Inventing terrorists: the nexus of intelligence and Islamophobia

The transatlantic Islamophobia industry, emboldened by US intelligence efforts to entrap Muslims, appears to have helped to increase permissible levels of Islamophobia across the US, as illustrated by the fiery anti-Muslim rhetoric during the 2016 presidential campaign. In this article, I first look at five key leaders of the Islamophobia industry who also claim to be “terrorism experts” and have links to US and Israeli intelligence. I then describe US law enforcement’s mass surveillance of Muslims and its invention of terrorists, including a map of the “successful terrorist prosecutions” claimed by the US Department of Justice, most of which were tried only as criminal cases. Finally, I explore in-depth the case against the Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim charity based in Texas that was run by Palestinian-Americans and targeted by both the state and the Islamophobia industry for its dubious links to “terrorism”, helping to legitimate the Bush W. Administration’s “War on Terror”. I argue that this nexus of intelligence and Islamophobia has empowered anti-Muslim voices that were formerly marginal.     

Anti-Semitism: the Touchstone Issue for the Next Labour Leader

As the Labour Party ponders who its next leader should be, dealing with anti-semitism within its ranks has become a touchstone issue. Ivor Gaber, who has watched anti-semitism within Labour fester long before it hit the headlines, takes a personal view of its roots and consequences and recommends a possible way forward.     

Narratives of the EU in Israel/Palestine: narrative “stickiness” and the formation of expectations

ABSTRACT

Analysis of narrative can help identify the expectations actors hold about each other in international relations. This article triangulates a mix of elite interviews, media content analysis and an original Q-sort public opinion methodology to map the presence of narratives about EU relations among young Israelis and Palestinians. Our aim is not to explain the effects of EU public diplomacy in these countries. Instead we aim to identify the narrative “terrain” or conditions that the EU communicates to and with and, drawing on feminist and everyday narrative studies, to examine the role of affect and identity to explain why some narratives are more “sticky” than others in those societies. We find, first, a broad recognition that the EU’s capacity to act in international relations is necessary but limited in the face of greater challenges in the international system, and indeed, within the EU itself. We find, second, little evidence that young people radically reshape the narratives they encounter in their public spheres, but nevertheless some important divisions emerge that pose problems for how EU policymakers can communicate consistently without dismaying some citizens in third countries.     

Lord Sydenham of Combe's World Jewish Conspiracy

Abstract

Ruotsila's article is the first in-depth examination of the development of the racialist and antisemitic thinking of one of the main expositors of British radical-right doctrine in the first three decades of the twentieth century, Viscount Sydenham of Combe. An active participant in all the major debates of the radical right, a popularizer of conspiracy theories to explain Bolshevism, Zionism and modern internationalism, Sydenham had unusually close connections with a wide variety of conservative (and later fascist) organizations and opinion-formers on both sides of the Atlantic. These gave him notable, and notably well-seized, opportunities to influence debate and help shape the categories that have, ever since, guided radical-right thinking. Ruotsila charts Sydenham's commentary on socialism and perceived German subversion in the pre-First World War period, and explores the linkages that he, and the wider movement of which he was a representative, forged between German power politics, Bolshevik revolutionaries and a supposed Jewish conspiracy. Ruotsila's particular contribution lies in the link made between these fairly commonplace radical-right notions and anti-Zionism, and opposition to the League of Nations and to the international projects of liberalism more generally. These points of the anti-modernist and anti-internationalist argument are shown to have been derivatives of a racialist, eventually antisemitic, conception of a world Jewish conspiracy. Ruotsila shows the development of Sydenham's thought to have proceeded from general, at the time almost consensual, racialist assumptions through anti-socialism to a full-blown antisemitic conspiracy theory.     

FIGHTING WITHOUT WEAPONS: PALESTINIAN DOCUMENTARY FILMS AND ACTS OF RESISTANCE

Film production has for a long time been a prominent medium for Palestinians to resist Israeli occupation and create a cultural memory. Though there are some academic studies on the subject, a critical framework of analysis for such films remains underdeveloped. This article argues that Palestinian film production has surged particularly in recent years as part of an increasingly globalised dimension to Palestinian resistance, alongside such initiatives as the Electronic Intifada and the BDS movement. Early Zionist rhetoric asserted the non-existence (or invisibility) of Palestinians. Several decades later, when the Arab revolt was shut down, the Israeli official propaganda largely shifted to a discourse of “emergency”, which decontextualizes the anti-colonial nature of Palestinian resistance. The films 5 Broken Cameras (2011) and Private (2004) both engage with Israeli colonialism and the state of emergency by acting as tools of witnessing, laying bare the occupational strategies the Israelis use under emergency law and revealing the arbitrary nature of such practices as the Separation Wall. The films challenge Israeli authority through their depictions of predominantly non-violent forms of resistance, which counters their historically constructed invisibility as a people, as well as the colonialist narrative of “terrorism”. Non-violent resistance makes the recognition of Israeli authority problematic, as the settlers cannot use brute force to drive out the Palestinians if there is no documented incident in context to justify violence. Furthermore, the article argues that the form of the films – pseudo-documentary and especially “talking witness” documentary – enables their emotive content to reach out to an international audience, which could potentially respond. Thus, the films not only contain acts of resistance, but they significantly are tools of resistance in the conflict.     

A King's Art: Dynastic Ambition and State Interest in Hussein's Jordan

This article investigates the paradox that despite Jordan's relative weakness, its foreign policy during the 1980s and 1990s exhibited surprising assertiveness, particularly towards the Palestinian and Iraqi questions. Proceeding from the premise that conventional explanations based on state interest are insufficient by themselves, the article will argue that important ambiguities in Jordanian policy during the period under review can only be understood by taking into account King Hussein's dynastic aspirations as a Hashemite. Hussein's skill in intertwining his dynastic objectives with the interests of an emerging Jordanian state identity will be identified as a prominent feature of his statecraft.     

The power of informality: European Union’s engagement with non-state actors in Common Security and Defence Policy

This article examines the little explored issue of non-state actor (NSA) participation in the European Union’s (EU) Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Despite the fact that NGOs and civil society are shielded from formal access to CSDP, EU staff in both Brussels and the missions engage with them informally. Drawing on interviews with policy-makers and NSA representatives, the article analyses the practices of the EU in its engagement with NSAs, focusing on civilian missions in Georgia and Palestine. It shows that such engagement is more intense during implementation at the level of CSDP missions rather than during policy-making in Brussels. It argues that a combination of rational choice-based (functional needs of policy-makers and intensity of NSA advocacy) and constructivist (organisational and individual cultures) explanations helps us better understand why CSDP structures open up to NSAs. The article contributes to the nascent academic and policy debate on EU–civil society cooperation in CSDP and, more broadly, to the studies of informal governance in the EU and NSA participation in international organisations.     

论以色列阿拉伯人与巴勒斯坦解放运动的关系

处于巴以冲突夹缝之中的以色列阿拉伯人与巴勒斯坦解放运动的关系有其独特性，具体表现在：以色列阿拉伯人的民族意识在巴勒斯坦解放运动中被唤醒，并逐步成长；以色列阿拉伯人将谋求巴勒斯坦问题的公正解决和巴勒斯坦国的建立作为其政治斗争的两大目标之一，在政治斗争中与被占领土的反以活动相互配合。不过，以色列阿拉伯人始终处于巴勒斯坦解放运动的外围，这是由以色列阿拉伯人与被占领土巴勒斯坦同胞不同的身份、地位及前途安排所决定的。     

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.     

‘State of exception’ or ‘state in exile’? The fallacy of appropriating Agamben on Palestinian refugee camps

To refer to Palestinian refugee camps as states of exception, appropriating the paradigm of Giorgio Agamben, is definitely tempting. Agamben argues that in times of crisis, individual rights of citizens are diminished and entire categories of people kept outside the political system. Nevertheless, there are flaws in applying Agamben’s perspective on Palestinian camps. It acquits the camp residents from the autonomy over their own political agency. Historically, in Lebanon, camp residents experienced an almost limitless access to free political organisation. But this access has not been converted into the development of representative, legitimate political structures.