Middle East history

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  4/26/2023
  

  Israel's Founding Contradictions Haunt 75th Anniversary

  by Bernard Avishai

  A bargain of tolerance between secular bourgeois and religious supremacist wings of Israeli society is being renegotiated by the right wing. Are concessions to religious groups made by David Ben-Gurion at the founding the root of conflict?

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• SOURCE: Boston Review
  3/15/2023
  

  Iraq's Militarized Politics Keep the Country in Turmoil

  by Simona Foltyn

  Sectarian divisions and easy access to weapons have ensured that force remains a determinative factor in Iraqi politics.   

• 
• SOURCE: Forward
  3/10/2023
  

  I Resigned from the Carter Center over "Apartheid" Charge; I was Wrong

  by Steve Berman

  American supporters of Israel have blamed the former president as a messenger about the consequences of the occupation; it's time to consider the message. 

• 
• SOURCE: Tablet
  6/6/2022
  

  Two Books on Israeli Nationalism Show a Growing Divide on Zionism in America

  by Ari Hoffman

  Books by Omri Boehm and Yossi Shain take diametrically opposed positions on the historical and contemporary merits of Zionism as institutionalized in the Israeli state, and signal the growth of a polarization in the American Jewish community. 

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• SOURCE: mesana.org
  2/28/2022
  

  Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Letter to University of Washington

  The association is concerned that the University of Washington defunded an endowed chair in Israel Studies after donors complained about the faculty member's statements as a private citizen criticizing Israeli policies in Gaza. 

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• 2/27/2022
  

  Ghosts in the Mirror: France's Crusade Against Former Nazis in the Algerian Insurgency

  by Danny Orbach

  Nazi fugitives and mercenaries took on an outsize significance in the strategic imaginations of both French and West German governments and intelligence agencies in the Cold War; they were most influential not through their actions but through distorting government policy through these delusions of power.

• 
• 2/20/2022
  

  Martin Indyk Writes the Palestinians Out of the History of Kissinger's Middle East Diplomacy

  by James R. Stocker

  Martin Indyk’s new work offers a vivid portrait of the former Secretary of State’s Arab-Israeli diplomacy, but he completely misses one of the most important parts of this policy – the Palestinians.

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• SOURCE: Haaretz
  12/12/2021
  

  Haaretz Editorial: Israel Must Acknowledge War Crimes in 1948 Fight for Independence

  "It is time to acknowledge the truth, and first to publish the report by the first attorney general, Yaakov-Shimshon Shapira, on the massacres of the dark autumn of 1948... and to hold a penetrating public discussion of their implications today."

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/14/2021
  

  Opinion: The Palestinian Political Class has Become a Heavy Burden on the People

  Two observers of the Palestinian political scene argue that the leading factions of Hamas and Fatah are more motivated to maintain their own power than to support a growing, youth-led Palestinian movement for justice. 

• 
• SOURCE: Times of Israel
  6/3/2021
  

  Solomon's Peace Accord

  by David Marks

  Can Israelis and Palestinians imagine and implement a Solomonic peace? 

• 
• SOURCE: Eurozine
  6/3/2021
  

  The Unbearable Easiness of Killing

  by Arie M. Dubnov

  "As a colleague justly commented, it is only helpful to call a situation ‘complicated’ if one is committed to unfolding the package, willing to examine its contents and prepared to be surprised by what one finds hidden inside."

• 
• SOURCE: Contingent
  5/28/2021
  

  Because of Palestine

  by N.A. Mansour

  "It is because I am Palestinian that I can tell you that objectivity—in history-writing, in the archives, in museums—does not exist."

• 
• 5/30/2021
  

  The Settler Colonialist Frame Helps Clarify What's at Stake in the Middle East for Israelis, Palestinians, and Peace

  by Jeff Kolnick

  Looking at the recent resurgence of armed conflict between Israel and Hamas as part of a project of settler colonialism clarifies the nature of the conflict, and suggests that the immediate cessation of eviction of Palestinians is essential for peace. 

• 
• SOURCE: National Interest
  5/24/2021
  

  How Napoleon’s Legacy Explains the Middle East’s Conflicts

  by Yoav Tenembaum

  An international relations scholar argues that the Middle East can be explained through the division of "revolutionary" and "status quo" interests that dates to Napoleon's challenges to the European imperial order. How other nations respond to the conflict will follow whether they favor the status quo. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/24/2021
  

  Republicans are Far More Radical than Democrats on Israel

  by Max Boot

  Post columnist Max Boot surveys the bipartisan field of US policy toward Israel and concludes that the absolute support for the Israeli right from the Republicans, driven by the importance of evangelical voters, is wholly unprecedented. 

• 
• SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  5/20/2021
  

  In Israel, the Violent Legacy of 1948

  by Benny Morris

  "The chaos in the towns of Lydda, Ramle, Haifa, Umm al-Fahm and Acre is a dim echo of the civil war between Palestine’s Jewish and Arab communities that engulfed the country during the first months of the 1948 war."

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  5/20/2021
  

  What Liberal Comparisons between Bush-Cheney and Trump Get Wrong

  by Joseph Stieb

  Liberal critics of Liz Cheney have suggested she's a hypocrite, blasting Trump's "Big Lie" while having championed the deceptions that led to the Iraq War. This is an imperfect comparison, which ignores the real lessons of Iraq – that fixing the fact-finding process to fit a policy is a common and continuing danger. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/18/2021
  

  This is a War Israel Can’t Win

  by Max Boot

  Post columnist Max Boot argues that the current cycle of attacks and reprisals are symbolic political gestures, and that Israel should declare that it's made its point and resume the work of political normalization with its Arab neighbors and political concessions with the Palestinian Authority that marginalize Hamas.

• 
• SOURCE: KPFA
  5/17/2021
  

  Rashid Khalidi on Palestinian History: From The Ottoman Empire to Settler Colonialism

  Middle East historian Rashid Khalidi speaks with Pacifica Radio's Politics and Letters on the history of Palestine.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times`
  5/14/2021
  

  In Israel’s Rising Violence, Ripples From 1948

  The eruption of communal violence between Jews and Arabs in Israeli towns with mixed populations is a legacy of the events of 1948, when, in the context of war, many towns' Arab populations were purged (historians debate the degree to which this was planned, or part of Israeli state policy).