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CIAO DATE: 09/02
Spring 2002 (Volume XXXI, Number 3, Issue 123)
Israel's Closure Policy: An Ineffective Strategy of Containment and Repression by Amira Hass
This article examines the Israeli policy of closure from its introduction in 1991 through its consolidation under Oslo, when its devastating potential was heightened by an intermeshing with Oslo II's division of the occupied territories into zones of Israeli and Palestinian control. The author argues that closure, first applied as a military-bureaucratic preemptive security measure, crystallized with Oslo into a conscious political goal: demographic separation without meaningful political separation. Despite the absence of an organized Palestinian resistance to closure, the reasons for which are explored, a spirit of resilience and defiance has enabled the population to bear up under closure's intensification during the present uprising, when virtually all movement is banned and the territories are under siege.
The Past as Prelude: Zionism and the Betrayal of American Democratic Principles, 1917-48 by Lawrence Davidson
Drawing on State Department records and other contemporary sources, this article shows how biblical romanticism took precedence over traditional democratic values in shaping the U.S. Middle East policy as far back as 1917, when it supported Zionism's aims in Palestine against the wishes of 92 percent of the population. The article also makes clear that a dynamic remarkably similar to later patterns was already in place as of the 1920s: a presidency swayed by religious belief and electoral considerations, a Congress powerfully influenced by the Zionist lobby, a State Department attempting to steer a middle course and resist Zionist pressures, and an Arab American community unable to gain an effective hearing. Thus, the anti-Palestinian rhetoric of today, with its "doublespeak" overtones, has deep roots in the past.
Palestinian Refugees and Their Legal Status: Rights, Politics, and Implications for a Just Solution by Susan M Akram
The Palestinian refugee problem is one of the longest-lasting refugee crises in the world—now exceeding fifty-three years—without a real solution in sight. Although at its core a political problem, the Palestinian refugee crisis is also a problem of legal distortion: Palestinian refugees fall into a legal lacuna that sets them outside minimal international protections available for all other refugee groups in the world. This paper provides background to the legal anomaly that sets Palestinian refugees apart; discusses the legal, practical, and political implications of that status; and proposes a framework and mechanisms aimed at promoting a rights-based solution for the Palestinian refugee problem.
Sulha Peacemaking and the Politics of Persuasion by Sharon Lang
This article focuses on the Arab tradition of mediation and reconciliation known as sulha, as it is practiced in Galilee villages in tandem with the state justice system in cases of murder. Drawing on incidents occurring between 1992 and 1996, the author describes and analyzes the underlying principles of the sulha process, the formation of the mediating body, its mechanisms and procedures, and finally the formal public ceremony that ends the conflict between the families of the victim and the attacker. By highlighting sulha practice and its underlying ideals of cooperation, negotiation, and compromise, the author challenges the emphasis on violence and feud that characterizes much of the anthropological literature on Arab society and politics.
Book Reviews
Fox: Palestine Twilight by Salim Tamari
Huneidi: A Broken Trust by John J McTague
Mishal, Kuperman, and Boas: Investment in Peace by Rex Brynen
Drori: The Seam Line by Steven A Glazer
Ghanem: The Palestinian-Arab Minority in Israel, 1948-2000 by Mahmoud Yazbak
Klein: Jerusalem by Michael Dumper
Hroub: Hamas by Ahmad S Moussalli
Hatina: Islam and Salvation in Palestine by Khaled Hroub
Hamzeh: Refugees in Our Own Land by Rema Hammami
Rubinstein: From Herzl to Rabin by Ilan Pappé