Understanding Israel's Long Conflict in Lebanon: The Search for an Alternative Approach to Security During the Peace Process

The Arab‐Israeli peace process pointed to a resolution of the Middle East's most persistent conflict, as the Rabin and Peres governments developed a sensitivity to the Arab‐Israeli ‘security dilemma’, but by 1996 the process was deadlocked. Events stalled progress, but so did ingrained attitudes that continued to shape policy that was inconsistent with the peace process. The following article explains some of the Realist norms and values at the root of security thinking in Israel, and charts their inertia in Israeli policy during the peace process, focusing on its approach to Lebanon. The article gives an insight into why Rabin and his successors struggled to find an alternative policy towards Lebanon, and how this prolonged the Arab‐Israeli conflict. The efforts of the Netanyahu and Barak governments to find a solution to the policy problem of Lebanon are outlined.     

Hiroshima and the Historians: History as Relative Truth

As is clear from the historiography of the US decision to use the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the judgments of historians are relative to the time, place, and perspective from which they are writing. There are four major schools of historical interpretation of the decision. First is the orthodox view that was offered by the participants in the decision. Second is the revisionist view of historians writing during the era of the Vietnam war who adopted a much more critical interpretation. Third is an interpretive school that gives weight to the Japanese role and responsibility. Finally, the author's view is found in a more long-range perspective that finds the momentum created by President Roosevelt's unconditional surrender policy as the decisive factor. This policy provoked unconditional resistance in the Japanese military. By 1945 the legacy of Roosevelt's policy was firmly embedded in American public opinion. Historians have reached no consensus among these different interpretive schools.     

Massacre of the Doves?: Interpreting Israel's 2003 Elections

This article argues that Israel's 2003 elections are best understood as a deeper embedding of neoliberalism in the Israeli polity. It is argued that the most accurate characterization of the elections is as an articulation of Polanyi's Phase I of the double-movement. The argument is developed in four stages. First, the Israeli elections are understood as a local reaction to the multilayered processes of globalization. The Israeli state and its elections are located in the neoliberal ideology which underwrites the phenomenon broadly defined as globalization. Second, the election results are reviewed. Third, the dominant interpretations of the elections are critically examined. Specifically, representations of the elections as a defeat of the parties of peace and as a rebuke of Sephardim/ultra-Orthodox influence in Israeli government are interrogated. Fourth, the coalition negotiations of February 2003, the constitution of Israel's 30^th government and some of the initiatives undertaken by Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are explicated through deployment of Polanyi's double-movement framework.     

The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their Craft

The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their Craft. By Tom Griffiths (Melbourne: Black Inc., 2016), pp. xviii + 326. AU$34.99 (pb).     

“Unbounded Enthusiasm”:1 Australian Historians and the Outbreak of the Great War

There is a growing body of European scholarship revising the traditionally held view that the peoples of Europe greeted the war with boundless patriotic enthusiasm. Niall Ferguson, Jean-Jacques Becker and Jeffery Verhey in particular have argued that the “August Days” were more myth than reality. The outbreak of the war in Australia has not yet attracted similar attention. With few exceptions, Australian scholars writing about the opening days and weeks of the war have agreed that Australian popular reaction was dominated by overwhelming enthusiasm. This paper will explore the Australian historiography, since the 1930s, and assess the extent to which the “traditional” interpretation is in need of re-investigation.     

New Democracy and Alternative Culture: Jazz in West Germany after the Second World War

The American Forces who occupied Germany in 1945–46 had hoped that popularising jazz music might assist in the redemocratisation of Germans under the age of thirty. The Amerika‐Häuser established by the US State Department to build a cultural foundation for democracy amongst younger Germans, and American Forces Network radio each contributed to the gradual emergence of a West German jazz culture which was marked by a series of jazz festivals and the development of a viable recording industry. However most strata of German society neither understood nor cared about jazz. Jazz became confused with — and diluted by — rock ‘n’ roll. Both were rejected as unwanted “Americanization”. Fewer than ten percent of teenagers acquired any taste for jazz. Its appeal was confined to the more privileged and educated. Hence the jazz culture which did recruit itself from the surviving remnants of the Third Reich did not provide an impetus toward democracy.     

Competing narratives and the social construction of reality: The GDR in transition

This article examines dominant ‘social constructions of reality’ which circulate in the world of ‘academia’. Its empirical case study is the former GDR in the transition from a Socialist state to a part of the Western democratic world, in general, and from a Soviet satellite to the smaller part of unified Germany, in particular. The article introduces the major narratives used to describe this process of transition, it shows the narratives’ ambivalent relationship to historical and empirical evidence and, finally, offers some conclusions about the impact of narratives on opinion formation and applied politics. It shows why certain narratives gained the ears of the ‘powerful’ whilst others were quickly and silently forgotten.     

Survivorship and the Eastern exile: Estonian women's life narratives of the 1941 and 1949 Siberian deportations

The spring and summer of 1941 were full of agitation and fear. Unexplainable events took place. On the 13th of June 1941 there were no cars on the roads; it was strangely quiet. Early the next morning I was awakened by the roar of a truck at the gate of our neighbour's house. I looked out — soldiers surrounded the truck. About a half hour later the owner of the house, August Tilk, emerged with his wife, carrying bundles wrapped in bedsheets. The deportations had begun; fear of death pervaded the town. No one knew who would be next, or where to hide. The unfortunate ones were rounded up in Viljandi behind a barbed wire fence. A few days later their journey into the unknown began.     

The reflection of a political conflict in mapping: The case of Israel's borders and frontiers

Studii de istorie (Studies of History), Bucharest, published by the Academy of the Socialist Republic of Romania, 1968; 171 pp.

The Academy of the Socialist Republic of Romania, vol. 27, no. 6, November‐December 1976,

La pensée philosophique et sociale dans l'empire ottoman aux XIVe‐XVe siècles’ (vol. 6, nos. 1–2, 1968, pp. 76–102).

Bucharest at the Academy of the Socialist Republic of Romania, 1974; 215 pp.,

N. p. (Bucharest ?), Youth Publications’ Press, 1965; 240 pp.

C. Giurescu's Amintiri (Memoirs), of which the first volume appeared in Bucharest, Sport and Tourism Press, 1976; 340 pp. Giurescu, who died in 1977,

Ghid de conversatie romdn‐turc (Romanian‐Turkish Conversation Handbook), Bucharest, Scientific Press, 1974; 245 pp

A. Baubec and F. Ismail's Mic dicfionar turc‐romdn (A Small Turkish‐Romanian Dictionary), announced for publication by Bucharest's Sport and Tourism Press for 1978; 300 pp.

Antologie de texte din literatura araba moderna (An Anthology of Texts From Modern Arabic Literature), The University of Bucharest, 1972; 687 pp.,

Antologie de texte din literatura araba clasica (An Anthology of Texts From Classical Arabic Literature), The University of Bucharest, 1974; 336 pp.

Curs de sintaxa a limbei arabe moderne (A Syntax Course For Modern Arabic), The University of Bucharest, 1973; 326 pp.

Nicolae Dobri?an's Curs de fonetica si morfologia limbei arabe literare contemporane (A Course For the Phonetics and Morphology of Contemporary Literary Arabic), The University of Bucharest, 1975; 608 pp.

Daniel's Orientalia Mirabilia, vol. I, Bucharest, Scientific and Encyclopaedic Press, 1976; 292 pp.

Relatiile romdno‐egiptene in epoca moderna si contemporana (Romanian‐Egyptian Relations in the Modern and Contemporary Era), Bucharest, Scientific Press, 1974; 304 pp.

Nicolae lorga — A Romanian Historian of the Ottoman Empire, Bucharest, The Academy of the Socialist Republic of Romania ('Bibliotheca Historica Romaniae’ series), 1972; 191

Istoria lui Mihai Voda Viteazul Domnul Tarii Române?ti (The History of the Voievod Michael the Brave, the Domn [= Ruler] of Walachia) was reissued, with minor changes, in Bucharest, Facia Press, 1976; 567 pp.

Mouvements nationaux et sociaux roumains au XIXe siècle, Bucharest, The Academy of the Socialist Republic of omania ('Bibliotheca Historica Romaniae’ series), 1971; 335 pp.

Paleografia ?i diplomatica turco‐osmana.‐ studiu ?i album (Ottoman‐ Turkish Paleography and Diplomacy: A Study and an Album), The Academy of the Romanian People's Republic, 1958, 359 pp.

Catalogul documentelor turce?ti (The Catalogue of Turkish Documents), vol. I, Bucharest, The General Directorate of the State Archives of the Romanian People's Republic, 1960; 683 pp.+ 40 pp.

Documente turcesti privind istoria Romdniei, vol. I: 1455—1774 (Turkish Documents Regarding the History of Romania, vol. I: 1455–1774).

Istoria Turcilor (The History of the Turks), Bucharest, Scientific and Encyclopaedic Press, 1976; 448 pp.     

The New Federalism in Mexico and Foreign Economic Policy: An Alternative Two-Level Game Analysis of the Metalclad Case

This article examines, through a two-level game model, the case of the first investment dispute under NAFTA between a private U.S. firm and the Mexican government. It argues that the clue to understanding why the Mexican president could not cooperate with the U.S. president lies in Mexico's domestic "ratification" process. The analysis yields two theoretical propositions. First, federalism represents an important variable in explaining foreign economic policy. Second, two-level game logic should not be applied only to formal international negotiation situations; instead, by specifying the dependent variable as cooperation or noncooperation, these models connecting domestic and international politics can be productively applied to study foreign economic policy.