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Map of Middle East |
CIAO DATE: 08/03
Spring 2003 (Volume XXXII, Number 3, Issue 127)
Articles
Embattled Identities: Palestinian Soldiers in the Israeli Military by Rhoda Kanaaneh
Roughly 5,000 Palestinians living inside Israel currently volunteer to serve in the Israeli military. These soldiers’ multiple and contradictory loyalties highlight the contingent nature of identity and the complex relationships subalterns have to institutions of rule. This paper calls for a move beyond viewing these volunteers simply as “traitors,” or, less negatively, as “accommodationists.” By understanding them as marginal agents at the edges of Palestinian society within Israel, their successes and failures at integration through the military richly illustrate the contradictory workings of citizenship in Israel and its limitations.
Liberating Songs: Palestine Put to Music by Joseph Massad
This article surveys the history of songs about Palestine from 1948 to the present, examining how the changes in musical style and lyrics correspond to the changes in the exigencies of the Palestinian struggle itself. Tracing the primacy of revolutionary Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s, the central role of Fayruz and the Rahbani brothers in the wake of the 1967 war, and the emergence of Palestinian groups and singers as of the late 1960s, the article provides historical and political analyses of these songs as central features of how Arab popular culture has dealt, and continues to deal, with the Palestine tragedy.
In Perspective
The Gun and the Olive Branch Revised by David Hirst
The following is from the lengthy new foreword to the third edition of The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East, a classic history of the Arab-Israeli conflict originally published in 1977. The forthcoming edition, to be published in Spring 2003 by Thunder Mouth’s Press/Nation Books, brings the story up to date, covering the approximately two decades since the second edition issued in 1984, which itself added three chapters to the original. The new edition contains a detailed summary of the peace process from Arafat’s “peace offer” of 1988 through the second intifada, with additional sections examining the U.S.-Israeli relationship and American policy under President George W. Bush. The section reproduced below deals primarily with the first edition’s reception in the United States and lays out some of the themes to be dealt with subsequently. It was selected for the light it sheds on the evolution of perceptions concerning the Palestine problem since 1977 and the growing disconnect between the state of knowledge and the situation on the ground in Palestine.
Letter From Israel
The 2003 Israeli Elections: Labor’s Increasing Irrelevance? by Michel Warschawski
This report analyzes the results of the January 2003 Israeli elections and their implications for Israeli society and, indirectly, for the future of the Palestinian question. In examining voter behavior and the characteristics and trends within the main political groupings--including Labor, Likud, Meretz, Shinui, and the various “sectoral” parties--the article provides a broad portrait of the contemporary Israeli body politic. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s calculations in forming a governing coalition are also discussed.
Report
The Palestinian Economy and the Second Intifada by Salem Ajluni
This report provides data on the cumulative effects on the Palestinian economy and society of Israeli restrictions imposed and damage inflicted during the al-Aqsa intifada through January 2003. The author argues that Israel is deliberately impoverishing the Palestinian population and that the United States, by failing to curb Israel, is complicit. The author also gives useful statistics showing what the Palestinian losses would be in U.S. terms.
Review Essay
Abba Eban with Footnotes by Norman G. Finkelstein
In this meticulous review, the author demonstrates how Michael Oren’s best-selling account of the 1967 war, which his publisher claims to be the “most comprehensive history ever published,” is merely the Israeli official version of the conflict with an added scholarly veneer. Contrary to Oren’s assertion that the book is based on new evidence and documentation, Finkelstein shows how few new documents have been consulted and how Oren misrepresents or suppresses evidence that contradicts the long established Israeli version.
From The Hebrew Press
Recent Books
Miller, Miller, and Zetouni: Sharon: Israel’s Warrior-Politician reviewed by Peretz Kidron
Breger and Ahimeir: Jerusalem: A City and Its Future reviewed by Penny Johnson
Baumgarten: Arafat: Zwischen Kampf und Diplomatie [Arafat: Between Struggle and Diplomacy] reviewed by Juliane Hammer
Wright: Structural Flaws in the Middle East Peace Process: Historical Contexts reviewed by Waleed Hazbun
Barnea and Husseini: Separate and Cooperate, Cooperate and Separate: The Disengagement of the Palestine Health Care System from Israel and Its Emergence as an Independent System reviewed by Jay Schnitzer
Ruether and Ruether: The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict reviewed by Norton Mezvinsky
Gal and Gottschalk: Beyond Survival and Philanthropy: American Jewry and Israel reviewed by Lenni Brenner
Cristol: The Liberty Incident: The 1967 Israeli Attack on the U.S. Navy Spy Ship reviewed by James M. Ennes, Jr.
Saad-Ghorayeb: Hizbullah: Politics and Religion reviewed by Diane Riskedahl
Shorter Notices
Arab Views
Quarterly Update On Conflict And Diplomacy
Settlement Monitor
Documents and Source Material
International
A1. UN Workers in the Occupied Territories, Statement on Israeli Conduct concerning Local UN Activities, 3 December 2002
A2. UN Security Council, Draft Resolution on the Situation of UN Workers in the Occupied Territories, New York, 19 December 2002
Arab
B. Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, “Palestinians at the End of Year 2002,” Ramallah, December 2002 (excerpts).
Israel
C. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Address on the Current Situation and the Requirements for Peace, Herzliya, 4 December 2002 (excerpts).
United States
D1. State Department, Report on PLO Compliance, Washington, 29 November 2002 (excerpts)
D2. Ambassador Martin Indyk, Remarks on a Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Herzliya, 3 December 2002
D3. State Department, Summary of the Progress on the Quartet’s Road Map for Palestinian-Israeli Peace, Washington, 20 December 2002
D4. State Department, “Activities of the U.S. Government Representatives on Israeli and Palestinian Issues at the United Nations,” Washington, 15 January 2003
D5. Council on Foreign Relations Roundtable, Statement on U.S. Middle East Policy, New York, 15 February 2003
D6. President George W. Bush, Remarks concerning Middle East Peace at the American Enterprise Institute, Washington, 26 February 2003
Chronology
Bibliography of Periodical Literature