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Begin New Search Political Geography Gaza Journal Journal of Palestine Studies

41. Gaza's Humanitarianism Problem

Author:
Ilana Feldman
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This essay explores the possible negative consequences of identifying the current situation in Gaza primarily as a humanitarian problem. Scholarship on the complicated effects of humanitarian action in general, the early history of humanitarian intervention in the lives of Palestinians, and the current politics of aid in Gaza all underscore these problems. The essay reflects on several aspects of what can be called the "humanitarianism problem" in Gaza by considering both how humanitarianism is sometimes deployed as a strategy for frustrating Palestinian aspirations and the often unintended political effects of the most well-intentioned humanitarian interventions.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:
Palestine and Gaza

42. Israel's Assault on Gaza: A Transformational Moment? An Interview with Azmi Bishara

Author:
Mouin Rabbani
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Azmi Bishara (b. 1956 in Nazareth), an Israeli Arab politician and academic, earned a doctorate in philosophy from Humboldt University in Berlin in 1986 and for the next ten years was professor of philosophy at Birzeit University; he was also associated with the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem as a senior researcher. Politics, however, occupied him from an early age. In 1974, while still in high school, he established the first National Committee of Arab High School Students; two years later he was instrumental in founding the first National Arab Student Union, which he represented in the Committee for the Defense of Arab Lands when it declared Land Day in 1976. Bishara has been a dominant force in Israeli Arab politics since 1995, when he was a principal founder of the National Democratic Assembly (Tajamu` in Arabic, Balad in Hebrew), a "democratic progressive national party for the Palestinian citizens of Israel." He was elected to the Israeli Knesset for the first time in 1996-and in all subsequent elections through 2006-under the banner of the National Democratic Assembly, which soon became the spearhead of the national movement for the Palestinian community in Israel with its demands for cultural autonomy, recognition as a national minority, and equal rights. Within a few years, the slogan Bishara coined, "Israel as a state for all its citizens," had become a mainstream demand and the rallying cry of Israel's Palestinian community. A self-described Arab nationalist, Bishara has long been a thorn in the side of the Israeli establishment. Attempts to rein him in began in earnest in November 2001, when, following a visit to Syria and speeches supporting the right of people under occupation to resist, the Knesset revoked his immunity as a member of the Knesset, opening the way for a criminal indictment against him. The Israeli High Court dismissed the indictment in April 2003 and Bishara's parliamentary immunity was restored, but other actions followed. The National Democratic Assembly, was twice banned (in 2003 and 2006) from participating in parliamentary elections by Israel's Central Elections Committee. (The ban was lifted both times by the High Court, and both times the party won three seats.) Following Israel's 2006 Lebanon war, Bishara became the subject of a high-level security probe. Although he vigorously rejected allegations of "passing information to the enemy at time of war" as politically motivated fabrications, he resigned his Knesset seat and went into exile in April 2007. In spring 2009, a bill was introduced in the Knesset that, if passed, will allow the state to strip him of his citizenship. Since leaving Israel, Bishara divides his time between Amman, Jordan, and Doha, Qatar. In addition to writing (he has published three books in recent years), he is a prominent commentator on regional and international affairs in the Arab media and satellite TV and holds the Gamal Abdel Nasser Chair for Arab Thought at the Center for Arab Unity Studies in Beirut. He was interviewed in English in Doha on 17 February 2009 by Mouin Rabbani, an Amman-based independent analyst and a senior fellow of the Institute for Palestine Studies.
Political Geography:
Israel, Palestine, and Gaza

43. Shooting Gaza: Photographers, Photographs, and the Unbearable Lightness of War

Author:
Peter Lagerquist
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Barred entry to Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, Western photojournalists and TV crews found themselves confined to the Israeli side of the border during the assault, peering along the barrels of IDF artillery. The following essay reflects on what was said and heard among them on a sunny day in January 2009, how they and local Israeli spectators related to the violence, and how these two perspectives were tacitly elided in photographs of the war.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Israel and Gaza

44. A Gaza Chronology: 1948-2009

Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 38, no. 3, p. 98
Political Geography:
Palestine and Gaza

45. Israeli Military Operations against Gaza, 2000–2008

Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 38, no. 3, p. 122
Political Geography:
Israel, Palestine, and Gaza

46. The Israeli Arsenal Deployed Against Gaza During Operation Cast Lead

Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The gross disparity between the military resources available to Israel and the Palestinian factions during Operation Cast Lead (OCL) could make a comparison between their two “arsenals” seem absurd. Yet this and the following document devoted to Palestinian weaponry not only highlight the imbalance but help the reader better appreciate the dynamics at play in the broader conflict.
Political Geography:
Israel, Palestine, and Gaza

47. Gunning: Hamas in Politics: Democracy, Religion, Violence

Author:
Ghada Al-Madbouh
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Hamas in Politics: Democracy, Religion, Violence is a daring attempt to analyze the thinking of Hamas as a social movement and not simply as a terrorist organization. Using a combination of political theory and empirical research, Jeroen Gunning, a lecturer in international politics at the University of Wales (and deputy director of the university's Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Contemporary Political Violence), contextualizes issues of democracy, religion, and violence as they relate to Hamas. Methodologically, Gunning offers an extensive discussion of his interpretive ethnographic fieldwork in the Gaza Strip (conducted 1997–2004), taking his analysis beyond the straightforward causality or correlation of mainstream political science. The main merit of the book, however, rests in Gunning's attempt to wed the study of Hamas's discourse to the study of its actual practices regarding religion, democracy, and violence.
Topic:
Political Violence and Religion
Political Geography:
Gaza

48. Settlement Monitor

Author:
Geoffrey Aronson
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This section covers items-reprinted articles, statistics, and maps-pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East , and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material.
Political Geography:
Washington, Middle East, and Gaza

49. The Bedouin Judge, the Mufti, and the Chief Islamic Justice: Competing Legal Regimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Author:
Lynn Welchman
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
SINCE THE ESTABLISHMENT of the Palestinian Authority (PA), one result of the political uncertainties and inadequate security in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has been an increasing recourse to “unofficial” arbitration and the adjudication of disputes in the context of contests over political power. Three main bodies of “law” appear most frequently as overlapping normative frameworks in dispute resolution processes: statutory legislation (the law “on the books” in the areas under the PA's jurisdiction), Islamic law, and various forms of customary law—specifically, in the case examined here, “tribal adjudication” (al-qada' al-`asha'iri).
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Palestine and Gaza

50. Notes on the Aftermath: Gaza, Summer 2009

Author:
Elena N. Hogan
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This personal account describes aspects of closure, siege, and daily life witnessed in the Gaza Strip from May to July 2009, with emphasis on the impact of the blockade in the wake of Operation Cast Lead. As an international worker made to grapple with increasingly complicated Israeli bureaucracy, but "allowed" access into Gaza for purposes of humanitarian aid, the author describes her impressions of the current Gazan situation as an instance of isolation whose plight is increasingly hidden from the gaze of the outside world.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
Israel and Gaza