‘The Children of the State’? How Palestinians from the Seven Villages Negotiate Sect,Party and State in Lebanon

In Lebanon, the fear of taw?īn makes nationalization of Palestinian refugees an anathema. Yet several groups of Palestinians have received Lebanese citizenship since 1948, most (in)famously those from the ‘seven villages’, a chain of Shi‘i villages on Lebanon's southern border that was incorporated into Palestine in 1923. The trajectory of their nationalization is usually presented as a straightforward consequence of top-down Lebanese electoral politics. This article augments this dominant perspective through a case study of the community from the village of Salha, now in Israel, that currently lives in Shabriha, a small town near the city of Tyre in South Lebanon. Adopting the ‘negotiated statehood’ framework, the article offers an agency-oriented, bottom-up perspective on the community's gaining of citizenship and shows how the people from Salha have acquired citizenship not merely to gain access to, but also to ensure a degree of independence from, the Lebanese state and political parties.     

‘A source of considerable annoyance’: an Israeli–Palestinian backchannel in the efforts to release the blocked Palestinian bank accounts

In addition to the great emotional toll that the Nakba inflicted on the Palestinian people, the 1948 exodus occasioned substantial material losses for the refugees as well. As the 1948 War ground to a halt, the international community had to decide how to deal with all of this, and in the early 1950s the matter of the so-called ‘blocked’—or frozen—Palestinian bank accounts became one of the main issues on the UN Palestine Conciliation Commission’s agenda. Initially, its effort included the government of Israel and the British-owned Barclays Bank. As things progressed, however, Israeli diplomats also engaged a group of Palestinian refugees in an informal backchannel. This article sheds light on this largely overlooked episode and shows how the channel was established, and how the Palestinian group faced nothing but strong international opposition, most notably from the British Foreign Office. Protecting the interests of its regional ally Jordan, as well as those of Barclays Bank, the Foreign Office did what it could in order to make sure that this particular Israeli–Palestinian backchannel was promptly closed.     

‘A matter of political expediency’: Iran,Britain, South Africa and the settlement of Reza Shah's estate

When Reza Shah, the former ruler of Iran, died in exile in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1944, he left some £110,000 in cash in his bank account and valuables and other items worth another £20,000. But he left no will; and the Union government proceeded to impose a tax amounting to over £43,000 (one-third of the total value) and to distribute the remainder among heirs as specified in Union law for persons who had died intestate. Reza Shah's son, Mohammad Reza Shah, the ruling Iranian monarch, hard up for money, fought these requirements. He claimed everything in his late father's possession was his, and that neither estate taxes nor distribution to heirs applied. A four-year battle over the estate ensued. It was eventually resolved, but only after vigorous efforts by two British ambassadors to Tehran, endeavours at the highest levels of the British government; the involvement of the South African prime minister and, finally, an act of the South African parliament. This article examines the intricate tug-of-war surrounding the settlement of the estate of Reza Shah and what it tells us about the principal parties involved.     

The ‘ballot and the brick’: protest,voting and non-voting in post-apartheid South Africa

Over the last decade, protest has become an enduring feature of the post-apartheid political landscape. Despite this wave of protest, the African National Congress (ANC) has largely retained its dominant status. The endurance of the ANC’s electoral support in spite of the high levels of protest has led Susan Booysen to conclude that protests in South Africa form part of a ‘dual repertoire’ of political contestation. She argues that protests are used to signal grievances to the ANC between elections but that, ultimately, people remain loyal to the party of liberation. This article interrogates Booysen’s claim through advancing an analysis of voting district and ward-level data in protest hotspots. The article highlights weaknesses in the methodological base of Booysen’s thesis. By analysing the support for the ANC amongst the estimated eligible voting-age population, this article suggests a different relationship between voting and protesting in post-apartheid South Africa.     

From terror to public diplomacy: Jibril Rajoub and the Palestinian Authorities’ uses of sport in fragmentary Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Focusing on sport as an arena of struggle in the Israel/Palestine conflict, the current study traces, conceptually and historically, the way in which the Palestinian Authority in general, and Jibril Rajoub in particular, have shifted efforts toward the sporting arena in order to promote global awareness of the Palestinian case. In the current case study, the Palestinians were not successful at drawing attention to their political goals or in suspending Israel from Fédération Internationale de Football Association. However, their attempt emphasizes the ways in which conflicts had changed and the importance of images in the information age we live in. Conflicts today are very much battles of ideas and the information designed by the media. Alongside the military confrontations, an Image War is taking part in which each side tries to justifies its ideas, beliefs and actions.     

The Path to Syrian Intervention in Lebanon on the Eve of Civil War, 1970–1975

This paper examines Syria's intervention in Lebanon during the five years preceding the Civil War that broke out in April 1975. Syria intervened both indirectly and directly in Lebanese politics and economy in order to gain influence over its neighbor. The paper surveys the indirect and direct methods employed by Syria and examines Lebanon's reactions to and attempts to contend with these maneuvers. It can be said that between the years 1970 to 1975, Syria laid the foundations for its subsequent involvement in the Lebanese Civil War.     

Will the North’s secessionist winds blow South? The past,present, and future of self-determination and border change in Africa

World politics tend to go through cycles of long periods of stable borders followed by bursts of secessionist movements. For this reason, it is important to examine whether the two recent cases of secessionism in the Northern Hemisphere symbolise such a turn in world politics. After reviewing the Catalan and Kurdish secessionist movements, the article turns to the history of secessionism in order to distil comparative insights and lessons. The main part of the article examines six categories of secessionism in Africa. In particular, the emphasis is on highlighting the various historical patterns of self-determination and border change in Africa. The final part is a comparative reflection on the future of secessionism in Africa.     

‘Belmopan. A New Capital for a New Nation’ State,Nation and Ethnicity at the Time of Independence

In Belize, a project for building a new capital emerged in the early 1960s, just after the ravages of Hurricane Hattie, which had destroyed much of the colonial capital, Belize City. According to the common narrative, Belmopan was the answer to a natural threat. But this article will show that it was also a political strategy, intended to give the country a new, modern face, the symbol of a young nation on the road to independence (1981). One of the issues of this post-colonial state is the definition of a national ‘us’ and the place of ethnic groups inherited from the British colonial administration's policy of ‘divide and rule’. The article shows that the politicisation of ethnicity entails neither its integration in the state nor its institutionalisation by the parties, but rather the emergence of ‘citizenship from below’.     

The reflection of the Israeli ‘incorporation regime’ in the land allocation institution in Israel's urban area, 1950–1960

This article focuses on the Israeli land regime as reflected in the land allocation activities of the Development Authority (DA) in urban areas between 1950 and 1960, and particularly on how allocation of space influenced the development of a social stratum during this nation-building period. The analytical lens applies two concepts to the empirical data on DA activities during this period: ‘incorporation regime’ and ‘citizen discourse’. The outcome is an understanding of the ‘rules of the game’ supporting selective access to land allocations in given areas. Accessibility was aimed at distinct Jewish groups – wealthy, connected/networked, and veteran citizens, in line with the republican discourse in Israel at the time. The findings provide a deeper understanding of connections among institutional mechanisms, citizenship discourse and land allocation, and their expression both spatially and in terms of the fabric of life that developed within the social, political and land regime contexts.     

Transformations of a Memory of Tyranny in Syria: From Jamal Pasha to ‘Id al-Shuhada’, 1914–2000

Islam. By L. I. Klimovich, Moscow, 1965.

Arabic Classical Literature. By I. M. Fil'shtinskiy, Moscow, 1965.     

‘Fighting for the Right’: A Functionalist Oral-History Analysis of Conservative Brazilian Women from the Military Dictatorship (1964–1985) to Jair Bolsonaro's Presidency (2018–)

Conservative women in Brazil played a significant role in the 1964 military coup and Bolsonaro's 2018 election victory. Oral history interviews with conservative women who experienced these two significant political events indicate that they both occurred in a climate of heightened anxiety and anti-modern moral panic, where social order and traditional structures such as the family and the church were perceived to be under threat from feminism and Marxism. Although it is somewhat disregarded in contemporary studies, this article argues that functionalist ideology, which upholds the sanctity of the traditional family, serves to explain why Brazilian conservative women continue to fervently support the patriarchal status quo.     

“What is it that We Call the Nation”: Cecilia Lillian Tshabalala’s definition,diagnosis, and prognosis of the nation in a segregated South Africa

Abstract

This paper examines the ideology of Cecilia Lillian Tshabalala who spent 18 years in the United States from 1912 to 1930. Within two years of returning to South Africa, she founded the self-help group, the Daughters of Africa in 1932. Tshabalala used the Daughters and the widely read newspapers—Bantu World and Ilanga laseNatal—to define, construct, and diagnose the African nation she found materially and socially wanting upon her return. Tshabalala’s experience abroad and her exposure to African-American women’s clubs and her participation at the annual Chautauqua conferences in upstate New York provided the platform for her to conduct her own social service gospel in segregated South Africa. This essay, which argues that religion served as Tshabalala’s antidote to all the social ills plaguing the African nation, traces the evolution of her ideology by discussing how she was in conversation with African-American and South African male movements, and also women on the African continent.     

Syria,Saudi Arabia,the U.A.E. and Qatar: the ‘sectarianization’ of the Syrian conflict and undermining of democratization in the region

Understanding the Syrian conflict only in terms of sectarian politics amounts to dismissing a very modern effort at emancipation within the context of the country’s populace fighting for its civil, political and economic rights, and in the process robs Syrians of their agency and diminishes their humanity. A closer look at events and political alignments in Syria reveals a more complex picture better understood through the lens of regimes’ desire to counteract the dissident and reformist dynamics that emerged with the Arab Spring. And while this paper is most certainly not minimizing the fact that the sectarian discourse and animosity, once activated, acquired its own dynamic, it underlines that this is not a case of so-called ancient sectarian rivalries emerging unprompted and of their own accord. As a result, the Syrian crisis and the regional ramifications of it can be appreciated as not simply identity politics writ large, but as an example of the authoritarian resilience paradigm in action. In making these arguments, this paper examines the interplay of the domestic and regional policies of three actors involved directly in the Syrian conflict: the Syrian regime, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. (considered as a unitary actor within the context of the Syrian crisis), and Qatar.     

‘Into the custody of the Serjeant at Arms’: inducing parliamentary attendance in Dublin and Westminster, 1690–1859

Parliamentary attendance could be quite problematic before the advent of modern political parties. For more than a century after the Glorious Revolution both the English/British and Irish Houses of Commons sought to address this challenge by ordering the Serjeant at Arms to take into custody hundreds of absent Members of Parliament (MPs). The extraordinary expedient of turning parliament into a prison, albeit of the softest variety imaginable, did not solve the attendance problem. On the contrary, it became considerably worse after both Houses adopted new rules for adjudicating controverted elections in the late eighteenth century. Nevertheless, the willingness to employ this distasteful and rather ineffective weapon quickly dwindled. The last arrest order for unauthorized absence came in 1859, 112 years before the final occasion on which Westminster was forced to adjourn business for want of MPs.     

From German Philology to Local Usability: The Emergence of ‘Practical’ Arabic in the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa' 1913–48

This article examines the pedagogical shifts in the study of Arabic at the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa, the leading school for Arabic studies in the Jewish education system. Analyzing the moulding of Arabic studies in the crucial years of educational institutionalization (1913–48), it demonstrates an inevitable tension with regard to Arabic studies: between the German philological approach and the ‘practical’ approach. In light of this tension, it shows the gradual emergence of a new ‘practical’ approach in the Jewish education system in Palestine, which was not only the result of a clash between different pedagogical methods, but was propelled by another, powerful, clash: that of the heated political conflict in Palestine. Using primary sources from seven different archives, in Israel, Britain and Germany, this article reveals that the shift towards practicality was motivated by political developments and ideological shifts as much as by pedagogical considerations, and therefore has had significant ramifications for the emerging field of Arabic studies in Jewish schools in Palestine/Israel.