Connections Episode 72: Imprisoned Palestine with Francesca Albanese (26 July)

Connections Episode 72: Imprisoned Palestine with Francesca Albanese (26 July)

Connections Episode 72: Imprisoned Palestine with Francesca Albanese (26 July)

By : Jadaliyya Reports

Connections Episode 72
 

Imprisoned Palestine

Mouin Rabbani Interviews Francesca Albanese


Wednesday 26 July 2023
2:00 PM EST | 20:00 CET | 21:00 Jerusalem

 

Join us on Wednesday, 26 July for a discussion about Israel’s carceral regime with United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory Occupied Since 1967, Francesca Albanese and Jadaliyya co-editor Mouin Rabbani. This episode of Connections will discuss Special Rapporteur Albanese’s recent report to the UN Human Rights Council examining the centrality of “confinement behind and beyond bars” to Israel’s matrix of control. 

Connections offers timely and informative interviews on current events and broader policy questions, as well as themes relevant to knowledge production. It combines journalism, analysis, and scholarship.  

Guest


Francesca Albanese
is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory Occupied Since 1967. She is an Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, and a Senior Advisor on Migration and Forced Displacement for the think tank Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD), where she co-founded the Global Network on the Question of Palestine (GNQP), a coalition of renowned professional and scholars engaged in/on Israel/Palestine. 

Albanese has published widely on the legal situation in Israel/Palestine; her latest book, Palestinian Refugees in International Law (Oxford University Press, 2020), offers a comprehensive legal analysis of the situation of Palestinian refugees from its origins to modern-day reality. She previously worked as a human rights expert for the United Nations, including for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Host


Mouin Rabbani
 has published and commented widely on Palestinian affairs, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the contemporary Middle East. He was previously Senior Analyst Middle East and Special Advisor on Israel-Palestine with the International Crisis Group, and head of political affairs with the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria. He is Co-Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine.


Connections Episode 64: Sudan Update with Hamid Khalafallah and Kholood

Connections Episode 63: The United Nations and the Question of Palestine with Feda Abdelhady

Connections Episode 62: Palestinian Refugees in Syria with Nell Gabiam

Connections Episode 61: Nakba75 with Jadaliyya Palestine Page Editors

Connections Episode 60 - Nakba 1948: What Washington Knew with Josh Ruebner

Connections Episode 59: The Israel Lobby and US Academia with Nader Hashemi

Connections Episode 58: Germany Censors Palestine with Hebh Jamal

Connections Episode 57: Saudi-Iranian Normalization with Ibrahim Fraihat

Connections Episode 56: Peace in Yemen? with Helen Lackner

Connections Episode 55: Crisis in Sudan with Khalid Medani

Connections Episode 54: The Iraq War and Its Legacies with Sinan Antoon

Connections Episode 53: The UK Labour Party Antisemitism Crisis with Jamie Stern-Weiner

Connections Episode 52: Universal Palestine with Zahi Zalloua

Connections Episode 51: The New Antisemitism with Jamie Stern-Weiner

Connections Episode 50: Sextarianism with Maya Mikdashi

Connections Episode 49 - Israel: Continuity and Change

Connections Episode 48: The International Court of Justice and Palestine with Norman Finkelstein

Connections Episode 47: From COP27 to The World Cup with Laleh Khalili

Connections Episode 46: Twitter Madness with Marwa Fatafta

Connections Episode 45: Inside the Legal Campaign Against US Torture with Lisa Hajjar

Connections Episode 44: Another US Election with Rick Perlstein

Connections Episode 43: Another Israeli Election with Mairav Zonszein

Connections Episode 42 - Palestine: The Right to Self-Determination with Francesca Albanese

Connections Episode 41: Class and Identity Politics in Egypt with Hesham Sallam

Connections Episode 40: Uprising in Iran with Manijeh Moradian

Connections Podcast Episode 39: Armenia Attacked with Eric Hacopian

Connections Episode 38: Tunisia’s Constitutional Referendum with Monica Marks

Connections Episode 37: Shireen Abu Akleh with Dalia Hatuqa

Connections Episode 36: The War in Ukraine with Nabih Bulos

Connections Episode 35: The Libya Intervention Revisited with Ian Martin

Connections Episode 34: Palestinian Textbooks with Martin Konečný

Connections Episode 33: The Struggle for Human Rights in the Middle East with Sarah Leah Whitson

Connections Episode 32: Protecting Cultural Heritage with Heghnar Watenpaugh

Connections Episode 31: Sudan Today with Khalid Mustafa Medani

Connections Episode 30: Yemen’s Endless War with Safa Al Ahmad

Connections Episode 29: Crisis in Afghanistan with Ali Latifi

Connections Episode 28: Tunisia's New Autocracy with Mohammed Haddad

Connections Episode 27: Israel's Sacred Terrorism with Remi Brulin

Connections Episode 26: Libya in the Balance with Claudia Gazzini

Connections Episode 25: War Economies with Mark Taylor

Connections Episode 24: Crises in The Maghreb with Samia Errazzouki

Connections Episode 23: The Global Far Right with Cas Mudde

Connections Episode 22: Narrations of Palestine with Alison Glick and Nora Lester Murad

Connections Episode 21: Terrorizing Human Rights with Raja Shehadeh

Connections Episode 20: The Invention of Palestine with Zachary Foster

Connections Episode 19 - Special Episode: The Coup in Sudan with Khalid Medani

Connections Episode 18 — Iran: Domestic and Foreign Politics with Ali Vaez

Connections Episode 16: Whither Yemen? with Helen LackConnections Episode 17: A Decade of Upheaval with Nabih Bulos

Connections Episode 15: The Lasting Legacies of US Torture with Lisa Hajjar

Connections Episode 14 - Digital Espionage: A Global Pandemic with Marwa Fatafta

Connections Episode 13: Asylum in the USA with Basileus Zeno

Connections Episode 12: Focus Afghanistan with Benon Sevan

Connections Episode 11: A Planet in the Balance with Jeffrey D. Sachs

Connections Episode 10: Crisis in Tunisia with Houda Mzioudet

Connections Podcast Episode 9: Lebanon in Crisis with Nadya Sbaiti

Connections Podcast Episode 8: Europe and the Arab-Israeli Conflict with Anders Persson and Diana Buttu

Connections Podcast Episode 7: Palestine at the Crossroads with Hanan Ashrawi

Connections Podcast Episode 6: The US Congress, Israel, and the Palestinians with Lara Friedman

Connections Podcast Episode 5: Investigating Israel with Lori Allen

Connections Podcast Episode 4: Israel-Palestine: A Turning Point? with Nathan Thrall

Connections Podcast Episode 3: Apartheid Israel with Norman Finkelstein

Connections Podcast Episode 2: The Politics of Holy Cities with Mick Dumper and Maha Samman

Connections Podcast Episode 1: The Biden Administration and the Middle East with Noam Chomsky


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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