Bashir Bashir and Leila Farsakh, eds., The Arab and Jewish Questions: Geographies of Engagement in Palestine and Beyond (New Texts Out Now)

Bashir Bashir and Leila Farsakh, eds., The Arab and Jewish Questions: Geographies of Engagement in Palestine and Beyond (New Texts Out Now)

Bashir Bashir and Leila Farsakh, eds., The Arab and Jewish Questions: Geographies of Engagement in Palestine and Beyond (New Texts Out Now)

By : Bashir Bashir and Leila Farsakh

Bashir Bashir and Leila Farsakh (eds.), The Arab and Jewish Questions: Geographies of Engagement in Palestine and Beyond (Columbia University Press, 2020).

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

Bashir Bashir and Leila Farsakh (BB & LF): This book is one of the main results of an ongoing intellectual and research project entitled "Jewish Engagements with the Arab Question" and "Arab Engagements with Jewish Questions," which is hosted at The Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue in Vienna. This project has brought together leading international, Arab, and Jewish intellectuals to critically discuss these foundational questions in small workshops. The workshops have unpacked the ways in which Arab thinkers have engaged with the Jewish question—namely the question of Jewish rights and history of persecution in Europe—over the past few decades, highlighting how the mediums of literature, political theory, and cultural studies have provided fertile venues to uncover untold histories and engage with question of rights and political equality. These workshops have also shed light on how Arab and Jewish scholars are highlighting the links between antisemitism and Islamophobia, colonialism and orientalism, and challenging Zionist denial of Arab rights. We felt the need to spread what we have learned by compiling some of the papers presented at these workshops and opening up an impending, as much as necessary, conversation on the meaning of Palestinian and Jewish rights to self-determination in the twenty-first century—and how to reconcile them.

... three seemingly unrelated questions, namely the Israel-Palestine question, the Arab-Muslim question, and the Jewish question are not separate from one another.

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

BB & LF: The book presents refreshing and provocative views on the links between antisemitism and Islamophobia, as well as interrogates European, Arab, and Jewish nationalisms in new ways. The book's most original claims are that three seemingly unrelated questions, namely the Israel-Palestine question, the Arab-Muslim question, and the Jewish question are not separate from one another. They are rather deeply entangled and belong to the same history—one that continues to foment tensions in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. 

One of the strengths of this book is that it draws on multiple disciplines, ranging from political thought to cultural studies, and history to anthropology. It seeks to fill a lacuna in the literature on European colonialism, Jewish and Arab nationalisms, and Israel/Palestine by examining the inseparability of the Arab and Jewish struggle for self-determination and political equality.

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

BB & LF: This book is intimately linked to our joint interests in exploring paths of decolonization in Palestine and beyond. It fits in our larger research interests that revolve around alternatives to partition; rethinking statehood and Palestinian nationalism; and binationalism and the Holocaust and the Nakba.

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

BB & LF: We think the book would be of interest to scholars and students interesting in understanding the link between Islamophobia and antisemitism in explaining the failure to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It also would be of interest to readers who want to understand the limits and dangers of ethno-nationalism, be it Jewish, Arab, or European. It encourages attempts to uncover untold histories on the Arab Jew, for example, and invites scholars to investigate a different history of the Middle East, one that gives space for different communities whose place in the Middle East has been denied or undermined through the grand hegemonic narratives of national unity. We hope the book will help open new conversations on the meaning of collective and individual rights, self-determination, and equality in the Middle East, as well as unleash discussions on how to reconcile with the past while forging a present based on equality and justice. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

BB: My current research focuses on two major research projects. Firstly, in light of the recent return to and revival of liberal principles and values like constitutionalism; the rule of law; common civic identity; and neutrality of state institutions as guardians against the tribalism, fragmentation, and other risks of identity politics, I have started a research project that explores various attempts to reinvigorate liberal democratic thinking. Secondly, now that I have completed three co-edited volumes: Alternative to PartitionThe Holocaust and the Nakba; and The Arab and Jewish Question, my plan is to write a book in which I extensively and coherently present my political theory of egalitarian binationalism.

LF: My current research focuses on the meaning of statehood in the twenty-first century, looking more specifically at the need to rethink the state in Israel/Palestine, and in the Middle East more largely. My central premise is that the state cannot be bypassed but needs to be tamed by revisiting legal premises and promises defining collective and individual rights, fostering new venues for political participation, and understanding the changing political economy of the region. I am also working on a memoir centered on the meaning of Palestine, one that explores the links between the diaspora and the territoriality of Palestine and of those who live in it today, unpacking how and why Palestine matters for those living outside it and those living in it beyond a romanticized notion of belonging or return. 

J: The subtitle of the book, "Geographies of Engagement in Palestine and Beyond," suggests that your focus goes "beyond" Palestine. How? 

BB & LF: The book invites a discussion on how Palestine not only matters to other Middle Eastern countries but also is still central to Europe’s attempt to deal with its internal and external colonial past and its problems of antisemitism, orientalism and Islamophobia. It thus engages the reader to challenge Europe’s intellectual hegemony and silencing as much as pushes us to uncover the ways in which Arab nationalism has denied or undermined the diversity of the Arab world and its cosmopolitan legacy. The book invites us all to think about how we need, and can revive, this cosmopolitan legacy and foster a sense of inclusive citizenship by confronting this assimilative history with honesty and courage.

 

Excerpt from the book (from the Introduction pp. 1-2) 

Over the past two decades, Middle Eastern and European politics have been impacted by three critical developments that call into question dominant understandings of nationalism, citizenship, and decolonization. First, “the question of Palestine” has not yet been answered. The aggressive and ongoing colonization of Palestine created irreversible realities that cast serious doubts on the feasibility of partition and the “two-state solution.” At the same time, Palestine’s colonization deepened the entwinements between Israeli and Palestinian lives, rendering inseparable the question of present and future rights of Arabs and Jews. Second, the Arab uprisings that erupted in a number of Middle Eastern and North African countries in 2011 signaled the demise of grand assimilationist ideologies like Arabism, Ba’athism, and Islamism, calling thereby into question the overarching “we” that cements the citizenry together. Those who rebelled against their authoritarian regimes also brought to the fore the diverse ethnic and cultural realities of their societies, a diversity they are reclaiming but which their authoritarian regimes denied by repressing, or oppressing, many minorities, such as Kurds, Yazidis, Arab Jews, Chaldeans or Berbers. Third, Islam and Muslims have become the new internal signifiers of otherness, particularly in the West, posing serious challenges to existing conceptions of citizenship and democracy in the West. The rise of Eurocentric and Islamophobic notions of citizenship are connected to the suppressed memories of Europe’s colonial “past” as well as to the globalization of the neo-liberal political economy and the associated decline of the welfare state. They reflect, though, an intimate conceptual and historical link between Judeophobia and Islamophobia in Europe that has not always been well explored. 

Many scholars have studied the causes underlying these developments. Gilbert Achcar, for example, argues that deep roots of the Arab uprisings are located mainly in the specific economic features that characterize these societies rather than in simplistic political or cultural explanations. Sholto Byrnes maintains that Islamophobia in Europe is being normalized by intellectuals who depict Islam and Muslims as aliens and external to Europe. Virginia Tilley, meanwhile, opposes territorial partition as the best way for meeting the demands of rival ethno-national projects for self-determination, and calls instead for decolonized political unification models of sovereignty premised on individual rights. These perspectives provide a much-needed critical analysis that goes beyond the dominant discourses on Arab uprisings, European Islamophobia, and Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, they overlook the underlying links between these supposedly disconnected developments that are taking place in three different geographical sites. 

No study has explored the intersections between the rise of Islamophobia in the West, the failure to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the political meanings of the Arab uprisings. Neither have many scholars examined how these developments are tied to three seemingly unrelated questions, namely the question of Israel-Palestine, the Arab-Muslim question, and the Jewish question. These questions, this book argues, are not only entangled, but also belong to the same history—one that continues to foment tensions in the Middle East, Europe, and the US. The book seeks to shed new light on this history by offering a new, critical investigation of the Arab and Jewish “questions.” More specifically, it aspires to revisit contemporary Arab engagements with the question of Jewish political rights (as individuals, religious communities, and/or a national collective) under the light of European anti-Semitism and Zionism. It also explores Jewish engagements with the Arab question, namely how Zionism and non-Zionist Jewish voices dealt with the Palestinian presence and political rights in historic Palestine. These two key political questions have been historically debated, but not juxtaposed, despite the fact that they have become inextricably intertwined. 

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.