Live with ASI: Episode 3.5 Digest — December 2022/January 2023

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Feb 7, 2023

Live with ASI: Episode 3.5 Digest — December 2022/January 2023

By : Jadaliyya Reports

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.

This month co-hosts MK Smith and Bassam Haddad highlighted two newly released books that are featured in New Texts Out Now series and also offered some Must Read selections featuring pieces on the protests in Iran, urbanism in the Middle East, and a Status interview about factionalism in Palestine.

The episode also features interviews with Max Weiss, Jehad Abusalim, Noura Erakat, Brahim El Guabli, Isis Nusair, Mohamad Ali Nayel, Kali Rubaii, William Carruthers and Mouin Rabani.

NEWTON


MK and Bassam highlighted a fascinating interview with Jessica M. Marglin about her new book “The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship Across the Modern Mediterranean'', which is a study of how we talk about and approach Citizenship. They also touched on a really interesting discussion with Suad Amiry about her new novel “Mother of Strangers” which centers the human tragedy of the Nakba in 1948. 


NEWTON also recently published a discussion with Princeton Professor Max Weiss about his latest work titled “Revolutions Aesthetic: A Cultural History of Baʿthist Syria” whichdeveloped out of the author's interests in the intellectual and cultural history of modern Syria.

Max Weiss joined MK and Bassam to provide some valuable insight into that history, as well as what he sees for the future of Syria as the tragedy of the last decade continues to unfold. 

Professor Max Weiss in Discussion with MK and Bassam.
 


Also in NEWTON  you can also find an interview with Historian and Lecturer William Carruthers about his new book “Flooded Pasts”. The book revolves around a major event in the development of what became World Heritage, and takes a deep dive into UNESCO and what the author terms “the recolonization of Archaeology”.

He joined Bassam and MK to provide broader context for his research, and to explain how this particular work fits therein. Definitely an enlightening interview for anyone interested in the politics of archaeology in the region, which you can read at Jadaliyya. 

William Carruthers discussing his work with MK and Bassam.
 

Current Events


Researcher and PHD candidate Jehad Abusalim and Jadaliyya Co-Editor Noura Erakat joined the broadcast to discuss some of the latest developments in Palestine. Jehad spoke on the cyclical nature of Israeli violence in the West Bank, while Noura provided some insight into western media coverage of what has been happening in Jenin, Nablus and elsewhere. Important context for the troubling events in the West Bank.

Jehad Abusalim and Noura Erakat sharing their thoughts on the situation in Palestine.
 

Morocco and Football


Brahim El Guabli is a Moroccan scholar and Assistant Professor of Arabic Studies at Williams University. In the wake of Morocco’s thrilling World Cup run, he and some colleagues have begun a dossier of online articles on Morocco, Football, and the social and political implications of the game in the region.

He took us through his experience of watching the Atlas Lions shock the footballing world, and provided us with a framework for a political analysis of what transpired before the eyes of North Africa and the Arab World. 

Brahim El Guabli reflecting on Morocco’s run in the World Cup.
 

STATUS


Recently, Professor Isis Nusair, who is an Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and International Studies at Denison University, spoke with Samah Abbas at Status Hour about the most important critical stages in her life, affected by global and local political events which turned into a drive and passion to employ knowledge to serve social justice. 

Prof. Isis believes that the production of critical knowledge about Palestine can transcend the geographical and national borders of Palestine, and that it is more effective when intersecting with the struggles of other oppressed peoples around the world. She joined Live With ASI to discuss the importance of placing the Palestinian struggle in an internationalist and intersectional context.

Isis Nusair in conversation with MK and Bassam.
 


Mohamad Ali Nayel is host of the October 17 Diary series at Status Hour. This series takes place during the days of the uprising and the economic collapse that struck Lebanon in the Fall of 2019. At that time, Mohamad kept a diary in which he wrote down what was happening. Three years later, he recorded these diaries or episodes on a daily basis with the addition of a few voices and music that was composed to accompany the narration.

He spoke with MK and Bassam about the newest segments in the series, as well as his memories of, and reflections on, that time . A great listen if you want to understand more about Lebanon as it is today, nearly four years later. 

Mohamad Ali Nayel takes us through his recollections of Lebanon in October 2019.
 


In August 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden signed an act expanding benefits and healthcare to U.S. veterans exposed to toxins in burn pits. Kali Rubaii, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Purdue University, asks what about Iraqi exposure to burn pits?

She addressed that question and more in a recent interview at Status, and then recorded another interview with Bassam to discuss it, which we showed during the Live broadcast.Rubaii has worked closely with Iraqi families since 2009, leading a team of doctors, epidemiologists and activists to conduct a case control study among families experiencing birth defects that may be linked to burn pits and bombings. Tune in to hear about Kali’s remarkable efforts. 

A pre-recorded interview with Kali Rubaii where she discusses her work in Iraq. 
 

Connections


Last month was a busy month forJadaliyya Co-Editor Mouin Rabbani, who was hard at work publishing FIVE great episodes of Connections Podcast. In case you’re not already familiar, the Connections Podcast combines journalism, analysis, and scholarship to offer timely and informative interviews on current events and broader policy questions, as well as themes relevant to knowledge production.

As always, Mouin brings us timely and incisive discussions on urgent matters, and over the course of the last month, covered topics ranging from issues in the UK Labour party, to Palestine to the politics of gender and their overlap with sectarianism in the region.

Mouin Rabbani on the latest work at the Connections podcast.
 

Must Reads


The Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative has put out two new installments of Essential Readings, which is a series that invites experts to create “essential reading lists” covering various perspectives in a particular field. The first installment deals with the 2022 uprising in Iran, while the second Essential Reading is part of a larger series exploring the questions of urbanism and spatial production across the region. 


MK and Bassam also shared a “must listen” over at Status Hour, where Lecturer and Researcher Lubaba Sabri had a discussion on factionalism and critical knowledge production with Palestinian activist and professor Abdel Sattar Qassem, which was conducted a few months before his passing in 2021. 

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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