Shana Marshall, “Regional Militaries and the Global Military-Industrial Complex” (New Texts Out Now)

Shana Marshall, “Regional Militaries and the Global Military-Industrial Complex” (New Texts Out Now)

Shana Marshall, “Regional Militaries and the Global Military-Industrial Complex” (New Texts Out Now)

By : Shana Marshall

Shana Marshall, “Regional Militaries and the Global Military-Industrial Complex,” in Joel Beinin, Bassam Haddad, and Sherene Seikaly (eds.), A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020).

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

Shana Marshall (SM): There is a lot written by political scientists and sociologists about the role that militaries play in the politics of the Middle East, in particular how they factor into things like regime type, repression of domestic opposition, and the longevity of autocratic governments. This focus on militaries was especially visible in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings, where the reactions of regional militaries often determined the fate of incumbent governments. It is important to examine how the interests of militaries influence domestic economic performance and policy-making, but most of this scholarship avoids structural factors like the global military industrial complex and the contemporary stage of capitalist development. The resulting narrative relies a bit too much on internal (endogenous) factors to explain outcomes, which I think is really problematic. I try to incorporate these issues into my chapter of this book—for example, how the globalization of production lines for weapons systems has brought many militaries in peripheral economies into the global military industrial complex, and what that means for their domestic political influence.

The region likewise acts as a near-inexhaustible market for the surplus production of multinational weapons firms ...

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

SM: The chapter is meant to provide a general introduction to the literature on militaries in the Middle East, while pointing to factors central to political economy like class, circuits of capital, the global stage of capitalist development, and the influence of military-industrial agents. I try to provide a historical overview of the major approaches to studying militaries in the Global South, as well as some of the key contributions from Middle East scholars. So much of this work is characterized by the concerns of modernization theory in the decades after independence, and so it very much focuses on the internal nature of these states and the rise of corporatist social groups as they vie for power and position. Although this approach can produce useful schematics, it de-emphasizes topics such as surplus capital accumulation from high oil prices in the Gulf, which enabled the formation of robust commercial networks around weapons sales to the region. This fundamentally shaped the relationships between US/European governments and regional military institutions and influenced the industrial trajectories of Egypt and the Gulf States. Yet few theorists who examine regional geopolitics or militaries would discuss these dynamics in the context of surplus accumulation.

In this vein, my chapter examines the entanglements of regional militaries and their economic enterprises with foreign capital, including Gulf conglomerates, private US/European banks, and development banks, which see in them opportunities for extraordinary profits, given their exploitative labor regimes, privileged access to inputs, and politically protected status. The region likewise acts as a near-inexhaustible market for the surplus production of multinational weapons firms, which is also something I treat in the chapter. Capitalism’s relentless evolution is also present in the chapter, since I examine shifts in the location of military production and how this is related to capital circulation and changing regimes of technology. 

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

SM: I have written a lot on the economic and political activities of militaries in Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf. But most of that was an attempt to use specific empirical material scattered in corporate filings, industry publications, press releases, and subscription-based industry intelligence materials to illustrate how militaries were using new financial vehicles to expand their foothold in the economy. This chapter was much harder, because the goal was not to highlight some new counterintuitive information or nuance, but to write a more summative piece that is legible to students, while not leaving out the interesting bits.

Because I wanted this chapter to really highlight global/structural factors I necessarily did not delve into the internal features of military enterprises so much as I would have liked. In other writings I’ve tried to think of the officer corps as a fraction of the ruling class—and conscripts in Egyptian factories as a hyper-exploited working class, for example. This helps us avoid treating the military as a monolith or misunderstanding critical incidents like armed forces members breaking up strikes, or using military equipment and personnel to protect the assets of certain domestic capitalists but not others, which I have examined in the Egyptian case elsewhere in other writing.

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

SM: The amazing editors of this volume set themselves the unenviable task of constructing a text that could be used in classrooms. As someone who teaches a course titled “Political Economy of the Middle East,” I can attest to the difficulty instructors face finding core texts for such a seminar at the undergraduate or MA level. There are plenty of sophisticated analyses meant for consumption by other area specialists, but it is very challenging to find a text that is accessible to students without being reductionist. Of course, this is partly because students are socialized into adopting a vocabulary (“consumers,” the “free-market,” “free-trade” etc.) that is inherently adversarial to a critical approach. Conversely, concepts like “class”, which are central in this volume, are complex and far removed from their everyday vocabulary (although perhaps this is less true after the most recent financial crisis, which was formative for many current students).

In addition to being a pedagogical tool, I hope the book is a sign of new trends in Middle East studies. Other area studies subfields (Latin America, East Asia, etc.) have their own explicit political-economy publications: such as the Review of African Political EconomyLatin American PerspectivesEuropean Journal of Political Economy; and the Journal of Economic Perspectives (North America and Western Europe). But there are currently none for Middle Eastern political economy. As far as I know, there are also no university endowed chairs or postdoctoral fellowships in Middle Eastern political economy, and no university press publishes a series in Middle Eastern political economy. I am not sure why this exception exists, but I think it has resulted in less radical materialist analyses among Middle East scholars (and by necessity, fewer students pursuing this line of study).

The increasing interest in global histories of capitalism does mean more regional scholars are researching and writing about the Middle East as it has been shaped by (and is also re-shaping) capitalism. I have relied heavily on Adam Hanieh’s books Lineages of Revolt and Capitalism and Class in the Gulf—which have been excellent texts for the classroom, as well as works by Aaron Jakes, Laleh Khalili, Kevan Harris, and many others. Now to link up these authors’ works with a reference text that can form the backbone for a course in critical regional political economy is something to celebrate. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

SM: Right now I am working on a project for Security in Context that examines the linkages between financialization and militarization. During my dissertation research I kept coming across obscure financial transactions (called offsets) designed to promote weapons sales. I ended up writing my entire dissertation on the effect these agreements had on political coalitions in the Middle East. We often think that, because governments are the primary customers for weapons-producing firms, the latter are somehow outside the capitalist system and not subject to its pressures. But supply chains for weapons systems are incredibly globalized, weapons firms have their own corporate venture capital arms, and private equity is shaping the nature of research and development almost as much as government procurement practices. The enormous financial assets of the Gulf Cooperation Council states have succeeded in pulling multinational defense firms into a new global hub for weapons development, and that process itself has created a new class of brokers and asset managers who deal specifically with finance in the weapons industry. The project involves Marxist economists, defense industry experts, political scientists, and arms control advocates, so we are hoping to use their diverse backgrounds and research skills to put together some foundational materials for this research agenda and generate interest among current graduate students and junior scholars in pursuing these connections.

J: What do you think is missing from scholarship on the military?

SM: I would really like someone to write comparatively about the military as a fraction of the ruling class under contemporary capitalism. Not only in their domestic contexts, but really looking at their place in transnational networks of industry, government, think tanks, and finance. For example, a high-ranking Egyptian military officer’s professional portfolio probably looks a lot like that of Lloyd J. Austin III, President-elect Biden’s nominee to head the Department of Defense, with a position in government, seats on various boards of directors, private investments in military firms, and advising/consulting gigs for various subcontractors. The wastefulness and incompetence of Egypt’s military industry (low-quality products, tainted goods, production runs of useless weapons) is a drain on the economy and often a farcical talking point, but it pales in comparison to its American counterpart. Here, billions of dollars go into producing weapons systems that the armed services themselves have asked Congress to stop funding because they no longer use them and they are too expensive to maintain. And when storage space for these useless weapons runs out, we gift them to corrupt, racist police departments or friendly dictators to use against their own civilians. There is the occasional piece of journalism or “public” scholarship bold enough to highlight some of these most glaring hypocrisies, but such a comparison is generally not considered a suitable topic for “serious” scholarship, which I think is extremely unfortunate. If we want to help our students think about these very critical issues, then we need to be the ones writing these introductions for them, because they are not going to get it from anyone else. 

 

Excerpt from the chapter (from “The Middle East as a Cornerstone of the Global Arms Industry,” pp. 97-99)

It is not only strategic defense concerns or quotidian patronage politics that shape the way the global arms trade impacts the Middle East. Capitalism as a system requires constant growth. Firms (including weapons producers) must grow or die. They must accumulate sufficient profits to maintain or expand their market share by reinvesting in new machinery or technology and augmenting efficiency. Cutting labor costs by wage reductions is another common mechanism for enhancing profits. 

This new capital formation subsequently allows for the accumulation of even greater profits. Such continuous growth can only be achieved by breaking down barriers to capital accumulation. In the weapons industry these include: arms embargoes, export restrictions, slack demand for new weapons, shortages of hard currency to purchase expensive systems, norms against the use of certain weapons, and the absence of new markets. In the Middle East and North Africa, many of these barriers are easily and cheaply overcome. Because of its wars, oil wealth, arms races, and “exceptional” status as a zone where certain norms do not apply, arms manufacturers consistently see the region as a source of growth. Consequently, they devote significant resources to marketing military equipment and technologies to the region. 

Countries engaged in long-term hostilities are irresistible clients. During its war with Iran, Iraq hosted hundreds of Western companies who designed, built, equipped, and maintained military research and production facilities. Iraq also attracted tens of thousands of highly skilled foreign scientists, engineers, and technicians who relocated to Baghdad for lavish salaries. Other conflict dyads, such as Turkey and Greece, and Egypt and Israel, have experienced similarly high levels of foreign military sales and training. These four were the largest recipients of US foreign military aid for nearly two decades, obtaining over US$60 billion in grants and subsidized loans to purchase weapons between 1975 and 1994. 

Today Turkey, Greece, Egypt, and Israel all have significant domestic military industries. In the mid-1980s, Turkey launched an ambitious program to expand its military-industrial base through partnerships with foreign firms. It now generates nearly US$7 billion in turnover annually, including a recent multi-billion-dollar tank deal with Qatar. Turkish governmental incentives have drawn many firms not initially engaged in arms production into the military sector, participating in the global trend of economic militarization.

From 1991 to 2018, US legislation allowed Israel, unlike any other recipient of military aid, to spend 26.3 percent of aid funds on goods and services produced in Israel. Historically, US military firms that established subsidiaries in Israel were able to profit both from exports to Israel and from the subcontracts granted to their Israeli subsidiaries. The 2016 Memorandum of Understanding that committed US$38 billion in US military aid to Israel from fiscal year 2019 to 2028 introduced a gradual requirement that all future aid be spent in the United States. Consequently, Israeli arms firms are seeking US firms as partners to qualify as suppliers for both Israeli and US government contracts. For more on these arrangements, see Joel Beinin’s chapter in this book. As in Egypt and Jordan, retired Israeli military officers frequently own or manage the local subsidiaries and subcontractors that reap the biggest benefits from joint production and research and development agreements with US firms.

Like wars, major diplomatic realignments create sizeable opportunities for arms manufacturers. Egypt’s abandonment of its alliance with the Soviet Union after the 1973 war and its realignment with the United States became a new profit stream for US arms manufacturers. The independence of Oman (1951), Kuwait (1961), and the UAE (1971) allowed them to diversify their sources of armaments. After exclusively purchasing British materiel, they began to place orders with suppliers from the United States and other Western countries. Establishing new supply relationships can entail a massive overhaul of existing weapons arsenals and windfall profits for military exporters of the new suppliers.

Similarly, winding down sanctions regimes and Western-imposed isolation in Libya (in 2004) and Iraq (after the US invasion of 2003) created openings for Western arms producers. The financial liquidity and economic diversification strategies of the Gulf states have made them a focal point for military firms, many of which have established sizeable subsidiaries and regional headquarters in the Gulf. The UAE has even provided advance funding directly to these firms to drive the development of next-generation weapons systems. In the early 2000s the UAE funded development of the Al Hakim series of guided munitions built by GEC-Marconi as well as updates to Northrop Grumman’s APG-68 Agile Beam Radar. In 2004, the UAE gave US$3 billion to Lockheed Martin to finance the development of a modified F-16 that made it more advanced than those flown by the US Air Force. These early export deals proliferate the most advanced technologies and incentivize host governments to finance further research and development for subsequent generations of weapons. This guaranteed and predictable demand has positioned weapons producers as among the world’s most profitable entities and has also stoked arms races in the Middle East and far beyond.

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.