Samer N. Abboud, Syria (New Texts Out Now)

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Aug 10, 2018 Syria
Samer N. Abboud, Syria (New Texts Out Now)

Samer N. Abboud, Syria (New Texts Out Now)

By : Samer Abboud

Samer N. Abboud, Syria, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018).

Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book?

Samer N. Abboud (SNA): The original impetus for writing this book came in late 2013. Serendipitously, Louise Knight at Polity contacted me around that time to write something about the Syrian conflict, and by 2015, the first edition of the book came out. In that edition, my analysis was motivated by the question of how a military and political stalemate emerged in Syria. By 2015, authority over the country’s geography was in constant flux, and there was no serious political process to bring about the end of the conflict. This particular edition is motivated by an entirely different question, mainly, how the Russian intervention that began in 2015 brought about what I call an “authoritarian peace,” a term I borrow from David Lewis to describe non-liberal forms of peace that emerge in conflict spaces. If we quickly survey much of the popular and academic discussion of Syria today, we will find that most of this discussion occurs within a very circumscribed framework that tries to understand Syria through liberal political assumptions about conflict and post-conflict zones, especially as they relate to questions of political transition, reconstruction, the role of international actors, and so on. One of the central claims of this book is that we need to look at emerging local ontologies and not liberal political assumptions to understand what is happening in Syria. These local ontologies are producing what I call an authoritarian peace in Syria, a post-conflict order in which the presence of violence and not its absence persists and is a source of state legitimacy; no one is seriously contemplating a political transition; reconstruction is occurring outside the policy and institutional framework of international institutions; armed actors remain present in the country, and displacement is being cemented by a range of legal changes to Syria’s social and property rights regime. I wanted this second edition to tell some of this story and to move beyond the issue of the military and political stalemate that defined the conflict when the first edition was published.
I am less interested in why the Syrian conflict happened—an impossible question to answer in my opinion—than in how the violence has unfolded.

J:  What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address?

SNA: The book straddles a number of academic fields but is firmly situated within interdisciplinary approaches to the causes, conduct, and consequences of war. These “three C’s” are important entry points into how people ask questions and produce knowledge about conflicts. In Syria, the ‘causes’ question is very limited, in part because those who address the historical roots of the conflict often rely on primordial, static explanations, especially sectarian ones. My book draws primarily on literature that encourages us to think about the conduct of conflict while also engaging with analysis of its causes and consequences. In this way, I am able to engage with questions that I think are vital to understanding the Syrian conflict: armed group formation, international intervention, displacement, property transfers and changes, the political economy of violence, and so on. Thus, I am less interested in why the Syrian conflict happened—an impossible question to answer in my opinion—than in how the violence has unfolded. So I am trying to understand the conflict on its own terms and not through some perspectives that seek to locate its roots in historical animosities. Such an approach necessarily demands thinking in interdisciplinary ways. I have been particularly interested in what New Wars approaches have to say about Syria, as well as the broad field of Critical Security Studies.  

J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

SNA: My doctoral work concerned the political economy of marketization in Syria in the 2000s. I was thus predisposed to understand the Syrian conflict within the context of broader political-economic transformations that occurred prior to, and after, 2011. My analytical entry point to understanding the conflict was shaped by my experiences researching state and class transformation in the 2000s. For this reason, my initial research into the conflict was into capital flight and into the emergence of war economies that sustained violence across the conflict landscape. As the book takes a wider panoramic view of the conflict, I have had to extend myself to think beyond these lenses to consider questions about international intervention, violence, and displacement, and their relationship to war economies.

J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

SNA: While I do think that the book will have a lot to offer people who have studied or continue to study Syria, its main intended readership is a generalist audience. I am hoping that a wide range of researchers, scholars, students, and interested readers will find the book to be an accessible and engaging exploration into the dynamics of the Syrian conflict. I do hope that at the very least, readers of the book will feel less compelled to take seriously simple answers to complicated questions about Syria and to reject some of the ideologically and politically motivated explanations for the crisis, especially as they relate to sectarianism. As I state in the book, we need to take sectarianism seriously but not reduce everything to it. This is fundamentally my wish for the book that people are able to read it and to understand that the Syrian crisis does not fall into neat boxes and does not have neat explanations. What we are witnessing in Syria today is the presence of multiple overlapping patterns that are bearing down on the lives of Syrians today and for generations to come. I try and grapple with these patterns throughout the book. In this sense, I am very motivated by what David Chandler, Suda Perera, and others have referred to as the “messiness” of conflicts. Perera in particular encourages us to think about what competing narratives of conflicts means for researchers and for telling stories about conflicts. Embracing the messiness of conflicts and chasing down multiple narratives is, for me, an honest and ethical way to approach writing about conflicts such as Syria’s. So I am hoping that when people put down the book they too are able to embrace the messiness of Syria’s conflict and to understand that the multiple narratives and stories that make it up are all constitutive of the crisis and not independent of it.

J: What other projects are you working on now?

SNA: I am currently working on two projects related to the Syrian conflict. The first article asks how international interveners construct knowledge about Syrian reconstruction and how this in turn shapes what policies they advocate for. My central argument is that a survey of English language reconstruction material on Syria is more reflective of debates within international intervention circles around questions of centralization versus decentralization and “lessons learned.” In this way, knowledge production about Syria is not tethered to local ontologies but rather to debates within and among international actors about how best to intervene into conflict zones. The second article draws on the concept of necropower as a framework for understanding counterinsurgency in Syria. I am particularly interested in how recent policies ensure displacement and the social and civil death of populations.

J: What does the authoritarian peace framework tell us about the future of violence in Syria?

SNA: I marshal the framework precisely to help us understand the presence of violence in Syria, its nature, targets, perpetrators, and impacts. The liberal assumption that peace is determined by the absence of violence is simply unproductive in Syria, where both armed fighters continue to exercise violence, especially in the service of material gain, and regime and aligned forces have constructed a conflict architecture—through the Astana process, local truces, and other “agreements” with local and regional actors—that sanctions and demands the continued marshalling of violence against recalcitrant populations. Indeed, the ability of the regime and its allies to continue to exercise violence is a key source of their claim to authority and a major source of “peace” in Syria. In other words, the authoritarian peace framework can help us think about the permanence of counterinsurgency and the new realities of violence that Syrians will have to navigate in the coming years. We must keep in mind that while many people are talking about reconstruction and a post-conflict Syria, there is still profound violence being inflicted on people and sieges remain.  

 

Excerpt from the Afterword:

In a recent exchange with a reader in the Letters page of the New York Review of Books, columnist Charles Glass argued that the original casus belli of the war—regime change—was no longer relevant to understanding the conflict or the goals of its various actors. The Syrian war had moved beyond the original question of whether, how, and when the regime would fall and what authority would replace it to a much more complicated state in which the current war was defined by many overlapping conflicts. While I have rarely agreed with Glass’s analysis of Syria, I agree that regime change as envisioned by the original protest movement and organized opposition is no longer a plausible outcome in the Syrian conflict. Where does this leave our analysis and understanding of the Syrian conflict? Since the completion of this book, a number of developments have reinforced the main analytical point presented in the preceding pages – primarily, that the Syrian conflict is complicated, messy, multi-dimensional, and currently entering a new phase in what I called the “authoritarian peace”... The continued bombardment of Ghouta, east of Damascus, has captured headlines in recent months. This area of the country has been decimated by years of bombardment, sieges, and economic suffocation, and was one of the last remaining rebel strongholds left in the wake of the Russian intervention. Many armed groups had a significant presence in Ghouta, including some of the more prominent Islamist groups such as Ahrar al-Sham and Tahrir al-Sham. As the regime intensified its onslaught of Ghouta in recent weeks, many of these groups were totally destroyed, forced to surrender to regime forces, or subject to forced transfers as in other “local truces” negotiated throughout Syria. As these groups dwindled, more territory came under government control, leaving Douma as the sole area of Ghouta under the control of Jaysh al-Islam.

At the time of writing, a brutal chemical attack in Douma was followed by an agreement between the Syrian regime and Jaysh al-Islam, in which the latter’s fighters and supporters would be guaranteed safe passage to Idlib while the regime would assume control over the area. The Idlib strategy has been deployed since as far as back as 2014 when the regime would guarantee secure passage of fighters from various parts of Syria to the northwestern governorate. The “liberation” of these areas from armed groups has continued since then and has been a prominent conflict management strategy. The premise of the strategy is simple: to depopulate recalcitrant areas and to establish regime presence and new political realities. The successful deployment of this strategy in Douma has returned more than 125,000 civilians to government control and eliminated a major rebel stronghold so close to the Syrian capital, Damascus.

Aside from this, the Idlib strategy also portends what future violence may look like in Syria. When this book was completed, there remained three significant areas of non-regime control. In addition to Ghouta, these areas included Idlib and the northern areas under Syrian Kurdish control. Having survived the decimation of destruction that was the fate of so many other armed groups, the SDF was poised to be a major player in post-conflict Syria. Indeed, many people inside and outside of Syria seriously contemplated rapprochement between the regime and SDF and possibly even a federalist post-conflict arrangement. Yet, in merely a few weeks, a Turkish military offensive into Afrin effectively decimated the SDF as a major military force. In the aftermath of the Turkish incursion and in an attempt to maintain Kurdish political relevance in Syria’s emerging authoritarian peace, the PYD established a new party called the Syria Future Party, in a sort of political rebranding. The common assumption about the change has been that the SDF’s American allies forced it upon them. If so, this would point to a disturbing reality for Syria’s Kurdish political parties: their American allies are more than willing to force adjustments on them but unwilling to prevent a Turkish decimation of their military capacities…

In the absence of a major shift in US policy, the regional situation that will shape Syria in the coming months and years will be determined by the tripartite powers [Iran, Russia, and Turkey] and their appetite (or not) for further destruction of the country to advance their specific geopolitical goals. The two looming confrontations that regime-aligned forces will face in the coming months are, first, with the Kurdish political and military elements, and, second, with the remnants of the armed groups currently based in Idlib. It would appear that any sort of political accommodation with any of these groups is outside of the tripartite consensus for Syria, given Turkey’s unopposed intervention into Afrin. As we enter the authoritarian peace phase of the conflict, such military realities will likely produce a sustained insurgency campaign, further justifying continued fighting and the creation of recalcitrant territories in Syria that can be acted upon with prejudice and violence. In this stage, however, territory is unlikely to be controlled as it was during the period of stalemate and may come to resemble more of an insurgency. The presence of violence, not its absence, will continue to define the authoritarian peace.

This peace is also consolidating around property confiscation, a key economic strategy that has followed the regime recapture of key areas of the country. In this strategy, a number of laws have been passed to concretize depopulation and to initiate a process of social erasure whereby Syrian citizens’ relationship to their towns, cities, governorates, and even their homes is severed. Through these laws, the government has legalized the process of depopulation and dispossession and has used property transfer as a means of enriching state coffers, private economic interests, and the militias that have contributed to and enforced depopulation. These laws include Law No. 23 (2015) that expedites property expropriation; Law No. 11 (2016) that suspended property transfers in non-regime areas; Law No. 33 (2017) that completely transforms the issuance and management of property documentation; and Law No. 4 (2017) that alters the civil status code.

The reconstruction project in Syria is emerging with two central features: first, there is less emphasis on addressing the humanitarian crisis, including the repatriation of refugees and the internally displaced through comprehensive social programming, housing developments, and the revival of social services, especially outside of the cities. In other words, the reconstruction phase has thus far focused solely on clearing debris, rebuilding some infrastructure, and providing procurement opportunities for regime-aligned businesspeople. All of this is occurring absent a national plan for reconstruction. Second, most existing projects focus on urban areas at the expense of rural regions, which were heavily devastated during the war. By all accounts, all policies passed under the framework of reconstruction have been devoted to shoring up urban areas…

In the preceding pages, I have tried to tell some of these stories and to provide a narrative that traces the evolution of three distinct phases in the Syrian conflict. The first phase was one in which the possibility of the revolution winning or the regime falling was seriously contemplated. The regime or revolution phase occurred early in the conflict and was defined by questions about regime endurance, opposition stability and cohesion, and the role that international powers would play in the conflict. The second phase began as militarization led to a proliferation of violence and the geographic fragmentation of the country in ways that produced a political and military stalemate. The third phase of the conflict began when that stalemate was broken by the Russian intervention in 2015 that produced the conditions of possibility for the emergence of Syria’s authoritarian peace. The events that have occurred since the completion of the book suggest that the argument about an authoritarian peace will be borne out and that the tripartite powers, along with their Syrian regime allies, will shape the future of Syria in violent, exclusionary, and destructive ways.

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Oct 16, 2016 Lebanon
Mandy Turner By :
Mandy Turner

New Texts Out Now: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein, guest eds. "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis." Special Issue of Conflict, Security & Development

Conflict, Security and Development, Volume 15, No. 5 (December 2015) Special issue: "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis," Guest Editors: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you compile this volume?

Mandy Turner (MT): Both the peace process and the two-state solution are dead. Despite more than twenty years of negotiations, Israel’s occupation, colonization and repression continue–and the political and geographical fragmentation of the Palestinian people is proceeding apace.

This is not news, nor is it surprising to any keen observer of the situation. But what is surprising–and thus requires explanation – is the resilience of the Oslo framework and paradigm: both objectively and subjectively. It operates objectively as a straitjacket by trapping Palestinians in economic and security arrangements that are designed to ensure stabilization and will not to lead to sovereignty or a just and sustainable solution. And it operates subjectively as a straitjacket by shutting out discussion of alternative ways of understanding the situation and ways out of the impasse. The persistence of this framework that is focused on conflict management and stabilization, is good for Israel but bad for Palestinians.

The Oslo peace paradigm–of a track-one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution–is therefore in crisis. And yet it is entirely possible that the current situation could continue for a while longer–particularly given the endorsement and support it enjoys from the major Western donors and the “international community,” as well as the fact that there has been no attempt to develop an alternative. The immediate short-term future is therefore bleak.

Guided by these observations, this special issue sought to undertake two tasks. The first task was to analyze the perceptions underpinning the Oslo framework and paradigm as well as some of the transformations instituted by its implementation: why is it so resilient, what has it created? The second task, which follows on from the first, was then to ask: how can we reframe our understanding of what is happening, what are some potential alternatives, and who is arguing and mobilizing for them?

These questions and themes grew out of a number of conversations with early-career scholars – some based at the Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem, and some based in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere. These conversations led to two interlinked panels at the International Studies Association annual convention in Toronto, Canada, in March 2014. To have two panels accepted on “conflict transformation and resistance in Palestine” at such a conventional international relations conference with (at the time unknown) early-career scholars is no mean feat. The large and engaged audience we received at these panels – with some very established names coming along (one of whom contributed to this special issue) – convinced us that this new stream of scholars and scholarship should have an outlet.  

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures do the articles address?

MT: The first half of the special issue analyzes how certain problematic assumptions shaped the Oslo framework, and how the Oslo framework in turn shaped the political, economic and territorial landscape.

Virginia Tilley’s article focuses on the paradigm of conflict resolution upon which the Oslo Accords were based, and calls for a re-evaluation of what she argues are the two interlinked central principles underpinning its worldview: internationally accepted notions of Israeli sovereignty; and the internationally accepted idea that the “conflict” is essentially one between two peoples–the “Palestinian people” and the “Jewish people”. Through her critical interrogation of these two “common sense” principles, Tilley proposes that the “conflict” be reinterpreted as an example of settler colonialism, and, as a result of this, recommends an alternative conflict resolution model based on a paradigm shift away from an ethno-nationalist division of the polity towards a civic model of the nation.

Tariq Dana unpacks another central plank of the Oslo paradigm–that of promoting economic relations between Israel and the OPT. He analyses this through the prism of “economic peace” (particularly the recent revival of theories of “capitalist peace”), whose underlying assumptions are predicated on the perceived superiority of economic approaches over political approaches to resolving conflict. Dana argues that there is a symbiosis between Israeli strategies of “economic peace” and recent Palestinian “statebuilding strategies” (referred to as Fayyadism), and that both operate as a form of pacification and control because economic cooperation leaves the colonial relationship unchallenged.

The political landscape in the OPT has been transformed by the Oslo paradigm, particularly by the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Alaa Tartir therefore analyses the basis, agenda and trajectory of the PA, particularly its post-2007 state building strategy. By focusing on the issue of local legitimacy and accountability, and based on fieldwork in two sites in the occupied West Bank (Balata and Jenin refugee camps), Tartir concludes that the main impact of the creation of the PA on ordinary people’s lives has been the strengthening of authoritarian control and the hijacking of any meaningful visions of Palestinian liberation.

The origin of the administrative division between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the focus of Tareq Baconi’s article. He charts how Hamas’s initial opposition to the Oslo Accords and the PA was transformed over time, leading to its participation (and success) in the 2006 legislative elections. Baconi argues that it was the perceived demise of the peace process following the collapse of the Camp David discussions that facilitated this change. But this set Hamas on a collision course with Israel and the international community, which ultimately led to the conflict between Hamas and Fateh, and the administrative division, which continues to exist.

The special issue thereafter focuses, in the second section, on alternatives and resistance to Oslo’s transformations.

Cherine Hussein’s article charts the re-emergence of the single-state idea in opposition to the processes of separation unleashed ideologically and practically that were codified in the Oslo Accords. Analysing it as both a movement of resistance and as a political alternative to Oslo, while recognizing that it is currently largely a movement of intellectuals (particularly of diaspora Palestinians and Israelis), Hussein takes seriously its claim to be a more just and liberating alternative to the two-state solution.

My article highlights the work of a small but dedicated group of anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli activists involved in two groups: Zochrot and Boycott from Within. Both groups emerged in the post-Second Intifada period, which was marked by deep disillusionment with the Oslo paradigm. This article unpacks the alternative – albeit marginalized – analysis, solution and route to peace proposed by these groups through the application of three concepts: hegemony, counter-hegemony and praxis. The solution, argue the activists, lies in Israel-Palestine going through a process of de-Zionization and decolonization, and the process of achieving this lies in actions in solidarity with Palestinians.

This type of solidarity action is the focus of the final article by Suzanne Morrison, who analyses the “We Divest” campaign, which is the largest divestment campaign in the US and forms part of the wider Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Through attention to their activities and language, Morrison shows how “We Divest”, with its networked, decentralized, grassroots and horizontal structure, represents a new way of challenging Israel’s occupation and the suppression of Palestinian rights.

The two parts of the special issue are symbiotic: the critique and alternative perspectives analyzed in part two are responses to the issues and problems identified in part one.

J: How does this volume connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

MT: My work focuses on the political economy of donor intervention (which falls under the rubric of “peacebuilding”) in the OPT, particularly a critique of the Oslo peace paradigm and framework. This is a product of my broader conceptual and historical interest in the sociology of intervention as a method of capitalist expansion and imperial control (as explored in “The Politics of International Intervention: the Tyranny of Peace”, co-edited with Florian Kuhn, Routledge, 2016), and how post-conflict peacebuilding and development agendas are part of this (as explored in “Whose Peace: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding”, co-edited with Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper (PalgraveMacmillan, 2008).  

My first book on Palestine (co-edited with Omar Shweiki), Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-development and Beyond (PalgraveMacmillan, 2014), was a collection of essays by experts in their field, of the political-economic experience of different sections of the Palestinian community. The book, however, aimed to reunite these individual experiences into one historical political-economy narrative of a people experiencing a common theme of dispossession, disenfranchisement and disarticulation. It was guided by the desire to critically assess the utility of the concept of de-development to different sectors and issues–and had a foreword by Sara Roy, the scholar who coined the term, and who was involved in the workshop from which the book emerged.

This co-edited special issue (with Cherine Hussein, who, at the time of the issue construction, was the deputy director of the Kenyon Institute) was therefore the next logical step in my research on Palestine, although my article on Jewish-Israeli anti-Zionists did constitute a slight departure from my usual focus.

J: Who do you hope will read this volume, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MT: I would imagine the main audience will be those whose research and political interests lie in Palestine Studies. It is difficult, given the structure of academic publishing – which has become ever more corporate and money grabbing – for research outputs such as this to be accessed by the general public. Only those with access to academic libraries are sure to be able to read it – and this is a travesty, in my opinion. To counteract this commodification of knowledge, we should all provide free access to our outputs through online open source websites such as academia.edu, etc. If academic research is going to have an impact beyond merely providing more material for teaching and background reading for yet more research (which is inaccessible to the general public) then this is essential. Websites such as Jadaliyya are therefore incredibly important.

Having said all that, I am under no illusions about the potential for ANY research on Israel-Palestine to contribute to changing the dynamics of the situation. However, as a collection of excellent analyses conducted by mostly early-career scholars in the field of Palestine studies, I am hopeful that their interesting and new perspectives will be read and digested. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MT: I am currently working on an edited volume provisionally entitled From the River to the Sea: Disintegration, Reintegration and Domination in Israel and Palestine. This book is the culmination of a two-year research project funded by the British Academy, which analyzed the impacts of the past twenty years of the Oslo peace framework and paradigm as processes of disintegration, reintegration and domination – and how they have created a new socio-economic and political landscape, which requires new agendas and frameworks. I am also working on a new research project with Tariq Dana at Birzeit University on capital and class in the occupied West Bank.

Excerpt from the Editor’s Note 

[Note: This issue was published in Dec. 2015]

Initially perceived to have inaugurated a new era of hope in the search for peace and justice in Palestine-Israel, the Oslo peace paradigm of a track one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution is in crisis today, if not completely at an end.

While the major Western donors and the ‘international community’ continue to publicly endorse the Oslo peace paradigm, Israeli and Palestinian political elites have both stepped away from it. The Israeli government has adopted what appears to be an outright rejection of the internationally-accepted end-goal of negotiations, i.e. the emergence of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. In March 2015, in the final days of his re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the Jewish settlement of Har Homa in Palestinian East Jerusalem, which is regarded as illegal under international law. Reminding its inhabitants that it was him and his Likud government that had established the settlement in 1997 as part of the Israeli state’s vision of a unified indivisible Jerusalem, he promised to expand the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem if re-elected. And in an interview with Israeli news site, NRG, Netanyahu vowed that the prospects of a Palestinian state were non-existent as long as he remained in office. Holding on to the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), he argued, was necessary to ensure Israel’s security in the context of regional instability and Islamic extremism. It is widely acknowledged that Netanyahu’s emphasis on Israel’s security—against both external and internal enemies—gave him a surprise win in an election he was widely expected to lose.

Despite attempts to backtrack under recognition that the US and European states are critical of this turn in official Israeli state policy, Netanyahu’s promise to bury the two-state solution in favour of a policy of further annexation has become the Israeli government’s official intent, and has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading ministers and key advisers.

[…]

The Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank also appears to have rejected a key principle of the Oslo peace paradigm—that of bilateral negotiations under the supervision of the US. Despite a herculean effort by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, to bring the two parties to the negotiating table, in response to the lack of movement towards final status issues and continued settlement expansion (amongst other issues), the Palestinian political elite have withdrawn from negotiations and resumed attempts to ‘internationalise the struggle’ by seeking membership of international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), and signing international treaties such as the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court. This change of direction is part of a rethink in the PA and PLO’s strategy rooted in wider discussions and debates. The publication of a document by the Palestine Strategy Study Group (PSSG) in August 2008, the production of which involved many members of the Palestinian political elite (and whose recommendations were studiously discussed at the highest levels of the PA and PLO), showed widespread discontent with the bilateral negotiations framework and suggested ways in which Palestinians could ‘regain the initiative’.

[…]

And yet despite these changes in official Palestinian and Israeli political strategies that signal a deepening of the crisis, donors and the ‘international community’ are reluctant to accept the failure of the Oslo peace paradigm. This political myopia has meant the persistence of a framework that is increasingly divorced from the possibility of a just and sustainable peace. It is also acting as an ideological straitjacket by shutting out alternative interpretations. This special issue seeks a way out of this political and intellectual dead end. In pursuit of this, our various contributions undertake what we regard to be two key tasks: first, to critically analyse the perceptions underpinning the Oslo paradigm and the transformations instituted by its implementation; and second, to assess some alternative ways of understanding the situation rooted in new strategies of resistance that have emerged in the context of these transformations in the post-Oslo landscape.

[…]

Taken as a whole, the articles in this special issue aim to ignite conversations on the conflict that are not based within abstracted debates that centre upon the peace process itself—but that begin from within the realities and geographies of both the continually transforming land of Palestine-Israel and the voices, struggles, worldviews and imaginings of the future of the people who presently inhabit it. For it is by highlighting these transformations, and from within these points of beginning, that we believe more hopeful pathways for alternative ways forward can be collectively imagined, articulated, debated and built.