presse Six Palestinian vehicles in an East Jerusalem neighborhood had their tires slashed and smeared with racist slogans in an apparent hate crime by extremists on the Israeli right. "Obama Appeals to Set Rules for ...
Keep Reading »Who Will Win the Presidential Election? Lecture by Michael McDonald
![[Image from event]](/content_images/3/sm_mm1.png "[Image from event]")
This lecture was held at George Mason University on Monday, 5 November 2012--nearly one week after it was cancelled because of hurricane Sandy. It was sponsored by the Department of Public and International Affairs and the Middle East Studies Program. Professor McDonald is a leading authority in his field and runs the widely popular website United States Elections Project. His bio can be found here.
Keep Reading »Civil Society in Revolt: From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street
![[Presentism at play: People enact a “Tunis Hurrah” [free Tunisia]. Image from Tunisian activists on Facebook.]](/content_images/3/sm_civilsocietyimage1.jpg "[Presentism at play: People enact a “Tunis Hurrah” [free Tunisia]. Image from Tunisian activists on Facebook.]")
As Occupy Wall Street (OWS) celebrates its first anniversary and Arab revolts continue to unfold, it seems a propitious time to ask why the Arab Spring has been such an inspiration for the global left. What was so novel in the occupation of Tahrir square? Do these uprisings signal a new form of political mobilization and protest? Is there, in particular, a philosophy that, despite some differences, unites the Arab Spring and the American Fall? Some have said that the Arab revolts, which have now touched almost all Arab states, show that a truly combative civil society is back. They are right: The revolts’ spontaneity and grassroots organization displays the ...
Keep Reading »A Tale of Two Interviews
“In order to solve the world’s problems, we must continue to have serious debates,” a CNN correspondent says emphatically during a glitzy promotional spot, aired endlessly on the network. But when it comes to Israel’s wars, CNN has also proven that its correspondents and editors reserve the right to reduce or withhold serious discussion and questions of accountability from the interviews it broadcasts. This was particularly clear during the latest violence in Gaza, when, on the last day of ...
Keep Reading »On the Insignificance of Stevie Wonder
The recent decision by American musician Stevie Wonder to withdraw from a 6 December 2012 concert to raise funds for the Israeli military has drawn widespread acclaim. One activist, Ali Abunimah, even characterized it as a “significant milestone”, contrasting it favorably with “empty gestures” at the United Nations and specifically the General Assembly’s recent 138-9 decision to grant Palestine non-member observer state status. The facts suggest otherwise. Stevie Wonder may or may not have known ...
Keep Reading »O.I.L. Media Roundup (December 4)
[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Occupation, Intervention, and Law and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the O.I.L. Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each biweekly roundup to OIL@jadaliyya.com by Monday night of every other week] Commentary "Obama’s pick for CIA could affect drone program", Greg Miller President Obama’s choice of successor to CIA ...
Keep Reading »Hurricane Sandy Hits Little Syria: Worrying about Buildings and Brothers
The cliché always reasserts itself as a truth: “as long as you are safe, that is all that matters.” In the wake of a disaster, material things – buildings, possessions, money – fade away in importance, and we first worry about the safety of our friends and loved ones. Yet, as Hurricane Sandy approached New York City, my initial, frenzied concern was for things material, yet valued in symbolic abstraction: the last historic structures of Washington Street in Lower Manhattan, chiefly St. George’s Melkite ...
Keep Reading »Afghanistan: The Long, Hard Road to the 2014 Transition
[The following report was issued by International Crisis Group on 8 October 2012.] Afghanistan: The Long, Hard Road to the 2014 Transition Executive Summary Plagued by factionalism and corruption, Afghanistan is far from ready to assume responsibility for security when U.S. and NATO forces withdraw in 2014. That makes the political challenge of organising a credible presidential election and transfer of power from President Karzai to a successor that year all the more daunting. A repeat of ...
Keep Reading »O.I.L. Media Roundup (19 November)
[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Occupation, Intervention, and Law and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the O.I.L. Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each biweekly roundup to OIL@jadaliyya.com by Monday night of every other week] News "Israel Pounds Gaza Strip from Air and Sea," Al-Jazeera English Al-Jazeera English provides an overview of the first five days ...
Keep Reading »The Agonies of Susan Rice: Gaza and the Negroponte Doctrine
In the dark of night, on 14 November, the United Nations Security Council met to discuss Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. As elections in Israel are on the horizon, the Israeli Defense Force conducted an extra-judicial assassination of Hamas’ Ahmad Jabari, who only hours beforehand had received a draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel (according to Nir Hasson at Haaretz). A barrage of Israeli aircraft and warships followed Jabari’s assassination. A few rockets were fired from Gaza, but ...
Keep Reading »Inhale Reality, Exhale the Truth
Scattered are the lunatics, like rats, scurrying across the floor in panic when the lights are turned on. For forty years they have assumed that the cultural world of the United States is to their advantage. Hatred of the outsider and of women distinguished their social view. Theirs is the rhetoric of freedom and liberty papering over, lightly, a politics of suffocation. The main word was No: no to this, no to that, no to a woman’s right to dignity, no to the unfurling of the full personality of the ...
Keep Reading »New Texts Out Now: Norman Finkelstein, Knowing Too Much
Norman G. Finkelstein, Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel Is Coming to an End. New York: OR Books, 2012. Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? Norman Finkelstein (NF): I have been active on the Israel-Palestine conflict for the past three decades. I first got involved on 6 June 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon. Although I was almost never allowed to teach the Israel-Palestine conflict (I mostly taught political theory), my research and publications have focused on it. ...
Keep Reading »O.I.L. Monthly Archive on Jadaliyya (October 2012)
[This is a monthly archive of pieces written by Jadaliyya contributors and editors on the Occupations, Interventions,and Law (O.I.L.) Page. It also includes material published on other platforms that editors deemed pertinent to post as they provide diverse depictions of O.I.L.-related topics. The pieces reflect the level of critical analysis and diversity that Jadaliyya strives for, but the views are solely the ones of their authors. If you are interested in contributing to Jadaliyya, send us your post ...
Keep Reading »From Gebran Bassil To Con Edison: Ten Lessons New Yorkers Can Learn From Beirutis About The Dark
This week, Hurricane Sandy devastated large swaths of New York City's electrical grid, and almost a million city dwellers were left without power and/or water. With electricity gone and much of the city's infrastructure damaged, no internet or phone service was available. South of Thirty-fourth Street on the East and West sides, most stores were closed, and those that were open quickly ran out of supplies. People used their flashlights to scan the shelves of these stores, to walk up and down pitch black ...
Keep Reading »O.I.L. Media Roundup (22 October)
[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Occupation, Intervention, and Law and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the O.I.L. Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each biweekly roundup to OIL@jadaliyya.com by Monday night of every other week] News "CIA Seeks to Expand Drone Fleet, Officials Say," Greg Miller CIA director David Petraeus has proposed an expansion of the ...
Keep Reading »Hot on Facebook
.jpg)
“There is no doubt that the new constitution represents a concession to the Moroccan protest movement ... Yet, this should not obscure the fact that the monarch strictly controlled and managed the whole reform process.”click | email | tweet
.jpg){kind=small}
From Jadaliyya Reports
Top Jadaliyya Tags
Jadalicious / جدلشس
Noteworthy
Twitter Updates
Jadaliyya Features
.jpg)
Latest Entries
View All Entries »- Egypt Media Roundup (May 20)
- Last Week on Jadaliyya (May 13-19)
- Jadaliyya's Occupation, Intervention, and Law Page Resonates
- Al Jazeera Management Orders Joseph Massad Article Pulled in an Act of Pro-Israel Censorship
- سعادت حسن منتو: قصة قصيرة
- Reports Roundup (May 18)
- Injuries, Arrests and House Raids: The Case of a Bahraini Family
- الليبرالية الفلسطينية أمام القضاء الإسرائيلي
- ما هي النكبة؟
- Academic Freedom and the Middle East: A Handbook for Teaching and Research
- Syria's Inglorious Basterd
- Maghreb Media Roundup (May 17)
- Buckling to Bigotry: The Newseum Dishonors Murdered Palestinian Journalists
- كتب: أطفال الندى
- Statement of the Arab and Middle East Journalists Association in Reference to Newseum Scandal
- New Texts Out Now: Maya Mikdashi, What is Settler Colonialism? and Sherene Seikaly, Return to the Present
- On the Margins Roundup (May)
- On the American Association of University Professors' Opposition to Academic Boycotts
- The Palestinian Museum: An Agent Of Empowerment And Integration For Palestinians
- An Ongoing Displacement: The Forced Exile of the Palestinians
Pages/Sections
Archive
©2010-2013 by the Arab Studies Institute. All Rights Reserved. info@jadaliyya.com
site by concepcion design