Geography Archives: Palestine

A.S. Dhillon’s recent decision to paint again has to be seen not as his abandonment of creating public installations but as a step towards extending his social practice by specifically addressing the specialized audience of contemporary art.  This transition from the outside to the gallery, the specialized space of art, is a process that began […]

  A young boy sits on rusted tank tracks in the desert bordering Iran and Iraq.  His head is bowed, and he’s sobbing.  A few yards away, a dozen bearded men gather around a Shiite cleric.  The men weep as the cleric recounts the story of a fearless martyr killed during the Iran-Iraq war.  He […]

Toufic Haddad: A prisoner exchange would be a real game changer in the Middle East if it is actually able to take place.  I’m less optimistic that it will.  The fact is it would be the first time that a political faction would be able to win such concessions out of Israel.  We’re talking about […]

By giving Israel veto rights and threatening more sanctions, the U.S. is squandering the best chance we have for a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear issue. Ordinarily, it would have been easy to dismiss the latest resolution of the International Atomic Energy Agency censuring Iran as a text, drafted by idiots, full of sound […]

The Swiss, known for cheese, Alps, watches, chocolate, and secret bank accounts, at least two of which are full of holes, have now added a sixth important product: intolerance.  57.5 percent of its 8 million population, or of those who went to the polls, voted to forbid minarets next to Muslim mosques. As nearly everyone […]

Discrimination, not culture, keeps families in poverty. Israel’s finance minister was accused last week of trying to deflect attention from discriminatory policies keeping many of the country’s Arab families in poverty by blaming their economic troubles on what he described as Arab society’s opposition to women working. A recent report from Israel’s National Insurance Institute […]

  The NLG NYC Condemns the Israeli Government for the Detention of African American Political Activists 25 November 2009 The New York City Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild condemns the actions of the Israeli government for its unlawful and racially motivated detention of two African-American political activists. On November 23, 2009, Dhoruba Bin Wahad, […]

  Lula from Brazil and Ahmadinejad from Iran.  What is this — the new axis of evil?  No — Luladinejad is a new axis of business. In the latest round of the increasingly warm embrace between Latin America and the Middle East, Lula and Ahmadinejad, meeting in Brazil, signed agreements on energy, trade and agricultural […]

  Introduction to Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People by Bertell Ollman The Invention of the Jewish People is divided into two parts.  The first is a long section on the theory of nationalism, whose main characteristic, according to Sand, is the tendency to invent a past that suits the current needs and […]

OK, so the Palestinian Authority will not unilaterally declare an independent Palestinian state.  In fact, the whole issue seems a misunderstanding.  Concerned that the US has backtracked on a two state solution based on the 1967 borders and that Israel was getting the world used to the “fact” that the settlements and the Wall, rather […]

On 3 November 2009, the United States House of Representatives voted 344-36 in favor of House Resolution 867, making it Congress’ official response to the 575-page Report submitted by Justice Richard J. Goldstone to the United Nations Human Rights Council at the conclusion of a “fact-finding” mission on the Gaza conflict.  The Resolution does little […]

“It is part of morality not to be at home in one’s home.” — Edward Said On the afternoon of November 3, 2009, the United States House of Representatives voted in favor of House Resolution 867 (H.Res.867), an AIPAC-backed bill that urges both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to “oppose unequivocally […]

  “When you look at conflict zones, in all conflict zones, you see that the more militarized our spaces and our places, the more violence against women increases. . . .  This constant anxiety and uncertainty, living in constant uncertainty changes the entire life, especially of a woman. . . .  Domestic violence increases, patriarchal, […]

Juan Cole’s very positive report card for President Barack Obama’s foreign policy is a bit shocking, given his knowledge and frequent enlightening comments.  (“Obama’s Foreign Policy Report Card,” Salon, October 27, 2009.1)  “[Obama] receives his lowest grade for his failure to force America’s chattering classes to take notice,” Cole judges — policy issues resolve into […]

A shift in US policies toward Iran was already discernible at the end of the Bush presidency.  With the extreme right wing of the neoconservative movement marginalized and the US army bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration amended its policies in accordance with a re-assessment of the United States’ capabilities after the […]

Speaking to a delegation of American doctors visiting the Gaza Strip on October 29, Hamas Prime Minister Esmail Haniya acknowledged an “optimistic mood” in the region, thanks to the Obama Administration. He commended “Obama’s new language” and called for direct dialogue between Hamas and the US — words that sent shockwaves throughout the upper echelons […]

It was as if some official, perhaps one of President Obama’s “czars,” like the Czar for Demolishing American Credibility, had orchestrated a systematic campaign to isolate the US from the rest of the world, make it a political laughingstock and, finally, render it a second-rate power capable of throwing around tremendous military weight but absolutely […]

“We are the children of an illusion that consisted in believing that the independences of our countries signified the end of colonization.” — Interview with Houria Bouteldja, spokesperson of the decolonial movement in France known as the “Mouvement des Indigènes de la République” (MIR — Movement of the Indigenous of the Republic).1 Why do you […]

Over the last 15 years more than a million people have immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union, welcomed by the Israeli ‘Law of Return’ that grants immediate citizenship and financial support to all Jews and their family members. My last research1focused on the queers among them, looking at the ways sexuality and nationhood intertwine in queer immigrants’ sense of belonging to the country that is officially defined by state policy — and indeed perceived by many immigrants themselves — as their home.

The decision to behave in Geneva like the made-in-Oslo Palestinian Authority (PA) was but an extension of the Israeli occupation was the final nail in the coffin of international solidarity with the Palestinian cause in its customary sense.  Those who took this decision knew this.  International solidarity was confounded by the questions stirred by the […]