International Relations Commons^™

Review Essay: Mitri Raheb On Christian Zionism, Loren D. Lybarger

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

On Dialogue And Beyond: Positive Environmental Peacebuilding In Palestine, Elsa Barron

The Journal of Social Encounters

In Palestine, environmental management has been used as a tool of military occupation and oppression. Yet even within that context, many community-based organizations have established programs relating to environmental peacebuilding. Of these initiatives, environmental dialogue programs have received significant attention and resources, even more so since the war in Gaza began in October, 2023. However, a deeper interrogation of these programs reveals the danger that dialogue and collaboration devoid of a critical analysis of power and injustice further perpetuates systemic oppression. Moving these programs into the realm of positive environmental peacebuilding requires a willingness to engage in this structural analysis. …

The Conservative Interest In American Higher Education: From Vietnam To Palestine, Alexandra Pearl Mulvey

Senior Projects Spring 2024

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Longing For The Homeland: The Palestinian American Diaspora And Palestinian Advocacy In The United States, Mohamed Khaled Ghumrawi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how Palestinian Americans in the diaspora connect with Palestine, Palestinian advocacy, and the Palestinian question. It analyzes and synthesizes the interaction of the Palestinian American diaspora and Palestinian advocacy, exploring its domestic and transnational linkages. It also explores the nexus of domestic and transnational aspects relating to Palestinian identity, political life, advocacy, culture, and politics. This project utilizes two main frameworks, the first is the tripartite composite state theory, focusing specifically on the normative-social structure. The second applies a framework of intersectionality, highlighting the interconnectedness of the Palestinian diaspora and the Palestinian question with other social …

The Psychological Effects Of Israel’S Security Narrative On Palestinians In The West Bank And Gaza And Its Implications For Conflict Management, Gabrielle Childs

The Journal of International Relations, Peace Studies, and Development

Israel began constructing a separation barrier in 2003 in response to increasing terrorism and suicide bombings by the Palestinians during the Second Intifada (Dowty, 2005, p. 171). The separation barrier is an elaborate 400-mile security system of concrete walls, fences, barricades and checkpoints built to protect Israeli citizens (Vick & Arik, 2010). The wall portion of the barrier was constructed of thick reinforced concrete, stands approximately 25 feet tall, and separates the West Bank and Israel boundaries. There is bitter contention over whether the barrier was properly placed along the official partition boundaries. The concrete barriers were built in the …

Military Industry And The Israel-Palestine Conflict: Military Aid, Technology, And Barriers To Peace, Brandon A. Sandoval

Dissertations and Theses

This study reviews the current US and Israel militarized response to Palestine, the negative impacts on the Palestinian and Israeli people that result from this policy, and the military-industrial complex that benefits from the US-Israel relationship. I also note that the military industry profits from the Israel-Palestine conflict and, thus, has an incentive for the conflict to continue. I argue that despite billions of US dollars that have been appropriated by the U.S. Congress for Israel’s security, the US and Israel have failed to build peace in the region, ultimately wasting funds and exacerbating current conflicts. I also argue that …

Persistence Of Jewish-Muslim Reconciliatory Activism In The Face Of Threats And “Terrorism” (Real And Perceived) From All Sides, Micah B.D.C. Naziri

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation concerns how Jewish-Muslim and Israel-Palestine grassroots activism can persist in the face of threats to the safety, freedom, lives, or even simply the income and employment of those engaged in acts of sustained resistance. At the heart of the study are the experiences of participants in the Hashlamah Project, an inter-religious collaboration project, involving Jews and Muslims. Across chapters and even nations, chapters of this organization faced similar threats and found universally-applicable solutions emerging for confronting those threats and persisting in the face of them. This raised the question of whether revolutionaries and activists in general can persevere …

Fadel, Tsos, Fadel

TSOS Interview Gallery

Fadel's family was originally from Palestine. However, for reasons he couldn’t recall, they moved to Libya, where Fadel was born, and he grew up there. He recalled that life inLibya used to be good, but that it became dangerous. Fadel came to Italy alone. His parents died and left him nothing seven years ago. His siblings died as well. He came to Italy 6 months ago seeking asylum by way of Tripoli to Sabratha, and then to Sardinia and Calabria. He has been living on the streets, and because he couldn’t provide an address, he was denied asylum

The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise In Israel And Palestine, Nubar Hovsepian

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

A book review of Nathan Thrall's The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine.

Aisha, Aisha, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Aisha, a Syrian native, lived in Latakia with her Palestinian husband and six children. Their children were not allowed to attend school because of their Palestinian heritage. During the war, mortars and missiles hit the city, and Aisha's brother lost three children. Aisha's uncle in Jordan helped to smuggle their family into Turkey after they decided to escape.

They sailed to Greece with a boat carrying about 350 people. The ship's drivers abandoned it during the journey. To save the children on board, Aisha's husband steered the sinking ship. Her husband was arrested in Greece, and Aisha, who was five …

A One Percent Chance: Jabotinsky, Bernadotte, And The Iron Wall Doctrine, Andrew Harman

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

This thesis is an examination of the long historical processes that have led to the Israel/Palestine conflict to the contemporary period, focusing mostly on the period before Israeli independence and the 1948 war that created the Jewish state. As Zionism emerged at the turn of the twentieth century to combat the antisemitism of Europe, practical and political facets of the movement sought immigration to Palestine, an area occupied by a large population of Arab natives. The answer to how the Zionists would achieve a Jewish state in that region, largely ignoring the indigenous population, fostered disagreements and a split in …

Becoming A State: Zionist And Palestinian Movements For National Liberation, Martin S. Widzer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the road to statehood for the Zionist and Palestinian movements. There are three components which frame this investigation: 1. social movements and the practices in which they engage that are aimed at establishing statehood for a people; 2. distinctive configurations of the international system and the manner in which both the material and ideational foundations of that system pulls units towards conformity and predictable behavior; and finally, 3. the role of agency, that is, the way in which instrumentally rational individuals attempt to push the structure in which they are embedded towards a configuration that is better …

November Roundtable: The Palestine Bid For Statehood At The Un, Introduction, Claudia Fuentes Julio

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Statehood versus “Facts on the Ground””. By Richard Falk. Aljazeera, September 20, 2011.

The Sum Of The Parts, Therese O'Donnell

Human Rights & Human Welfare

From one perspective the Middle East lends itself as a macabre mise-en-scene where the triumph of realpolitik over the legitimacies of international law can be continually re-staged. To be sure, at least two sovereign states seem to go their own way, even in the face of rampant and valid international criticism—the end of a construction freeze on illegal settlements and failures to condemn clearly illustrate this point. However, two can play at that game. The US veto of the October 2003 draft Security Council resolution declaring as illegal Israel’s construction of its security fence, beyond the 1949 Green Line and …

The Us On The Palestinian Statehood Bid: Weighing The Costs, Thomas Pegram

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Reflecting on the controversy surrounding the Palestinian bid for statehood, Richard Falk neatly subverts the opening words of the UN Charter, “we the people,” as having always surrendered to “we the governments,” and, in the modern era of American empire, “we the hegemon.”

This may well be true. The UN Security Council (UNSC), in particular, is viewed in Washington as a vehicle for hegemonic ambitions—to be indulged when it serves its purpose and vetoed and sidelined when it does not. Unfolding events at the UNSC, reportedly due to vote on the Palestinian resolution on November 11 but now postponed perhaps …

Palestinian Refugees: Protection In Exile, Vivienne Chew

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Palestinian refugee problem is perhaps the most critical and complex of the outstanding issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sixty-two years have now passed since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced en masse and rendered stateless. Since then, successive generations of Palestinian refugees have endured discrimination, insecurity, repeated cycles of displacement, and infringement of their basic rights and freedoms.

Stopping The Killing And/Or Stopping Human Rights Violations, Edward Friedman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The relationship between promoting human rights and stopping wars can be perplexing. The 19th century origins of the Geneva Convention and the International Commissions of the Red Cross (ICRC) are warnings about the moral danger, ambiguities, or tensions of bringing war within the arena of human rights considerations. Human rights and war can be a toxic cocktail. One should not want to make war more likely or legitimate or deadly by seeming to say that the killing machine on one side or the other is acting humanely, as if that makes war okay. War is hell.

Healing From War To End All Wars, Christien Van Den Anker

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The First World War was known as the war to end all wars. After the Second World War, and especially in reference to the Holocaust, the urgent slogan was “Never Again.” Although these hopes to end war and genocide have not yet been fulfilled, they inspired the worldwide moral stance against war and a host of international instruments and bodies contributed to the protection of both civilians and combatants during war.

Proportional To Life, Emma Gilligan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Economist piece entitled “Proportional to what?” poses a dangerous question. The notion, as the article suggests, that proportionality in war is a “slippery idea” or that the facts are “nebulous” is the work of either an intentionally provocative or idly cynical author. Whatever the motivation for the words, it is precisely the dismissive tone embodied in such statements that has contributed to and defined the attitude more recently of larger states, like Israel and Russia, to issues of accountability for the death of civilians.

Protecting Human Rights In Conflict, Clair Apodaca

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Just War Theory of Jus in Bello is the international community’s attempt to ensure respect for human rights and human welfare during armed conflicts. The principle of proportionality and the obligation to distinguish between combatants and civilians in attacks are two related notions that are fundamental to the protection of human rights during conflict. The principle of proportionality limits the amount of violence and destruction that is morally permissible. By contrast, the principle of discrimination (or distinction) discriminates between legitimate targets, such as soldiers and weapons depots, and illegitimate targets, specifically noncombatants such as civilian populations and their property.

Proportionality And Unjust Wars, Sarah Stanlick

Human Rights & Human Welfare

As violence rages in the Middle East, policymakers, academics, and the public alike have been embroiled in debate over the proportional use of force. As The Economist article points out, historical grievances leave both Israelis and Palestinians with compelling arguments for defense and resistance. However, at this point, the cycle of violence has perpetuated blame that goes beyond a simple tally sheet. World leaders remain divided on the rights and wrongs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but human rights groups internationally are crying out for Israel and Hamas to end attacks that “do not discriminate between civilians and military targets.” While …

February Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Proportional to What?” The Economist. December 30, 2008.

Nigel Parsons On Israel's Occupation By Neve Gordon. Berkley, Ca: University Of California Press, 2008. 318pp., Nigel Parsons

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Israel's Occupation by Neve Gordon. Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 2008. 318pp.

Memory And Violence In Israel/Palestine, K. M. Fierke

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Israeli and Palestinian Narratives of Conflict: History’s Double Helix, edited by Robert I. Rotberg. Indiana University Press, 2006.

and

Memory and Violence in the Middle East and North Africa, edited by Ussama Makdisi and Paul A. Silverstein. Indiana University Press, 2006.

Geopolitics Or Human Rights?, Judith Blau

Human Rights & Human Welfare

George Soros’ article, “On Israel, America and AIPAC” serves as a sobering reminder that the human rights revolution is constantly being scuttled by geopolitics that not only sideline human rights, but more devastatingly undermine their premises. I happen to agree with him that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a major obstacle to the U.S. normalizing relations with any country in the Middle East, including and especially Israel. AIPAC is something of a misnomer because it is a coalition, not a committee, and some of its key members include neo-cons, as Soros mentions, as well as Christian evangelicals. …

Engagement As A Way Toward Peace, Mahmood Monshipouri

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Bush administration’s active support for the Israeli government is counterproductive in its refusal to recognize a Palestinian unity government which includes Hamas. A great majority of American Jews have called for Israel to withdraw from the territories occupied in 1967 and support the creation of a Palestinian state. A hard-line minority of politicians in the United States, along with their affiliated media networks and think-tanks, have continued to dominate the main Jewish lobbying group, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

June Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“On Israel, America and AIPAC” by George Soros. New York Review of Books. April 12, 2007.

Should Supporters Of Israel Embrace An "Open Society"?, Harry Kreisler

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Organizations, such as lobbies, must adapt to changes in their environment or they risk mission failure and possible extinction. Adaptation requires new ideas, new constituencies, and rigorous self-analysis. A vigorous internal debate raises the possibility of corrections in course as an organization navigates through its changing environment.

Aipac's Good Intentions Undermine Israel's Interests, Ali Wyne

Human Rights & Human Welfare

While the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is nominally pro-Israel, its advice undermines Israel’s interests. It does not encourage Israel to make concessions, but rather recommends that Israel ignore the reformists within and outside of it. The folly of such counsel becomes apparent when one recognizes that Israel’s current strategy cannot be sustained.

Polemics In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Jerome Slater

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. 264pp.

and

Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History by Norman G. Finkelstein. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. 332pp.