tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/middle-eastern-conflict-5142/articlesMiddle Eastern Conflict – The Conversation2022-05-16T18:30:04Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1830772022-05-16T18:30:04Z2022-05-16T18:30:04ZHow media reports of ‘clashes’ mislead Americans about Israeli-Palestinian violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463332/original/file-20220516-15-bbvezx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C22%2C3715%2C2454&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When does a 'clash' become an 'assault'?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PicturesoftheWeek-Global-PhotoGallery/bc862b042976498580767f551fd3e35f/photo?Query=Shireen%20Abu%20Akleh%20funeral%20police&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=20&currentItemNo=8">AP Photo/Maya Levin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/13/why-is-israel-afraid-of-the-palestinian-flag">Israeli police attacked</a> mourners carrying the coffin of slain Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh on May 13, 2022, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/shireen-abu-akleh-journalist-funeral-west-bank-bb71e2ec64dd034066bc6df4a9aa2fb3">beating pallbearers with batons and kicking them</a> when they fell to the ground.</p>
<p>Yet those who skimmed the headlines of initial reports from several U.S. media outlets may have been left with a different impression of what happened. </p>
<p>“Israeli Police Clash with Mourners at Funeral Procession,” read the <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/israeli-police-clash-with-mourners-a-funeral-procession-for-journalist-139944517790">headline of MSNBC’s online report</a>. The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/israeli-forces-palestinians-clash-in-west-bank-before-funeral-of-journalist-11652471399">had a similar</a> headline on its story: “Israeli Forces, Palestinians Clash in West Bank before Funeral of Journalist.”</p>
<p>Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/israeli-police-clash-al-jazeera-journalist-shireen-abu-akleh-mourners">began the text of its article</a> with “Clashes erupted Friday in Jerusalem as mourners attended the burial of veteran American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh who was shot dead Friday when covering a raid in the West Bank city of Jenin.”</p>
<p>There is no mention in the headlines of these articles about who instigated the violence, nor any hint of the power imbalance between a heavily armed Israeli police force and what appeared to be unarmed Palestinian civilians.</p>
<p>Such language and omissions are common in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-it-comes-to-media-reporting-on-israel-palestine-there-is-nowhere-to-hide-160992">reporting of violence conducted by Israel’s police or military</a>. Similar headlines followed an incident in April in which <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-jerusalem-aqsa-mosque-storm-attack-worshipper">Israeli police attacked worshippers</a> at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Then, too, police attacks on worshippers – in which as many as 152 Palestinians were injured by rubber bullets and batons – were <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/17/1093233899/jerusalem-violence-al-aqsa-mosque">widely</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-police-palestinians-clash-jerusalem-holy-site-2022-04-15/">described</a> as “clashes.”</p>
<p>And headlines matter – many Americans <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/03/19/americans-read-headlines-and-not-much-else/">do not read past them</a> when consuming news or <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/06/16/six-in-10-of-you-will-share-this-link-without-reading-it-according-to-a-new-and-depressing-study/">sharing articles online</a>.</p>
<h2>Neutral terms aren’t always neutral</h2>
<p>The use of a word like “clashes” might seem to make sense in a topic as contentious as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which violent acts are perpetrated by both sides.</p>
<p>But as a <a href="https://menas.arizona.edu/people/maha-nassar">scholar of Palestinian history</a> and an <a href="https://www.972mag.com/us-media-palestinians/">analyst of U.S. media coverage of this topic</a>, I believe using neutral terms such as “clashes” to describe Israeli police and military attacks on Palestinian civilians is misleading. It overlooks instances in which Israeli forces instigate violence against Palestinians who pose no threat to them. It also often gives more weight to official Israeli narratives than to Palestinian ones.</p>
<p>U.S. media have <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/pens-and-swords/9780231133487">long been accused</a> of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2001.30.2.61">misleading their audience</a> when it comes to violence committed against Palestinians. A 2021 <a href="https://web.mit.edu/hjackson/www/The_NYT_Distorts_the_Palestinian_Struggle.pdf">study from MIT of 50 years of New York Times coverage</a> of the conflict found “a disproportionate use of the passive voice to refer to negative or violent action perpetrated towards Palestinians.” </p>
<p>Using the passive voice – for example, reporting that “Palestinians were killed in clashes” rather than “Israeli forces killed Palestinians” – is language that helps shield Israel from scrutiny. It also obscures the reason so many Palestinians would be angry at Israel. </p>
<p>It’s not just The New York Times. A <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/01/12/israel-palestine-conflict-news-headlines/">2019 analysis by data researchers in Canada of more than 100,000 headlines</a> from 50 years of U.S. coverage across five newspapers <a href="https://vridar.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/416LABS_50_Years_of_Occupation.pdf">concluded that</a> “the U.S. mainstream media’s coverage of the conflict favors Israel in terms of both the sheer quantity of stories covered, and by providing more opportunities to the Israelis to amplify their point of view.”</p>
<p>That 2019 study also found that words associated with violence, including “clash” and “clashes,” were more likely to be used in stories about Palestinians than Israelis.</p>
<h2>Competing narratives</h2>
<p>One problem with using “clash” is that it obscures incidents in which Israeli police and security forces attack Palestinians who pose no threat to them. </p>
<p>Amnesty International, a human rights advocacy group, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/05/israel-opt-increase-in-unlawful-killings-and-other-crimes-highlights-urgent-need-to-end-israels-apartheid-against-palestinians/">described the recent incident at the Al-Aqsa Mosque</a> as one in which Israeli police “brutally attacked worshippers in and around the mosque and used violence that amounts to torture and other ill-treatment to break up gatherings.”</p>
<p>The word “clashes” does not convey this reality.</p>
<p>Using “clashes” also gives more credibility to the Israeli government version of the story than the Palestinian one. Israeli officials often accuse Palestinians of instigating violence, claiming that soldiers and police had to use lethal force to stave off Palestinian attacks. And that’s how these events are usually reported.</p>
<p>But Israeli human rights group B'Tselem’s database on Israeli and Palestinian fatalities <a href="https://statistics.btselem.org/en/all-fatalities/by-date-of-incident?section=participation&tab=overview">shows that</a> most of the roughly 10,000 Palestinians killed by Israel since 2000 did not “participate in hostilities” at the time they were killed.</p>
<p>We saw this attempt to shift the blame to Palestinians for Israeli violence in the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. According to <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-al-jazeera-journalist-shireen-abu-akleh-shot-dead-jenin">her colleagues at the scene of her death</a>, an Israeli military sniper <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/shireen-abu-akleh-killing-al-jazeera-journalist-eyewitness-account?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1652294662">deliberately shot and killed the veteran journalist</a> with a live bullet to her right temple, even though she was wearing a “PRESS” flak jacket and helmet. One or more snipers also shot at Abu Akleh’s colleagues as they tried to rescue her, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-al-jazeera-journalist-shireen-abu-akleh-shot-dead-jenin">according to eyewitness accounts</a>. </p>
<p>At first, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/11/israel-jazeera-journalist-jenin/">said</a> that “armed Palestinians shot in an inaccurate, indiscriminate and uncontrolled manner” at the time of her killing – implying that Palestinians could have shot Abu Akleh. Then, as evidence mounted <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220512-btselem-israel-narrative-about-killing-shireen-abu-akleh-untrue/">disproving this account</a>, Israeli officials changed course, <a href="https://www.jta.org/2022/05/11/israel/benny-gantz-al-jazeera-journalist-may-have-been-killed-by-israeli-or-palestinian-fire">saying that</a> the source of the gunfire “cannot yet be determined.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A women walks past a mural depicting slain journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and a helmet with 'PRESS' on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463376/original/file-20220516-14-m92a0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463376/original/file-20220516-14-m92a0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463376/original/file-20220516-14-m92a0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463376/original/file-20220516-14-m92a0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463376/original/file-20220516-14-m92a0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463376/original/file-20220516-14-m92a0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463376/original/file-20220516-14-m92a0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mural of slain Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PalestiniansIsraelJournalistKilled/80b0af70f3b34da798c415d95ce8c952/photo?Query=Shireen%20Abu%20Akleh&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=140&currentItemNo=14">AP Photo/Adel Hana</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The New York Times initially <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/world/middleeast/al-jazeera-journalist-killed-west-bank.html?searchResultPosition=7">reported that</a> Abu Akleh “was shot as clashes between the Israeli military and Palestinian gunmen took place in the city.” Further down in the same story, we read that Palestinian journalist Ali Samudi, who was wounded in the same attack, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/world/middleeast/al-jazeera-journalist-killed-west-bank.html?searchResultPosition=7">said</a>, “There were no armed Palestinians or resistance or even civilians in the area.” Yet this perspective is missing from the headline and opening paragraphs of the story. </p>
<p>A few days later, an <a href="https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2022/05/14/unravelling-the-killing-of-shireen-abu-akleh/">analysis of available video footage</a> by investigative journalism outlet Bellingcat concluded that the evidence “appears to support” eyewitnesses who said no militant activity was taking place and that the gunfire came from Israeli military snipers.</p>
<p>The New York Times has not updated or corrected its original story to reflect this new evidence.</p>
<p>It provides an example of why the use of “clash” has been widely <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/28/jerusalem-al-aqsa-media-coverage-israeli-violence-palestinians/">criticized by Palestinian and Arab journalists</a>. Indeed, the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalist Association in 2021 <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56f442fc5f43a6ecc531a9f5/t/60a7f4b94dcb02030b448fc2/1621619899348/Guidelines+for+Palestine+%3A+Israel+Coverage+-+AMEJA.pdf">issued guidance for journalists</a>, urging that they “avoid the word ‘clashes’ in favor of a more precise description.” </p>
<h2>An incomplete picture</h2>
<p>There is another problem with “clashes.” Limiting media attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict only when “clashes erupt” gives Western readers and viewers an incomplete picture. It ignores what B’Tselem describes as the “<a href="https://www.btselem.org/routine_founded_on_violence">daily routine of overt or implicit state violence</a>” that Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories face.</p>
<p>Without understanding the daily violence that Palestinians experience – as documented by groups such as <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">Human Rights Watch</a> and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/">Amnesty International</a> – it is harder for news consumers to fully comprehend why “clashes” take place in the first place.</p>
<p>But the way people get their news is changing, and with it so are Americans’ views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is especially true among younger Americans, who are <a href="https://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2019/how-younger-generations-consume-news-differently/">less likely</a> to receive their news from mainstream outlets. </p>
<p>Recent polls show that younger Americans generally <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/24/a-new-perspective-on-americans-views-of-israelis-and-palestinians/">sympathize with Palestinians</a> more than older Americans. That shift holds among <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.22.3.08#metadata_info_tab_contents">younger Jewish Americans</a> and <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/evangelical-youth-losing-love-for-israel-by-35-percent-study-shows-671178">younger evangelicals</a>, two communities that have traditionally expressed strong pro-Israel sentiments.</p>
<p>U.S. journalists themselves are also working to change how outlets cover Israeli violence. Last year several of them – including reporters from The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and ABC News – issued an <a href="https://medialetterpalestine.medium.com/an-open-letter-on-u-s-media-coverage-of-palestine-d51cad42022d">open letter</a> calling on fellow journalists “to tell the full, contextualized truth without fear or favor, to recognize that obfuscating Israel’s oppression of Palestinians fails this industry’s own objectivity standards.” So far, over 500 journalists have signed on.</p>
<p>Accurate language in the reporting of Israeli-Palestinian violence is not only a concern for journalists’ credibility – it would also provide U.S. news consumers with a deeper understanding of the conditions on the ground and the deadly consequences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183077/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maha Nassar is a 2022 Palestinian Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace.</span></em></p>In trying to present violent events in ‘neutral’ language, media reports may be ignoring power imbalances when it comes to Israeli police or military violence against Palestinian civilians.Maha Nassar, Associate Professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1631562021-07-06T15:54:04Z2021-07-06T15:54:04ZThe history of ‘Israel’ and ‘Palestine’: Alternative names, competing claims<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408541/original/file-20210627-15-3p6p6x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C32%2C5447%2C3604&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jewish ultranationalists wave Israeli flags next to the Damascus gate, outside Jerusalem's Old City.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On May 21, the airstrikes ended, the rockets stopped and the street fighting between Jewish and Arab Israelis abated as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Israel">Israel</a> and the militant Islamist group <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-13331522">Hamas</a> agreed to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-ceasefire.html">ceasefire</a>, ending the fourth war between them since 2008. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/15/world/middleeast/israel-palestinian-gaza-war.html">war and the actions</a> that culminated in it have been discussed extensively. Both sides have, as always, laid the blame for the latest hostilities at the feet of the other. </p>
<p>Sadly, this war and the lead up to it are just the latest entries in a long ledger written in blood and tears. </p>
<p>“Israel.” “Palestine.” One land, two names. Those on each side claim the land as theirs, under their chosen name. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman raises her hands as a heavily armoured police officer confronts her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408544/original/file-20210627-14-hzorii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Israeli police officer and a Palestinian woman scuffle during clashes that erupted ahead of a planned march by Jewish ultranationalists through east Jerusalem, outside Jerusalem’s Old City, on June 15.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Israel’</h2>
<p>“Israel” first appears near the end of the 13th century BC within the Egyptian <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Merneptah">Merneptah Stele</a>, referring apparently to a people (rather than a place) inhabiting what was then “Canaan.” A few centuries later in that region, we find two sister kingdoms: Israel and Judah (the origin of <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=jew">the term “Jew”</a>). According to the Bible, there had first been a monarchy comprising both, apparently also called “Israel.”</p>
<p>In about 722 BC, the kingdom of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Kgs+17.5-6&version=NRSV">Israel was conquered</a> by the Neo-Assyrian empire, centred in what’s now Iraq. As an ancient geographic term, “Israel” was no more. </p>
<h2>Judah alone</h2>
<p>Less than a century and half later, Judah was overthrown. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Kgs+25.8-10&version=NRSV">Its capital Jerusalem was sacked</a>, the Jewish Temple destroyed and many of Judah’s inhabitants were <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Babylonian-Captivity">exiled to Babylonia</a>.</p>
<p>Following the exile’s end a little under 50 years later, the territory of the former kingdom of Judah served as the heart of Judaism for almost seven centuries (although the rebuilt Temple was again destroyed in AD 70, by the Romans). </p>
<h2>‘Palestine’</h2>
<p>In AD 135, following a <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-bar-kokhba-revolt-132-135-ce">failed Jewish revolt</a>, Roman Emperor Hadrian expelled the Jews from Jerusalem and decreed that the city and surrounding territory be part of a larger entity called “Syria-Palestina.” “<a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/palestine">Palestina</a>” took its name from the coastal territory of the ancient <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Philistine-people">Philistines</a>, enemies of the Israelites (ancestors of the Jews). </p>
<p>Subsequent to the Islamic conquest of the Middle East in the seventh century, Arab peoples began to settle in the former “Palestina.” Apart from about 90 years of <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/crusades">Crusader</a> domination, the land fell under Muslim control for just under 1,200 years. Although Jewish habitation never ceased, the population was overwhelmingly Arab. </p>
<h2>Zionism and British control</h2>
<p>In the second half of the 19th century, the longstanding yearning of Jews in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Diaspora-Judaism">Diaspora</a> to return to the territory of their ancestors culminated in the nationalistic movement called <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/zionism">Zionism</a>.</p>
<p>The Zionist cause was driven by steeply rising <a href="https://theconversation.com/anti-semitism-is-on-the-rise-75-years-after-the-end-of-the-holocaust-and-second-world-war-132141">hatred toward Jews</a> in Europe and Russia. Immigrating Jews encountered a predominantly Arab populace, who also considered it their ancestral homeland. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in a chair holding a rock sits in the foreground with the Dome of the Rock Mosque in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408545/original/file-20210627-14-1yw3ixm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A masked Palestinian demonstrator holds a stone during clashes with Israeli security forces in front of the Dome of the Rock Mosque at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City on June 18.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At that time, the land comprised three administrative regions of the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/ottoman-empire">Ottoman empire</a>, none of which was called “<a href="https://www.dailysabah.com/feature/2018/05/18/400-years-of-peace-palestine-under-ottoman-rule">Palestine</a>.”</p>
<p>In 1917, the land came under British rule. In 1923, “<a href="https://time.com/3445003/mandatory-palestine/">Mandatory Palestine</a>,” which also included the current state of Jordan, was created. Its Arab inhabitants saw themselves primarily not as “Palestinians” in the sense of a nation, but instead as Arabs living in Palestine (or rather, “<a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/greater-syria">Greater Syria</a>”). </p>
<h2>The State of Israel</h2>
<p>Zionist leaders in Mandatory Palestine strove hard to increase Jewish numbers to solidify claims to statehood, but in 1939 the British <a href="https://ecf.org.il/issues/issue/955">strictly limited</a> Jewish immigration. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the Zionist project succeeded because of global horror in response to the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust">Holocaust</a>.</p>
<p>In November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed <a href="https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/7F0AF2BD897689B785256C330061D253">Resolution 181</a>, partitioning the land into “Independent Arab and Jewish States.” The resolution met immediate Arab rejection. Palestinian militias attacked Jewish settlements. </p>
<p>On May 14, 1948, the Zionist leadership declared the founding of the state of Israel.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man unrolls a scroll as David Ben-Gurion looks on." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408546/original/file-20210627-15-y3jzl3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this May 14, 1948 file photo, an official shows the signed document which proclaims the establishment of the new Jewish state of Israel declared by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in Tel Aviv, Israel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘The War of Independence’/Al-Nakba</h2>
<p>The new Jewish state was immediately invaded by the armies of several Arab countries, alongside Palestinian militants. By the time the fighting ended the next year, the Palestinians had lost almost four fifths of their United Nations allotment. Seven hundred thousand of them had been driven from their homes, with no right of return to the present day.</p>
<p>For Jewish Israelis, it’s known as the “<a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-israel-war-of-independence">War of Independence</a>.” For Palestinians, it was <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/5/23/the-nakba-did-not-start-or-end-in-1948"><em>al-Nakba</em></a> — “the Catastrophe.”</p>
<p>On Nov. 15, 1988, the Palestinian National Council issued a declaration of independence, <a href="https://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/146E6838D505833F852560D600471E25">recognized</a> a month later by the UN General Assembly. Approximately three-quarters of the UN’s membership now accepts the statehood of Palestine, which has <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-182149/">non-member observer status</a>.</p>
<h2>Diverging fortunes, constant hostilities</h2>
<p>Despite multiple wars with Arab states and militant groups, Israel has flourished. Palestinians have struggled to establish functional governance and economic stability. </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/six-day-war">Six-Day War</a> of June 1967, Israel repelled a true existential threat, routing a heavy Arab military force massed at its borders. Israel’s seizure of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza during the war has left Palestinians under various forms of painful Israeli occupation or control. </p>
<p>Throughout the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, many more Palestinians than Jewish Israelis have been killed and wounded, in part due to Israel’s advanced military capability but also to the well-documented <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/opinion/gaza-hamas-israel.html">Hamas strategy</a> of situating command centres within civilian areas.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman raises her fist in protest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408548/original/file-20210627-24-1fd85ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Palestinian woman participates in a rally commemorating the 20th anniversary of the second Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, in the West Bank city of Ramallah in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jewish Israelis have experienced two violent <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080066/israel-palestine-intifadas-first-second">Palestinian <em>Intifadas</em></a> (1987–1993; 2001–2005), the second of which saw a wave of deadly <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/irwin-cotler/israel-hamas-conflict_b_5663188.html">suicide bombings and ambushes</a>.</p>
<p>In response, Israel erected its <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2020/7/8/in-pictures-israels-illegal-separation-wall-still-divides">Security Barrier</a>, which has essentially eliminated Palestinian terrorist attacks but added further to the pain of Palestinian civilians.</p>
<p>Since the 1990s, there have been several failed attempts to negotiate a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/two-state-solution">two-state solution</a>.</p>
<p>Under Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/opinion/hamas-netanyahu-and-mother-nature.html">Jewish settlement</a> in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, viewed as illegal by much of the world, accelerated — making any future talks even more difficult.</p>
<h2>Second-class citizens</h2>
<p>About 20 per cent of Israel’s citizenry is Arab. Unfortunately, Arab Israelis are largely treated as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/opinion/israel-palestinian-citizens-racism-discrimination.html">second-class citizens</a> within the officially Jewish state. </p>
<p>The recent defeat of Netanyahu could help to address this — Israel now has a governing coalition that includes an <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/arab-israeli-raam-party-makes-history-by-joining-bennett-lapid-coalition/">Arab Israeli party</a>.</p>
<h2>Taking stock</h2>
<p>By more than 1,000 years, “Israel” predates “Palestine.” The land then became home primarily to an Arab population, again for more than a millennium. Both Jews and Arabs thus have a legitimate claim to the land. </p>
<p>The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has seen myriad wrongs and brutalities on both sides. No act of vengeance, however extreme, could now allow one party to say that accounts had been settled on their side. </p>
<p>The only way forward is, somehow, to cease looking backwards. </p>
<p>In an inversion of the Nile’s transformation in the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ex+7.20-22&version=NRSV">Bible</a>, the rivers of blood spilled must become water under the bridge.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163156/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This history of Israel and Palestine is complicated. One land, two names. Those on each side claim the land as theirs, under their chosen name.Daniel Miller, Assoc. Prof. of Religion, Society and Culture, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1607532021-05-13T12:34:29Z2021-05-13T12:34:29ZProtests by Palestinian citizens in Israel signal growing sense of a common struggle<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400403/original/file-20210512-21-1syx769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">GettyImages</span> </figcaption></figure><p>The world’s attention has turned again to deadly scenes of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/11/israel-launches-fresh-air-raids-on-besieged-gaza-strip-live-news">Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip</a> and the <a href="https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/cogat-announces-closure-of-gaza-border-crossing-over-rocket-fire-667730">launching of rockets by the militant group Hamas into Israel</a>. It follows two weeks of protests in East Jerusalem against <a href="https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-religion-2ba6f064df3964ceafb6e2ff02303d41">attempts to forcibly displace Palestinians</a> from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah and Israeli police raids on worshippers in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-al-aqsa-mosque-has-often-been-a-site-of-conflict-160671">al-Aqsa mosque</a> compound. </p>
<p>But in towns across Israel, another important – and underreported – development is taking place. And it could change how we talk about Palestinians and Israelis.</p>
<p>Since May 9, 2021, thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel, numbering some <a href="https://www.cbs.gov.il/en/mediarelease/Pages/2019/Population-of-Israel-on-the-Eve-of-2020.aspx">1.9 million people</a> and often referred to as “Arab Israelis,” have taken to the streets to express support for their fellow Palestinians in Gaza and Jerusalem. Protests are taking place in both mixed Arab-Jewish cities like Haifa, Jaffa and Lod, known as Lydda to Palestinians, as well as in predominantly Palestinian cities and towns like Nazareth and Umm al-Fahm.</p>
<p>The size and scope of the demonstrations have <a href="https://twitter.com/AnshelPfeffer/status/1391860885048680451">surprised</a> many political analysts who usually discuss these Palestinians as part of the Israeli social and political fabric, separate from Palestinians elsewhere. </p>
<p>But as <a href="https://menas.arizona.edu/people/maha-nassar">a historian of the Palestinian citizens of Israel</a>, I’m not surprised by this recent turn of events. Palestinian citizens of Israel have a long history of identifying with their fellow Palestinians, though rarely on this scale.</p>
<h2>Policy of isolation, integration</h2>
<p>As I argue <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=23697">in my book “Brothers Apart</a>,” following the establishment of Israel in 1948, state officials tried to cultivate a sense of loyalty among the minority of Palestinians who remained in their homeland. It was part of a larger Israeli effort to isolate them from the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44114385">vast majority of Palestinians who either fled or were expelled</a> from the newly established state. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black-and-white image shows two men pushing a wooden cart of belongings through a city street. An armed man follows them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400404/original/file-20210512-23-d7f6ha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400404/original/file-20210512-23-d7f6ha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400404/original/file-20210512-23-d7f6ha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400404/original/file-20210512-23-d7f6ha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400404/original/file-20210512-23-d7f6ha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400404/original/file-20210512-23-d7f6ha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400404/original/file-20210512-23-d7f6ha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Palestinian Arabs being expelled from their home in Haifa in 1948.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/three-members-of-haganah-the-jewish-agency-self-defence-news-photo/878485436?adppopup=true">AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These “Arab Israelis” were placed under <a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC12_scans/12.arabs.israel.1966.pdf">military rule until 1966</a> and were <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=21669">unable</a> to directly contact family members living in refugees camps. Most were granted Israeli <a href="https://www.academia.edu/41869961/Citizenship_as_Domination_Settler_Colonialism_and_the_Making_of_Palestinian_Citizenship_in_Israel">citizenship</a> in 1952, but they faced a host of <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=21669">discriminatory laws</a> that denied them access to their land, limited their economic opportunities and restricted their movements. While they could vote, form political parties and hold public office, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/63325">extensive government surveillance</a> – and <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=23697">punishment</a> of those who criticized the state – created a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316159927">pervasive climate of fear</a> among these Palestinian citizens of Israel.</p>
<p>Discrimination and economic disadvantage continue today. Palestinian towns and villages in Israel face <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/12/israel-discriminatory-land-policies-hem-palestinians">housing shortages</a> and economic <a href="http://doi.org/10.1057%2F9781137336453_9">underdevelopment</a>. Hiring practices that require job applicants to live in certain areas or to have served in the military – something <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/mena/palestinians-join-israeli-army-for-better-life-1.485303">very few Palestinian citizens</a> do – end up pushing Palestinians into precarious <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0038038595029003004">low-wage jobs</a>. </p>
<p>While direct housing discrimination was banned by the courts, Jewish communities often set up admissions committees that <a href="http://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743817000915">effectively limit</a> the number of Palestinian citizens living in majority Jewish towns.</p>
<p>This de facto segregation is also reflected in Israel’s <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233559498_Separate_and_unequal_The_role_of_the_state_educational_system_in_maintaining_the_subordination_of_Israel%27s_Palestinian_Arab_citizens">school system</a>. Students in Arab state schools <a href="http://taubcenter.org.il/wp-content/files_mf/theeducationsystemanoverview2019eng.pdf">receive less funding per capita</a> than those in majority Hebrew state schools.</p>
<p>In addition, Palestinian citizens are subjected to “<a href="https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/597">stop-and-frisk</a>” police policies. And professionals face everyday forms of racism from some <a href="http://doi.org/10.1080/00380253.2017.1296337">Jewish Israeli colleagues</a> who are surprised by their level of education.</p>
<p>Palestinian citizens of Israel have been protesting these conditions since the founding of the state, but within limits. In 1964, the Arab nationalist Ard group called for “a just solution for the Palestinian question … in accordance with the wishes of the Palestinian Arab people.” In response, the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293241109_Political_mobilization_of_palestinians_in_Israel_The_al-%27Ard_movement">Israeli government banned</a> the group and arrested its leaders on charges of endangering state security.</p>
<h2>Centering Palestinian identity</h2>
<p>Despite these restrictions, their expressions of Palestinian national identity have grown louder. </p>
<p>Following Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in 1967, Palestinian citizens of Israel and those under occupation met one another regularly, leading them to develop a <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=23697">sense of joint struggle</a>.</p>
<p>That joint struggle was on display in October 2000 when thousands of Palestinian citizens rallied in Palestinian towns and mixed cities across Israel in support of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising. Israeli security forces <a href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/8639">killed 12 unarmed protesting Palestinian citizens of Israel and arrested over 600</a>, undermining the idea that Palestinian citizens could achieve full equality in Israel. </p>
<p>Since then, Israel has launched several economic development and civil service initiatives aimed at integrating Palestinian citizens into the state. But these initiatives have <a href="https://www.inss.org.il/publication/integrating-arab-palestinian-minority-israeli-society-time-strategic-change/">not done much</a> to alleviate the discrimination that Palestinian citizens still face. Moreover, the <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/06/israel-palestine-united-states-extremism-netanyahu-lehava-jerusalem-violence-sheikh-jarrah/">right-wing shift</a> in Israeli politics has led to even more explicitly racist rhetoric from some quarters, including growing support for <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2016/03/11/how-israels-jewishness-is-overtaking-its-democracy/">expelling</a> Palestinian citizens from Israel altogether.</p>
<p>In response, more Palestinian citizens identify themselves as belonging to one people who are collectively resisting <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2014.947671">settler colonial rule</a>. A younger generation of grassroots organizers has taken the lead, as seen in the annual <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-nakba-identity-idUSKCN1SF20R">commemorations of the Nakba</a> – the loss of Palestine in 1948 – every May 15.</p>
<p>This centering of Palestinian identity was on display in March 2021 in the Palestinian town of Umm al-Fahm. <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/19/umm-al-fahm-protests-against-israeli-police-amid-surge-in-crime">Protests against seemingly local problems</a> – crime and gun violence – turned into an expression of Palestinian national identity as protesters waved Palestinian flags and <a href="https://twitter.com/Rawan_19jd/status/1368299050504687622">sang Palestinian songs</a>. </p>
<p>The latest protests around Sheikh Jarrah and incursions in the al-Aqsa compound likewise promote a common Palestinian cause. At a rally in the mixed city of Lydd, a few miles south of Tel Aviv, one Palestinian citizen protester scaled a lamppost and <a href="https://twitter.com/CarolDkas/status/1391854263098384386">replaced the Israeli flag</a> with a Palestinian one.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the funeral of Lydd protester Moussa Hassoun on May 11 drew <a href="https://twitter.com/yarahawari/status/1392182519282475008">8,000 mourners</a> as he was laid to rest wrapped in a Palestinian flag. Since then, protests have swelled even further, leading Israeli security officials to <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-declares-state-of-emergency-in-mixed-arab-israeli-town-after-clashes-erupt-1.9797299">impose a curfew</a> on the town and call in reinforcements.</p>
<h2>Fragmented no more?</h2>
<p>The current protests suggest that Israeli government attempts to isolate Palestinian citizens of Israel from Palestinians in the occupied territories and in exile and to integrate them into the Israeli state have failed. And any heavy-handed reaction to demonstrators could only serve to further alienate Palestinian citizens from the state of Israel.</p>
<p>Scenes of police violently <a href="https://twitter.com/JbareenYanal/status/1392144694365282307">breaking up</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/benabyad/status/1392135511293239297">peaceful protests</a>, Israeli security forces being <a href="https://twitter.com/theIMEU/status/1392491713051205639">deployed</a> into Palestinian neighborhoods inside the country, and armed Israeli Jewish vigilantes <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-armed-settlers-lod-mosque-attacked-night-curfew">attacking Palestinians in mixed cities</a> could also, I believe, further reinforce the image of Israel as a colonial power in the minds of not only its marginalized Palestinian minority, but also their international supporters as well.</p>
<p>What could result is a new type of Palestinian mobilization, one that belies the idea of a fragmented people and unites all Palestinian people in a joint struggle.</p>
<p>[<em>This week in religion, a global roundup each Thursday.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-global-roundup">Sign up.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160753/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maha Nassar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Attempts to integrate Palestinian citizens of Israel into the Israeli state have failed. What is emerging is growing solidarity with those living in occupied territories, argues a scholar of the region.Maha Nassar, Associate Professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1275602019-11-25T13:26:10Z2019-11-25T13:26:10ZIsrael’s West Bank settlements: 4 questions answered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302975/original/file-20191121-515-50xof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C8%2C5760%2C3819&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A new housing project in the West Bank settlement of Naale, part of the Israeli government's recent push to increase its presence in the disputed territory, Jan. 1, 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Israel-Settlement-Surge/5091fb9de097488482c8a40fdb4bf458/186/0">AP Photo/Ariel Schalit</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Nov. 18 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/18/world/middleeast/trump-israel-west-bank-settlements.html">said that Israel’s settlements in the West Bank do not violate international law</a>. That pleased Israeli Jews who see the territory as rightfully theirs and infuriated the Palestinians who live there and claim it as their land.</em></p>
<p><em>Here, a <a href="https://cssh.northeastern.edu/people/faculty/dov-waxman/">professor of Israel studies</a> and the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-9780190625337?cc=us&lang=en&">author of a new primer on the Israeli-Palestinian confict</a> explains the history of the West Bank settlements – and why they’re so controversial.</em> </p>
<h2>1. Why is ownership of the West Bank so contested?</h2>
<p>In May 1967, not a single Israeli lived in the West Bank, a hilly region
about the size of Delaware. It was home to roughly a million Palestinians, who had been living under contested Jordanian control for two decades. </p>
<p>Israel conquered the West Bank during the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39960461">Six-Day War</a> in June 1967. Soon afterwards, Israeli civilians began moving to the region, initially to areas like Kfar Etzion that had been home to Jewish communities before <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/world/480515israel-proclamation.html">Israel’s founding</a> in 1948.</p>
<p>In 1968, a rabbi named <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/world/middleeast/moshe-levinger-contentious-leader-of-jewish-settlers-in-hebron-dies-at-80.html">Moshe Levinger</a> and a small group of followers who embraced a messianic version of religious Zionism moved into the ancient city of Hebron, in the heartland of the West Bank. Hebron is a holy city for Jews because it is believed to be the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ashkenazic-jews-mysterious-origins-unravelled-by-scientists-thanks-to-ancient-dna-97962">burial place</a> of the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah. </p>
<p>The population of Israelis living in the West Bank has mushroomed over the years. An estimated <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/18210#.VpK885scTIU">430,000 Israeli Jews</a> now live in 132 officially recognized “settlements” and in 121 unofficial “outposts” that require, but haven’t yet received, government approval. Constituting about 15% of the West Bank’s total population, these “settlers” live in their own communities, separate from the area’s approximately 3 million Palestinian residents. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302972/original/file-20191121-515-19oh6tv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5742%2C3828&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302972/original/file-20191121-515-19oh6tv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302972/original/file-20191121-515-19oh6tv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302972/original/file-20191121-515-19oh6tv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302972/original/file-20191121-515-19oh6tv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302972/original/file-20191121-515-19oh6tv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302972/original/file-20191121-515-19oh6tv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The West Bank city of Hebron was one of the first places Israeli settlers moved after Israel won the West Bank from Lebanon in the 1967 war.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Israel-Settlement-Superdonor/bb08a81119824f8ba1c798697e58d254/176/0">AP Photo/Ariel Schalit</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Why do Palestinians object to the Israeli settler movement?</h2>
<p>Though they are neighbors and sometimes co-workers, relations between Jews and Palestinians on the West Bank are <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-9780190625337?cc=us&lang=en&">seldom friendly</a>. West Bank Palestinians, who are majority Muslim, see themselves as the area’s indigenous inhabitants; many of their ancestors have <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/history/">lived and farmed in the West Bank for many centuries</a>.</p>
<p>Palestinians contend that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are built on stolen land and that the settlers’ use of water – a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15275920600840628">scarce resource</a> – is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/israel-palestinians-un/un-rights-expert-israel-depriving-palestinians-of-clean-water-idUSL8N2151O7">likewise illegal</a>. </p>
<p>Palestinians frequently experience harassment from extremist Israeli settlers, sometimes as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/world/former-israeli-soldiers-tell-of-harassment-of-palestinians.html">Israeli soldiers look on</a>. There are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/30/palestinians-rise-attacks-israeli-settlers">hundreds of reports</a> of extremist settlers, many of them armed, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/west-bank-settlers-escalate-attacks-on-arab-olive-harvesters-in-annual-violence/2019/11/11/d883ca08-ff3b-11e9-8341-cc3dce52e7de_story.html">violently attacking Palestinians</a>, burning their fields and uprooting their olive trees. </p>
<p>Additionally, Israel has appropriated West Bank land to build a network of roads connecting settlements to Israel and to each other. These <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/amet.12114">roads are generally off-limits</a> to Palestinian drivers, hampering their freedom of movement and making travel within the West Bank more difficult and time-consuming. </p>
<p>The Israeli army security checkpoints that dot the West Bank, which are meant to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26298536?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">protect Israelis from terror attacks</a>, also restrict and complicate the ability of Palestinian people to move around. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302976/original/file-20191121-515-1tgabfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302976/original/file-20191121-515-1tgabfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302976/original/file-20191121-515-1tgabfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302976/original/file-20191121-515-1tgabfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302976/original/file-20191121-515-1tgabfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302976/original/file-20191121-515-1tgabfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302976/original/file-20191121-515-1tgabfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302976/original/file-20191121-515-1tgabfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Palestinians on their way to Friday prayers during Ramadan pass an Israeli checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem, June 8, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Palestinians-Ramadan/3836b922259b4e25bd412171fc634ea7/4/0">AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3) Why do Israelis want to live in the West Bank?</h2>
<p>Israelis choose to live in the West Bank for <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-israelis-see-the-settlements-1486137717">many reasons</a>. </p>
<p>The popular stereotype of Jewish settlers as religious fanatics determined to reclaim the entire ancient homeland they believe was given to Jews by God is not quite accurate. It’s <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/facts-about-jewish-settlements-in-the-west-bank">estimated</a> that only about a quarter of West Bank settlers live there out of ideological conviction. </p>
<p>Still, these fervent settlers are a vocal and highly visible minority. They generally live in smaller settlements, located deep inside the West Bank. </p>
<p>They see their presence as a means of ensuring permanent Jewish control over the area, which they call by the biblical names “<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/friedman-seeking-to-call-west-bank-judea-and-samaria-in-official-statements/">Judea and Samaria</a>.” These settlers believe that by living in the West Bank they are serving God’s will and helping to bring about the long-awaited coming of the Messiah.</p>
<p>Most Jewish settlers in the West Bank, however, live there for economic reasons.
Israeli government investment and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israeli-govt-offers-incentives-to-settlers/">incentives</a> aimed at encouraging Jews to settle there make the cost of living lower than inside Israel.</p>
<p>Many Jews in the West Bank are secular, particularly those who emigrated from the former Soviet Union since the early 1990s. </p>
<p>Others, <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7835002">like the growing number of ultra-Orthodox Jews living in the West Bank</a>, may believe that God gave the West Bank to Israel – but they move there primarily because they can find affordable housing and a better quality of life. </p>
<h2>4) Are Israel’s West Bank settlements legal or not?</h2>
<p>Most legal experts and <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/11/1051711">the United Nations</a> agree that Israeli settlements in the West Bank <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/11/1051781">violate international law</a>. </p>
<p>The 1949 <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/treaties-customary-law/geneva-conventions">Geneva Convention</a>, which Israel signed, prohibits an occupying state from moving its own civilians into the territory it occupies. <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2004/icj616.doc.htm">According to the International Court of Justice</a>, the UN’s main judicial body, the West Bank is considered occupied territory because it was not part of Israel before the Israeli army conquered it in 1967. Territorial conquest is also <a href="https://casebook.icrc.org/glossary/annexation-prohibition">forbidden by international law</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Israel-defends-right-to-West-Bank-settlements-at-UNSC-watch-live-588178">Israeli government says</a> that the Geneva Convention is not applicable to the West Bank because it only refers to a state occupying another state’s land. Israel considers the West Bank “disputed territory,” not occupied territory.</p>
<p>Further, Israel’s government has argued, even if the Geneva Convention did apply, it would only prohibit forcible population transfers, like the mass deportations carried out by Nazi Germany – not the voluntarily movement of people into occupied territories.</p>
<p>The Trump administration’s new position that Israeli settlements are not illegal boosts Israel’s claims about the West Bank. But it’s unlikely to legitimize Israeli settlements in the eyes of the international community.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/israel-suspends-formal-annexation-of-the-west-bank-but-its-controversial-settlements-continue-144469">latest version is available here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127560/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dov Waxman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The US delighted Israel and outraged Palestinians by announcing it sees nothing illegal with Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Here, a brief history of this hotly disputed land.Dov Waxman, Director of the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies and The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Chair in Israel Studies, University of California, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1141012019-03-22T16:33:36Z2019-03-22T16:33:36ZDonald Trump: Golan Heights bombshell reverses 40 years of US policy and throws Middle East into turmoil<p>With one tweet of 35 words, Donald Trump has changed almost 40 years of US policy towards Israel and Syria:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1108772952814899200"}"></div></p>
<p>As with other Trump impulses, such as his sudden order in December to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/16/world/middleeast/syria-us-troops-timeline.html">withdraw all US troops from Syria</a>, no administration official appeared to have been consulted. Hours earlier, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said from Jerusalem that there was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/us/politics/golan-heights-trump.html">no change in the US position</a> declining to recognise Israel’s 1981 annexation of the Heights. His appearance alongside Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was delayed for almost an hour for Pompeo to assessed the suddenly altered situation.</p>
<p>Of course, White House officials scrambled to gloss the announcement. One insisted that Trump had spoken with national security advisor John Bolton, son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner, and Jason Greenblatt, the special representative for Middle East negotiations. In a curiously defensive assertion, <a href="https://www.abc-7.com/story/40174054/trump-says-its-time-for-us-to-recognize-israels-sovereignty-over-the-golan-heights">the official said</a>: “There’s no obvious constituency not to do this.”</p>
<p>Others wheeled out Trump’s vague references to “security” and “stability”. Pompeo recovered to say the declaration was “historic” and “bold”.</p>
<p>But make no mistake. Trump’s priority had nothing to do with a Middle East strategy. His impulse was fed by three desires: the re-election of Netanyahu on April 9, his own 2020 campaign and the need to constantly stroke his own ego.</p>
<p>Israel <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14724842">seized the Golan Heights</a> in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Fourteen years later, just before its entry into Lebanon’s civil war, the government of Menachem Begin consolidated its hold with the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1981/12/15/israel-in-sudden-move-annexes-golan-heights/f162498c-8180-4502-b270-023cf9473589/">declaration of sovereignty</a>.</p>
<p>Few in the international community accepted the declaration. The Reagan administration, despite its pro-Israel rhetoric, suspended a strategic cooperation agreement with Tel Aviv. The US joined every member of the UN Security Council in <a href="http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/497">Resolution 497</a>, calling the annexation “null and void and without international legal effect”.</p>
<p>The Heights remained in a de facto division, with a UN observer force seeking to prevent any clashes. The Assad regime’s response to the 2011 Syrian uprising, killing 100,000 and displacing more than 11m, threatened to spill over into the area as the UN force withdrew. But the Israeli military presence deterred any regime action, and Netanyahu <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/israel-russia-team-up-to-keep-iran-out-of-syria-border-region/a-43979590">secured an agreement</a> with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in September 2015 to keep Iran and Hezbollah out of the area.</p>
<h2>Friends in need</h2>
<p>But Trump’s immediate concern is not with that interplay of Syria, Israel and external actors. As with his order to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, his focus is on a side-by-side declaration linking his fortunes and those of Netanyahu. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/28/middleeast/israel-benjamin-netanyahu-indictment-intl/index.html">formal indictments</a> of the Israeli prime minister for fraud, bribery, and breach of trust await a hearing. He may face a criminal graft investigation over the state purchase of naval vessels and submarines from German shipbuilder ThyssenKrupp, in one of the biggest cases in Israeli history. Polls have him <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Post-poll-shows-race-is-close-584237">neck-and-neck</a> with the Blue and White Party of former general Benny Gantz and former finance minister Yair Lapid.</p>
<p>But on Thursday, Netanyahu could be exultant: “President Trump has just made history. He did it again.”</p>
<p>Trump will hope that exaltation boosts his own re-election prospects in a year’s time. His approval ratings are doggedly <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/">sticking at just over 40%</a>. They haven’t collapsed despite multiple criminal investigations, the furor over anti-immigration policies and the government shutdown — but neither have they risen amid an economy fuelled by December 2017 tax cuts.</p>
<p>Thus an appeal to a domestic constituency which traditionally votes Democratic — with few exceptions over the past century, <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-voting-record-in-u-s-presidential-elections">Jewish voters</a> have given more than 70% support to the Democrat candidate, including 71% for Hillary Clinton in 2016. </p>
<p>Trump’s calculation may be misguided. The Jewish vote is largely propelled by social issues at home, rather than Israel abroad: only 9% cited the latter as the primary cause for their vote in the last presidential election. But an “Israel first” stance could also resonate with non-Jews in America – and pro-Trump Jewish donors and lobbies could be significant in the contest for the US electorate next year.</p>
<p>Then there’s the far from insignificant factor of Trump’s ego. As is often the case with his orders and proclamations, he used the announcement to try to portray his unique place in US history. Throwing in the falsehood that all of his predecessors – as opposed to none – had pushed for recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/us/politics/golan-heights-trump.html">he said</a>: “Every president has said ‘do that’. I’m the one that gets it done.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1109080612273557504"}"></div></p>
<h2>Recipe for danger</h2>
<p>Despite the immediate headlines, Trump’s tweet has little significance for the Heights. The international community, including the UN, is not going to shift its position on their status. And, while Netanyahu may be boosted, the Israeli presence will continue to depend on the strength of arms, the expansion of settlements and the acceptance of actors such as Russia.</p>
<p>But that does not mean the declaration is without effect. Trump’s “stability” is likely to make a further contribution to regional instability.</p>
<p>The Assad regime will seize upon the opportunity to cover up its repression and hold on power. The Syrian foreign ministry’s pledge to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/trumps-golan-tweet-inflames-regional-tensions-as-syria-vows-to-recover-the-occupied-land/2019/03/22/ee13134e-4c1a-11e9-8cfc-2c5d0999c21e_story.html?utm_term=.56982d8b906c">regain the Heights</a> is bluff, as the regime’s military can’t even secure its president without the lead of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. But Bashar al-Assad and his inner circle will play the victim over the Heights for their narrative that the US and Israel are the supporters of “terrorism” and aggression.</p>
<p>Trump’s message also casts a dark shadow over the still to be presented Israel-Palestine “peace plan” of his <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Kushners-peace-plan-includes-land-swaps-with-Saudi-Arabia-book-claims-583932">son-in-law Jared Kushner</a>. Some will rightly note that the plan, if it exists, is already a zombie proposal. However, the Golan Heights declaration on top of the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-israel-diplomacy-jerusalem-explai/why-is-the-u-s-moving-its-embassy-to-jerusalem-idUSKBN1I811N">relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem</a> confirms a Trump administration that has reduced its real objective to pleasing one Israeli – the one sitting in the prime minister’s chair.</p>
<p>And if one wants to take Trump’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37483869">“bigly”</a> view of his influence, one can look beyond the Middle East. Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/us/politics/golan-heights-trump.html">noted that</a>: “[President Vladimir] Putin will use this as a pretext to justify Russia’s annexation of Crimea.”</p>
<p>That, of course, may not cause Trump – who “gets it done” – the loss of a moment’s sleep, even as some of his advisors and almost everyone across the Middle East are worried sick.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114101/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Lucas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The US president’s tweet declaring the US would recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian territory was unexpected and will do nothing for regional stability.Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1102922019-02-05T03:35:28Z2019-02-05T03:35:28ZThe Syrian war is not over, it’s just on a new trajectory: here’s what you need to know<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257144/original/file-20190205-86224-ksozds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Russia, Turkey, Iran and Israel will keep vying for power in Syria long after the US is gone.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>December 2018 marked a significant shift in the Syrian conflict. The end-of-year events put the country on a new trajectory, one in which President Bashar al-Assad looks towards consolidating his power and Islamic State (IS) sees a chance to perpetuate its existence.</p>
<h2>Turkey’s role</h2>
<p>Kick-starting the development was Turkish <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/world/middleeast/turkey-threatens-new-incursion-into-syria.html">President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s announcement</a> he would start a military operation east of the Euphrates River – an area controlled by the US supported and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257127/original/file-20190204-86217-m72tb1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257127/original/file-20190204-86217-m72tb1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257127/original/file-20190204-86217-m72tb1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=644&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257127/original/file-20190204-86217-m72tb1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=644&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257127/original/file-20190204-86217-m72tb1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=644&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257127/original/file-20190204-86217-m72tb1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257127/original/file-20190204-86217-m72tb1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257127/original/file-20190204-86217-m72tb1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The US and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces control the area to the east of the Euphrates River.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sy-map.png">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Throughout the eight-year conflict, Assad and his main backer, Russia, have not militarily engaged with the Kurds. Assad and Russia didn’t see the Kurds as terrorists or insurgents, but as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-kurds-analysis/syrias-kurds-reel-from-us-move-assad-seen-planning-next-step-idUSKCN1OJ2IP">protectors of their territory</a> against IS and other jihadist forces.</p>
<p>But Turkey sees the Kurdish zone as an existential threat. Turkey has legitimate fears: if the Kurdish region in Syria becomes independent, it can unite with the Kurdish region in northern Iraq and eventually claim the largely Kurdish southeast of Turkey.</p>
<p>Turkey’s intended military operation east of the Euphrates is yet to eventuate. But the announcement was a bold move, made more real by the large military build-up on the Turkish-Syrian border. It put pressure on the US administration and US President Donald Trump to make a call on Syria: either stand firm against Turkey and further stretch already tense relations, or pull out of Syria to abrogate responsibility.</p>
<p>Trump chose the second option. He swiftly declared the US would <a href="https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/on-syria-and-patriots-trump-gives-turkey-double-edged-gift#gs.nxUG3KxB">pull out from Syria altogether</a> – and sell Patriot surface-to-air missiles to Turkey to prevent its attempt to purchase the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/19/us-clears-3point5-billion-sale-of-patriot-missiles-to-turkey.html">Russian S-400</a> missile defence system. </p>
<p>The removal of US troops came with a Trump-style announcement on Twitter: “After historic victories against ISIS, it’s time to bring our great young people home!” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1075528854402256896"}"></div></p>
<h2>US policy</h2>
<p>Since April 2018, Trump had made clear his <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/03/trump-wants-to-get-out-of-syria-but-military-advisors-say-isis-isnt-defeated-yet.html">desire to leave Syria</a>. Ten days after declaring his intention, an episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/further-strikes-on-syria-unlikely-but-trump-is-always-the-wild-card-94814">chemical attacks</a> forced Trump’s hand into staying in Syria and retaliating. This time, though, either the pressure from Turkey worked or Trump saw it as a perfect time to execute his intent to leave. </p>
<p>Under the Obama administration, <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2018/09/us-policy-toward-syria-part-i">US foreign policy</a> with regards to Syria was to remain there until IS was destroyed completely, Iran and its associated entities removed and a political solution achieved in line with the UN-led <a href="https://www.unog.ch/Syria">Geneva peace talks</a>. Trump claimed the first goal was complete and saw it as sufficient grounds to pull out.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/further-strikes-on-syria-unlikely-but-trump-is-always-the-wild-card-94814">Further strikes on Syria unlikely – but Trump is always the wild card</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Then, on December 21 2018, Trump announced Defence Secretary <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-21/jim-mattis-us-defence-secretary-to-retire-donald-trump-says/10645642">James Mattis would retire</a> at the end of February 2019. The Washington Post reported Mattis vehemently objected to, and clashed with Trump over, the Syrian withdrawal. In his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/20/jim-mattis-defense-secretary-retires-trump">resignation letter</a>, Mattis wrote: “you have the right to have a Secretary of Defence whose views are better aligned with yours”.</p>
<p>Differences have marked US policy on Syria since the beginning of the conflict in 2011. Trump further added to the confusion, and his erratic decision-making also demonstrates his frustration with his own administration.</p>
<h2>Russia’s game</h2>
<p>The global fear, of course, is that the US withdrawal will leave Russia as the region’s military and political kingpin, with Iran and Turkey as its partners.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stakes-are-high-as-turkey-russia-and-the-us-tussle-over-the-future-of-syria-90454">Stakes are high as Turkey, Russia and the US tussle over the future of Syria</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has publicly stated that <a href="http://tass.com/politics/1037162">Russia respects</a> Turkey’s national interests in Syria. He added Turkey was willing to compromise and work together to improve the situation and fight against terrorism. Turkey appears to have accepted Russian objectives in Syria in return for Russia’s green light to do what Turkey deems best for its national interests in the Kurdish region.</p>
<p>One Russian objective is to ensure Assad remains Syria’s president. Russia may allow Turkey to host limited operations in the Kurdish region, not only to hold a compromise with Turkey, but also to eventually pressure Kurdish forces into cooperating with Russia and accepting the Assad regime. </p>
<p>Russia is playing out a careful strategy – pleasing Turkey, but not at the expense of Assad’s sovereignty in Syria. Erdogan was a staunch adversary of Assad in the early years of the conflict. Russia counts on Erdogan’s recognition of Assad to influence other Sunni majority states to cross over to the Russian-Assad camp.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257140/original/file-20190205-86224-m0ycjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257140/original/file-20190205-86224-m0ycjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257140/original/file-20190205-86224-m0ycjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257140/original/file-20190205-86224-m0ycjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257140/original/file-20190205-86224-m0ycjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257140/original/file-20190205-86224-m0ycjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257140/original/file-20190205-86224-m0ycjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257140/original/file-20190205-86224-m0ycjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Russia’s strategy is to please Turkey, but only to the extent that it doesn’t threaten Assad’s hold on power in Syria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Turkish <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/turkey-consider-working-syrias-assad-won-democratic-election-114934836.html">foreign minister</a> has said Turkey may consider working with Assad if Syria holds democratic elections. Of course, Assad will only agree to elections if he is assured of a win. </p>
<p>The United Arab Emirates announced a reopening of its embassy in Damascus, which was followed by Bahrain stating it had never cut its <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-bahrain/bahrain-says-no-interruption-to-diplomatic-ties-with-syria-idUSKCN1OR0FI">diplomatic ties</a> with the Syrian administration. Although <a href="https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/saudi-arabia-denies-re-opening-damascus-embassy-1.61447182">Saudi Arabia denied</a> it, there are media reports that the Saudi foreign ministry is establishing diplomatic ties with the Syrian administration. </p>
<p>These are indications the main players in the region are preparing to recognise and work with the Assad government.</p>
<p>An important step in Turkey’s recognition of Assad came in a meeting on January 23 between Putin and Erdogan. Putin reminded Erdogan of the <a href="http://www.arabnews.com/node/1441931">1998 Adana Pact</a> between Turkey and Syria. The pact began a period of previously unprecedented bilateral links between Turkey and Syria until 2011, when the current conflict flared.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.qantara.de/content/syria-says-turkey-must-pull-troops-to-revive-security-pact">Erdogan acknowledged</a> the 1998 pact was still in operation, meaning Turkey and the Assad administration could work together against terrorism.</p>
<p>Trump may also see no problem with the eventuality. There was no mention of Assad when he claimed victory in Syria, indicating he does not care whether Assad remains in power or not.</p>
<h2>Islamic State</h2>
<p>The overarching concern is that the US pulling out of Syria would bring back IS. The group has lost large territories and the major cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria. The last town under IS control, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/hajin-one-of-the-last-towns-held-by-is-militants-falls-in-syria/a-46737216">Hajin</a>, fell to coalition forces in December 2018. Despite <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-45547595">these wins</a>, it’s too soon to claim the end for IS.</p>
<p>Trump has a solution to this too: outsourcing. In a Tweet on December 24, he announced Turkish President Erdogan will “eradicate whatever is left of ISIS in Syria”. This is highly unlikely as Turkey’s main concern is the Kurdish region in northern Syria where IS is not likely to pose any threat.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1077064829825966081"}"></div></p>
<p>Given Russia and Assad will be the main forces in Syria, their policies will determine the future of IS. </p>
<p>Assad would not want IS to jeopardise his own government. At the same time, Assad’s claim for legitimacy throughout the civil war was his fight against terrorism, embodied by IS. If IS were to exist in some shape and form, it would benefit Assad in the crucial years of consolidating his power. This may lead to Assad appearing to crack down on IS while not entirely eradicating them.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/james-mattis-what-defence-secretarys-resignation-means-for-syria-afghanistan-and-nato-as-trump-leans-in-to-putin-109204">James Mattis: what defence secretary's resignation means for Syria, Afghanistan and NATO, as Trump leans in to Putin</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>IS will also try hard to survive. It still has a large number of seasoned commanders and fighters who can unleash <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/trump-syria-isis-military-withdrawal-turkey-sdf-russia-iran-resurgence-a8693426.html">guerrilla warfare</a>. IS also has operatives peppered throughout Syria to launch suicide bombing attacks in Syrian cities, similar to what they have been doing in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/15/suicide-attack-baghdad">Iraq</a>.</p>
<p>Israel, meanwhile, has been quietly hitting Iranian targets in Syria since <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/10/israel-fires-barrage-missiles-syria-accusing-iranian-forces/">May 2018</a>. Israeli air strikes intensified in January 2019 and occurred in broad daylight. In <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-21/israel-launches-air-strikes-against-iranian-forces-in-syria/10731786">acknowledging the strikes</a>, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s “permanent policy” was to strike at the Iranian entrenchment in Syria. </p>
<p>We could see more altercations between Israel and Iran in 2019, now that the US has abandoned the objective of countering Iran’s presence in Syria.</p>
<p>The Syrian conflict is not over. It’s just on a new trajectory. The US withdrawal is sure to leave a power vacuum, which will quickly be filled by other regional powers like Turkey, Iran and Israel under the watchful eye of Russia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110292/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mehmet Ozalp is affiliated with Islamic Sciences and Research Academy of Australia.</span></em></p>Now that the US has pulled out Syria, is the war actually over?Mehmet Ozalp, Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1064082018-11-12T10:56:13Z2018-11-12T10:56:13ZPalestine and Britain: forgotten legacy of World War I that devastated the Middle East<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244547/original/file-20181108-74766-1daohpk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rare photograph of the formal transfer of Jerusalem to British rule. </span> </figcaption></figure><p>For those of us of an age to have known only peace in Western Europe,
the centenary of the end of World War I is a an opportunity to learn something of the extreme consequences of the failure to solve political differences peacefully. And when the world marked the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/armistice-61797">100th anniversary of the Armistice</a>, millions fell silent to remember the pain and sacrifice of that conflict.</p>
<p>But another anniversary that fell this year – that of the end of the British Mandate for Palestine in 1948, a seminal moment in a conflict that continues to this day – has been largely ignored. It should not be. Britain’s role was pivotal – and, if it is forgotten in the UK, it is remembered in Middle East. </p>
<p>For one of the consequences of the end of World War I was the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The December before the Armistice in November 1918, troops under the command of <a href="https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/edmund-allenby">General Sir Edmund Allenby</a> (nicknamed “The Bull”) captured Jerusalem. After the end of the war, The League of Nations “mandated” (<a href="https://ecf.org.il/issues/issue/232">handed over</a>) what was then Palestine to British rule. That rule lasted until 1948. Then the British withdrew. The region’s Jewish and Arab populations were <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/arab-israeli-war">left to to fight it out</a>. The Jewish forces prevailed and, in May 1948, the <a href="https://ecf.org.il/issues/issue/231">State of Israel was declared</a>. </p>
<p>The conflict is remembered by Israelis as the War of Independence; by the Palestinians as “<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/nakba-day-in-palestine-past-catastrophe-future-conflict-26723">al-nakba</a></em>” (the catastrophe). In Britain – whose retreat after a period during which “the purpose of the mandate was never entirely clear to most of those serving in Palestine”, as Naomi Shepherd put it in her <a href="http://www.palestine-studies.org/jps/fulltext/41024">1999 book</a> Ploughing Sand: British Rule in Palestine – it is barely remembered at all.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nakba-day-in-palestine-past-catastrophe-future-conflict-26723">Nakba day in Palestine – past catastrophe, future conflict?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In a sense, this is all the more surprising because of the scale of British involvement. The numbers are staggering today. The National Army museum website gives a figure of <a href="https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/conflict-Palestine">100,000 British troops in Palestine in 1947</a> – compared to a total of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39968776">78,000 fully trained troops</a> in the entire British Army in 2017.</p>
<p>In another sense, it is not. The task faced by the mandate authorities was not easy. They left the region riven by conflict which continues to this day. Seeking international Jewish support during World War I, Britain had – in the words of the <a href="https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2009/SOC763/um/7373230/lecture_1/_6-19__1a-Hobsbawm.pdf?lang=cs">late historian Eric Hobsbawm</a> – “incautiously and ambiguously promised to establish a ‘national home for the Jews’ in Palestine”. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-century-on-the-balfour-declaration-still-shapes-palestinians-everyday-lives-86662">Balfour Declaration</a> – as that pledge was known – was made in 1917. Its centenary in 2017 was barely noticeable compared to the attention the Armistice has generated. Like the end of the mandate, the Balfour Declaration is an anniversary Britain has mostly preferred to forget. The same cannot be said in the land that was Mandate Palestine.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-century-on-the-balfour-declaration-still-shapes-palestinians-everyday-lives-86662">A century on, the Balfour Declaration still shapes Palestinians' everyday lives</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>No brass bands</h2>
<p>As a correspondent newly arrived in Gaza to take up a posting during the second Palestinian <em><a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/01/24/what-is-an-intifada">intifada</a></em>, or the uprising against Israel, I was soon welcomed by an elderly resident of a refugee camp – and then chastised by the same gentleman for the Balfour Declaration. The year was 2002, but he traced his wretched fate – his breeze-block house had just been demolished by the Israeli Army – to that document from 1917. </p>
<p>In his memoir, <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ever-the-diplomat-confessions-of-a-foreign-office-mandarin-by-sherard-cowper-coles-xl78q62fpd6">Ever the Diplomat</a>, the former British ambassador to Israel, Sherard Cowper-Coles, recalled an encounter he witnessed between the then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and the British Middle East envoy, Lord Levy. An increasingly undiplomatic exchange ended when Sharon’s “massive fist came thumping down on the desk”, as he shouted: “The British Mandate is over.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244806/original/file-20181109-39548-1ixzumq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244806/original/file-20181109-39548-1ixzumq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244806/original/file-20181109-39548-1ixzumq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244806/original/file-20181109-39548-1ixzumq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244806/original/file-20181109-39548-1ixzumq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244806/original/file-20181109-39548-1ixzumq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244806/original/file-20181109-39548-1ixzumq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">British leaving Haifa in 1948.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">תא</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is hard to imagine now, but when the mandate did end in 1948, it was a huge story in the British press. Research for <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137395122">my book</a>, Headlines from the Holy Land: Reporting the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, led me to archived newspaper articles where the first draft of the history of that era was written. The morning that British rule ended, May 14 1948, the Daily Mirror did its best to rouse patriotic pride:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When British rule began, says the Colonial Office, Palestine was primitive and underdeveloped. The population of 750,000 were disease-ridden and poor. But new methods of farming were introduced, medical services provided, roads and railways built, water supplies improved, malaria wiped out.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The next day’s Daily Mail painted the stirring picture of the “weather-beaten, sun-dried Union Jack” which had flown over British Headquarters in Jerusalem being brought back to “the airways terminal building at Victoria” in central London. </p>
<p>Where the story has found its way into contemporary newspapers it has had a fraction of the attention granted to the end of World War I in Europe – a lack of public commemoration which suggests a combination of ignorance and shame. </p>
<p>“There were no brass bands playing when they came back. They were treated as if they’d been involved in something dirty”, the organiser of the Palestine Veterans Association told the <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/last-post-for-veterans-of-palestine-revolt-30hdkl3hq">Sunday Times</a> recently. </p>
<p>Ignoring anniversaries such as these – especially at a time when the <a href="https://theconversation.com/wearing-the-poppy-has-always-been-a-political-act-heres-why-106489">poppy appeal</a> is given ever greater public prominence – amounts to selective commemoration, which acts against learning from military and diplomatic mistakes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Rodgers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The British Mandate in Palestine had its origins in the end of World War I and lasted until 1948. What happened next has devastated the Middle East ever since.James Rodgers, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1031472018-09-19T22:40:39Z2018-09-19T22:40:39ZTrump is just the latest U.S. president to push Palestine around<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237160/original/file-20180919-158234-ahn4wl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this September 1993 photo, U.S. President Bill Clinton presides over White House ceremonies marking the signing of the peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, left, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, right, in Washington. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2005/3/31/john_bolton_in_his_own_words">is at it again</a>. He recently issued a blistering rebuke of the International Criminal Court (ICC): “<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?451213-1/national-security-adviser-john-bolton-addresses-federalist-society">We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us</a>.”</p>
<p>Is this another example of U.S. President Donald Trump withdrawing the United States from the international community? Is it yet another harbinger of the end of the post-1945 “rules-based international order?”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NWB6IUE0hJU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">John Bolton strongly criticizes the International Criminal Court in this clip on the Guardian website.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>No. That’s because “rules-based international order” was never what it appeared to be anyway. Rather than a benign de facto agreement on problem-solving through discussion rather than armed conflict, it represents an exclusive club that ensures the perpetual dominance of some societies over others. </p>
<p>Just ask the Palestinians.</p>
<p>One of the reasons behind Bolton’s tirade is that the U.S. administration wants to prevent the ICC from following through on Palestinian requests to investigate the legality of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>Indeed, the Trump administration has proven over the last few months that it is more than willing to go out of its way to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/palestine-unrwa-israel-refugees-united-nations-trump-administration-a8518651.html">punish the Palestinians</a> for daring to challenge Israeli domination, even when that “challenge” has taken the meekest of forms.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gazas-fire-kites-and-balloon-bombs-ignite-tensions-99341">Gaza’s fire kites and balloon bombs ignite tensions</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>According to David Rothkopf, a prominent commentator: “<a href="https://soundcloud.com/deepstateradio/is-that-thing-under-john-boltons-nose-a-bugbear">It’s as if the U.S. State Department has handed over its entire Middle East policy to the Prime Minister of Israel.</a>” </p>
<p>Bolton, as if to prove this point, said in his speech:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The United States will always stand with our friend and ally, Israel. And today, reflecting congressional concerns with Palestinian attempts to prompt an ICC investigation of Israel, the State Department will announce the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization office here in Washington, D.C.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Not surprising</h2>
<p>At the risk of employing what has become a cliché during the Trump presidency: This is shocking, yes, but not really surprising. </p>
<p>Trump is apparently seeking to destroy the apparently civilized way in which international politics has been conducted since the end of the Second World War — the so-called rules-based international order.</p>
<p>As Kori Schake explained in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/opinion/sunday/trump-china-america-first.html"><em>New York Times</em></a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Beginning in the wreckage of World War II, America established a set of global norms that solidified its position atop a rules-based international system … building institutions and patterns of behaviour that legitimize American power by giving less powerful countries a say.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trump, so this argument goes, either can’t accept or doesn’t understand this, and is gleefully engaged in the process of wrecking it from the inside. </p>
<p>“This aggressive disregard for the interests of like-minded countries, indifference to democracy and human rights and cultivation of dictators is the new world Mr. Trump is creating,” Schake explains. </p>
<p>However, the notion of a broad and benign American-led world order makes less sense from the standpoint of those excluded by the system.</p>
<p>Indeed, for Palestinians, the Trump administration’s bullying may be more humiliating than previous presidencies, but in terms of substance, the difference is marginal. </p>
<p>The U.S. has always protected Israel’s ability to lord over Palestinian lands and Palestinian lives with impunity; the U.S. has always been happy to use its heft to back its friend under presidents both Democratic and Republican.</p>
<h2>James Baker’s threat</h2>
<p>A useful example comes from celebrated U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, who in 1989 <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1989-05-02/news/mn-2572_1_plo-observer-organization-chairman-yasser-arafat-s-organization">threatened to defund the World Health Organization</a> if Palestine were to join:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The United States vigorously opposes the admission of the PLO to membership in the World Health Organization or any other UN agency … To emphasize the depth of our concern, I will recommend to the president that the United States make no further contributions, voluntary or assessed, to any international organization which makes any change in the PLO’s present status as an observer organization.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like Bolton’s attack on the ICC, the effect would be to punish a valuable and obviously benevolent partner in the “rules-based international order” merely to ensure that Palestine would be kept out.</p>
<p>Under successive presidents since George H.W. Bush, the U.S. has promoted or enabled some form of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, but they’ve always taken place outside the framework of international law. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237154/original/file-20180919-146148-1snm5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237154/original/file-20180919-146148-1snm5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237154/original/file-20180919-146148-1snm5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237154/original/file-20180919-146148-1snm5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237154/original/file-20180919-146148-1snm5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237154/original/file-20180919-146148-1snm5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237154/original/file-20180919-146148-1snm5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237154/original/file-20180919-146148-1snm5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this September 1993 photo, Israel’s Foreign Minister Shimon Peres signs the Middle East peace agreement in Washington, D.C. as Bill Clinton and PLO Leader Yasser Arafat, among other officials, look on. The deal later fell apart.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Twenty-five years ago this month, PLO Leader Yasser Arafat <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/world/wp/2018/09/12/feature/a-middle-east-mirage/">shook hands with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn</a> and agreed on a phased plan to end the occupation by the turn of the century. There has been virtually no progress and no enforcement by the United States since.</p>
<p>The Americans show scant concern for human rights, the rights of refugees or for UN Security Council resolutions when it comes to Israel-Palestine. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237140/original/file-20180919-158213-cdgh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237140/original/file-20180919-158213-cdgh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237140/original/file-20180919-158213-cdgh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237140/original/file-20180919-158213-cdgh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237140/original/file-20180919-158213-cdgh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237140/original/file-20180919-158213-cdgh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237140/original/file-20180919-158213-cdgh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237140/original/file-20180919-158213-cdgh2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, looks around Arafat at a news conference in October 1996 after Clinton said they’d failed in a two-day Washington summit to settle their explosive differences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Doug Mills, File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, the U.S. has used its <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/42-times-us-has-used-its-veto-power-against-un-resolutions-israel-942194703">veto power some 43 times</a> to protect Israel from the overwhelming will of the international community, and it has withdrawn and defunded international agencies such as UNESCO and the UN Human Rights Council in retribution for those entities recognizing Palestine.</p>
<p>Why? </p>
<p>It’s not as if the Palestinians have been unco-operative. Since the end of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2003/12/20084101554875168.html">the second intefadeh</a>, the Palestinian Authority — the non-sovereign entity that has governed parts of the West Bank — has indulged the will of the <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/18/building-a-police-state-in-palestine/">international community to a degree that is almost craven</a>. </p>
<p>It has curtailed violence against Israel and pursued U.S.-led security sector reform. At the same time, it’s taken steps through bilateral negotiations <a href="https://www.google.ca/search?q=palestine+UN+membership&oq=palestine+UN+membership&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l2.6904j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">and through the UN to join the “rules-based order.”</a> All of which is in pursuit of the so-called <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/world/middleeast/israel-palestinians-two-state-solution.html">two-state solution</a> — a partition plan wherein the Palestinians would, at the very least, accept the loss of <a href="https://ifamericaknew.org/history/maps.html">78 per cent of their historic territory</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237155/original/file-20180919-143281-bf31kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237155/original/file-20180919-143281-bf31kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237155/original/file-20180919-143281-bf31kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237155/original/file-20180919-143281-bf31kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237155/original/file-20180919-143281-bf31kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237155/original/file-20180919-143281-bf31kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/237155/original/file-20180919-143281-bf31kg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. President Barack Obama waves at the audience after delivering a speech in Cairo in June 2009.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But none of this was good enough for President George W. Bush, who promoted a “<a href="https://www.google.ca/search?q=roadmap+to+peace&oq=roadmap+to+peace&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.4003j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">Road Map</a>” that made Palestinian statehood contingent on a “performance analysis” that would be adjudicated exclusively by the occupier. Nor was it enough for President Barack Obama, who told an audience in Cairo in 2009 that “<a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/issues/foreign-policy/presidents-speech-cairo-a-new-beginning">the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable</a>,” but went on <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/28/politics/ben-rhodes-veto-un-resolution-palestinian-state-obama/index.html">to oppose Palestinian statehood at every turn</a>.</p>
<p>When viewed in this context, we can see that while Trump’s White House may be more overtly aggressive in its language and willingness to be vindictive toward Palestine and the Palestinians, in substance it’s not significantly different from previous administrations.</p>
<p>Perniciously excluding Palestine from the “rules-based order” is a U.S. priority under any president, whether they’re blue, red … or orange.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trumps-orange-face-may-be-funny-but-this-tanning-historian-says-it-masks-something-deeper-100282">Donald Trump's orange face may be funny, but this tanning historian says it masks something deeper</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103147/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Leech-Ngo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donald Trump’s strong defence of Israel might be more boisterous than his predecessors, but it’s consistent with the anti-Palestinian policies by previous U.S. administrations.Philip Leech-Ngo, Senior Research Fellow, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1032222018-09-17T04:36:53Z2018-09-17T04:36:53ZTwenty-five years after the Oslo Accords, the prospect of peace in the Middle East remains bleak<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236567/original/file-20180917-96155-1jfhqz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">US President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sign the historic Oslo accord at the White House in September 1993.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikicommons/Vince Musi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Looking back on events 25 years ago, when the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/03/world/meast/oslo-accords-fast-facts/index.html">Oslo Accords</a> were struck on the White House lawn, it is hard to avoid a painful memory. </p>
<p>I was watching from a sickbed in Jerusalem when Bill Clinton stood between Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for that famous handshake on the White House lawn.</p>
<p>At that moment, I was recovering from plastic surgery carried out by a skilled Israeli surgeon and necessitated by a bullet wound inflicted by the Israeli Defence Forces. (I had been caught in crossfire while covering a demonstration in the West Bank by stone-throwing Palestinian youths.)</p>
<p>That scar – like a tattoo – is a reminder of a time when it seemed just possible Arabs and Jews, Israelis and Palestinians could bring themselves to reach an historic compromise.</p>
<p>All these years later, prospects of real progress towards peace, or as American president Donald Trump puts it, the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/40d77344-b04a-11e8-8d14-6f049d06439c">“deal of the century”</a>, seems further away than ever.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-expands-in-the-middle-east-as-americas-honest-broker-role-fades-74695">Russia expands in the Middle East as America's 'honest broker' role fades</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As a correspondent in the Middle East for a decade (1984-1993) and as co-author of a <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/938/arafat-in-the-eyes-of-the-beholder">biography of Arafat</a>, I had an understandable interest in the outcome of the Oslo process.</p>
<p>In hours of conversations with members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s historical leadership, I had tracked the PLO’s faltering progression from outright rejection of Israel’s right to exist to acceptance implicit in the Oslo Accords.</p>
<p>Throughout that process of interviewing and cross-referencing with Israeli sources, I had hoped an honourable divorce could be achieved between decades-long adversaries. Like many, I was disappointed. </p>
<p>In 1993, the so-called Oslo Accords, negotiated in secret outside the Norwegian capital, resulted in mutual recognition of Israel and the PLO. This enabled the beginning of face-to-face peace negotiations.</p>
<h2>A devastating event</h2>
<p>Two years after the historic events at the White House, and by then correspondent in Beijing, I witnessed another episode of lasting and, as it turned out, tragic consequences for the Middle East.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/05/world/assassination-israel-overview-rabin-slain-after-peace-rally-tel-aviv-israeli.html">On November 4, 1995, Rabin was assassinated</a> while attending a political rally in Tel Aviv by a Jewish fanatic opposed to compromise with the Palestinians.</p>
<p>That devastating moment brought to power for the first time the current Israeli Prime Minister <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-18008697">Benjamin Netanyahu</a>. He has distinguished himself by his unwillingness to engage meaningfully with the Palestinians through four US administrations: those of Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama, and now Trump.</p>
<p>Some argue the Palestinians and their enfeebled leadership bear significant responsibility for peace process paralysis. That viewpoint is valid, up to a point. But it is also the case that Netanyahu’s replacement of Rabin stifled momentum.</p>
<p>Under Trump, Netanyahu finds himself under no pressure to concede ground in negotiations, or even negotiate at all. Indeed, the administration seems intent on further marginalising a Palestinian national movement, even as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/the-oslo-accords-were-doomed-by-their-ambiguity/570226/">settlement construction in the occupied areas continues apace</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236583/original/file-20180917-177968-12fis3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236583/original/file-20180917-177968-12fis3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236583/original/file-20180917-177968-12fis3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236583/original/file-20180917-177968-12fis3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236583/original/file-20180917-177968-12fis3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236583/original/file-20180917-177968-12fis3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236583/original/file-20180917-177968-12fis3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">US President Donald Trump, here with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has promised the ‘deal of the century’ in the Middle East, but the details have not yet been made clear.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ Olivier Douliery/pool</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the eve of the accords, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/the-oslo-accords-were-doomed-by-their-ambiguity/570226/">there were 110,000 Jewish settlers</a> in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. That number has grown to 430,000 today. In 2017, those numbers grew by 20% more than the average for previous years.</p>
<p>The Trump administration’s decision to <a href="https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2018/05/282032.htm">move the American embassy to Jerusalem</a> without making a distinction between Jewish West or Arab East Jerusalem could hardly have been more antagonistic.</p>
<p>By taking this action, and not making it clear that East Jerusalem as a future capital of a putative Palestinian state would not be compromised, the administration has thumbed its nose at legitimate Palestinian aspirations.</p>
<p>The administration’s follow-up moves to <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/28/middle-east-palestinian-israel-pompeo-trump-kushner-u-s-to-end-all-funding-to-u-n-agency-that-aids-palestinian-refugees/">strip funding for the United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNWRA)</a> and assistance to Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem have further soured the atmosphere.</p>
<p>UNWRA is responsible for the livelihoods of thousands of Palestinian refugees in camps in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. These are the ongoing casualties of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence against the Arabs.</p>
<p>In this context, it is interesting to note that Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East envoy, has <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/03/trump-palestinians-israel-refugees-unrwaand-allies-seek-end-to-refugee-status-for-millions-of-palestinians-united-nations-relief-and-works-agency-unrwa-israel-palestine-peace-plan-jared-kushner-greenb/">urged that refugee status be denied Palestinians and their offspring displaced by the war of 1948</a>.</p>
<p>In that year, two-thirds, or about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/14/israel">750,000 residents of what had been Palestine</a> under a British mandate became refugees.</p>
<p>Against this background and years of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, including two major wars – the Six-Day War of 1967 and Yom Kippur War of 1973 – the two sides had in 1993 reached what was then described as an historic compromise.</p>
<h2>Hopes dashed</h2>
<p>What needs to be understood about Oslo is that its two documents, signed by Rabin and Arafat, did not go further than mutual recognition of Israel and the PLO in the first, and, in the second, a declaration of principles laying down an agenda for the negotiation of Palestinian self-government in the occupied territories.</p>
<p>What Oslo did not do was provide a detailed road-map for final status negotiations, which were to be completed within five years. This would deal with the vexed issues of refugees, Jerusalem, demilitarisation of the Palestinian areas in the event of a two-state settlement, and anything but an implied acknowledgement of territorial compromise, including land swaps, that would be needed to bring about a lasting agreement.</p>
<p>Writing in the <a href="http://jps.ucpress.edu/content/23/3/24">Journal of Palestine Studies</a> in 1994, Oxford professor Avi Shlaim described the White House handshake as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>one of the most momentous events in the 20th-century history of the Middle East. In one stunning move, the two leaders redrew the geopolitical map of the entire region.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now emeritus professor, Shlaim’s own hopes, along with those of many others, that genuine compromise was possible, have been dashed.</p>
<p>Referring to the recent passage through the Knesset of a “basic law” that declares Israel to be “the nation-state of the Jewish people”, Shlaim <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/13/palestinians-still-face-apartheid-israel-25-years-after-oslo-accord">recently observed</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This law stands in complete contradiction to the 1948 declaration of independence, which recognizes the full equality of all the state’s citizens ‘without distinction of religion, race or sex’… Netanyahu has radically reconfigured Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, rather than a Jewish and a democratic state. As long as the government that introduced this law stays in power, any voluntary agreement between Israel and the Palestinians will remain largely a pipe dream.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Martin Indyk, now en route to the Council on Foreign Relations from the Brookings Institution, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/09/13/the-day-israeli-palestinian-peace-seemed-within-reach/">shared Shlaim’s hopes of an “historic turning point’’</a> in the annals of the Arab-Israeli conflict.</p>
<p>As Clinton’s National Security Council adviser on the Middle East, Indyk was responsible for the 1993 arrangements on the White House South Lawn. He writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The handshake was meant to signify the moment when Israeli and Palestinian leaders decided to begin the process of ending their bloody conflict and resolving their differences at the negotiating table.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Two decades later, in 2014, the funeral rites were pronounced on the Oslo Process after then Secretary of State John Kerry had done all he could to revive it against Netanyahu’s obduracy. Oslo had, in any case, been on life support since Rabin’s assassination.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fifty-years-on-from-the-six-day-war-the-prospects-for-middle-east-peace-remain-dim-78749">Fifty years on from the Six Day War, the prospects for Middle East peace remain dim</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>"Then,” in Indyk’s words, “along came Trump with "the Deal of the Century”. Indyk writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>His plan has yet to be revealed but its purpose appears clear – to legitimize the status quo and call it peace. Trump has already attempted to arbitrate every one of the final status issues in Israel’s favor: no capital in East Jerusalem for the Palestinians; no ‘right of return’ for Palestinian refugees; no evacuation of outlying settlements; no ’67 lines; no end of occupation; and no Palestinian state…
Over 25 years, in shifting roles from witness to midwife, to arbiter, the United States has sadly failed to help Israelis and Palestinians make peace, leaving them for the time being in what has essentially been a frozen conflict.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, as history shows, “frozen conflicts” don’t remain frozen forever. They tend to erupt when least expected.</p>
<p>Twenty-five years ago, I shared a bloody hospital casualty station – not unlike a scene from M.A.S.H. – with more than a dozen wounded Palestinians. Some of them would not recover from terrible wounds inflicted by live ammunition.</p>
<p>I asked myself then, as I do now: what’s the point of it all?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103222/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1993 the Oslo Accords were struck in optimism, but a quarter of a century later little has changed - and there’s no real prospect it ever will.Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1017312018-08-23T22:18:09Z2018-08-23T22:18:09ZWhy Canadian aid won’t really help Palestinian entrepreneurs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233287/original/file-20180823-149469-9w2h2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators protest ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza as they march through the streets of Ottawa in November 2012. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Majd Mashharawi describes herself and other Palestinian entrepreneurs as “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10213937748171509&id=1043678743">full of dreams, life, energy and hope</a>.” She is determined to improve peoples’ lives.</p>
<p>Canada recently announced that $37 million of a $50 million development aid package will go to <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2018/07/backgrounder--new-support-from-canada-for-palestinians.html">supporting Palestinian entrepreneurship</a>. Rather than assist people like Majd, however, Canadian aid won’t do much good. The problem is not aid itself. The problem is the way Canada administers aid.</p>
<p>Majd is special. She dreams big. Only 25, Majd is a Gaza-educated civil engineer, the CEO of her own firm and has been named one of Fast Company’s <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/person/majd-mashharawi">most creative people in business in 2018</a>. Two of her inventions have received international acclaim. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y4QCPsYpkBY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.launchgood.com/project/bringing_light_to_gaza_1#!/">SunBox</a> is a household solar kit to address the 20 hours a day when power is cut off to all Gazans. <a href="http://www.scenearabia.com/Money/Gaza-Startups-Entrepreneurs-Competing-Globally-Under-Siege">GreenCake is an economical, environmentally friendly construction brick</a> made from the rubble and ash left in the wake of Israeli military attacks.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that talent like Majd’s must be nurtured. There is also no doubt that Palestinians face <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/hno_20_12_2017_final.pdf">dire economic circumstances.</a> Food insecurity <a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/theme/food-security">runs deep.</a></p>
<h2>Causes of Palestinian hardship are ignored</h2>
<p>But Canadian aid won’t help much because it ignores the causes of the economic and social suffering that development is supposed to fix. Canadian aid focuses on improving the internal affairs of Palestinians. But it ignores Israel’s control of Palestinian daily life. </p>
<p>Canada’s recent aid announcement shows how much Canada overlooks Israel’s responsibility for Palestinian problems. Canadian aid will give a select group of entrepreneurs technical training to bolster innovation. But the main reasons for the Palestinian inability to innovate and grow their economy — repressive regulations, travel restrictions, land theft, lack of freedom — remain intact.</p>
<p>Israel controls about 60 per cent of the land in the West Bank where <a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/maps">it severely restricts Palestinian travel</a>. Israel has demolished Palestinian infrastructure, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/report-israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/">including homes</a>. The Israeli government has confiscated Palestinian land largely for <a href="https://www.btselem.org/settlements">Israeli settlements</a> and has assumed control of natural resources, <a href="https://www.btselem.org/topic/water">including water.</a></p>
<p>For more than a decade, Israel, with cooperation from Egypt, <a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/theme/gaza-blockade">has blockaded 1.7 million people in Gaza,</a> a space barely six by 60 kilometres. Most Gazans <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/restoring-us-aid-crucial-avoid-water-catastrophe-gaza">have no running water</a>. Available <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/occupied-palestinian-territory-and-israel/failing-gaza-undrinkable-water-no-access-toilets">water is polluted</a> with salt and sewage.
The United Nations <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2017/07/561302-living-conditions-gaza-more-and-more-wretched-over-past-decade-un-finds">has declared Gaza uninhabitable</a>.</p>
<h2>Mail returned as a ‘gesture’</h2>
<p>Israel impedes almost every aspect of daily Palestinian life. Recently, Israel released more than 10 tons of mail addressed to Palestinians that it had held arbitrarily for eight years. This release <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/world/middleeast/israel-west-bank-mail.html">was described as a “gesture.”</a> </p>
<p>For 17 years, Palestinian entrepreneurs were forced to work on snail-paced internet speeds. <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/40579168/the-west-bank-now-has-3g-can-it-boost-the-palestinian-tech-sector">Only this summer was the West Bank, but not Gaza, allowed 3G.</a></p>
<p>For her part, Majd Mashharawi has been prevented by Israeli restrictions from travelling to show her products to potential investors. Israeli officials have also held up delivery of the materials that she and her partners need to begin installing Sunbox. As a result, <a href="http://gisha.org/en-blog/2018/07/30/the-story-of-gazas-solar-solution-savant-and-her-shipment-stranded-in-israel/">they have watched their debts pile up.</a></p>
<p>Entrepreneurship cannot be sustained under such repression and uncertainty. Economic development is impossible.</p>
<p>But Canadian aid programming has shifted the task of fixing poverty onto the shoulders of Palestinian entrepreneurs, while ignoring that Palestinian poverty is structurally created by human rights violations, siege, military occupation and the theft of Indigenous resources on a massive scale. </p>
<h2>Palestinian aid benefits Israel</h2>
<p>Israel will be the main financial beneficiary of Canadian aid to Palestinians. Under international law, Israel, as an occupying state, <a href="https://www.btselem.org/international_law">remains responsible for the well-being of Palestinian civilians</a>. But foreign aid to Palestinians <a href="http://www.aidwatch.ps/sites/default/files/resource-field_media/InternationalAidToPalestiniansFeedsTheIsraeliEconomy.pdf">has relieved Israel of the financial pressure</a> of providing well-being to Palestinians. </p>
<p>More than 70 per cent of Palestinian aid funding is diverted into the <a href="http://www.shirhever.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/InternationalAidToPalestiniansFeedsTheIsraeliEconomy.pdf">Israeli economy</a>. Some donor-funded projects even further Israeli expansionism. Roads, for example, <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/palestinian-roads-cementing-statehood-or-israeli-annexation/">have helped consolidate Israeli control</a> over the West Bank by restricting Palestinian travel.</p>
<p>When Israel engages in practices that sabotage Canadian aid efforts, like restricting travel or holding back mail, Canada rarely, if ever, objects.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233183/original/file-20180822-149472-1r82huo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233183/original/file-20180822-149472-1r82huo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233183/original/file-20180822-149472-1r82huo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233183/original/file-20180822-149472-1r82huo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233183/original/file-20180822-149472-1r82huo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233183/original/file-20180822-149472-1r82huo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233183/original/file-20180822-149472-1r82huo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A child waves a Palestinian flag in a pro-Gaza rally on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in August 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unsurprisingly, given the benefits that it receives from it, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-trump-palestinians-aid-20180107-story.html">Israel welcomes</a> foreign aid to Palestinians. Israel’s ambassador has called Canadian <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canada-pledges-50-million-for-vulnerable-palestinians/">aid “indispensable.”</a></p>
<h2>Canadian policy vs. practice</h2>
<p><a href="http://international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/mena-moan/israeli-palistinian_policy-politique_israelo-palestinien.aspx?lang=eng">Official Canadian policy</a> states that Israeli settlements, land confiscation and treatment of Palestinians are wrong. But Canada continues to offer Israel firm political support anyway. Over the past decade, Canada has <a href="http://international.gc.ca/trade-commerce/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/israel/fta-ale/index.aspx?lang=eng">rewarded Israel</a> with enhanced trade relations. Canada has also regularly <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-on-israel-trudeau-is-harpers-pupil/">voted against</a> United Nations resolutions to censure Israeli violence.</p>
<p>As Canada <a href="http://www.international.gc.ca/department-ministere/open_data-donnees_ouvertes/dev/international_assistance_commitments-engagements_matiere_internationale.aspx?lang=eng">has increased</a> its aid to Palestinians, their living conditions <a href="https://972mag.com/the-problem-with-international-aid-to-palestine/133930/">have deteriorated</a> and the prospect of peace has declined. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Canadian aid will continue to do little good if the government continues to ignore <a href="http://unctad.org/en/Pages/PressRelease.aspx?OriginalVersionID=423">Israel’s role</a> in destroying the Palestinian economy and violating basic human rights.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101731/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Reem Bahdi was the principal investigator on a judicial education program in Palestine that received funding from The Canadian International Development Agency (now Global Affairs Canada). She did not benefit financially from this funding. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy Wildeman received funding from the Economic Social and Research Council's (ESRC) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) contributing to research for this article. His experience also draws from co-founding the Canadian backed charity Project Hope providing youth development and community solidarity support in the city of Nablus, Palestine.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nadia Abu-Zahra was the principal investigator on research concerning Israeli restriction of movement in Palestine, and consequences for health, education, family reunification, and access to justice, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She did not benefit financially from this funding. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruby Dagher worked as an analyst for the Canadian government's development program for West Bank and Gaza from 2006 to 2012. </span></em></p>Canadian aid to Palestine will continue to do little good if the Canadian government continues to ignore Israel’s role in destroying the Palestinian economy and violating basic human rights.Reem Bahdi, Associate Professor, Faculy of Law, University of WindsorJeremy Wildeman, Research Associate in International Development, University of BathNadia Abu-Zahra, Associate Professor of International Development and Global Studies, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaRuby Dagher, Part-time Professor at the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa and the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University, Researcher, and Consultant, Carleton UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/993412018-07-03T21:15:49Z2018-07-03T21:15:49ZGaza’s fire kites and balloon bombs ignite tensions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226033/original/file-20180703-116135-skzk5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this June 2018 photo, an Israeli tractor works to extinguish a fire started by a kite with an incendiary device launched from Gaza in a wheat field near the Israel/Gaza border. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many Canadians and Americans are enjoying the fireworks in the sky this week. But Israelis are instead worrying about other kinds of aerial fireworks. </p>
<p>Since April, <a href="https://theconversation.com/stop-telling-palestinians-to-be-resilient-the-rest-of-the-world-has-failed-them-96587">Palestinian protesters</a> have been flying fire-carrying kites and balloons across the Gaza-Israel border to set fields and forests ablaze. They’ve also launched Gaza’s first significant rocket attacks since 2014.</p>
<p>These events are reminders that Israel and Gaza are only <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/israel-hamas-gaza-palestine-netanyahu/561524/">one incident away from war</a>. If full-blown conflict were to erupt, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jogss/ogx028">recent research</a> suggests Israel’s defences would minimize its casualties. However, Israel could not completely stop the attacks or their financial drain.</p>
<h2>Kites versus quadcopters</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Liberman-vows-revenge-against-kite-attacks-559132">weaponized kites</a> resemble children’s toys floating in the sky. But they carry <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIU2jCPu_wE">burning charcoal or oil-soaked rags</a> across the Israel-Gaza border to ignite fires wherever they land.</p>
<p>These unplayful toys are increasingly sophisticated. Some now include time fuses that delay ignition until they cross the border. A few carry explosives instead of fire. <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-21/flaming-condoms-from-gaza-newest-threat-to-southern-israel">Helium-filled balloons and condoms</a> are replacing some kites because they fly farther into Israel.</p>
<p>By mid-June, protesters had launched more than 600 kites and balloons, igniting <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/17-fires-blaze-in-israeli-south-burning-kites-from-gaza-suspected-1.6177703">412 crop and forest fires</a>. No injuries have been reported. But <a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/06/24/%e2%80%8e%e2%80%8e36-fires-blaze-through-israels-border-towns-as-kite-terrorism-rages/">more than 3,200 hectares</a> (32 square kilometres) of <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/MAGAZINE-a-drone-s-view-of-the-fires-around-gaza-1.6192575">farmland and forests</a> have burned. Agricultural damage is estimated at around US$2 million and firefighting expenses at US$550,000.</p>
<p>The Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) initial response followed the toyland theme. Drone-hobbyist soldiers started ramming the kites with radio-controlled quadcopters.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VBwCVyqX0tc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Haaretz.com.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They can intercept kites <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/disputing-news-report-colonel-declares-idfs-anti-kite-drones-a-success/">within 40 seconds of detection</a> and <a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/07/02/palestinian-terrorists-breach-gaza-border-torch-idf-%e2%80%8epost-%e2%80%8e/">are downing two thirds</a> of them. But many still get through.</p>
<h2>Rockets and airstrikes</h2>
<p>In late May, the Palestinians abruptly enhanced their attacks by firing <a href="https://www.shabak.gov.il/SiteCollectionDocuments/Monthly%20Summary%20EN/Monthly%20Summary/Monthly%20Summary%20-%20May%202018.pdf">188 rockets and mortar shells</a> into Israel. That barrage came as a shock, as rocket firing had been rare since 2014. Only 75 flew into Israel from 2015-2017.</p>
<p>The IDF response has also grown stronger. In June, its military drones began <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Five-fires-in-the-Gaza-Envelope-terror-kites-resume-559553">firing warning shots</a> near the people making kites. When that failed to deter them, it launched <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/15-fires-in-Gaza-border-communities-IDF-strikes-targets-in-Gaza-in-response-560124">airstrikes on Hamas military facilities</a> in Gaza.</p>
<p>On June 19, 2018 we saw an ominous <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-sleepless-night-of-rockets-southern-israeli-schools-reopen-as-usual/">new escalation sequence</a>. Kites and balloons ignited 20 fires in Israel that day. The IDF retaliated that evening by bombing three targets in Gaza. Militants there then launched 45 rockets and mortar shells, six of which landed in Israeli towns. The IDF finally bombed another 20 targets.</p>
<h2>Simple weapons, costly impacts</h2>
<p>Both rockets and kites damage property. During Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense against Gaza in 2012, the direct damage per rocket fired at Israel averaged around US$9,800. It was about US$8,400 during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge.</p>
<p>By comparison, kites each inflict only about US$4,200 in direct losses. But they cost very little to make.</p>
<p>Kite fires mostly worry farmers, foresters and firefighters near Gaza. But rocket attacks hurt tourism and business activity across Israel. That leads to much larger indirect costs. The country’s economy lost about US$30 million per day during Pillar of Defense and US$24 million daily during Protective Edge.</p>
<p>Also, the kites have not provoked (so far) an expensive Israeli military operation. Pillar of Defense’s airstrikes and rocket interceptions cost the country US$54 million daily. Protective Edge added ground assaults and cost US$59 million daily.</p>
<p>Put another way, each rocket and mortar shell Gaza fired during Pillar of Defense resulted in about US$490,000 of damage, lost business and military expenses in Israel. That soared to US$750,000 each during Protective Edge. Those are big numbers for such small weapons.</p>
<h2>Declining casualties</h2>
<p>By contrast, Israel’s casualties per rocket were small and declining. In 2012 one Israeli civilian died on average for every 271 rockets fired. By 2014 there was one death per 1,484 rockets. The average number of rockets needed to injure one Israeli similarly jumped from 5.5 to 35. </p>
<p>The rockets themselves did not become less lethal. Rather, Israel’s defences improved. <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-missiles-fly-a-look-at-israels-iron-dome-interceptor-94959">Iron Dome batteries intercepted more rockets</a>, while sirens and shelters protected more civilians. Otherwise, Israeli rocket injuries and deaths during the 2014 conflict could have been 2,200 instead of 85.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/israeli-rocket-experience-shows-bomb-shelters-matter-as-much-as-interceptors-96402">Israeli rocket experience shows bomb shelters matter as much as interceptors</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Israel spent heavily to achieve that. It has the <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/military-expenditure-capita-which-countries-spend-most-defense-person-978501?slide=50">second highest per capita military spending</a> in the world. (U.S. military aid helps: <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf">US$3.8 billion this year</a>.) It expended billions of dollars developing, deploying and reloading its Iron Dome rocket interceptors. (<a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/09/14/fact-sheet-memorandum-understanding-reached-israel">U.S. funding covered US$1.3 billion</a>.) It spent another half billion dollars upgrading civil defences. </p>
<p>In effect, the country’s defence investments replace human losses with financial ones. The falling casualties and rising expenses make the financial side of aerial attacks relatively more important. Much like the kites, rockets now make Israel bleed mostly cash instead of blood. </p>
<p>Protective Edge, for example, cost the country some US$3.5 billion. But the conflict involved just five rocket and mortar deaths over 42 days. (That’s still five too many. But <a href="http://www.cbs.gov.il/shnaton68/st24_20.pdf">traffic accidents in 2014</a> killed six times as many Israelis over similar periods.)</p>
<h2>Smouldering frustrations</h2>
<p>Overall, Israel’s high-tech defences protect its people but not its finances. They reduce the impact of Gaza’s low-tech aerial assaults but can’t completely stop them.</p>
<p>Ironically, Israel’s defensive success hinders its diplomacy. Its low civilian casualties make it difficult to get international support when its F-16s bomb Gaza. Similar controversy may arise if it starts <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/shoot-palestinian-kite-flyers-sight-says-israeli-minister-ahead-gaza-protests-960713">shooting Palestinian kite-flyers</a>.</p>
<p>Gaza faces its <a href="https://theconversation.com/gaza-now-has-a-toxic-biosphere-of-war-that-no-one-can-escape-95397">own problems</a>. Its kites and balloons inflict visible damage and inflame tensions. But they risk dangerous escalation. Its rockets could inflict enough casualties to provoke massive Israeli retaliation and expenditures. But they can’t truly threaten Israel’s livelihood or existence.</p>
<p>All this means more frustration for the already frustration-laden Israel-Gaza standoff.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99341/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Armstrong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Incendiary kites and balloons have joined artillery rockets in Gaza’s arsenal. They bleed Israel’s finances more than its people.Michael J. Armstrong, Associate professor of operations research, Goodman School of Business, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/974872018-06-06T15:17:50Z2018-06-06T15:17:50ZPalestinians are not powerless – they can take the initiative<p>Donald Trump’s recent policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been unambiguous, to put it mildly. His administration is increasingly aligned with <a href="https://theconversation.com/profile-avigdor-lieberman-israels-hardline-defence-minister-96474">one of the most right-wing governments</a> in Israel’s history. Most radically of all, it reversed a longstanding US policy by <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-trumps-recognition-of-jerusalem-as-the-capital-of-israel-means-for-the-middle-east-88722">recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel</a>, and relocating the US embassy there from Tel Aviv. But, while the US policy has been the subject of furious debate, there’s been relatively little discussion about how the Palestinian leaders can respond.</p>
<p>It’s very important not to see the Palestinians and their leaders as passive actors or helpless victims. This is an evolving situation, and the Palestinian people are far from powerless. In fact, the current US-Israeli alliance presents Palestinian leaders with new opportunities to formulate counter-policies and preserve the Palestinian issue’s status as a just cause.</p>
<p>There’s plenty to do on the home front, and high up the list is achieving national unity among the different Palestinian political factions – Fatah and Hamas – and also the wider Palestinian communities in the homeland and the Shatat (diaspora). </p>
<p>Shatat communities have been marginalised in Palestinian political life ever since the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7385301.stm">Oslo Accords</a> were signed in the early 1990s. While the leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) returned to the occupied territories, the vast majority of the Palestinian refugee and displaced communities in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan were left waiting for an end to the displacement that began in 1948. They are still waiting today.</p>
<p>The PLO’s existing institutions need to be reformed and reinvigorated, and Palestinian communities within the homeland and the Shatat given a true voice in them. More than that, if Palestinian leaders want to put Israel under pressure, they need to think seriously about engaging in national campaigns of nonviolent popular resistance and civil disobedience.</p>
<h2>Changing course</h2>
<p>One of the Israeli military and political leadership’s biggest fears is the emergence of an unarmed and nonviolent movement in the occupied Palestinian territories, one that could attract international support and the attention of the world’s media. The possibility of Palestinian refugees marching towards their confiscated land and demanding their national rights has <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/gaza-s-refugees-have-always-haunted-israel-now-they-re-on-the-march-1.5958265">haunted Israel for 70 years</a>, and the last thing the Netanyahu government wants to see is an organised peaceful mass resistance movement that the wider world might feel comfortable supporting.</p>
<p>Along these lines, there’s another radical option the Palestinian leaders should consider: to shift its focus from the failing two-state solution to the pursuit of full and equal rights for all its citizens.</p>
<p>Palestinians in Israel face severe everyday discrimination, and Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank including East Jerusalem are living under oppressive military occupation. Both are subject to complex and unjust legal structures that accord full rights to Israelis and settlers while denying protection and national rights to indigenous Palestinian communities.</p>
<p>Seeking equal rights and justice in all of Palestine is not only a democratic question, but a challenge to exclusive ideologies that have maintained separation and conflict. Among Palestinian intellectual and political representatives, the discourse of citizenship and equality is <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/04/israel-palestinians-mahmoud-abbas-demography-two-state.html">regaining currency</a> as a primary means of conflict transformation – largely because of the failure of the two-state solution.</p>
<h2>The high ground</h2>
<p>Another option is to keep pursuing international recognition of Palestinian statehood. This may not make much impact on Palestinians’ everyday lives, but it will certainly help enhance Palestine’s international status and foreground the Palestinian issue in international law. And that in turn will put Israel under increasing pressure to accept Palestinian national independence.</p>
<p>The most recent breakthroughs on this front came at the UN, which in 2012 effectively <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-palestinians-statehood/palestinians-win-de-facto-u-n-recognition-of-sovereign-state-idUSBRE8AR0EG20121201">recognised Palestine’s statehood</a> and granted it membership as a “non-member observer state”. That move has granted the Palestinians access to international justice mechanisms; today, the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/palestine">International Criminal Court</a> is investigating potential war crimes committed by Israel since June 2014 in Palestinian territories, particularly in Gaza.</p>
<p>The Palestinian political leadership can also do more to leverage the PLO’s recognition of Israel. Whereas the PLO has recognised Israel’s right to live in peace and security since the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel has never reciprocated and recognised Palestinian statehood. Instead, in the words of <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt18dzscm">Sara Roy</a>, the Oslo process saw the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories became “formalised” and “institutionalised”. Yet despite <a href="https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/middle-east/173784-180502-palestinian-leader-to-i24news-oslo-agreement-to-be-voted-obsolete">repeated statements</a> bemoaning the Oslo framework’s failure, the Palestinian Authority has yet to capitalise on this obvious political inequality. Instead, it is still firmly committed thanks to the political, economic and security interests of its ruling elites.</p>
<p>To change the calculus, the Palestinian Authority leadership needs to put the issue of equal state recognition back on the agenda and consider the merit of its dogged commitment to the Oslo Accords. Options like this might not reverse the damage created by Trump’s alignment with the right-wing Israeli leadership, but they will prove that the Palestinians are serious and capable of developing policies that can lead to genuine change and win over international public opinion.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>More articles about <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/palestine-1178?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement">Palestine</a>, written by experts:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/stop-telling-palestinians-to-be-resilient-the-rest-of-the-world-has-failed-them-96587?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement">Stop telling Palestinians to be ‘resilient’ – the rest of the world has failed them</a></em></li>
<li><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/five-myths-about-palestines-youth-activists-debunked-96736?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement">Five myths about Palestine’s youth activists – debunked</a></em></li>
<li><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/gaza-now-has-a-toxic-biosphere-of-war-that-no-one-can-escape-95397?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement">Gaza now has a toxic ‘biosphere of war’ that no one can escape</a></em></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97487/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yaser Alashqar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Palestinian nonviolent protests and mass movement of resistance is one of Israel’s biggest fears.Yaser Alashqar, Adjunct Assistant Professor and Lecturer in conflict studies and Middle East politics, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/933452018-03-15T01:58:03Z2018-03-15T01:58:03ZPompeo’s confirmation will make Mideast war more likely<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210408/original/file-20180314-113462-1yn8wop.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The newly nominated secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is a foreign policy hawk who opposes the Iran nuclear deal. Scrapping it could unleash a chain reaction of violence across the Middle East.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United States Senate has confirmed CIA director Mike Pompeo, the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/with-mike-pompeo-at-the-state-department-are-the-uber-hawks-winning">hawkish former Kansas congressman</a>, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/us/politics/mike-pompeo-secretary-of-state.html">secretary of State</a>. He replaces Rex Tillerson, who was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/13/politics/rex-tillerson-secretary-of-state/index.html">unceremoniously fired via Twitter</a> on March 13. </p>
<p>As a former Middle East analyst at the State Department, I believe that Pompeo’s new role as America’s top diplomat will have dramatic foreign policy implications in the Mideast region.</p>
<p>In 2015, Pompeo voted against a deal that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/07/15/transcript-obamas-news-conference-on-the-iran-nuclear-deal/">the Obama administration negotiated</a> to remove some international economic sanctions on Iran. In exchange, Iran would significantly scale back its nuclear program and submit to intrusive international inspections. </p>
<p>Pompeo’s tenure will endanger the Iran nuclear deal. As a congressman, Pompeo opposed the agreement as “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/with-mike-pompeo-at-the-state-department-are-the-uber-hawks-winning">unconscionable</a>.” After Trump’s election, he stated that he was looking forward to “rolling it back.” </p>
<p>During his confirmation hearing, Pompeo moderated his tune, promising he would seek to save the deal. Trump has also recently signaled he may be more open to salvaging it as well. Pompeo – with whom, Trump reports, he has <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/mar/13/pompeo-trump-developed-chemistry-daily-briefings/">very good chemistry</a> – is also on record saying that Iran is “<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/13/mike-pompeo-on-national-security-issues.html">intent on destroying America</a>.” </p>
<p>And if Trump scraps it, the whole Middle East could erupt in conflict.</p>
<h2>Iran deal in danger</h2>
<p>Pompeo was tapped to replace Tillerson as secretary of state for reasons both personal and political. </p>
<p>The president reportedly <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/13/opinions/trump-flex-muscle-instinct-tillerson-borger/index.html">found Tillerson arrogant</a> and disrespectful. </p>
<p>Tillerson earned Trump’s ire by <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/trump-and-tillersons-biggest-policy-disagreements">disagreeing with him</a> on many substantive policy matters, including the president’s decisions to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and cozy up to Russia. </p>
<p>Perhaps most importantly, though, Tillerson defied Trump on Iran. Trump has been highly critical of the international nuclear agreement <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/us/politics/trump-iran-nuclear-deal.html">since his 2016 presidential campaign</a>, calling it “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-iran/trump-election-puts-iran-nuclear-deal-on-shaky-ground-idUSKBN13427E">the worst deal ever negotiated</a>.” </p>
<p>He <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/07/19/the-u-s-and-iran-are-heading-toward-crisis/?utm_term=.15bdaae682e1">wanted to scuttle it</a> when it came up for recertification in July 2017, but his secretary of state advised against it on both diplomatic and security grounds. </p>
<p>Tillerson was strongly critical of Iran, condemning <a href="https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2018/01/277493.htm">its regional aggression and its meddling in the Syrian civil war</a>. But I believe he understood, as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/nuclear-iran-deal-trump-jcpoa/542457/">many other policy analysts did</a>, that backing out of the nuclear deal would destabilize the Middle East – and potentially put the world at risk – because Iran would likely react by restarting its nuclear program. </p>
<p>Tillerson, a former international business executive, was also more sensitive to the opinion of European allies than his boss. Rather than <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-5496969/Tillerson-sacking-spells-doom-Iran-nuclear-deal.html">sour</a> relations with the U.K., France, Germany and other key partners by terminating an agreement that they helped negotiate, he worked with the Europeans to come up with a compromise that Trump might find tolerable.</p>
<p>Secretary of Defense James Mattis agreed with Tillerson on Iran. The two of them periodically lobbied the president <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/despite-threats-trump-to-extend-sanctions-relief-for-iran-sources/">not to scrap the deal</a>, and their influence got the agreement recertified in July 2017.</p>
<p>But Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/07/19/the-u-s-and-iran-are-heading-toward-crisis/?utm_term=.15bdaae682e1">resented being pressured</a>. Remember, this is a president who has openly stated that <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/03/561797675/im-the-only-one-that-matters-trump-says-of-state-dept-job-vacancies">only his views matter when it comes to foreign policy</a>. </p>
<p>Tillerson disagreed. As he said in his <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/full-text-rex-tillersons-remarks-after-his-firing/555506/">somber March 13 goodbye speech</a>, he believed his job as secretary of state was to serve the nation and defend the U.S. Constitution. </p>
<p>To Trump, Tillerson’s <a href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/tillerson-pompeo-2032236124">stance on Iran</a> wasn’t just a difference of opinion – it was, perhaps, an act of disloyalty.</p>
<h2>Pompeo’s dangerous instincts</h2>
<p>In October 2017, Trump finally decertified the Iran deal, which effectively opened the door for the U.S. Congress to reimpose sanctions. In his January 2018 State of the Union address, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trumps-state-union-address">he was more direct, calling on</a> lawmakers to “address the fundamental flaws in the terrible Iran nuclear deal.”</p>
<p>The newly nominated secretary of state shares the president’s dim view. </p>
<p>Congressional aides who’ve worked with him say that <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/mike-pompeo-could-be-a-successful-secretary-of-state-because-trump-trusts-him.html">Pompeo is a smart guy</a>, level-headed and reasonable. But if he eggs on Trump’s most belligerent instincts, I believe the Iran deal won’t last the year.</p>
<h2>Destabilizing the Mideast</h2>
<p>This could unleash a dangerous chain of events in the volatile Middle East. </p>
<p>If the U.S. reimposes sanctions on Iran, hard-liners there – who have always opposed the nuclear deal – would likely <a href="http://www.mei.edu/content/io/hardliners-accuse-eu-betraying-iran-nuclear-deal">pressure</a> Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to retaliate by restarting the country’s uranium enrichment program.</p>
<p>I believe Israel would then feel justified in taking military action against Iran, which has been threatening its national security for decades. In doing so, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have the behind-the-scenes backing of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-42008809">Saudia Arabia, a regional power and longtime rival of Iran</a>, and possibly other states with a Sunni Muslim majority. </p>
<p>Iran is governed by conservative Shiite Muslim clerics. Sunni-majority countries like Saudi Arabia dislike Iran’s policy of <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/11/30/sectarian-dilemmas-in-iranian-foreign-policy-when-strategy-and-identity-politics-collide-pub-66288">financing violent Shiite militias</a> to push its sectarian agenda in Arab states with significant, and sometimes restive, Shiite populations. </p>
<p>Israel and Saudi Arabia <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/04/saudi-arabia-israel-oppose-iran-nuclear-deal-150401061906177.html">never supported the Iran nuclear deal</a>. They feared that lifting sanctions on Iran would merely give Tehran more resources to foment strife in the Arab world. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/An-Israel-Hezbollah-war-could-draw-in-Iran-US-intelligence-warns-545052">Analysts agree</a> that should some Sunni Arab countries team up with Israel against Iran, Iran would not limit itself to responding with missiles. It could also persuade its well-armed allies like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/27/world/middleeast/hezbollah-iran-syria-israel-lebanon.html">Hezbollah</a> and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad to launch <a href="https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/241741">rocket attacks</a> on Israel, too.</p>
<p>I doubt Mideast war is the outcome Pompeo and Trump would seek by ending the Iran deal, but it may be just the disaster they create.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93345/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory Aftandilian is a non-resident Fellow at the Arab Center, in Washington, D.C.</span></em></p>Trump’s pick to lead the State Department believes Iran is ‘intent on destroying America.’ But ending the Iran nuclear deal could unleash a violent chain reaction, a Mideast scholar says.Gregory Aftandilian, Lecturer, Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/787492017-06-02T01:41:18Z2017-06-02T01:41:18ZFifty years on from the Six Day War, the prospects for Middle East peace remain dim<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171929/original/file-20170602-25658-3502g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">US President Donald Trump talks to Arab leaders in Riyadh on his recent tour of the Middle East.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Jonathan Ernst</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world will note this Monday, June 5, as one of the more significant dates on the international calendar. This was the day 50 years ago when Israel launched a preemptive strike against its Arab foes. In less than a week, it overwhelmed the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria.</p>
<p>That decisive military engagement became known as the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Six-Day-War">Six Day War</a>.</p>
<p>A half century later the world, and, more specifically, Israelis and Palestinians, are living with the war’s consequences - none more so than the Palestinians who find themselves entering a sixth decade under occupation with all that implies.</p>
<p>Since 1967, repeated efforts have been made to bring peace to a troubled region that lies between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean.</p>
<p>Leaving aside the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/camp-david">Camp David Accords</a> of 1978 and the subsequent peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, under which the Sinai was returned to Egyptian control, numerous initiatives have failed dating from the Carter administration. These so-called peace plans are like rusting tanks and artillery pieces left behind in the desert.</p>
<p>Each new US presidency brings with it promise of a fresh start, a new beginning, a resolution of the world’s most vexed and long-running conflict.</p>
<p>President Donald Trump’s tenure is no exception.</p>
<p>In Trumpian art-of-the-deal language, the president has described a prospective peace settlement as the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/05/trump-israeli-palestinian-peace-process/527649/">“ultimate deal”</a>.</p>
<p>So, the question at the beginning of a new administration, is what are prospects for progress on this occasion, what might be different this time, and why should we have any more confidence in a successful outcome now?</p>
<p>Why should we believe Trump will do any better than his predecessors?</p>
<p>The short answer is that prospects for genuine progress in the Middle East remain very slim, and indeed are barely perceptible.</p>
<p>Circumstances could hardly be less propitious.</p>
<p>A nationalistic Israeli government would almost certainly fall apart on issues of territorial compromise and sovereignty over Jerusalem if negotiations proceeded. A weak Palestinian leadership of questionable legitimacy is hardly in a position to make the sort of concessions that would be needed to advance the process.</p>
<p>A Palestinian schism weighs heavily.</p>
<p>Palestinians are deeply divided between the West Bank under the nominal control of the secular Fatah mainstream, and the Gaza Strip ruled by the Islamist Hamas. The two are adversaries, and remain far apart on even the most basic question of an acceptance of Israel’s right to exist within secure pre-1967 war boundaries.</p>
<p>The United States and its allies, including Australia, regard Hamas as a terrorist organisation.</p>
<p>However, if we are to take a glass-half-full perspective, we could identify several factors that just might contribute to progress.</p>
<p>A new and unorthodox presidency holds a faint promise. Trump appears to have identified the Arab-Israel dispute as an early priority.</p>
<p>The fact that he chose to visit Saudi Arabia, Israel and Palestine on his first trip abroad as president signals an intention to devote resources to exploring possibilities.</p>
<p>Then there is Iran with its long shadow over the entire Middle East.</p>
<p>It might be cliche, but it also holds truth in a part of the world where alliances are fragile, and one’s friends today might be one’s enemies tomorrow.</p>
<p>In Arab parlance: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.</p>
<p>On his visit to Saudi Arabia last month, Trump appeared to have had a grand Middle East bargain in mind that would include an end to an Arab boycott of Israel in the face of a common enemy – Iran.</p>
<p>“Until the Iranian regime is willing to be a partner for peace, all nations of conscience must work together to isolate Iran, deny it funding for terrorism, and pray for the day when the Iranian people have the just and righteous government they deserve,’’ he said.</p>
<p>Trump backed up those words with $110 billion worth of arms sales to Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>Pledges made and statements uttered on Trump’s brief visit to the Kingdom signalled an important shift in American policy from the Obama years.</p>
<p>In effect, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-trumps-visit-saudi-arabia-hopes-to-reinforce-its-influence-in-the-region-against-iran-78640">US is resetting its Middle East policy</a> to align itself with the Conservative Sunni Arabs against Iran, which is clearly identified as a common enemy.</p>
<p>Where this leads is difficult to predict, but it might be observed that Trump made his decisive intervention in Middle East politics in the same week Iran re-elected a moderate leader whose platform included insistence that Iranian interests lay in a continued opening to the West.</p>
<p>President Hassan Rouhani won an overwhelming victory on the first ballot against a conservative opponent. His re-election has been welcomed in Europe whose leaders are finding themselves increasingly at odds with the White House.</p>
<p>What is not clear in the wake of Trump’s visit to the region is whether his public statements in Saudi Arabia, and in Israel and Palestine, are part of any sort of overarching strategy, or whether he was engaging in what might be described as a reconnaissance mission.</p>
<p>But a so-called "ultimate deal” between the Arabs and Israel has been on the table for 15 years since the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/28/israel7">Arab Peace Initiative</a> was unveiled at an Arab League summit in Beirut in 2002.</p>
<p>In a nutshell, Arab states would recognise Israel in return for its withdrawal from land occupied in the 1967 war, including East Jerusalem. This would become the capital of a Palestinian state.</p>
<p>The Arab Peace Initiative has been reaffirmed on two separate occasions at Arab League summits, most recently in Amman in March this year.</p>
<p>Needless to say, Israel has evinced little enthusiasm for this proposal, but it does have the virtue of providing a possible region-wide framework for an “ultimate deal” that would end a state of war between Israel and the Arabs at a moment when the Middle East is in turmoil.</p>
<p>Where Trump and his advisers could be on the right track lies in the possibility of drawing Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Egypt and Jordan into a process that just might provide the basis for the beginning of discussions.</p>
<p>Trump left the region without offering any specific ideas for a way forward, so it remains to be seen whether he and his Middle East negotiators are able to nurture something out of barren soil.</p>
<p>On the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War chances of a breakthrough remain dim, but in a region at war with itself, it is wise to never say never.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78749/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
It is not clear in the wake of Trump’s visit to the Middle East is whether his public statements are part of an overarching strategy, or what might be described as a reconnaissance mission.Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/780752017-05-26T18:41:49Z2017-05-26T18:41:49ZDiplomat in chief: How did Trump do on his first Middle East visit?<p>President Donald Trump received both pageantry and a warm reception on his first trip to the Middle East.</p>
<p>Whether bowing his head to <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/334366-trump-receives-saudi-arabias-highest-civilian-honor">receive</a> the King Abdulaziz al Saud Collar from Saudi Arabian King Salman, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/world/middleeast/trump-glowing-orb-saudi.html?">gathering</a> around the “glowing orb” at the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology in Riyadh or <a href="http://time.com/4788647/president-donald-trump-western-wall-jerusalem-israel/">standing</a> at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Trump played the leader of a superpower. His hosts went along. </p>
<p>King Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted a warm, public interaction with the U.S. president, something neither had with former U.S. President Barack Obama. Trump delivered.</p>
<p>But in policy terms, the trip did not address how Trump will grapple with the core problems the United States has with each of these close allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Trump is an entertainer, not a diplomat. The Mideast leg of this trip reinforced that he values imagery over policy. </p>
<p>As an <a href="http://jeremy-pressman.uconn.edu/">expert</a> on U.S. <a href="http://www.e-ir.info/2016/07/14/obama-and-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/">policy</a> in the Middle East and on Arab-Israeli <a href="http://www.belfercenter.org/publication/visions-collision-what-happened-camp-david-and-taba">relations</a>, I think it is clear that Trump’s hopes for regional stability or an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement – outcomes that require detailed policy – rest on shaky ground. Will he go beyond merely meeting Israeli and Saudi demands for positive public images and the exchange of kind words?</p>
<h2>Helping Saudi Arabia, undermining Iran</h2>
<p>On the question of challenging Iran’s alliances and regional leadership aspirations, Trump and Netanyahu spoke much more harshly than Obama. In his speech in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/05/21/president-trumps-speech-arab-islamic-american-summit">said</a>, “Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror. It is a government that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing the destruction of Israel, death to America, and ruin for many leaders and nations in this room.”</p>
<p>But Trump has not yet tried to undo the 2015 <a href="https://www.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/iran/jcpoa/">Iran nuclear agreement</a>, despite his <a href="http://time.com/4267058/donald-trump-aipac-speech-transcript/">campaign promises</a>. Perhaps he will try to squeeze the agreement indirectly by <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/25/senate-committee-approves-added-sanctions-iran/102149522/">increasing</a> sanctions against Iran on the basis of other issues, such as terrorism or human rights violations. But squeezing Iran would be a tough sell to U.S. rivals like Russia and China, or even major European allies who generally like the existing agreement with Iran.</p>
<p>Still, Trump’s visit to Riyadh made clear he is firmly on Saudi Arabia’s side in its <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/beyond-sectarianism-the-new-middle-east-cold-war/">regional cold war</a> with Iran. Iran and Saudi Arabia both aspire to be the leading power in the Middle East. They aren’t fighting each other directly, but rather by arming and aiding allies in civil wars in nearby <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/syria-civil-war-explained-160505084119966.html">Syria</a> and <a href="https://www.cfr.org/global/global-conflict-tracker/p32137#!/conflict/war-in-yemen">Yemen</a>. </p>
<p>Trump’s deepening of the U.S. commitment to Saudi Arabia was most tangibly signaled by the massive <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/20/us-saudi-arabia-seal-weapons-deal-worth-nearly-110-billion-as-trump-begins-visit.html">arms</a> commitment and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-saudi-arabia-speech-confirms-massive-shift-in-us-foreign-policy-78168">disinterest</a> in both democracy and human rights questions or any public discussion of Saudi Arabia’s role in the <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/20/if-trump-doubles-down-on-the-saudi-war-in-yemen-millions-could-starve/">war</a> in Yemen.</p>
<p>Trump’s short time in Saudi Arabia left the central contradiction of his approach unexplored. In <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/05/21/president-trumps-speech-arab-islamic-american-summit">Trump’s words</a>, the United States will successfully achieve “the aim of stamping out extremism” with Saudi Arabia as a lead partner.</p>
<p>But how is that feasible when Saudi Arabia’s <a href="https://www.hrw.org/middle-east/n-africa/saudi-arabia">repressive</a> regime, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/09/saudi-arabia-obama-al-qaeda-terrorism/502343/">ideology</a> and wealth have helped <a href="http://hegghammer.com/_files/hegghammer_-_terrorist_recruitment_and_radicalisation_in_saudi_arabia_-_middle_east_policy.pdf">create</a> the environment in which Islamist extremism thrives? The Saudi government is a dictatorship lacking protections for free speech or a free press. Moreover, though U.S.-Saudi cooperation on the matter has <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/hi/originals/2016/10/us-treasury-official-saudi-combat-terror-funding.html">improved</a> in recent years, private Saudi money has flowed to violent radicals, including al-Qaida.</p>
<h2>Israeli-Palestinian peace?</h2>
<p>With the Israeli government, Trump changed the tone and atmospherics compared with Obama. Trump and the Israeli prime minister have similar worldviews and, in public, seem genuinely excited to be working together. </p>
<p>But even with this visit to Israel, it remains unclear how much U.S. policy will shift. Like Obama and many previous U.S. presidents, Trump has pressed Israel to <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-netanyahu-i-d-see-you-hold-back-settlements-little-n721351">curtail</a> <a href="http://www.btselem.org/topic/settlements">settlement</a> construction in the West Bank. He seems interested in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and creating <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.791153">peace</a>, as he told both Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, although no process is yet apparent. </p>
<p>Is it bluster or substance?</p>
<p>It’s hard to tell. On this trip, Trump avoided mentioning a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/world/middleeast/israel-palestinians-two-state-solution.html?_r=0">two-state solution</a>, the usual proposal offered to address competing Israeli and Palestinian demands. Perhaps Trump hopes Arab states will put pressure on Palestinians in order to achieve some other kind of <a href="http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/lessons-from-a-regional-approach-to-solving-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict">regional</a> peace deal, but he and his advisers offered no concrete plan.</p>
<p>In the next year or two, the Trump administration will have to make choices about its Middle East policy. Either warmly embrace Saudi Arabia or comprehensively address the roots of extremism. Either warmly embrace the Israeli government and its <a href="https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2014/08/05/israels-strategic-goal/">distaste</a> for a two-state solution, or pursue Israeli-Palestinian peace. If the administration wants to use this trip to develop actual U.S. policy, it will need to make hard choices and offer specific details.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78075/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy Pressman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We asked an expert on diplomacy and foreign policy.Jeremy Pressman, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/680692016-11-03T00:46:45Z2016-11-03T00:46:45ZNo matter who becomes the next US president, we’re in for a wild ride<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144305/original/image-20161102-27243-mng3ij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hillary Clinton makes her case to become president.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Brian Snyder</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In less than a week, more than 100 million Americans will be casting their ballots in what is being described as the most consequential election since the 1980 contest between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.</p>
<p>Reagan’s victory heralded 12 years of Republican rule in which America asserted itself – if only briefly – as the world’s hyperpower following the collapse of the Berlin wall and the Soviet Union.</p>
<p>Three decades later, assumptions about continued US dominance, Russian weakness, and an American ability to contain China’s rise have been swept aside in a world that is vastly more complex.</p>
<p>Whoever prevails on November 8 will face some of the most testing national security policy challenges since the end of the Cold War, and possibly more challenging since the world is much more fragmented.</p>
<p>So how should Australians view such a date with destiny, and more particularly how should we weigh the consequences of a Hillary Clinton or a Donald Trump victory?</p>
<p>The short answer in both cases is: “with trepidation’’.</p>
<p>The more likely – by no means certain – result is that Clinton will prevail. But the fact that such an outcome can’t be taken for granted at this late stage reflects the extent to which the American political system has been disrupted, to use the word of the moment.</p>
<p>What has played out over a protracted primary season and during an interminable presidential campaign represents a bitter residue that has accumulated over many years. It signals that vast numbers of Americans have lost faith in the system.</p>
<p>Thus the contest has been framed as a struggle between the establishment, represented by Clinton the archetypal Washington insider, and Trump, the outsider, who has never held elected office and has contrived to break almost every rule in the political playbook.</p>
<p>Trump is the anti-candidate candidate.</p>
<p>The fact a deeply flawed contender remains competitive, according to the polls, underscores the extent to which a swathe of Americans are disaffected with the system.</p>
<p>Trump is leading what might be described historically as a "peasant’s revolt”, partly fuelled – whether rational or not – by deep misgivings about Clinton.</p>
<p>A significant proportion of the American electorate neither likes nor trusts her. That includes Democrats. Likeability in American politics is a priceless commodity.</p>
<p>Let’s not forget an unworldly George W Bush secured two presidential election victories against less likeable, arguably much better qualified, opponents in Al Gore and John Kerry.</p>
<p>From an Australian perspective, and for the rest of the world - apart from Russia and its allies - a Trump victory would be a disturbing development.</p>
<p>Trump’s bellicose and unformed views on trade, relations with China, immigration, how to solve the problems of the Middle East and a host of other issues portend a bumpy ride. It may even lead to an unraveling of American-led alliances that have served – and continue to serve – Australia’s interests.</p>
<p>President Trump would almost certainly moderate his positions under the burdens of office, but the early stages of a Trump reign would promise a period of uncertainty.</p>
<p>Even discussing the possibility of a Trump victory might seem like a waste of space in light of the forces arrayed against him, from women to minorities to the Republican establishment itself. But given America’s strange mood and the recent Brexit experience nothing should be excluded.</p>
<p>This is especially the case in an environment in which October surprises - served up by WikiLeaks - threaten to continue into November with the prospect of further damaging revelations.</p>
<p>The WikiLeaks campaign against a US presidential candidate is without precedent, especially as reasonable suspicion falls on Russian cyber hackers for supplying the raw material in the first place.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/31/donna-brazile-fired-cnn-contributor/">latest revelation</a> that a CNN contributor, now interim director of the Democratic National Committee had secretly briefed Clinton on likely questions in debates during the primaries will reinforce persistent criticism about the shonkiness of the Clinton campaign.</p>
<p>Her primaries challenger Bernie Sanders and his supporters have every reason to feel aggrieved by these revelations. In a Clinton campaign that is depending on turnout, this is an unhelpful development.</p>
<p>Not least of the unfortunate historical happenstances of the 2016 presidential election campaign is that no really credible candidate – Sanders put up stout resistance, but was never going to prevail - emerged on the Democratic side to challenge Clinton’s inevitability as her party’s standard bearer.</p>
<p>On the Republican side, Trump was able to overwhelm his establishment opponents, including Jeb Bush, the Republican old guard candidate and early front-runner.</p>
<p>This brings us to consideration of Clinton from an Australian perspective.</p>
<p>In Canberra, Australian officials are making no secret of their aspirations for a Clinton victory, while mouthing the usual platitudes about Australia being prepared to work with whoever prevails.</p>
<p>Foreign Minister Julie Bishop gave voice to Australia’s preference at the weekend when she expressed the view that a Clinton victory would serve Australia’s interests, while warning of the risks of a Trump ascendancy.</p>
<p>“She sees the US as having a global leadership role,” Bishop told the ABC. “Candidate Donald Trump does not. He sees the US as having got a raw deal from globalisation and he would focus more on domestic matters.”</p>
<p>Other members of the Australian foreign policy establishment have been less restrained. Kim Beazley, former Australian ambassador in Washington, has described the prospect of Trump prevailing as “terrifying”.</p>
<p>All of that might be the case, but Clinton would bring her own baggage to Pennsylvania Avenue, not least her poor judgement in not subjecting the Bush administration’s arguments for the rush to war in Iraq to closer scrutiny in her days on the Senate Armed Services Committee.</p>
<p>In contrast to Barack Obama, her 2008 opponent for the Democratic nomination, Clinton did not push back against the administration’s manoeuvrings to create an environment in which war became inevitable.</p>
<p>Clinton’s perceived hawkishness – if that materialises – would inject a new uncertainty into the global environment after a period during which an Obama administration has sought to avoid, where possible, military entanglements in its efforts not to do “stupid stuff”, in the president’s own words.</p>
<p>Australian foreign policy establishment would be well advised to proceed cautiously in endorsing a new Clinton foreign policy that might seek to distinguish itself from that of its predecessor by “muscling up” militarily.</p>
<p>The Washington Post <a href="https://drive.google.com/drive/my-drive">reported last month</a> that the foreign policy establishment in Washington was looking forward to Clinton presidency with “quiet relief”.</p>
<p>In that article the author quoted a former Obama adviser as saying that in Washington “there is a widespread perception that not being active enough or recognising the limits of American power has costs… So, the normal swing is to be more interventionist.”</p>
<p>An early test of a new and possibly more muscular Clinton foreign policy may well come in the Middle East, where the former Secretary of State and her supporters have made no secret of their belief that Obama could have done more to prevent a vacuum in Syria and Iraq subsequently filled by Islamic State.</p>
<p>Clinton might also be more inclined to challenge both China and Russia with unpredictable consequences.</p>
<p>In one important regard Australian policy would be well served by a Clinton presidency. She is an architect and proponent of a US “pivot’’ to Asia, recognising that the world’s centre of gravity has shifted inexorably.</p>
<p>Uncertainties in American policy, whatever happens this coming week, speak to the need for greater Australian self-reliance, as described in this year’s Defence White Paper with its emphasis on an enhanced maritime capability.</p>
<p>Finally, what Australian policymakers will need to bear in mind is that either Clinton or Trump will represent damaged goods when she or he take the oath of office. In the end the question for America, no less than its friends, is which of the two is less damaged.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68069/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
In less than a week, Americans will choose their next president. And either way, there are problems on a foerign policy level.Tony Walker, Adjunct professor, School of Communications, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/625292016-08-17T01:37:15Z2016-08-17T01:37:15ZThe political role of drone strikes in US grand strategy<p>How do you feel about drone strikes? Chances are you have an opinion – or at least a gut reaction. </p>
<p>Years of <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KZasIbQT2i4J:usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20130430_art004.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us">debate</a> on the issue show that many Americans have reservations. People are concerned that drone strikes <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html">devalue non-American lives</a>, dangerously expand <a href="http://www.merip.org/drones-us-propaganda-imperial-hubris">executive power</a>, and drive terrorism and anti-Americanism. </p>
<p>Yet do we actually <a href="http://isq.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/01/04/isq.sqv004">know</a> <a href="http://www.ugr.es/%7Ejjordan/AlQaedaDronesPakistan.pdf">much</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/10/06/ethical-and-methodological-issues-in-assessing-drones-civilian-impacts-in-pakistan/">about</a> drone strikes’ political effects? No.</p>
<p>Here’s what we can say: There are two publicly known classified programs that operate drones and fire weapons from them, military and CIA, but research into the strikes’ effects is constrained by government secrecy and limited access to areas where the strikes occur. Even <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/02/world/us-reveals-death-toll-from-airstrikes-outside-of-war-zones.html?_r=0">the number of civilians</a> killed <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/10/06/ethical-and-methodological-issues-in-assessing-drones-civilian-impacts-in-pakistan/">is contested</a>. The White House <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/02/world/us-reveals-death-toll-from-airstrikes-outside-of-war-zones.html?_r=0">estimates 116 deaths</a> since the beginning of the Obama administration while independent reporters suggest it is as high as 800. </p>
<p>We can also say drones offer some obvious advantages. Strikes can achieve short-term goals like <a href="http://belfercenter.hks.harvard.edu/publication/24270/attacking_the_leader_missing_the_mark.html">killing leaders of terrorist groups</a> such as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsular leader Jalal Baleedi in <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-idUSKCN0VD0G6">Yemen</a>. They provide more <a href="http://breakingdefense.com/2013/02/retired-gen-deputula-drones-best-weapons-weve-got-for-accurac/">accurate</a> targeting than crewed armed flights and sea-based weaponry, although they <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/04/drones-and-the-myth-of-precision/391445/">are certainly not perfect</a>. They are often less expensive than manned tools like planes and ships.</p>
<p>But there is profound disagreement over the strikes’ political – that is, strategic – <a href="http://informationcollective.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Jordan.pdf">effects</a>. </p>
<p>Whether drone strikes <a href="http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/ISEC_a_00075">reduce or increase</a> terrorism is <a href="http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/21914/does_decapitation_work_assessing_the_effectiveness_of_leadership_targeting_in_counterinsurgency_campaigns.html">murky</a>. The fog is unlikely to clear soon.</p>
<p>Even in this uncertain environment and without hard data, we can draw some conclusions. For example, drone strikes are similar to Special Forces in their direct targeting ability in remote locations, but are less likely to create domestic opposition to the use of force because they don’t put U.S. lives directly at risk. They also evoke less nationalistic backlash because they do not require putting U.S. forces in another state’s territory.</p>
<p>As a political scientist studying the political uses of force, I suggest it’s possible to better understand drone strikes by analyzing them within the context of <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100743820&fa=author&person_id=428">grand strategy</a> – or how a state thinks about assuring its own security. By doing that, we can begin to determine if these strikes support U.S. <a href="https://lawfareblog.com/limits-counterterrorism">goals</a>, or not, and how they compare to other means of attaining the same ends. </p>
<h2>Thinking big about strategy</h2>
<p>There are several different ways of thinking about U.S. grand strategy. For our purposes, it makes the most sense to consider <a href="http://www.comw.org/pda/14dec/fulltext/97posen.pdf">two</a> <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100743820&fa=author&person_id=428">types</a> – restraint and selective engagement. </p>
<p>These approaches share a cautious attitude toward the use of force. Both agree that the wealth and resources of the European and Asian landmass make it the center of U.S. political and economic interactions and the location where any truly dangerous security threat to the United States would arise. </p>
<p>Where the two approaches differ is on the role of international opinion and nonstate actors in U.S. security. These are key points in the drones debate. </p>
<h2>Practicing ‘restraint’</h2>
<p>President Obama is often characterized as a proponent of restraint: He recognizes that the use of force may have higher costs than benefits and that its downstream effects can be incalculable. This recognition is behind his reluctance to intervene directly in internal conflicts such as Syria. </p>
<p>In a world where the U.S. is implementing policies derived from a grand strategy of restraint, military force is a potentially high-cost tool. Drone strikes give the United States a smaller overseas military profile than do land-based conventional forces. This is a political gain. As MIT’s Barry R. Posen <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100743820&fa=author&person_id=428">argues,</a> “a high and martial profile helps to generate antipathy to the United States, which may create a more supportive environment for violent and determined enemies.” </p>
<p>Drone strikes’ greater accuracy and lower profile give them the edge when policymakers are concerned about <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Anti-Americanism-American-World-Giacomo-Chiozza/dp/0801892082">popular opinion</a> and the potential costs of the use of force. Drone strikes can also reduce perceptions of the United States as a bully whose military behavior <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100743820&fa=author&person_id=428">may</a> increase radicalization. </p>
<p>Yet drone strikes against sovereign states underline U.S. unilateralism and the country’s fearsome power-projection capabilities. This is likely to contribute to <a href="http://people.virginia.edu/%7Ega8h/Waiting-for-Balancing.pdf">other states’ fear</a> of the United States as the most powerful state in the world, one unconstrained by others’ interests and wishes. Concern about U.S. strikes can drain liberal partners’ goodwill, potentially affecting U.S. interests in <a href="http://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_obamas_drone_attacks_how_the_eu_should_respond">other areas</a>. Germany, for example, has in the past limited intelligence sharing with the United States because of legal and ethical concerns about drone strikes outside battlefields.</p>
<p>Drone strikes of the type I discuss here apparently occur only in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/us/politics/us-conducts-airstrikes-against-isis-in-libya.html?_r=0">four states</a>: Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Libya – though Libya’s frail government requested U.S. help against the Islamic State, or IS, before the most recent round of strikes and Pakistan is widely believed to privately support <a href="http://yalejournal.org/article_post/the-efficacy-of-u-s-drone-strikes-in-pakistan-the-long-view/">the strikes</a>.</p>
<p>Despite the big controversy, these strikes’ political advantages are small because of limited U.S. interests outside the Eurasian continent and the limited overseas terrorism threat to U.S. interests. </p>
<h2>Under ‘selective engagement’</h2>
<p>What kind of worldview would push the U.S. away from the use of drones?</p>
<p>Drone strikes have an even more limited role in a <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100809520">grand strategy of selective engagement</a>. This approach emphasizes the role of states in U.S. security rather than nonstate actors and popular opinion. It focuses on conventional U.S. military power as an instrument enabling state cooperation, so drones’ smaller footprint becomes a political drawback. </p>
<p>In a grand strategy of selective engagement there is little need to attack terrorists overseas because their limited capabilities pose little threat. The major counterterrorism goal is preventing attacks on the homeland, particularly any using weapons of mass destruction. The primary counterterrorism tools are shared police work and intelligence, argues Brandeis University’s <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100809520">Robert J. Art</a>. </p>
<p>Relying on other states to deal with threats within their own territory and using Special Operations Forces and covert action as a complement to partner forces means a minimal role for drone strikes.</p>
<p>The most controversial drone strikes target groups and individuals in states without a public U.S. military presence and without that state’s public permission. Within hot war zones, drone strikes are another standoff weapon for achieving tactical effects. </p>
<h2>What’s to come</h2>
<p>How are the drone programs likely to change under a new president? How will our new leadership see our place in the world?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2016-05-17/hillary-clinton-doctrine">Hillary Clinton’s worldview</a> is robustly liberal interventionist. This view challenges both restraint and selective engagement in its far broader definitions of U.S. interests and threats.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2016/02/hillary_clinton_told_the_truth_about_her_iraq_war_vote.html">Clinton supported</a> the Iraq War and sees an activist global leadership role for the U.S., including its military. Her views lead one to expect more U.S. uses of force in more places based on the belief that military force easily translates into the power to achieve political goals. Drone strikes could increase, given their appealingly lower profile, lower cost and greater accuracy. But they could easily be eclipsed by more overt military intervention into internal conflicts that Clinton believes threaten U.S. values and interests, such as Syria and Libya. </p>
<p><a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/08/donald-trump-keep-your-hands-off-the-foreign-policy-ideas-i-believe-in-nation-building-united-states/">Donald Trump’s views</a> on how to assure U.S. security are unclear at best, contradictory at worst. Some predict Trump’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/22/president-trump-obama-republican">grounding of drones</a> based on his isolationist comments. Others foresee an expanded role for U.S. air power <a href="http://dronecenter.bard.edu/presidential-candidates-on-drones/">potentially including drones against IS</a> in a Trump presidency.</p>
<p>Turning from high politics to popular views, it’s clear that Americans are concerned about these kinds of drone attacks – apparently unilateral, apparently violating the 350-year-old norm of state sovereignty and conducted without a formal justice process. This reflects well on a public wondering what the U.S. role in the world should be.</p>
<p>But assessing the value of drone strikes requires looking beyond the attacks themselves to first identify and prioritize U.S. interests and threats. Only in that context is it possible to decide whether one supports or opposes drone strikes for what they may gain the United States politically.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62529/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>These views do not represent those of any government entity.</span></em></p>Passionate disagreement over drone strikes obscures the fact that we actually don’t know much about how they affect U.S. interests.Jacqueline L. Hazelton, Assistant Professor of Strategy & Policy, US Naval War CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/609022016-07-26T13:56:06Z2016-07-26T13:56:06ZHow date palm seeds can remove toxins from the environment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131992/original/image-20160726-7023-1o2741w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">From tiny seeds, an environmental solution was found.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Date palms are an iconic feature of landscapes in the Middle East and North Africa. These graceful trees are one of the oldest known fruit crops and have been cultivated for <a href="http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/42/5/1077.abstract">well over 5,000 years</a>, providing sustenance for generations.</p>
<p>To this day, dates have been an important international crop, cultivated in a wide belt from Pakistan to Tunisia and exported to markets across the world. The crops were especially prized by the ancient Sumerian cultures of Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Once one of the earliest cradles of human civilisation, this region is now home to the sadly war-torn countries of Iraq and Syria. </p>
<p>As anybody who has eaten dates will know, the succulent fruits contain a large pit which is normally discarded, though traditionally in the Middle East they were collected and used for feeding livestock or making decorative beads. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131972/original/image-20160726-7045-op88qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131972/original/image-20160726-7045-op88qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131972/original/image-20160726-7045-op88qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131972/original/image-20160726-7045-op88qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131972/original/image-20160726-7045-op88qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131972/original/image-20160726-7045-op88qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131972/original/image-20160726-7045-op88qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The seeds of success grow on these trees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But what if, rather than throw these pits away, we could use them to address a very modern issue, solving a serious problem that plagues people around the world and especially those in countries ravaged by conflict such as Iraq and Syria? What if we could use them to remove toxins from the environment? </p>
<p>Date seeds contain small but <a href="http://bit.ly/2adAnpm">significant amounts of oil</a>, which can be extracted by pressing. This oil used to be processed to make <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/you-think-dates-are-only-for-eating">soap and other beauty products</a>. However, in a joint venture with colleagues in Syria, we have now found a way to use the oil to remove dangerous toxins from the environment. </p>
<h2>A dated solution</h2>
<p>This finding came about through a unique international scientific collaboration between Dr Abdulsamie Hanano in Damascus, colleagues in France, and our group at the University of South Wales.</p>
<p>Dr Hanano was interested in the problem of how to remove toxins, known as dioxins, that can accumulate in watercourses and soils due to industrial contamination or warfare. Dioxins are byproducts of industrial processes, and perhaps best known from the Vietnam War in the 1960s, when the US military sprayed huge amounts of a <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/agent-orange">herbicide called “Agent Orange”</a> over the countryside in order to remove vegetation. </p>
<p>Tragically, the Agent Orange formulation contained dioxins and many thousands of Vietnamese people were exposed to the toxin, resulting in a huge toll of <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2401378/Agent-Orange-Vietnamese-children-suffering-effects-herbicide-sprayed-US-Army-40-years-ago.html">illness and birth defects</a> that is <a href="http://tyglobalist.org/in-the-magazine/features/the-enduring-legacy-of-agent-orange-in-vietnam/">still with us today</a>. </p>
<p>More widely, industrially produced dioxins are present in many areas around the world and enter human food chains via livestock, fish or drinking water from contaminated areas. Dioxins <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs225/en/">accumulate in the human body</a> eventually leading to reproductive and developmental problems, damage to the immune system and cancer. </p>
<p>One of the biggest problems in trying to remove dioxins from the environment is their extreme insolubility in water, which means that they cannot simply be washed away. This is where Dr Hanano spotted a possible opportunity to use date seeds: he realised that the seed oil was encapsulated in very stable structures called lipid droplets. And, as we had shown previously, such lipid droplets are covered by a layer of specialised proteins that enable them to <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22002710">form highly stable emulsions</a>. We speculated that these oily emulsions might attract the dioxins and remove them from the environment – in effect acting as “molecular magnets”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uzvTB0mOS0w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The first challenge was to get the lipid droplets out of the hard date seeds. This required the seeds to be soaked in water for two weeks to soften them, before the droplets could be extracted as a creamy emulsion. The next stage was to add this emulsion to a water/solvent mixture that contained the <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs225/en/">most common and most toxic dioxin</a>, TCDD. The results were dramatic and exceeded all of our expectations: within a minute, almost all of the dioxins had been removed from the solution and into the lipid droplets. </p>
<p>This was the start of several months of intensive research by our respective labs in Syria, France and the UK. Because of the ongoing conflict in Syria, we were unable to meet in person, and our colleagues in Damascus suffered from severe shortages of equipment and supplies – not to mention the very real dangers of living and working in a war zone.</p>
<p>Having shown a preliminary “proof of concept” in our <a href="http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpls.2016.00836/full#">recently published paper</a>, we are now interested in practical applications of this new form of environmental biotechnology. One of Dr Hanano’s ideas is to use it on fish farms where the higher levels of dioxins in coastal waters (compared to the open oceans) can result in significant accumulations in fish and shellfish. The water could be passed through cartridges containing date seed lipid droplet emulsions in order to remove the dioxins, which can them be incinerated.</p>
<p>In the short term, we hope the technology will be used to help clean up the <a href="http://www.naameshaam.org/experts-should-sample-sites-of-chlorine-bomb-attacks-in-syria-for-highly-toxic-dioxin-and-investigate-iranian-role/">huge numbers of contaminated sites</a> in Syria created during the present conflict. Longer term, we are also interested in using this sort of bio-remediation to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/22/iraq-nuclear-contaminated-sites">tackle other toxins</a> across the world, proving that date palms are even more useful than our ancestors imagined.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denis J Murphy has previously received funding from UK government research bodies such as BBSRC for research into the roles lipid droplets in plants.</span></em></p>A natural byproduct could clean up polluted and war-ravaged land.Denis J Murphy, Professor of Biotechnology, Head of Genomics & Computational Biology Research, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/566422016-03-22T16:37:53Z2016-03-22T16:37:53ZPresident Trump’s foreign policy dystopia<p>After over three decades of living in the United States, one thing that I have learned is never to assume that I understand American domestic politics. Every time I think I grasp where it is going, I am eventually dumbfounded. </p>
<p>So I tread on eggshells when venturing onto that terrain. And given my own lack of predictive powers, I view anyone who claims to have them suspiciously.</p>
<p>Everyone I know says Donald Trump can’t win the presidency. And the pundits on TV still agree, although with decreasing conviction. After all, David Brooks, conservative columnist for <em>The New York Times</em>, was the one who convinced me that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/opinion/no-donald-trump-wont-win.html">Trump could not win the Republican nomination</a>. On that basis I myself <a href="https://theconversation.com/was-2015-such-a-terrible-year-and-what-will-2016-look-like-52657">predicted</a> he would not be the nominee. </p>
<p>But I have read Philip Roth’s excellent and disturbing novel, <em><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/books/review/the-plot-against-america.html">The Plot Against America</a>.</em> In this book (a mild spoiler alert from early in the story!), Charles Lindbergh flies into a contested Republican convention, becomes the nominee and wins an election against an ailing FDR. American isolationism follows – as does a new dystopian order.</p>
<p>I therefore refuse to rule out a scenario where a triumphant Trump benefits from a last-minute Hillary Clinton scandal, one that confounds her presidential bid. Stranger things have happened.</p>
<p>This then raises the question: what would a Trump foreign policy look like? </p>
<h2>What the experts say</h2>
<p>Last week I chaired a panel of renowned American experts on the issue of the 2016 election and the future of U.S. foreign policy. These five people are accomplished in both academia and the policy world. Without revealing their identities (only because I didn’t ask them if they could be quoted), I will provide an overview of the opinions they offered about life after President Obama. </p>
<p>Some lauded Obama’s foreign policy accomplishments – like the Iran deal. Others admired his cautious approach, so evidently revealed in Jeffrey Goldberg’s recent piece in the <em>Atlantic Monthly</em> entitled “<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/">The Obama Doctrine</a>.” All saw the next few years as broadly resembling the last eight, although they disagreed on how much variation there would be in terms of priorities in a new administration. </p>
<p>As the chair of the panel, I got to ask them the last question. And I seized the moment. I suggested that they all assumed that Trump would not be president. But, I asked, what did they think would happen if he did become president?</p>
<p>The oldest and possibly most distinguished member of the panel offered an honest, simple and now all too familiar response when suggesting he hadn’t a clue. </p>
<p>Other security experts on the panel responded that nobody who was competent and high-profile would be willing to serve on Trump’s foreign policy staff. Indeed, an impressive high-ranking set of Republican foreign policy experts recently signed a <a href="http://warontherocks.com/2016/03/open-letter-on-donald-trump-from-gop-national-security-leaders">letter</a> saying they would not work with him. They consider him unfit for the office of the presidency. </p>
<p>Trump himself <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/17/donald-trump-i-consult-myself-on-foreign-policy-be/">says</a> he doesn’t need them, and has named five members of his foreign policy team on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/03/21/donald-trump-reveals-foreign-policy-team-in-meeting-with-the-washington-post/?wpisrc=al_alert-COMBO-politics%252Bnation">Monday</a>. </p>
<p>Several of these individuals have never, apparently, even spoken to Trump. They are led by Jeff Sessions, the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Only one, Joseph E. Schmitz, has served in a Republican administration. And he resigned his Defense Department post in 2005 amid accusations that he had been involved in efforts, according to the <em><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2005/sep/25/nation/na-schmitz25">Los Angeles Times</a></em>, that “slowed or blocked investigations of senior Bush administration officials, spent taxpayer money on pet projects and accepted gifts that may have violated ethics guidelines.” </p>
<p>Still, if Trump does make it to the White House, there will always be those who will offer their services if they think the rewards are great enough. Look at Chris Christie’s shift from Trump’s critic to his greatest admirer in a matter of weeks.</p>
<p>So let’s follow the advice of one of the speakers on my panel who suggested that we take Trump at his word and assume that he would implement the policies he currently advocates. </p>
<p>Admittedly, that is a bit of a stretch, if only because he is so vague at times. But that is all we have to go with.</p>
<h2>Trump’s new world</h2>
<p>So what has he suggested that even vaguely applies to U.S. foreign policy?</p>
<p>First, as one panelist noted, it is a lot harder and more time-consuming to abrogate international security agreements that the U.S. has already signed than it is to institute new economic policies not based on treaties. </p>
<p>So we’d assume that a President Trump would introduce the 45 percent tariff he <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/07/donald-trump-says-he-favors-big-tariffs-on-chinese-exports/?_r=0">promised</a> against China more quickly than, say, <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/08/17/mtps_todd_to_donald_trump_it_sounds_like_youre_not_a_fan_of_nato.html">pull American forces out of Europe</a>. The new tariffs would roil global financial markets. And it’s not just the one percent whom Trump’s supporters despise who would suffer as their assets shrank. So would every other person saving for retirement.</p>
<p>On the other hand, a handful of manufacturing jobs would, presumably, be saved from among the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/business/economy/carrier-workers-see-costs-not-benefits-of-global-trade.html?_r=0&login=email">12 million</a> in the U.S. Manufacturing represents about 11 percent of all jobs, just over <a href="http://theweek.com/articles/563544/american-manufacturing-jobs-are-never-coming-back">half as many</a> as there were in 1979. Even threatening American firms with sanctions if they move offshore isn’t likely to bring enough jobs back to compensate for the huge declines in retirement savings. </p>
<p>Then there is the issue of trying to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/17/politics/donald-trump-mexico-wall/">build a wall</a> along the Mexican border. Of course, at nearly 2,000 miles in length, doing so would probably take longer than two Trump administrations. I doubt whether many of those Americans who support his candidacy would apply for such a backbreaking job. He claims the Mexicans will build it: so using it to create new American employment is out of the question. </p>
<p>And there is the famous issue of who is going to pay for it. But whether the U.S. or Mexico does, the project would help destroy America’s reputation in promoting human rights around the world. It would also ensure that the U.S. would not receive <a href="http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ip/journal/v53/n2/full/ip201543a.html">much-needed Mexican cooperation</a> when it comes to fighting the war on drugs – a reputed <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/10/addicted-to-heroin-trump-says-blame-the-mexicans.html">central issue</a> in Trump’s campaign platform. </p>
<p>But we can’t just stop at China and the Western Hemisphere.</p>
<p>President Trump tells us he would <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/08/17/mtps_todd_to_donald_trump_it_sounds_like_youre_not_a_fan_of_nato.html">pull American military support for Europe</a> so that the Europeans pay for their own defense. He has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-and-the-end-of-nato/2016/03/04/e8c4b9ca-e146-11e5-8d98-4b3d9215ade1_story.html">no interest in NATO</a>, he says, signaling the end of the western alliance that has been the bedrock of collective defense and stability in Europe for seven decades. </p>
<p>Presumably, his new friends the Russians would be overjoyed at this prospect, given that there would then be no effective military force between Moscow and Paris. </p>
<p>Trump has said essentially the same about thing about Asia, specifically <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/03/21/donald-trump-reveals-foreign-policy-team-in-meeting-with-the-washington-post/?wpisrc=al_alert-COMBO-politics%252Bnation">South Korea</a>. So American withdrawal would presumably set off an arms race in Asia as Japan and South Korea arm themselves with nuclear weapons to ward off aggression by China or North Korea.</p>
<p>Finally, the Middle East.</p>
<p>First, no leader of a Muslim country would dare – even if they still wanted to – talk to us again after all Muslims were banned, however imperative their need. </p>
<p>And while Trump received a civil and polite response at the pro-Israel AIPAC meeting in Washington March 21, it did not match the thunderous reception given to Hillary Clinton or even John Kasich. </p>
<p>Perhaps it was Trump’s prior equivocal comments about being <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/269806-trump-ill-be-neutral-on-israel-and-palestine">a neutral arbiter</a> between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Or his earlier suggestion that Israel should <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-says-hell-make-israel-pay-for-defense-aid/">pay for its own defense</a>. Perhaps it was his constant reference to <a href="http://www.donaldjtrump.com/media/donald-j-trump-remarks-at-aipac">Palestine</a> rather than the Palestinian Authority. That was a political misstep, given that calling it Palestine implies it has already achieved statehood. This is something that AIPAC’s supporters don’t want to hear – and it demonstrates to them Trump’s ignorance about the Middle East. Or perhaps it was his reliance on his daughter’s conversion to Judaism to demonstrate that he is a friend of Israel. But a wary AIPAC crowd appeared to offer a <a href="http://time.com/4267086/donald-trump-aipac-speech-israel/">subdued</a> response to his assertion that Israel had a “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/us/politics/hillary-clinton-and-donald-trump-vow-to-protect-israel-but-differ-on-means.html?ref=politics">special status</a>” among America’s allies. </p>
<p>Having destroyed America’s economic relationship with China, removed any barriers to Russian bullying of Europe, and reduced America’s engagement in the Middle East, we would have a very different global environment. </p>
<h2>Hello Canada and our new dystopia</h2>
<p>In a recent episode of “The Daily Show,” Trevor Noah <a href="http://www.cc.com/full-episodes/pmkzkt/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-march-10--2016---padma-lakshmi-season-21-ep-21076">noted</a> that there was a record number of Google hits on the search for the words “move to Canada.” It is a nice idea. But the truth is that nowhere, in my view, would be safe from the effects of a Trump presidency. </p>
<p>So I’m going to hope that members of the panel I chaired were correct to dismiss the idea of a Trump presidency out of hand. Perhaps, as in Roth’s novel, the Republican convention will throw up a surprise – in this case a different candidate. </p>
<p>One thing is for sure: the rest of the world “<a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/president-trump-for-now-the-world-recoils/">recoils</a>” at the prospect of Donald Trump in the White House. The question is: do America’s voters care?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56642/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
If you take Donald Trump at his word, what would his foreign policy look like?Simon Reich, Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of Political Science, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/536672016-01-25T15:19:22Z2016-01-25T15:19:22ZOur understanding of states, sovereignty and statelessness is being tested<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109155/original/image-20160125-19667-bbr0pc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Refugees walk through a frozen field after crossing the border from Macedonia, near the village of Miratovac, Serbia</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Marko Djurica</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One leg of a complicated travel schedule over the holidays imprisoned me in an airport lounge for 12 hours: caught in this liminal space, I began to think about the state, its sovereignty, and the idea of statelessness.</p>
<p>It is not the first time these thoughts have come around.</p>
<p>When the glamour of globalisation was the rage a decade or so ago, it was tempting to believe that - to invoke Leon Trotsky’s famous 1917 phrase - the world was on the edge of condemning the state and sovereignty to the <a href="http://dinafainberg.com/about/">dustbin of history</a>.</p>
<p>But I was disbelieving that globalisation could herald some kind of new market-driven nirvana where states and sovereignty would no longer count for much.</p>
<p>The idea of making both peace and paradise through the power of the purse was never really on: too many messy corners remained to be tidied up, and it is to several of these that my holiday peregrinations took me.</p>
<p>In the late-1960s, however, I was attracted to an earlier strain of post-sovereign thinking, the idea of “the global village”. This has been largely associated with Canadian media theorist, <a href="http://www.mcluhanmedia.com/m_mcl_manmessage.html">Marshall McLuhan</a>. The idea was that greater connectivity would “shrink” the world, but leave state sovereignty intact.</p>
<p>This notion of shrinking the world was recently re-captured by the acclaimed Marxist theorist, David Harvey, in the phrase <a href="http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199874002/obo-9780199874002-0025.xml">“time-space compression”</a>. We live in a “24/7” world, while geographical boundaries have been rendered meaningless.</p>
<p>In one form or another the ideas – globalisation, the global village, time-space compression - were once easily illustrated by pointing to what was happening in Europe.</p>
<p>After centuries of promoting conflict, sovereignty within Europe was demonstrably losing its grip: states previously at war were willing to surrender their dominion in order to merge, mingle and mix. Surely, this was the pathway to modernisation.</p>
<p>But Europe’s value as the proverbial case-in-point has recently been drawn into question.</p>
<p>The promise of economic prosperity for all who live within its capacious borders has been hobbled by market-inspired thinking. The very idea of Europe has been eroded by the incessant bleating by the British that their sovereignty is exceptional – destined to command the world, not be sullied by European provincialism.</p>
<p>But importantly for present purposes, events in Europe suggest something new about states, sovereignty – and the stateless.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding solemn declarations by Brussels - and separate deals with neighbouring states - it is a sure bet that the inward <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911">migration to Europe</a> will continue unabated.</p>
<p>The reason for this is plain: those dislodged by conflict in the Middle East know that Europe – a place with no internal borders – is almost within walking distance.</p>
<p>It is true, of course, that around the wider EU borders are in place. These were once the edge of what, a decade and more ago, was called <a href="http://www.movingpeoplechangingplaces.org/migration-histories/fortress-europe.html">“Fortress Europe” </a> – a ring of legislation and international law which could protect prosperous Europe from the intrusion of outsiders.</p>
<p>But it is difficult today to see how – short of war, as in the Ukraine – Fortress Europe can reassert this outer boundary of its sovereignty.</p>
<p>The lesson of this is clear: no longer bound by states, those who have become stateless seem to be seeking a place in the only space where sovereignty has little purchase on the lives of individuals.</p>
<p>There seems to be something else going on too: our understanding of states, sovereignty and statelessness is being tested.</p>
<p>Paradoxically, as the stateless seek out Europe, thousands are leaving it to join the <a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/597254/ISIS-Map-Europe-Terror-Organisation-Andrew-Hosken-Caliphate-Abu-Musab-al-Zarqawi">ISIS caliphate</a>, a sovereign-free zone straddling two nominally sovereign countries – Syria and Iraq.</p>
<p>But here, law and politics clash. In effect the caliphate exercises political sovereignty, although legally it has none. So it occupies that liminal space between “what is” and “what should be”.</p>
<p>As a result, the idea of the caliphate is testing our lexicon, our grammar and our political imagination.</p>
<p>Many questions follow of which this may be the most important: short of war, how are we to deal with it if it is invariably seen as dystopian, or described a “threat”?</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.e-ir.info/2016/01/22/neglected-yarns-and-new-beginnings-a-delhi-diary/">small conference in Delhi</a>, which came at the end of a month-long perambulation, drew me towards the understanding that we can only read state, sovereignty and statelessness as a process of social negotiation. Seldom are these notions settled: instead, they are continuously mediated by circumstances.</p>
<p>In contrast to what we have been taught - or teach our students - we live in an increasingly hybrid world. </p>
<p>In this world outcomes are produced that are not stable and so generate only doubt, not certainty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53667/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
In contrast to what we have been taught - or teach our students - we are living in an increasingly hybrid world.Peter Vale, Professor of Humanities and the Director of the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS), University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/473472015-09-10T10:10:59Z2015-09-10T10:10:59ZMore Syrian refugees: good for national security<p>Western countries and the Middle East are (finally) engaged in serious negotiations around resettling many more of the refugees from Syria – the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II.</p>
<p>While arguments around global complicity and moral obligation in the Middle East should and do inspire aid to refugees, they do not always persuade policymakers as much as pragmatic ones that refugees benefit the countries that welcome them. </p>
<p>With this in mind, it is worth highlighting arguments like that of <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/08/we-should-all-be-competing-to-take-in-refugees-europe-syria/">economist Daniel Altman</a>, who notes the clear economic benefits to countries for absorbing refugees.</p>
<p>Yet there is another strong argument to be made that offering temporary or permanent homes to specifically Syrian refugees is in the national interest of countries like the US. In particular, such refugees can be crucial resources in tackling the extremist violence and authoritarian excess that we are now witnessing in the Middle East.</p>
<p>They can do this in three specific ways. </p>
<p>First, they will no longer be part of the problem by escaping the immediate threat of violence or radicalization. Second, their experience can serve as an important example for others. Third, they have the skills and the background that can be put to work in the broader struggle to defeat parochialism and repression in the Middle East.</p>
<h2>No longer part of the problem</h2>
<p>For starters, Syrians who are repatriated out of harm’s way are unlikely future contributors to Middle Eastern religious or authoritarian violence. </p>
<p>The logic of this is clear; refugees are fleeing Bashar al-Assad, the Islamic State or both. Having experienced the extreme disruption of Syria’s brutal civil war caused by the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown on domestic uprisings and the subsequent exploitation of this disruption by ISIS, they are unlikely to entertain illusions about the merits of violence. </p>
<p>Indeed, as has been the case for earlier populations of refugees, <a href="http://www.ilw.com/articles/2006,0313-campi.shtm">like Vietnamese-Americans</a>, displaced Syrians should be able to appreciate the societies and people who help them during their time of need, whether or not they return to their country of origin. To assume that many Syrians are would-be jihadis after what they have experienced requires, to my mind, a leap of (paranoid) faith.</p>
<p>In any case, if Middle Eastern and Western governments alike fear the radicalization of Syrians, showing them compassion and generosity in their hour of need is a far more obvious strategy to address this fear than forcing them to choose between fighting or capture in Syria and possible death if they leave.</p>
<h2>Serving as an example for others</h2>
<p>Refugees from World War II were instrumental in calling Americans’ attention to the specific tragedies of that conflict. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94336/original/image-20150910-4731-zlojqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94336/original/image-20150910-4731-zlojqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94336/original/image-20150910-4731-zlojqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94336/original/image-20150910-4731-zlojqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94336/original/image-20150910-4731-zlojqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94336/original/image-20150910-4731-zlojqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94336/original/image-20150910-4731-zlojqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel in 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elie_Wiesel#/media/File:Elie_Wiesel_2012_Shankbone.JPG">David Shankbone</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For instance, Elie Wiesel’s memoir of Auschwitz, Night, which he published soon after becoming an American in 1958, remains <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2014/aug/25/elie-wiesel-night-jewish-identity-amnesty-teen-takeover-2014">a central testimony</a> to the particular cruelty of the Nazi Holocaust and extreme inhumanity more generally. </p>
<p>The adoption of Syrian refugees by countries like the US will produce similar direct and gripping eyewitness of the massive atrocities that we know have been perpetrated by both <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/07/u-s-assad-s-machinery-of-death-worst-since-the-nazis.html">the Assad regime</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-23/islamic-state-committing-atrocities-on-an-industrial-scale/6565626">ISIS</a>. Americans have been inspired by <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/politics/2013/04/malala-yousafzai-pakistan-profile">the story of the Pakistani student Malala Yousafzai</a>. Syrian Malalas with stories of their own await our attention.</p>
<p>More specifically, if Syrian refugees are welcomed in sufficient numbers and go on to connect with a broad variety of Americans, two groups of people – both important in the struggle against violence and extremism in the Middle East – could learn from their example. </p>
<p>First, Syrian witnesses to the reality of ISIS could provide a reality check for alienated Muslim-Americans <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/22/politics/isis-recruits-american-arrests/">who romanticize, or are drawn by ISIS media handlers</a> to the pseudo Islamic <a href="http://theweek.com/articles/572910/life-under-isis-caliphate">caliphate</a>. </p>
<p>Second, and at least as important, the example of hardworking Syrian Muslims and Christians with harrowing stories holds the potential to provide concrete sources of empathy to those Americans inclined to stereotype Middle Easterners and Muslims. This empathy would be a counter to the sort of <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/11/fuelling-islamophobia-us-201411175912258948.html">Western-based Islamophobia that has a role in fueling ongoing conflict</a> between parts of the West and the Middle East. </p>
<h2>Potential problem solvers</h2>
<p>Most Syrian refugees who come to the US will pursue or build on the many interests and careers they developed in preconflict Syria, hopefully bolstered by the best of what America has to offer: generosity and freedom. </p>
<p>Some refugees, however, might use their experience and knowledge to be engaged directly in the struggle against Middle Eastern violence.</p>
<p>By this, I am not talking of the possibility that they could join the American military or national security agencies, although this is not out of the question. </p>
<p>What I want to highlight, rather, is that the refugee crisis in itself reminds us that the scale of the violence in the Middle East is massive and that further violence is unlikely to solve the problem. </p>
<p>Middle Eastern conflict in recent decades teaches two lessons: that repeated saber-rattling only produces more and sharper sabers, and that, as a result, the underlying dynamics of conflicts must be addressed.</p>
<p>Before its 2011 breakdown, Syria – <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Syria">with its religious and ethnic pluralism</a> – was an unusual Middle Eastern society. </p>
<p>Many Syrian refugees know what it is like to live with people of other religions and other ethnicities. This experience, coupled with Syrians’ familiarity with the region and their ability to communicate in Arabic, would allow refugees so inclined to work collaboratively with officials and civilians on projects fostering tolerance and defusing conflict in the region. </p>
<p>In short, Syrian refugees hold key assets and life stories that can indirectly and directly contribute to the long, but necessary, struggle to defuse violent religious conflict and repression in the Middle East. </p>
<p>Moreover, they have the incentive to do so. </p>
<p>For this reason, as well as basic humanitarianism, the US should dramatically increase – and quickly – the number of refugees from Syria that it takes in. </p>
<p>Indeed, the same logic applies to other Western and Middle Eastern countries with a strong stake in avoiding the increasingly stark future of horrific political repression in Syria – whether in the name of Assad’s secularism or ISIS’s Islamism. </p>
<p>Riveting Syrian refugee tragedies like that of three-year-old <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34141716">Alan Kurdi</a> should be a wake-up call. The current crisis can be turned an opportunity to make a dent in the region’s suffering once and for all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47347/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Mednicoff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Syrian refugees have key assets and life stories that can contribute to the long, but necessary, struggle to end violence in the Middle East.David Mednicoff, Assistant Professor of Public Policy; Director of Accelerated Degree Programs, Center for Public Policy and Adminstration; and Director, Middle Eastern Studies, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/435682015-06-22T19:39:47Z2015-06-22T19:39:47ZSyria’s refugees: time to get serious about preventing a lost generation of Arab Youth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85996/original/image-20150622-17743-gm31s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Home away from home for too many Syrians</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/statephotos/9312291491/sizes/o/in/photostream/">US State Department </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I chat with several articulate young women about how high school is going. They tell me that classes don’t always interest them, their families can’t help much with homework, and the exams that they have to take to get into university are very difficult. </p>
<p>My conversation with these ambitious students could be taking place anywhere, but for the lack of reliable electricity and the tiny size and low roof of the temporary house in which we stand. </p>
<p>In fact, the crowded conditions and desert surroundings make clear that I am at Za'atari, the largest camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan, and among the largest such camps in the world.</p>
<p>I recently visited Za'atari as the academic director of <a href="http://i-platform.org/">i-platform</a>, a non-governmental organization (NGO) devoted to innovative approaches to global governance challenges. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85955/original/image-20150622-17743-1239rua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85955/original/image-20150622-17743-1239rua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85955/original/image-20150622-17743-1239rua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85955/original/image-20150622-17743-1239rua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85955/original/image-20150622-17743-1239rua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85955/original/image-20150622-17743-1239rua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85955/original/image-20150622-17743-1239rua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author on location.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Mednicoff</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My short time in the camp amid not only human misery but also youth aspiration underscored the key role that action to improve displaced Syrians’ lives can play in addressing instability in the Middle East in the coming years.</p>
<h2>An unprecedented crisis</h2>
<p>As the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/558193896.html">UN noted on June 18</a>, the refugee crisis today – both in the Middle East and worldwide – is unprecedented in its number and its linkage to different intersecting conflicts. </p>
<p>Sixty million people have been uprooted from their normal lives. They need a concerted global effort to address their misery. </p>
<p>The Syrian situation caused by a civil war involving the brutal Assad government, various rebel groups and the Islamic State (ISIS) has contributed the single largest group of displaced people to the current crisis.</p>
<p>Americans rightly worry about ISIS, as they have about al-Qaeda. Yet, combatting Middle East violent Islamism is not just a military project. The causes and the effects of long-term conflict in the Middle East run deep, and have the potential to engender yet more conflict. </p>
<p>Western colonialism has been reproduced as Arab authoritarianism. Violent authoritarian states have bred violent reactions. Western overthrow of Middle Eastern governments in Iran and Iraq provoked anti-Western violent responses. Popular movements or uprisings have transformed to renewed authoritarianism (Egypt) or horrific civil war (Syria, Libya, Yemen). And this is just a part of the terrible story that is engulfing the world in conflict and insecurity.</p>
<p>In the heady days of the Arab anti-authoritarian uprisings of 2011, many Syrians hoped their repressive leader Bashar al-Assad could be dislodged in similar fashion to his peers in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. </p>
<p>But Assad’s will and resources, and political and military problems coordinating rebel forces, led to a full-scale civil war that has torn apart the country, displaced over 7.5 million Syrians internally and created <a href="http://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/syrian-arab-republic-humanitarian-snapshot-31-may-2015">nearly 4 million refugees</a> located mostly in Turkey, Lebanon and Syria. </p>
<p>Even if the conflict in Syria were to end today, this would be an extreme humanitarian challenge. </p>
<p>And Syria is far from any sort of peace.</p>
<h2>The violence problem</h2>
<p>One of the major underlying causes of violence in the Middle East is <a href="http://www.arabnews.com/news/columns/614021">disillusioned, undervalued and underemployed young people.</a> </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85954/original/image-20150622-17748-oxltk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85954/original/image-20150622-17748-oxltk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85954/original/image-20150622-17748-oxltk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85954/original/image-20150622-17748-oxltk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85954/original/image-20150622-17748-oxltk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85954/original/image-20150622-17748-oxltk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85954/original/image-20150622-17748-oxltk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A school in Za'atari.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/16805812735">UKAid</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Approximately 1.6 of Syria’s 4 million refugees are children. They have few prospects for meaningful social engagement or work. So how to make sure they are not left to fuel conflicts that Western countries have been unable to avert with their military or other global influences?</p>
<p>My recent tour of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjOXGhdZv8o">the Za'atari camp</a> inspired hope that there are strategies to address this seemingly limitless human crisis.</p>
<p>Administrators and Jordanian officials have worked together to improve basic order, sanitary facilities and morale in the camp, particularly after the camp’s initial problems upon opening in mid-2012.</p>
<p>The camp now includes a resident-run string of businesses selling clothes, cosmetics and most other items camp members need that is known as <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28541909">the Champs Elysees</a>. International and local managers, working in tandem, have made a disaster at least tolerable in the short run.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hjOXGhdZv8o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>The training solution</h2>
<p>Most impressive is the program to provide hundreds of young people with specific vocational training in skills like making clothes, hair-styling and electronics repair that they can use to provide services for their fellow residents. </p>
<p>An enthusiastic teacher showed off beautiful student art and a functional car built from rusty scraps, really impressing my colleagues with the industriousness and hope that NGO workers nurture in these young Syrians.</p>
<p>But there are tens of thousands of young Za'atari residents. Most get no training. And more long-term training might threaten young Jordanians’ own capacity to find work – youth unemployment in Jordan is high, at <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.1524.ZS">almost 34%</a>. </p>
<p>The fruitful efforts of Za'atari camp workers and residents are still limited in scope and impact. The young people are cut off from better training opportunities.</p>
<p>Needed now is sustained, multinational, multifaceted policy conversation around strategies on how to turn these challenged young people from victims to possible preventers of Middle Eastern conflict. </p>
<p>Researchers and relief organizations are beginning to analyze <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/4eb25c7f9.html">how refugee conflict survivors can contribute to peace-building</a> and to other political efforts in war-torn areas. </p>
<p>It was easy for me to imagine the young people I met in Za'atari, who want to study law, literature or engineering, if nurtured, as not merely witnesses to an awful moment in history, but conduits for learning from their experiences. </p>
<p>Some of this can be very simple. More funding and technical assistance, for instance, would prevent the daily power outages that hinder some Syrians at Za'atari from studying for the Jordanian college entrance exams.</p>
<h2>Beyond basic development</h2>
<p>Other policy conversations will be harder.</p>
<p>When the <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21649712-emergency-meeting-brussels-produces-inadequate-plan-save-migrants-do-not-send-me-your">European Union held a summit in April</a> after over 1,000 refugees drowned off the coast of Italy, the piecemeal solutions that were offered suggest difficult debates among member states. </p>
<p>Western countries tend to see refugees as ideological risks or competitors for scarce jobs. Is this inevitable? What alliances between global NGOs and possible asylum or funding countries can smooth the passage of displaced people out of camps?</p>
<p>Questions like these have no easy answers and run up against a wide range of nationalistic and other insecurities.</p>
<p>That <a href="http://www.mercycorps.org/articles/turkey-iraq-jordan-lebanon-syria/quick-facts-what-you-need-know-about-syria-crisis">95% of Syria’s refugees</a> are in other Middle Eastern countries mirrors a broader pattern that wealthier countries do far less than less-developed nations to host refugees. Yet <a href="http://www.oecd.org/migration/mig/OECD%20Migration%20Policy%20Debates%20Numero%202.pdf">studies</a> show that migrants <a href="http://www.oecd.org/migration/mig/OECD%20Migration%20Policy%20Debates%20Numero%202.pdf">generally benefit</a> economies.</p>
<p>The young Syrians in Za'atari see daily how much non-Syrians working in the camp have done for them, and evince little hostility to outsiders. </p>
<p>The refugees I encountered, many of whom were highly successful in their countries, <a href="http://www.syriadeeply.org/articles/2015/06/7482/jan-egeland-its-time-change-narrative-syrias-refugees/">want to have a degree of control and initiative in their own decisions, and the prospects to be useful</a>, rather than being seen as victims. </p>
<p>With what we have learned about the unpredictability and costs of military action, a concerted effort to invest more into helping more of these people contribute to global society does not seem like a particularly risky investment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43568/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Prof. David Mednicoff visited the Zaatari camp in his role as Chair, Council of Academic Fellows, with iPlatform. iPlatform is a non-governmental, non-profit, global organization committed to linking diverse young policy advocates, experienced thinkers and established policy-makers in the service of novel approaches to some of the world's pressing challenges of governance and the rule of law. For details, see <a href="http://i-platform.org/about/leadership/">http://i-platform.org/about/leadership/</a>.</span></em></p>Syrians are the single largest group of displaced people in the world. How to make sure that the plight of these refugees doesn’t fuel future conflicts?David Mednicoff, Assistant Professor of Public Policy; Director of Accelerated Degree Programs, Center for Public Policy and Adminstration; and Director, Middle Eastern Studies, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/425092015-05-28T14:40:56Z2015-05-28T14:40:56ZBlair steps down as Middle East envoy with little to show for it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83263/original/image-20150528-31332-1ar3yzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Time to reflect. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tony_Blair,_UK_Prime_Minister_(1997-2007)_(8228591861).jpg">Chatham House/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Next month, Tony Blair <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/27/tony-blair-resigns-as-middle-east-peace-envoy-report">will step down</a> from his role as peace envoy for the Middle East Quartet, a diplomatic consort comprised of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia. The quartet was established in 2002 as a result of escalating conflict in the region, and has been committed to seeking a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Blair’s departure from his position comes at a time when the prospects for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians are at an all-time low. </p>
<p>When he <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6244358.stm">took on the role</a> of peace envoy in 2007, Blair was tasked with developing the Palestinian economy and improving the quality of its governance. In spite of Blair’s decision to participate in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Blair was initially welcomed by the Palestinians, who were optimistic that he could generate change, given that he is such a prominent world figure. </p>
<h2>Playing it safe</h2>
<p>But from the beginning, it was clear that little would be accomplished. Building an economy and improving governance is difficult to achieve while the Palestinians are still under occupation, and Blair was hesitant to point this out to the Israelis.</p>
<p>To make headway on the peace process, both the quartet and Blair would need to have been more proactive and willing to criticise Israeli transgressions. The government of Israel, led by Binyamin Netanyahu, <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/03/netanyahu-committed-palestinian-statehood-150319213444662.html">offered some rhetoric</a> in support of the idea of a Palestinian state. But the expansion of illegal West Bank settlements continues, and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/22/israels-new-deputy-foreign-minister-this-land-is-ours-all-of-it-is-ours">key ministers</a> have blocked any changes. </p>
<p>This goes to show that part of a larger problem with the quartet – and Blair’s role more specifically – is complacency. Blair never spoke out against the Israelis. And as a result, Palestinians became increasingly critical of his close relationship with Israel. He seemed far too focused on ensuring that Israeli interests were never threatened.</p>
<h2>Rising tensions</h2>
<p>Another issue was Blair’s strained relationship with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. According to <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/After-Mahmoud-Abbas-who-will-lead-the-Palestinians-Authority-375800">the Jerusalem Post</a>, Blair is stepping down due to increasing tensions with Palestinian authority figures.</p>
<p>Another source of tension within the quartet was Blair’s array of business affairs in the Middle East, which were perceived to create a conflict of interest. Clients <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11633511/Tony-Blair-resigns-as-Middle-East-peace-envoy.html">included companies</a> with links to the royal family of Saudi Arabia, and an Abu Dhabi wealth fund. Critics <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ecfa080c-047d-11e5-a5c3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3bRbmYz2C">also claimed</a> that his mounting consultancy work in the region stripped away time and availability from his duties; he was not present enough to make any sort of impact. For example, he rarely visited the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in spite of the turmoil, instability and poverty there. </p>
<p>Though some <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/27/tony-blair-resigns-as-middle-east-peace-envoy-report">Palestinian sources claimed</a> that Blair “did a lot of good”, clear evidence of this is hard to come by. His <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/27/tony-blair-resigns-as-middle-east-peace-envoy-report">supporters claim</a> that his work helped open up the border crossing for Palestinian businessmen needing to access Jordan. On the other hand, after almost eight years over 500 checkpoints and roadblocks remain in the West Bank, and peace seems more elusive than ever.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the inability to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict cannot be blamed completely on Blair. The quartet has exhibited a sluggish style of diplomacy, unwilling to take a strong stand. There is also an absence of a workable and effective process to achieve peace – or even some form of cooperation – between both sides. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32905468">Blair indicated</a> that his mandate was “limited” to improving the economic conditions for the Palestinians, in the hope that this would enhance the chances of achieving a two-state solution. The quartet <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=50986#.VWcTXs_BwXA">has affirmed</a> that Blair had an “unwavering commitment to the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace and made lasting contributions to the effort to promote economic growth and improve daily life in the West Bank and Gaza”. </p>
<p>Though Blair will no longer work in an official capacity, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32905468">sources have insisted</a> that he is committed to fostering peace in the region and will continue to serve in a personal capacity. Blair believes that by drawing on all of the relationships he has built in the Middle East, he can continue to make progress in the peace process. Based on the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/05/27/tony-blair-peace-envoy-twitter_n_7451896.html">immediate reactions</a> from around the world, most remain sceptical of what positive influence he can have on the region.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42509/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natasha Lindstaedt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Blair’s time as peace envoy left a lot to be desired.Natasha Lindstaedt, Senior Lecturer, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/401472015-04-14T20:18:41Z2015-04-14T20:18:41ZJulie Bishop can reach out to Iran now that confrontation has failed<p>Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s visit to Tehran this week presents a rare opportunity for Australia to take the lead in global diplomacy. The <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-11/julie-bishop-to-lobby-iran-government-asylum-seekers/6385616">publicly stated goal</a> of the trip has been limited to the dubious intention of convincing the Rouhani government to allow Iranian nationals seeking asylum in Australia to return without fear of victimisation. But the implications of the visit are much more important and far-reaching than that.</p>
<p>The need for a diplomatic initiative to change the dynamic in relations with Iran is obvious. As the mounting <a href="https://theconversation.com/middle-east-prepares-for-meltdown-as-sunni-states-bomb-yemen-39398">crisis in the Middle East</a> reminds us every day, the policy of confrontation has failed. Contrary to the efforts of hawks around the world – including in the US Congress – a more nuanced strategy of dialogue and engagement is urgently needed. </p>
<h2>Hawks have made us less secure</h2>
<p>Not only has the approach based on isolation and unrelenting economic and
political pressure failed, but it has been catastrophically <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2014/09/08/commentary/world-commentary/new-sanctions-iran-hurt-peace-prospects/#.VSxW6dyUeSo">counterproductive</a> for all sides. International trade has suffered and security has not improved.</p>
<p>The withdrawal of countries from the Iranian market under pressure of sanctions policies – as in the case of <a href="http://circanews.com/news/exemptions-on-iran-sanctions">Japan</a> – has simply opened up opportunities for competitors such as China and Russia. It has played no role in generating meaningful progress on the nuclear issue. The <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21645738-foreign-businesses-are-looking-beyond-falling-oil-prices-and-limping">Iranian economy</a> has been brought to the point of collapse, with disastrous effects for ordinary citizens but little impact on the opulent lifestyles of many officials and wealthy businessmen. </p>
<p>If these facts are not enough, the ongoing, desperately tragic events in the region should be the game changer. The long-term stand-off between the US and Iran has prevented solutions to arguably the most important and dangerous problems in the world today. </p>
<p>There can be no resolution to the civil war in Syria without the cooperation of Iran. Defeat of Islamic State and its hateful ideology requires the forging of a partnership between Iran and the West. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/deep-divisions-come-to-the-fore-as-turkey-protests-continue-15213">re-Islamisation of Turkey</a> can only be resisted with support from the secular traditions exemplified in Iranian history and culture. Overcoming the impasse in Lebanon and Gaza associated with the continuing influence of Hezbollah and Hamas will only be possible when Iran considers it to be no longer in its interests to support them. </p>
<h2>What can Australia do?</h2>
<p>Julie Bishop’s visit comes at a perfect time. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-celebrates-historic-nuclear-deal-all-eyes-now-on-supreme-leader-39528">recent successes</a> in the P5+1 negotiations in Geneva, in which Iran signalled its agreement to accept significant restrictions to its nuclear program, have for the first time in decades created a climate of genuine hope for change. The agreement is yet to be ratified by both sides – and approval by the US Congress <a href="https://theconversation.com/republican-fear-and-loathing-of-iran-has-international-consequences-38835">is by no means assured</a>. It is, however, an indication that at least some politicians on both sides recognise the urgency of the situation and the need to go beyond the useless hostility of the past. </p>
<p>This is where Australia can step in and take the lead. Exactly what political rapprochement with Iran will ultimately look like is uncertain but we can play an important role in shaping it. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/what-iran-nuclear-framework-deal-could-mean-for-the-region-and-the-world-39730">The possibilities</a> could involve an agreement to scale down funding of extremist anti-Israeli organisations and a negotiated transition of power in Syria. In exchange, Iran would get renewed access to world markets and all that comes with active membership of the international community. The possibility of a military alliance to bring a quick end to the Islamic State and to restore stability to Iraq – an idea unthinkable only months ago – should not be ruled out. </p>
<h2>Civil society offers many ways to engage</h2>
<p>Relations with Iran involve more than just interactions between governments. There is also direct engagement between our own civil society and the many non-government groups there. This is the approach we must adopt to forge a new relationship between Iran and the West in order to overcome the grim legacy of the last 35 years.</p>
<p>Iran is a large, complex society with vast resources and a population close to 80 million. More than 20 million are university students and graduates. The members of the vast, educated, entrepreneurial middle class are the main supporters of democracy; they are the natural allies of Western partners hoping for more relaxed and open social policies in Iran.</p>
<p>Ironically, the members of this group have been the principal victims of sanctions policies. They have been left exposed politically and as a result of the growing unemployment and radicalisation of youth these policies have produced.</p>
<p>This is the time for a change in direction in the policies of the world community towards Iran to allow normal economic and cultural intercourse to resume. It is time to scale down the sanctions and to become engaged, openly and generously, with
different levels of Iranian society. </p>
<p>The depth of the past hostility may mean that any changes have to occur incrementally. Both sides will need to test the viability and local acceptance of a gradual re-establishment of exchanges between them. </p>
<p>The places to start are the safe areas of education, culture and business. All these areas offer exciting opportunities for Australia. </p>
<p><a href="http://dearinassociates.com/tapping-iran-dynamic-education-sector-an-introduction-for-australian-institutions-and-business/">Educational exchanges</a> could help restore our crisis-ridden educational sector, while assisting Iran in overcoming a critical shortage of high-quality knowledge providers. There are almost unlimited possibilities for two-way cultural exchanges that draw on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/happy-in-iran-the-trials-of-the-young-and-disenfranchised-27164">thriving Iranian culture industry</a>, especially in film, music and literature. Business people will find an inexhaustible thirst for new products, from electronic goods to fashion, to new techniques for producing renewable energy. </p>
<p>Western countries have discovered again and again that bullying tactics are often counterproductive but that quiet victories can be won by cultural and economic engagement. In the case of Iran the bullying – in which Australia has been a willing partner — has failed. It is time to try the gentle alternative. </p>
<h2>Iranian society is ready for change</h2>
<p>Iran is a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-truth-about-iran-2014-9">complex modern society</a> that is ready for change. We in Australia can support this process by fostering dialogue and cultural and economic exchanges with Iranian civil society. More positive and constructive policies will create a win-win situation for all. </p>
<p>If the opportunity is lost, the outcomes will be dire for all the players, not just in the region itself, but also in Europe and the United States. </p>
<p>Let us hope that in her discussions with the Iranian government the foreign minister is able to move beyond the question of asylum seekers and seize the opportunity to stimulate a movement away from the failed policies of the past towards a more fruitful – and safer – commitment to dialogue, reconciliation and mutual prosperity. All of our futures might depend on it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40147/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Komesaroff is Executive Director of Global Reconciliation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alphonso Lingis and Modjtaba Sadria do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>By reaching out to Iran, Australia can help end a long stand-off with the West that prevented solutions to many of the world’s most dangerous problems, including Syria’s civil war and Islamic State.Paul Komesaroff, Professor of Medicine, Monash UniversityAlphonso Lingis, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Penn StateModjtaba Sadria, Desmond Tutu Reconciliation Fellow, Director, Think Tank for Knowledge Excellence, Tehran, Adjunct Professor , Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/361142015-01-13T10:27:56Z2015-01-13T10:27:56ZThe attack on Charlie Hebdo: the problem is the Middle East, not Islam<p>The deadly attack in Paris by French Islamists with ties to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) provokes several basic responses. </p>
<p>One major response is a broad affirmation that the actions of the violent few in no way represent Islam as a global religion of over 1 billion adherents. </p>
<p>Indeed, the vast majority of Muslims are no less broadly humane and no more fanatic than anyone else, as was clear in Paris with the heroic actions of a Muslim employee of the besieged Kosher grocery store, or the death of a French Muslim police officer defending Charlie Hebdo. </p>
<p>Underscoring that this is the case might be less necessary if <a href="http://www.oic-oci.org/oicv2/upload/islamophobia/2013/en/islamphobia_report_2013.pdf">Islamophobia were not a genuine global issue.</a></p>
<p>But, however true, the response that Islam is not about violence is unlikely to satisfy. </p>
<p>People are asking why – at least at this moment in global history – the most frequent and dramatic violence explicitly undertaken in the name of religion seems to occur in Middle East and North Africa countries and/or in the name of a particular branch of Islam. </p>
<p>Even for a scholar like myself – who has studied the diversity of orientations in Islam – and has many Muslim friends, the question still nags: why are a tiny minority of Muslims with connections to the Middle East and North Africa committing violent attacks against religious and other pluralism? </p>
<p>The answer may actually be the MENA geographic piece of the equation, rather than the Muslim one.</p>
<h2>What is special about the Middle East and North Africa?</h2>
<p>Put it this way: if Islamist violence linked to the Middle East and North Africa is the issue, then looking at the regional, rather than religious piece of the puzzle may be more fruitful, particularly in light of the diversity of Islam worldwide. </p>
<p>The question of why the MENA has bred so much recent violence might have many answers, but there is one that I want to highlight here. </p>
<p>Colonialism in the region and the authoritarian governments that followed the withdrawal of the British, French and Ottoman empires, have specifically prioritized the violent suppression of dissent. It is this violent clampdown that has influenced many of today’s Islamist opposition movements.</p>
<p>Several points from “Middle Eastern Politics 101” are worth keeping in mind, </p>
<p>First, there is the idealization of Islamic civilization before colonialism and nostalgia for its intellectual and cultural pre-eminence – think the oft-cited example of the Arab-invented navigational tool, the <a href="http://www.astrolabes.org/">astrolabe.</a> In contrast, relations with Europe were never easy – they were, in fact, violent from the beginning. And this only got worse with the arrival of colonial rule. </p>
<p>The relative aimlessness of today’s states in the Middle East and North Africa is often blamed on the legacy of such colonial practices as the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-25299553">European powers’ drawing arbitrary borders</a> and <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/stop-blaming-colonial-borders-for-the-middle-easts-problems/279561/">practicing “divide and rule” to help their control</a> over the region’s diverse ethnic and religious groups. All of this helps explain why political cohesion in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen has not survived the fall of coercive dictators. </p>
<p>Second, <a href="http://www.pomed.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Eva-Bellin_Robustness-of-Authoritarianism-in-the-Middle-East.pdf">although Middle Eastern authoritarianism can not be completely blamed on the colonial legacy</a>, it’s convenient for Middle Easterners to say the West’s past and present actions have contributed to the relative lack of democracy in the MENA. Citizens’ political and economic aspirations are repressed across the region. This widespread frustration, in turn, had much to do with the 2011 Arab uprisings – as well as with the backlash that followed in Egypt and elsewhere. </p>
<p>Third, this repression has been particularly acute in the arena of free expression, where governments – and the opposition movements they have spawned – have often justified harsh treatment of political dissenters and journalists in the name of enhancing social solidarity.</p>
<p>What all of this means in a nutshell is that the Middle East and North Africa has been a region with an unusual level of popular resentment towards governments, and with many examples of force being used against any open opposition to political orthodoxy. </p>
<h2>Before and after the Arab spring</h2>
<p>Before 2011 the usual pattern was to force Islamist political groups underground. This often resulted in these groups being a mirror image of the states that had outlawed them.</p>
<p>With the broad disillusionment after the uprisings of 2011, states like Egypt have gone back to their pattern of violently repressing groups – mostly Islamist – who, it is claimed, undermine social solidarity. </p>
<p>At the same time, and somewhat ironically, Egypt, and several other MENA states, have been in the forefront of <a href="https://cpj.org/blog/2014/11/egypts-journalists-speak-out-against-repression-se.php">clamping down on journalists</a> whom they deem dangerous to national values or cohesiveness. Journalistic self-censorship, and media censorship more generally, have been a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/she-said/2014/oct/19/fighting-censorship-in-the-middle-east-is-nothing-new-but-the-battleground-has-changed">well-known aspect of MENA politics</a> for decades.</p>
<p>Given this regional context, violent actors like the Islamists in France are not as much representative of Islam, as they are of a specific political context with far too many concrete and well known examples of using of violence to silence dissent. </p>
<h2>An alternative perspective</h2>
<p>If violence can breed violence, then the legacy of both Western colonialism and post-colonial repressive authoritarianism in the Middle East and North Africa should be confronted – and more clearly connected to the broader context of the tragedy of Paris.</p>
<p>Emphasizing the influence of repressive political structures in the modern Middle East and North Africa is an approach that does not get to the social psychological issues of the attackers or the particular context of contemporary French culture.</p>
<p>However, acknowledging that authoritarian repression of dissent in the Middle East and North Africa replicates itself elsewhere, and that it fosters networks that can abet terrorist attacks globally, offers an alternative view on last week’s shooting of the journalists at Charlie Hebdo. It is a different argument to the usual one that the problem lies in Islam or with Muslims – an argument that is only likely to further heighten conflict. </p>
<p>The key point is that excessive repression by a politically-dominant group (governmental or non-governmental) is central to breeding violence, in the Middle East and elsewhere.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36114/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Mednicoff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The deadly attack in Paris by French Islamists with ties to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) provokes several basic responses. One major response is a broad affirmation that the actions of the violent…David Mednicoff, Assistant Professor of Public Policy Director, Accelerated Degree Programs, Center for Public Policy and Adminstration Director, Middle Eastern Studies, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.