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Map of Middle East |
CIAO DATE: 03/04
Winter 2004 (Volume XXXIII, Number 2, Issue 130)
Articles
Fencing the Last Sky: Excavating Palestine after Israel's "Separation Wall" by Peter Lagerquist
Since 2002, the "Separation Fence" has emerged as Israel's most definitive effort at reshaping the West Bank to date. Surveying the project's genealogy, ideological underpinnings, and diplomatic context, the article maps its concomitant implications: the bantustanization of the West Bank and any Palestinian state on some 50 percent of the territory; the fragmentation of Palestinian society and economy; the expansion and consolidation of Israeli settlement; and the physical and "virtual" transfer that looms as its conclusion. The author argues inter alia that the project has thus rendered irrelevant the current international "mediations" in the conflict and terminally threatens also the idea of a two-state solution to the conflict.
"All Those Old Issues": George W. Bush and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict by Kathleen Christison
Despite an array of formulas for peace put forth during his administration, President Bush and his policy-making team have been almost totally uninterested in involving the United States in any serious effort to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The quick demise of all peace initiatives—each of which succumbed to the administration's focus on terrorism rather than on Israel's occupation as the root of the conflict—is testimony to the Bush team's near total identification with Israel's interests. This article examines the Bush administration's bias toward Israel and the factors influencing that approach: Bush's own willful ignorance of the situation on the ground and lack of concern for Palestinian grievances, his apparent personal rapport with Ariel Sharon, and the strong domestic political pressures on him, including from the pro-Israel lobby, Congress, neoconservatives, and the fundamentalist Christian lobby. All these factors combine to make any U.S. pressures on Israel highly unlikely.
Maternal "Anti-Politics" in the Formation of Hebron's Jewish Enclave by Tamara Neuman
This article examines the use of gender and the mother-child bond as a tactic in settlement expansion. In particular, it focuses on the activism of Kiryat Arba women during the 1970s aimed at establishing a permanent stronghold in municipal Hebron, and on the persuasiveness of maternalism in subsequent representations of more contemporary events. The main incidents of expansion into Hebron include: incursions into the Tomb of the Patriarchs, the establishment of a Jewish cemetery, and the takeover of a building in the city's center. The article also investigates the rhetorical component of maternal activism. In these diverse contexts, the author argues that the effectiveness of maternalism in settlement expansion depends on a strategic use of the private sphere, which neutralizes the political content of women's actions.
Testimony
The Fall of a Galilean Village during the 1948 Palestine War: An Eyewitness Account by Elias Srouji
This account by a Nazareth doctor describes what took place in Rama, a Galilee village, in the wake of Operation Hiram, Israel's last major offensive in northern Palestine during the 1948 war. The operation was launched on 29 October and lasted sixty hours, during which time the area of Galilee that had not already been conquered fell. At least eighteen villages were emptied of their inhabitants and subsequently destroyed: out of the area's estimated population of 50,000 to 60,000, only an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 persons remained in the new state after the fighting ended. Rama, which had surrendered to the Israeli forces without resistance, was one of the villages that was not destroyed, though part of its population was expelled. The rest of Galilee had already been conquered in April and May, prior to the declaration of the state, as well as in July.
Special Document
The Geneva Accord
From The Hebrew Press
Recent Books
Parker: The October War: A Retrospective reviewed by Don Peretz
Darwish: Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems reviewed by Bassam K. Frangieh
Hussein: Edward Said: Criticism and Society reviewed by Andrew N. Rubin
Ellis: Israel and Palestine: Out of the Ashes—The Search for Jewish Identity in the Twenty-First Century reviewed by Paul P. Parker
Boyle: Palestine, Palestinians, and International Law reviewed by Diana Buttu
Gordon, Gordon, and Shriteh: Beyond Intifada: Narratives of Freedom Fighters in the Gaza Strip reviewed by Toufic Haddad
Hass: Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land reviewed by Penny Johnson
Wasserstein: Divided Jerusalem: The Struggle for the Holy City reviewed by Musa Budeiri
Nitzan and Bichler: The Global Political Economy of Israel reviewed by Baruch Kimmerling
Merkley: Christian Attitudes towards the State of Israel reviewed by Peter E. Makari
Shorter Notices
Arab Views
Quarterly Update On Conflict And Diplomacy
Settlement Monitor
Documents and Source Material
International
A1. Sari Nusseibeh and Ami Ayalon, "The People's Voice," Jerusalem, September 2002
A2. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad, Address to the Tenth Session of the Islamic Summit Conference, Putrajaya, Malaysia, 16 October 2003 (excerpts)
A3. Various Organizations, Losses on the Three-Year Anniversary of the al-Aqsa Intifada (Comparative Statistical Table)
Arab
B1. Palestinian PM Mahmud Abbas, Letter of Resignation to PA Head Yasir Arafat, Ramallah, 6 September 2003
B2. Palestinian PM Mahmud Abbas, Resignation Speech to Palestinian Council, Ramallah, 6 September 2003
B3. Palestinian PM Ahmad Qurai`, Inaugural Speech to the Palestinian Council, Ramallah, 12 November 2003 (excerpts)
B4. PA Executive Authority, List of Members, Ramallah, 12 November 2003
Israel
C1. MK Avraham Burg, Essay on the Current State of Israeli Society, August 2003
C2. Former Heads of Shin Bet Reflect on Israel's Present and Future, Jerusalem, 14 November 2003
United States
D. Profile of a Shin Bet Interrogator, Atlantic Monthly, October 2003 (excerpts)
Chronology
Bibliography of Periodical Literature
Letter