Live with ASI: Episode 7 Digest – March 2021

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Mar 5, 2021
Live with ASI: Episode 7 Digest – March 2021

Live with ASI: Episode 7 Digest – March 2021

By : Arab Studies Institute

Live with ASI is a monthly broadcast program that showcases recently published content from the Arab Studies Institute’s various branches. This content includes articles, reviews, pedagogical resources, podcasts, and more. Also featured in the broadcast are brand new interviews and discussions with authors and contributors. 

In this episode, hosts Bassam Haddad and MK Smith discussed themes such as Turkey, Palestine, and pedagogy, and covered books from the New Texts Out Now (NEWTON) series. The episode featured recurring segments from Adel Iskandar, Carly A. Krakow, and Cat Haseman, and included engaging interviews with Noura Erakat, Nadya Sbaiti, Libby Anker, Thomas Serres, Frank Barat, and Arash Davari. We also shared three exciting new podcasts to keep an eye out for.

All of the materials mentioned in the broadcast are listed here, categorized by their themes. Also listed are additional recent materials that we highly recommend. Pieces that are relevant to multiple themes are listed under each applicable theme below. 


Must-Reads (2:20)

Our very own Carly Krakow, Jadaliyya Environment Page Editor and Managing Editor for Special Projects, released a piece this month titled “Toxic Saturation and Health Devastation in Iraq: The Indelible Damage of War (Part 1).” With a new bill introduced in the US that seeks to aid American veterans exposed to toxins in Iraq, this piece asks: What about cleanup and reparations for Iraqi civilians, who have been saturated in war toxins, not merely exposed to them?

A recent wave of protests erupted at Boğaziçi University in Turkey on 4 January of this year. In a piece titled “We Will Not Look Down,” an anonymous student involved in the movement shares their perspective on the dynamics of the protests and describes how the state’s response has affected the students’ movement.

Nazan Üstündağ also wrote on the protests in a Quick Thoughts piece, discussing how Boğaziçi University became a center of anti-authoritarian resistance in Turkey and how the public has responded to the movement.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on Palestinian society and public health, not least of which due to the Israeli occupation. In an interview titled “Palestinian Labour Organizing Under COVID-19,” Nidal Ghaben discusses how the pandemic has affected civil society and the problematic nature of Palestinian trade unions. 

In another piece, Ibtesam Al Bantegi, Hind Qashtah, and Abu Khaled discuss how the pandemic has affected workers from various labor sector in an interview titled, “The Experience of Palestinian Workers Under COVID-19 Pandemic.”

Ardi Imseis wrote a Quick Thoughts piece regarding the International Criminal Court’s recent ruling that their jurisdiction extends to Palestine. 


Extra-Judicial Killing of Ahmad Erekat (4:54)



Our own Carly A. Krakow spoke with Jadaliyya Co-Editor Noura Erakat regarding the findings of a detailed investigation into Israel’s killing of Ahmad Erekat. The first six minutes of the interview debuted during the show, and the rest of the interview will be available at StatusHour.com.


In a recent piece, which first appeared in The Nation, Mouin Rabbani interviewed fellow Jadaliyya Co-Editor Noura Erakat regarding the recent detailed investigation of Israel’s killing of Ahmad Erekat last June, which found that his death was a case of “extra-judicial execution.” This piece was republished as a Quick Thoughts article on Jadaliyya.


Ten Years On: Teaching the Arab Uprisings (11:42)


Jadaliyya Co-Editor Nadya Sbaiti joined Bassam and MK to discuss the recent panel on teaching the Arab uprisings, for which she was a speaker.


Last month, we debuted a recurring segment that aims to showcase and tie together the year-long series of events and knowledge production titled “Ten Years On: Mass Protests and Uprisings in the Arab World” (TYO). As a collaborative project, TYO seeks to produce resources for educators, researchers, students, and journalists to more critically understand the Arab Uprisings, and their various dimensions, over the past decade.

This month the second signature set of events of the TYO series was held, titled “Teaching the Arab Uprisings” and presented by George Mason University’s Middle East and Islamic Studies program, the Arab Barometer at Princeton University, and ASI. “Teaching the Uprisings” featured two panel discussions that brought together many experts from different fields to discuss the politics of teaching the uprisings. 

Theory Buzz Podcast (16:56)



Co-host of the Theory Buzz Podcast (TBP), Libby Anker, came onto the show to discuss the founding of TBP, where she envisions TBP going, and to reflect on the first episode.


This month we announced an exciting new project, Theory Buzz Podcast (TBP), a new monthly podcast that brings authors, books, theory, and the world together in a dynamic way, co-hosted by Bassam Haddad and Libby Anker.

Every month, the co-hosts will hold a friendly but productive conversation with an author of a recent book in social theory in a broad sense. Their conversations will address the history and trajectories of these works, while emphasizing their relevance and impact on our world. For their first episode, they spoke with renowned political theorist Wendy Brown regarding her 2019 book, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West. You can find the episode at TheoryBuzz.com.

 
Europe and the Middle East Podcast (23:17)


Bassam spoke with Thomas Serres, co-host of the new Europe and the Middle East podcast, to discuss the purpose behind this project, and what they hope to accomplish in the near-future.


The second new podcast we highlighted this episode is Europe in the Middle East, a bi-monthly podcast addressing matters of significance to both regions, including their multifaceted relations.

In an inaugural episode titled “‘Eurabia’ and the Great Replacement," hosts Alain Gresh and Thomas Serres spoke with Liz Ketefe about the theories promoted by far-right thinkers Bat Ye’or and Renaud Camus, discussing their origin and growing normalization in European political discourses. They also discussed the appropriation of these conspiracy-oriented narratives by far-right terrorists in Europe (and beyond) as well as their connection with the American notion of "white genocide.” 


Let’s Talk It Over Podcast (29:58)


Author, activist, and film producer Frank Barat came on the show to tell the audience about the project’s first episode and what to expect in the coming months. 


Let’s Talk It Over is a new podcast co-hosted by Yanis Varoufakis, Roger Waters, Ken Loach, Brian Eno, and Frank Barat. 

Their first episode, titled “Trumpism After Trump,” brought Jadaliyya Co-Editor Noura Erakat and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor from Princeton University together to discuss the continuation of Trump’s legacy, the limitations of the Democratic Party, and the inability of liberalism to confront racism and militarism.


Iran Page Feature (37:03)



Iran Page Co-Editor Arash Davari joined the show to reflect on the past year since the page’s founding, where they find themselves currently, and their hopes for the future of the page.


Last year, Jadaliyya launched its Iran Page in order to create space for engagement in Iranian studies and discourse. Since then, the page’s team has worked tirelessly to produce knowledge on Iran from multi-disciplinary and critical perspectives.

 
The Catch-Up with Carly A. Krakow (44:30)

 

Carly A. Krakow provides analysis of international current affairs in her recurring segment, “The Catch-Up with Carly A. Krakow.”

In this month’s installment of her current affairs segment, Carly A. Krakow discussed a series of developments that are either not making it into the headlines, or are being addressed in limited ways. Her analysis covered the official initiation of an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation of the Situation in Palestine, newly announced reparations in Israel for the “Yemenite Children Affair,” a conviction of a Syrian regime official in a German court for crimes against humanity, the recent oil spill off the coast of Israel, and ongoing drownings in the Mediterranean as people continue to attempt to reach Europe.   

Beyond Old / New Media with Adel Iskandar and Malihe Razazan (54:02)


 

Adel Iskandar and Malihe Razazan recorded an hour-long conversation, and we aired the first six minutes of the discussion. The rest of the conversation will be published soon at StatusHour.com.


Over the last couple of episodes, the host of the recurring media segment, Adel Iskandar, teased a new co-host who would be joining him soon. On this episode, we officially brought on Malihe Razazan as Adel’s partner in crime for the media segment, which featured the duo discussing Al Jazeera’s recent decision to launch a right-leaning news outlet in the US.


Grad Student Corner with Cat Haseman (1:02:50)

 

Cat Haseman speaks directly to students during her monthly segment. 


In this month’s "Grad Student Corner," Cat highlighted the Jadaliyya Arabic Page as a valuable resource for students, whether native speakers or learning the language. She called upon her colleague Mohammad Abou-Ghazala, Live with ASI producer and script writer, to point viewers to several Arabic-language pieces published this month, including:

 As always, keep up with the latest news via Jadaliyya’s media roundups:


Pedagogy (1:04:29)


Last month, the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI) team published the fourth and final installment of the Peer-Reviewed Articles Review covering the Fall 2020 season, rounding up articles from a variety of peer-reviewed journals dealing with the Middle East and Arab world, more generally. 

 

NEWTONs (1:04:51)


With the ICC’s ruling earlier this month, Lori Allen’s NEWTON (New Texts Out Now) piece is extremely timely. A History of False Hope: Investigative Commissions in Palestine examines six major investigative commissions in Palestine and explains how some Palestinians have used international law as a language through which to communicate with a global audience. 

In A Revolution in Rhyme: Poetic Co-Option Under the Islamic Republic, Fatemah Shams pioneers the scholarly conversation surrounding the evolution of modern Persian literature and its relationship with politics and power. 

Bahia Shehab’s You Can Crush the Flowers: A Visual Memoir of the Egyptian Revolution is a personal narrative, a history-from-below, and a memoir, styled to be accessible to the general reader interested in learning about the events that unfolded during the years of the revolution in Egypt. 

Michael Christopher Low’s book Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj analyzes the late Ottoman hajj and Hijaz region as transimperial spaces, which were reshaped by the competing forces of Istanbul’s projects of modernization and by the reach of British India’s steamship empire.


The Maghreb (1:06:40)


“In Transition: North Africa’s Long Decoupling from Europe and the US” by Riccardo Fabiani discusses how, after decades of US regional hegemony and European influence, North Africa is going through a long and uncertain process of decoupling from Europe and the US. 

In “The Everyday Revolution in Tunisia or the Power of the Fragile,” Hèla Yousfi asserts that the frequent protests in response to police violence in Tunisia are a reminder that historical events such as the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi over ten years ago are not specific sequences of history, but are expanded before and after in time, and are only uncovered gradually 

Elizabeth Schenker’s piece “Mauritania's Failure to Adapt Gender-Based Violence Laws” seeks to understand the societal forces that have created a tendency for Mauritanian women to underreport instances of rape due to fear of criminalization. 

 
Must-Reads (1:07:25)

“Sowing Scarcity: Syria’s Wheat Regime from Self-Sufficiency to Import-Dependency” by Rohan Advani examines how nine years of war in Syria have undermined agricultural production and provoked an exodus of Syrian farmers, curtailing the possibility of returning to a strategy of self-sufficiency.  

Lisa Hajjar authored a piece titled “‘The Mauritanian’ Rekindles Debate Over Gitmo Detainees’ Torture – With 40 Still Held There,” where she explains how a few key legal battles have changed the way the United States wages the war on terror.

Thomas Serres’s piece titled “Islamophobia and Censorship in French Universities: Here Is What You Can Do” criticizes the French government for threatening the academic freedom of French researchers under the pretext of an ideological struggle against “Islamo-Leftism.” Serres provides readers with a call to action and an email template to send to French officials. 






 






 

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Feb 16, 2011 Lebanon
Jadaliyya Reports By :
Jadaliyya Reports

Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 

[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412