Set for Instability: Prospects for Conflict and Cooperation between Israel and Jordan

This article argues that since 1949, the relationship between Israel and Jordan has depended primarily on their interactions with a Third Actor--identified as Egypt from 1949 to the mid-1970s, and as the Palestinians thereafter. Conflict between Israel and Jordan always follows conflict one or both nations have with the Third Actor. The analysis suggests a cyclical and hierarchical allegiance condition, in which Jordan switches from an alliance with Israel to an alliance with the Third Actor. Jordan cooperates with Israel--even if it itself engages in conflict with the Third Actor--until Israel engages in conflict with the Third Actor, at which point Jordan realigns with the Third Actor against Israel. This analysis suggests that to avoid an Israeli-Jordanian conflict, Israel must reach an agreement with the Palestinians regarding the existence and borders of a Palestinian state. Such an agreement, however, may not guarantee permanent peace between Israel and Jordan, as regional tensions fueled by controversy regarding the existence and legitimacy of the Jordanian Hashemite monarchy may rise again. Thus, even if a Palestinian state were established, the current peace between Israel and Jordan might be transitory.     

Support for Palestinians among Jewish Americans: the importance of education and contact

The violent and protracted Israeli–Palestinian conflict continues, and Jewish Americans play a significant role in influencing related US foreign policy as well as in promoting positive interactions with Palestinians globally. Diaspora populations have played an important role in international peace processes and American Jews are actively involved in peace efforts for Palestinian human rights. Previous research indicates a relationship between views about Israel, knowing Palestinian narratives, and promoting peace processes. Thus, the attitudes and experiences that Jewish Americans have are important to understand and predicting their support for Palestinians. An online internet survey distributed to Jewish listservs (n = 173) measured variables of gender, age, political views, Jewish socialization, family and own attitudes about Israel, courses on the conflict, and having been to the West Bank. Results indicated younger, more liberal Jewish Americans who had taken courses and been to the West Bank predicted more support for Palestinians. Implications for future research and education as an important process in moving the peace process forward both through interpersonal relationships and public policy efforts are discussed.     

Squaring the Palestinian triangle

Abstract

The 10 options offered so far to resolve the Palestinian conundrum have proved vain. New thinking that combines Palestinian self‐determination rights with Israel's security needs is necessary. The proposed solution rests on the following: (1) mutal acceptance of self‐determination for the Palestinians and the Jewish people, (2) mutual recognition of PLO and Zionism, (3) partition of Greater Palestine between Israelis and Palestinians, and (4) separation between sovereignty over territory and personal status of inhabitants.     

Measuring Success in Coping with Terrorism: The Israeli Case

This article examines the degree of efficacy of Israel's antiterror policies and ability to cope with terrorism using seven parameters that fall into seven parameters: reduction in civilian casualties among Israelis and Palestinians, Israel's ability to cope economically, Israeli social cohesion, the status of international and domestic support for the Israeli government and the extent of weakening of international and domestic support for the Palestinian leadership. The article concludes that based on most of these parameters, Israel has been successful in coping with terrorism, although greater security must be attained through a change in Palestinian policies.     

Changing consciousness: autoethnographic mapping in a dialog group

This article introduces a pedagogical tool for raising critical consciousness and nurturing resistance to discrimination. ‘Autoethnographic mapping,’ integrating guided cognitive mapping and autoethnographies, has been implemented for a decade now within the framework of a college course occasioning dialogue between Palestinian Arab and Jewish students in Israel. Participants using the tool in an extended encounter between students from groups embroiled in political conflict have begun to theorize the microgeogrpahies and stories of their everyday existence, gaining nuanced, non-standard insights into how conflict informs lives and selves. Employing the technique in the contact zone of guided encounters, students tend to re-inscribe identities upon a socio-political context, discovering the fluidity of belonging and destabilizing discursive structures. The paper outlines the course, sketches the tool and its theoretical underpinnings and describes some of the results it’s achieved through a spectrum of illustrative instances.     

The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict and Palestinian Socioeconomic Decline: A Place Denied

Palestinian society and economy are slowly being dismembered. The transformations in land, labor, demography, and society have been stunning. The current context has many dimensions but is defined primarily by Israel's continued occupation of Palestinian lands. That context is also defined by the deterioration of the Palestinian economy, a humanitarian crisis characterized in large part by levels of impoverishment and social decline that have no parallel during Israel's 36-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the destruction of ordinary life. Not since 1948, perhaps, have Palestinians faced such conditions of loss and dispossession. Left unaddressed (as they are by the current US road map), these conditions will not only preclude a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but also seriously constrain Palestinian socioeconomic recovery and development.     

The anti‐terrorism act of 1987—An update on the controversy surrounding efforts to close down PLO offices in the U.S.

Abstract

The basic intent of Congress in enacting the Anti‐Terrorism Act of 1987 was not to deprive supporters of the Palestinian Liberation Organization of expressing their opinions but to induce the PLO to renounce the use of terrorism. By reaffirming United States abhorrence of terrorism, the supporters of this legislation also hope to encourage the emergence of Palestinian leaders who are dedicated to a peaceful resolution of the Arab‐Israel conflict. While the United States Government and major Jewish organizations have supported the closing of the PLO's Washington‐based Palestine Information Office, there has been considerable questioning in these same circles of the wisdom of the Congressional action to close the PLO's Observer Mission to the United Nations. This action was challenged by the United Nations, and the International Court of Justice asked the United States to resolve this matter through arbitration. The Reagan Administration finally accepted a Federal court ruling that the law did not require closing the U.N. Mission.     

Building ties across the Green Line: the Palestinian 15 March youth movement in Israel and occupied Palestinian territory in 2011

In 2011 Palestinian youth joined together across the Green Line, demonstrating grassroots solidarity and a challenge to the elite consensus in favour of the two-state Oslo process. The movement drew inspiration from the concurrent Arab Spring and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, organising joint demonstrations in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. However, the movement struggled to develop as a result of challenges regarding its objectives, strategy and representation, and of external threats from Israel and Palestinian political elites.     

Crescent and Sword: The Hamas enigma

This article analyses the popular support for Hamas, the most important of the Palestinian Islamist movements today and charts the movement's historical ascendancy from a fringe Gaza-based group to a mainstream Islamist movement and mouthpiece for dispossessed Palestinians. Since 2001 Hamas's leadership has come under increasing attack from Israel, which has killed a number of the movement's leaders and senior members, most prominently Sheikh Yasin, the movement's founder and spiritual leader, and his successor as Hamas leader, Abd al-Aziz Rantissi. Nonetheless, Hamas's duality as ‘worshippers’ and ‘warmongers’ has made the organisation extraordinarily popular among dispossessed Palestinians and has created a mounting political challenge to the secular nationalism of the plo. At present two-thirds of the Palestinians live below the ‘poverty line’ and it is likely that it is in this disenfranchised segment of the population that Hamas finds its core support. About one in every six Palestinians in the Occupied Territories benefits from support from Islamic charities. Hamas, for its part, allocates almost all its revenues to its social services, but there is no evidence that Hamas or the other Islamic charities provide assistance conditional upon political support.     

Qatar’s humanitarian aid to Palestine

The purpose of this paper is to document Qatar’s recent contribution of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. We consider Qatar as an example of a mini state that relies on its wealth and soft power to further its interests in the Middle East and support a beleaguered Arab-Muslim state. The paper carries out analysis of Arabic newspapers and other documentary evidence to contextualise and estimate Qatar’s financial contribution 2010–2016. Contextualising Qatar’s aid necessitates considering Israel’s military control of the Palestinian Territories, and its ability through hard power to regulate the inflow of aid to Palestine. The paper concludes by calling for adopting the political economy perspective in dealing with humanitarian aid.     

Settling on Violence: Expansion of Israeli Outposts in the West Bank in Response to Terrorism

How does terrorism affect land control in intrastate conflicts? This article explores this question in the case of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict during the Second Intifada (2000–2005), and shows that Palestinian attacks led to an expansion of Israeli outposts in the disputed territories of the West Bank. Following suicide attacks, there is an increase in outposts in home districts of the perpetrators. The number of outposts also increases following deadly attacks against Israelis in West Bank districts where these attacks take place. These results suggest that Israeli settlers use outpost expansion as retaliation against Palestinian communities they perceive to be involved in violence, and this shifts territorial control against Palestinians.     

Palestinian Suicide Terrorism in the Second Intifada: Motivations and Organizational Aspects

Suicide terrorism has developed into a widely used tactic, and arguably one of the major strategic threats facing some countries. This article explores various issues related to Palestinian suicide terrorism by presenting a two-phase model to explain the processes and factors underlying the development of Palestinian suicide bombers, and the execution of suicide bombing attacks. The model is applied to the case of suicide attacks that have occurred in the course of the first 21 months of the Second Intifada, from September 2000 to June 2002. The assumptions of the model are tested by taking an in-depth look into the various motives leading individual Palestinians to volunteer for suicide missions, and by discussing the activities and major functions of the organizations that have employed this modus operandi in the specified time frame. It will be concluded that while a counter-terrorism strategy aimed at targeting terrorist organizations may offer short-term gains, in the long run Israel will need to identify ways of removing or reducing the incentives that lead some Palestinians to volunteer for suicide missions.     

Contemplating a New Strategic Future

This article examines the Al-Aqsa Intifada and its impact on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. It is argued here that the Intifada was the result of long-term frustrations of the Palestinian people with the lack of change as well as the short-term need of the Palestinian leadership for an exit strategy after the Camp David summit. Palestinian strategy aimed at shifting the blame for the failure of Camp David from Yasser Arafat to Ehud Barak and to create maximum international solidarity to pressure Israel into concessions. Yet, closer analysis reveals that despite early successes, the Intifada strategy is one of diminishing returns. Conversely, Israeli crisis management, while taking some initial blows particularly in terms of public image, has proved relatively successful at preventing the erosion of Israeli positions on the ground. Ultimately, however, neither Palestinians nor Israelis will be able to achieve their respective aims of statehood and security without returning to the negotiating table.     

THE THIRD SECTOR AND IMMIGRANT ABSORPTION: LESSONS FROM THE ISRAELI EXPERIENCE

This paper deals with the role of two third sector organizations in immigrant absorption in Israel during the mid-1980s through 1993. The Jewish Agency, a non-governmental, voluntary, non-profit “public institution” funded by Diaspora Jewry had responsibility for immigrants during their first year in the country. It represented world Jewry and Israeli political parties. A second third sector institution, the quasi-public party controlled state religious school system played a significant role in the education of Ethiopian immigrant children.

The paper evaluates their impact on the absorption of immigrants. To what extent did these third sector agencies pursue their own agendas and or serve the immigrants? The paper also examines the influence of Israel's political-administrative systems on the third sector. How unique is the Israeli experience? Hopefully the findings will shed new light on the politics of collaboration with the third sector in contemporary Israel.

Evidence presented here suggests that third sector absorbing agencies often pursued their own interests at the expense of the immigrants. The paper also reveals the complexity of the political and administrative character of Israel's third sector. Finally, the analysis shows the importance of political-administrative systems for understanding third sector collaboration in Israel.     

English as an equalizer between Arab and Jewish students in Israel

This paper describes an educational intervention program between 12 Arab and 12 Jewish students who were studying to become teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Israel. The study reports on the ways in which the program impacted the participants, and focuses on the role of English, the Lingua Franca and language of communication, in creating neutral grounds for mutual understanding and contact. The outcomes show that English played a crucial part in facilitating open, pluralistic dialog and intercultural communication in intergroup contact. English acted as a bridge between Jewish and Arab students, in the current Israeli conflictual situation, to enhance communication across boundaries. Findings further indicate that while the participants were aware of the cultural, social, and religious differences between them, they recognized the similarities that brought them together and chose to focus on them as the basis for collaboration. The study suggests implications for teacher education and for continued political activism and community involvement toward peace education among future teachers in Israel.     

Identity and fear: A survey study of the Arab East

This article explores the concepts of social identity and fear in the Arab East, namely in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and among Palestinians living in these countries. Its theoretical framework is composed of two major conceptions: individuals’ perceptions of their social and political identity-affiliation and inter-intra-group relations. It is asserted that the feeling of fear and antipathy in the Arab East creates or supports confessional individual identity and group affiliation. The findings, which are construed through survey analysis, support the arguments that secterian groups are basic actors in the politics of the Arab East and that all political analysis that negates their influence as identity units is superficial. The survey results discredit the argument that the feeling of belonging to confessional groups is anomalous, anachronistic, and evanescent. On the contrary, the minority identity has never been obliterated in the Arab East, and these minorities carry the potential of asserting a real threat to regime stability and to the political order. These threats, though they seem dormant at times, are very much alive and should not be discounted. Michel G. Nehme is an assistant professor at American University of Beirut, Department of Political Studies and Public Administration, PO Box 11-0236, Beirut, Lebanon     

Shared History Project: A PRIME Example of Peace-Building Under Fire

Minimal peace building during a violent conflict is suggested as a strategy for future post-conflict peace processes. This paper describes a process of five workshops in which Palestinian and Jewish-Israeli teachers developed a joint school textbook of two narratives (an Israeli and a Palestinian) in regard to three dates in their mutual conflict: the Balfour Declaration, the 1948 war and the 1987 Intifada. The teachers developed these two narratives to be taught in their classrooms. All these activities took place under severe conditions of asymmetry of power relations of occupation (of the Palestinians) and of suicide bombers (against Israelis) throughout the project. The Two-State solution requires in our view textbooks of two narratives, so students learn to respect the narrative of the Other.