An academic history book has to be unusually successful to get through to a fourth edition. This one has done so not only because the continuing Israel–Palestine conflict is a subject of heated con...

In recent years there has been a powerful resurgence of settler colonialism as an interpretive framework through which to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Attached to the burgeoning field of settler colonial studies, this so-called ‘turn’ to settler colonialism has seen Israel-Palestine increasingly compared alongside New World white settler societies like Australia, Canada and the United States. In seeking to undercut the lens of exceptionalism through which the conflict has conventionally been viewed, the settler colonial paradigm has some important (...) counter-hegemonic implications for reframing Israel-Palestine, not least of which is its prescription for decolonization. However, it is paradoxically in the context of decolonization that the limits of the settler colonial paradigm become most apparent. I argue that these limitations are connected to the dominance of Patrick Wolfe’s structural account of settler colonialism, which leaves very little room for transformation, and to the particular connotations settler colonial studies has acquired from the New World contexts in which it is most often articulated. This is particularly the case in Israel-Palestine, where these connotations preclude engagement with the national aspects of the conflict and leave under-examined the unique resonances of the settler/native distinction, which need reckoning with in any serious account of decolonization. (shrink)

The Israel–Palestine conflict is one of the most tenacious and polarizing conflicts in the world and, according to some analysts, one that is seemingly impossible to solve given the current input v...

The Israel–Palestine conflict is one of the most tenacious and polarizing conflicts in the world and, according to some analysts, one that is seemingly impossible to solve given the current input v...

We all follow the news and we all think about the Israel/Palestine conflict, I believe, but it is not much discussed in this country. Our politicians leave it to the Americans. General Petraeus, in a statement to the US Senate Armed Services Committee, last year, listed this issue as one of the “major drivers of instability, inter-state tensions, and conflict” in the Middle East. “The conflict foments anti- American sentiment,” he said, “due to a perception of U.S. favoritism (...) for Israel”. Because Australia closely follows the US in foreign affairs, our relations with the Muslim world are affected also. There are many Muslims living in Australia. The country with the largest Muslim population in the world is our neighbour, Indonesia. (shrink)

This interview with media anthropologist, Rebecca L. Stein, conducted by Noa Levin and Andrew Fisher in Spring 2023, takes her recent book Screenshots: State Violence on Camera in Israel and Palestine (2021) as its starting point in order to explore issues of state violence and the militarization of social media in Israel/Palestine. This book marks the culmination of a decade-long research project into the camera dreams introduced by digital imaging technologies and the fraught histories of their (...) disillusionment. Stein discusses the way her research has critically conceptualized the recent history of hopes invested in the digital image in this geopolitical context, by the occupier as much as the occupied, and charts the failures and mistakes, obstructions and appropriations that characterize the conflicted visual cultures of Israel/Palestine. (shrink)

This article expands on anthropological understandings of affect and emotion to include certain theological and religious concepts that structure and give meaning to the daily lives of religious nationalists in areas of ethnic and political conflict. In doing so, it will ethnographically explore the relationship between theological notions of sanctity and the way those notions manifest themselves in the context of contemporary Jewish religious Zionism in both Israel and the Occupied West Bank. I will argue that analyzing mystical conceptions (...) of sanctity as a distinct affect opens new areas of human experience, which anthropologists may use to better grapple with the dilemmas posed by nationalism and religious extremism in an increasingly politically fraught world. (shrink)

The Israel-Palestine conflict stands at the heart of tensions in the Middle East and, more than that, at the heart of tensions between the West and the Islamic world. It is sometimes suggested that the resolution of this conflict will require forgiveness on the part of both Palestine and Israel. However, what such forgiveness would involve has not been adequately explored. Our aim is to remedy this gap in the discussion. Our consideration of Palestinian political forgiveness (...) will address three principal questions. The first is a definitional question: what is political forgiveness? Our answer to this question will involve, among other things, articulating an account of collective emotions. The second question is an agential question: is there a Palestinian agent capable of forgiving Israel? Finally, there is the normative question: should Palestinians forgive Israel? (shrink)

The conflict in Gaza and Israel that ignited on October 7, 2023 signals a catastrophic breakdown in the possibility of ethical dialogue in the region. The actions on both sides have revealed a dissolution of ethical restraints, with unimaginably cruel attacks on civilians, murder of children, destruction of health facilities, and denial of basic needs such as water, food, and shelter. There is a need both to understand the nature of the ethical singularity represented by this conflict and what, (...) if any, options are available to allow the reconstruction of communication between the warring parties. This article seeks to address these tasks by analysing the conflict as inherently an ethical one, in the sense that it exposes a rupture in the fabric of communicative relationships that has evolved systematically out of the deep cultural structures from which all protagonists have emerged. Drawing on the work of Levinas, Habermas, Arendt, and others, and referring to the specific circumstances in the region, it examines the ethical sources of the crisis and tries to identify conditions for its resolution. The possibility of reconciliation—that is, of refiguring relationships to open up a space for dialogue to create pathways to heal the ruptures—is examined. The dark legacy of the Holocaust is identified as an abiding cultural vulnerability for both societies. It is concluded, however, that the rich history of partnerships and collaborations between Jews and Palestinians provides a robust infrastructure on the basis of which a sustainable peace might be built, providing a much-needed source of hope. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPart of a comprehensive study to analyse British broadsheets’ coverage of the First Gaza War, this paper examines the moral arguments presented in editorials. Doing so, it showcases a non-dualist, relational inquiry of the representation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead of focusing on what is empirically ‘true’, morally ‘right’, and ethnically ‘Israeli/jewish’ or ‘Palestinian/arab’ as extra-discursive categories, it approaches them as discursive constructions and asks what relations, what forms of lives the editorials cultivate in representing them. The analysis demonstrates that (...) whilst newspapers overwhelmingly imagine isolated and ahistorical essences to clash in Palestine-Israel, they do not exclusively do so. Traces of a discourse of relations, where ‘I’ is partly constituted by the ‘Other’ can also be found in the editorials. It is with the vicissitudes of such relational accounts that the article concludes. (shrink)

Politics, and in particular the question of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, is currently dealt with rather through fiction and art, and much less through genuine political actions, is a strong sign of the failure of politics as a positive, voluntaristic political project. Rap /hip hop music, the most naturally political art, does not have the political agenda anymore. The particular history or Israeli rap illustrates this process in a striking way, embodying the recent evolution of the Israeli society. The country was (...) established on a political project and previously unknown social generosity. Yet, the economical and geopolitical context of Israel, as well as increasingly difficult relationship with Palestinians, made its citizens surprisingly uninterested in rethinking the political project of the country. Individual preoccupations, also economical, family and friends’ problems, started to occupy the central place in art and in daily life in Israel, and politics has been definitively associated to corruption and self-interest of an elite. Rap reflects this evolution, is its condensed version. (shrink)

The long war between Israel and the Palestinians is not the root cause of all conflicts between Islam and the West, but it exacerbates every such conflict. From Northern Europe through North Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, and down to Australia, there are violent opponents of “the West” motivated, in part, by indignation at the..

It is often suggested that the resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict will require forgiveness on the part of both Palestinians and Israelis. This paper looks at what such forgiveness might involve for one party to the conflict. It begins by offering an account of political forgiveness in which both collective actions and collective emotions play a significant role. It then explores whether there is a collective Palestinian agent capable of forgiving as well as whether it would be permissible (...) for such an agent to forgive. It concludes with a discussion of key conditions that, if met, could facilitate Palestinian forgiveness. (shrink)

Kasher and Yadlin make significant contributions to the literature on counter-terrorism, (1) in their fine-tuned distinctions among degrees of individual involvement in terrorist activities, and (2) in weighing (a) obligations to minimize harm to one's own noncombatants and combatants against (b) the duty to limit harm to non-citizen noncombatants. But the authors? analysis is hampered by some ambiguous definitions, some unwieldy terms, and some questionable moral assumptions and arguments.

El artículo indaga si es posible caracterizar como expresión del irredentismo el ethos palestino de Retorno a territories donde fueron expulsados en la guerra con Israel en 1948-49. Después de una reseña histórica sobre los campos de refugiados palestinos, y el rol de la UNRWA, se compara cuál fue el destino de refugiados de otras naciones irredentistas tras guerras de descolonización y poscoloniales. Finalmente, se reflexiona sobre el dilema identitario y político acerca del Irredentismo palestino sin estado o la (...) alternativa de un “sionismo palestino” en su propio estado-nacional. Palabras clave : irredentismo, descolonizacion, conflicto Israel-Palestina, nacionalismo The article assesses if it is possible to characterize the Palestinian ethos as an expression of irredentism of an extra-territorial nation, whose young generations long to return to territories from where their families were expelled in the 1948-49 war. After making a historical account of the Palestinian refugee camps and the role of UNRWA, the article compares the fate of refugees from other irredentist nations expelled by decolonization and postcolonial wars. Finally, identity and political dilemmas are raised about stateless Palestinian Irredentism or the alternative of a “Palestinian Zionism” in its own nation-state. Kaywords: irredentism, decolonization, Israel-Palestine conflict, nationalism. (shrink)

Counting casualties in conflict zones faces both practical and ethical concerns. Drawing on procedures from risk analysis, we propose a general approach. It represents each death by standard features, having either essential value, for capturing the social and cultural meaning of individual casualties, or instrumental value, for relating patterns of casualties to possible causes and effects. We illustrate the approach with the choices involved in attempts to record casualties in Iraq and the Israel-Palestine conflict, and with natural disasters, (...) as exemplified by Hurricane Katrina. We advocate institutionalizing the approach, so that recording casualties increases understanding, rather than suspicion. (shrink)

In response to critics’ claims that a discussion of sexuality and nationalism vis-à-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict bears no relation to the author’s previous work, or to such discussions within the US or European contexts, this paper details the complex interconnections between Israeli gay and lesbian rights and the continued oppression of Palestinians. The first section examines existing discourses of what the author has previously called “homonationalism,” or the process by which certain forms of gay and lesbian sexuality are folded into (...) the national body as the Muslim/arab Other is cast as perversely queer, within Israel and the diasporas. The operations of homonationalism ensure that no discussion of gay and lesbian rights in Israel is independent from the state’s actions toward Palestine/palestinians. The second section contains a critique of Israel’s practices of “pinkwashing” in the US and Europe. In order to redirect focus away from critiques of its repressive actions toward Palestine, Israel has attempted to utilize its relative “gay-friendliness” as an example of its commitment to Western “democratic” ideals. Massive public relations campaigns such as “Brand Israel” work to establish Israel’s reputation within the US and Europe as cosmopolitan, progressive, Westernized and democratic as compared with the backward, repressive, homophobic Islamic nations, which, in turn, serves to solidify Israel’s aggression as a position of the “defense” of democracy and freedom. The final section looks at the ways in which accusations of “anti-Semitism” function in academic and activist contexts to suppress critiques of the implicit nationalism within Israeli sexual politics. (shrink)

800x600 Normal 0 21 false false false RO X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Suicide attack has become a dangerous trend in the contemporary history of some Asian societies. While it has been used by some people as a means of protest, it has been largely rejected by humanity for its severe debilitating effects. Instances of suicide attack can be found in the contexts of the Israel-Palestine conflict, September 11 attacks, Bali bombing, Sunni-Shiite disagreement, struggle of the Tamil Tigers in Sri (...) Lanka, as well as the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan by foreign powers. The recent contours of suicide attacks are basically largely related to various groups or organizations. The paper therefore examines the meaning, brief history, and the causes of suicide attack, and analyzes these within the purview of contemporary Islamic thought which is based on the textual arguments of the Qur'an and Sunnah. The paper concludes that though a tiny fraction of the whole Muslim spectrum tries to justify the suicide attack as a "weapon of the weak", the majority of the Muslim scholars has viewed it as a crime against humanity and therefore vehemently rejects this practice in any form. (shrink)

This research critically analyses the Israeli housing block (‘shikun’) discourse, as presented in cultural representations during 1948–1961, and its contribution to the evolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The study argues that the discursive exclusion of the shikun from Israel's socio-political history of planning and development is a central part of Israel's ethnocracy and has an essential role in exacerbating the conflict. It maintains that the shikun's exclusion is a reduction of its consequences, namely the Mizrahi population's dispersion through (...) the shikun, which stands as one of the main foundations of the Israeli ethnocratic regime. Subsequently, I identify the shikun anew as the ‘ethnocratic shikun’, and suggest that it can be a better conceptualisation to reveal how ethnic oppression, by discursive and architectural means, affects national land regimes, and thereby exacerbating regional violent conflicts. This research has two main goals. First, achieving a better understanding of Israeli society and politics by delving into a crucial component of human existence – housing, and analysing its ‘disappearance’ from public debates regarding the Middle-Eastern geopolitics. Second, the research aspires to make a methodological contribution that goes beyond Israeli housing discourse, by adding another novel layer to the Cultural Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis. (shrink)

This article introduces an evolving project of visual mapping initiated by Israeli photographers Miki Kratsman and Shabtai Pinchevsky under the title of Anti-Mapping. Placing this critical project in the context of the Israel/Palestine conflict, the article examines how Kratsman and Pinchevsky develop complex, strategic and critically sophisticated approaches to visualizing the conditions that produce victims of violence and that place Palestinian villages under threat of destruction. The article explores their strategic, technical and critical approaches to the difficulties of (...) representing particular contested places in this geopolitical context. (shrink)

This essay attempts to clarify the distinction between property and sovereignty, and to bring out the importance of that distinction to a liberal nationalism. Beginning with common intuitions about what distinguishes our rights to our possessions from the state's rightful governance over us, it proceeds to explore some historical sources of these intuitions, and the importance of a sharp distinction between ownership and governance to the rise of liberalism. From here, the essay moves into an exploration of group ownership, and (...) the ways in which group ownership can in practice turn into an illiberal kind of sovereignty The point is to shed new light on problems that nationalist states — states purporting to represent or foster a particular group identity — characteristically face. Examples of these problems, from the Israel/Palestine conflict, are put forth in the conclusion. (shrink)

This Article assesses one kind of argument for an intergenerational right of return in the context of the Israel/palestine conflict. The question is whether descendants of those who were made refugees in the 1948 War can acquire occupancy rights from their parents through inheritance and bequest over territory that they have never lived on. Standard arguments for their inheriting such rights fail for a range of reasons. However, a less familiar argument for inheritance or bequest succeeds—descendants can acquire (...) such rights because their parents have an interest in their being able to live the kind of life that, due to the violation of their rights, they were deprived of. (shrink)

During the already long history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, women from both sides of the Green Line have been highly visible participants in the often perilous enterprise of establishing dialogue, of maintaining links with the other side, and of thinking seriously about the conditions that will need to be brought together for the construction of a just and lasting peace. By their words, their often symbolic actions, and their activist strategies, they have durably contributed to the building of (...) a ‘clandestine’ peace often far removed from the calendars and issues of the major international negotiations. In these collective actions, choosing the path of non-violence has often been at the heart of their repertoire of militant activities and their discourses. This article proposes to examine certain examples of such activities and involvement since the first Intifada of 1987 up until the very recent past, showing that the choice of non-violent strategies has been a significantly marked tendency of the activism of women, and that this is always associated with the formulation of renewed forms of discourse around peace and reconciliation. (shrink)

The first of three articles discussing the Israel/Palestine conflict and the charge of anti-semitism. The second article is a response by Tamar Meisels, and the third a reply to Meisels by Klug.

Our third and final article on the the Israel/Palestine conflict and anti-semitism.

Human rights and conflict resolution have been traditionally perceived as two separate fields, with contradictory principles and conflicting approaches toward achieving peace. This essay aims to understand these two fields in a more integrative way, showing how a human rights perspective can enrich the theory and practice of conflict resolution. It clarifies the main characteristics of a human rights approach to conflict resolution and identifies a set of human rights standards guiding its implementation: a normative legal framework; structural conditions for (...) peace; participation and inclusion; and accountability and redress. The essay also briefly applies a human rights approach to the Colombian peace process and to the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The conclusion addresses one of the main criticisms of this approach and its principal challenges. (shrink)

This Article makes three moves. First it suggests and elaborates a distinction—already implicit in the literature—between what I will call the first and second order of arguments for justice (hereinafter FOAJ and SOAJ). In part, it is a distinction somewhat similar to that between just war and justice in war. SOAJ are akin to the rules governing justice in war or rules of engagement, while bracketing the reasons and causes of the conflict. FOAJ on the hand are those principles of (...) justice and arguments that derive their power from the distribution of entitlements, rights and duties of the parties prior to the conflict they are supposed to adjudicate. FOAJ aim in many ways to restore the distribution of entitlements that existed on the eve of the conflict. Thus, all arguments for corrective or historical justice could be viewed as FOAJ. The second move in the paper associates FOAJ with the Palestinians and SOAJ with Zionism first and Israel later on. The more the settler Zionist project became a reality, the more the Palestinian population felt a threat to their national project and exercised resistance, including violent resistance. The more Palestinians showed resistance, the more appealing and more relevant SOAJ of self-defense, security, and emergency. The third move in the paper is to ask questions regarding the relation between FOAJ and SOAJ offer a critique of the distinction itself, and offers a critique of the way the distinction is being deployed in the case of Israel-Palestine. The Israeli claims for self-defense and security(SOAJ) are becoming so pervasive that they threaten to suspend the claims for historical justice forever (FOAJ), to the point that everything, even the regime that is crystallizing in front of our eyes as an Apartheid regime, is being justified as a temporal necessity. Israel deployment of SOAJ is done in bad faith. (shrink)

This article is concerned with how the idea of anachronism can interfere with our thinking about social justice, peace, and human liberation. In the case of Israel/Palestine the idea of anachronism is deployed among liberals, progressives and radical theorists, and activists seeking peace and social justice who express animosity toward religiously motivated settlers and their settlement project. One of the ways in which they differentiate themselves from these settlers is by suggesting that settler actions belong to the past. (...) They also pity Palestinians conceived of as stuck in an oppressive system of settler colonialism that also belongs to the past, preventing them from moving forward. Both perceptions of anachronism limit the ways we can think about human liberation and peace. This article sheds light on a conundrum about who or what belongs to the past, and how thinking in such terms can contribute to the production of a particular moral collective and to the production of enmity. Both perceptions of anachronism frame history as a kind of progress in which peoples or groups might be ranked according to their levels of civilizational attainment, an idea we abandoned long ago as an analytical tool, but seem to have retained as a matter of practical political sympathy and judgment. This temporal conditioning can interfere with the thinking of even some of the most progressive social theorists, and mimics a colonial impulse. (shrink)

Posted 30 January 2023. A previous version was published as “A New Approach for Zionists: Conversation,” Palestine-Israel Journal 14, no. 2 (2007): 100–104. For a longer version of the argument, see my “Going Rabin One Further” in Patriotic Elaborations: Essays in Practical Philosophy (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009).

With the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in mind, this Article asks whether there is a human right to return to one’s country, and if so what justifies it. Although such a right is widely recognized in international law, who can claim it and on what basis remains ambiguous; the ambiguity is revealed by asking what “country” means in “return to one’s country.” I argue that to treat the right simply as an adjunct of citizenship is too narrow an approach, even though the (...) right has a role to play in managing inter-state relations. As with other human rights, personal autonomy might be proposed as a justification for the right of return. But although the autonomy interest in developing long-term life-plans may explain the right not to be forcibly displaced from the place where you live, it cannot explain why there is a right to return once displaced, particularly in the case of people who enjoy an adequate set of options elsewhere. Instead we need to invoke the need to belong to a homeland, access to which the right of return protects. The Article explores a homeland’s different dimensions and considers various respects in which the need to belong might be thought too indeterminate to ground a right. Finally it distinguishes and evaluates the return claims of Jews and Palestinians to Israel/ Palestine; only Palestinians whose homeland this remains can claim a human right of return as analyzed and defended here. (shrink)

Intense ethnic, racial, and religious violence led many to classify South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Israel/palestine as intractable conflicts. Yet they diverged, with only South Africa achieving a lasting settlement. The authors explain why. The authors analyze them as a distinctive type of negotiated transition. The ancién regime is an imperfect democracy, subject to electoral constraints and legitimated by democratic principles that it violates. This constrains negotiations but helps manage difficult commitment problems. The authors show how the (...) principals navigated constraints and took advantage of opportunities in South Africa but have failed—so far—to do so in the other two conflicts. (shrink)

In the Fray collects David Gushee's most significant essays over twenty years as a Christian intellectual. Most of the essays were written in situations of ethical conflict on the highly contested ground of Christian public ethics. Topics addressed include torture, climate change, marriage and divorce, the treatment of gays and lesbians in the church, war, genocide, nuclear weapons, race, global poverty, faith and politics, Israel/Palestine, and even whether Christian ethics is a real academic discipline. Quite visible in the (...) collection is Gushee's deep research interest in the Nazi era in Germany and how the churches fared in resisting Nazi intimidations and seductions and, finally, the Holocaust. All essays reflect the desire for a church that has learned the lessons of that period--a church with resistance to racism, militarism, nationalism, and other social-ideological toxins, and with the discernment and courage to resist these in favor of a courageous allegiance to the lordship of Christ at the time of testing. Considerable attention is directed to contesting some of the public ethics found in the author's own US evangelical Christian community. Concluding reflections on Gushee's ethical vision are offered in an illuminating essay by senior Christian ethicist Glen Harold Stassen. (shrink)

This volume examines the distinctive and highly problematic ethical questions surrounding conflict archaeology. By bringing together sophisticated analyses and pertinent case studies from around the world it aims to address the problems facing archaeologists working in areas of violent conflict, past and present. Of all the contentious issues within archaeology and heritage, the study of conflict and work within conflict zones are undoubtedly the most highly charged and hotly debated, both within and outside the discipline. Ranging across the conflict zones (...) of the world past and present, this book attempts to raise the level of these often fractious debates by locating them within ethical frameworks. The issues and debates in this book range across a range of ethical models, including deontological, teleological and virtue ethics. The chapters address real-world ethical conundrums that confront archaeologists in a diversity of countries, including Israel/Palestine, Iran, Uruguay, Argentina, Rwanda, Germany and Spain. They all have in common recent, traumatic experiences of war and dictatorship. The chapters provide carefully argued, thought-provoking analyses and examples that will be of real practical use to archaeologists in formulating and addressing ethical dilemmas in a confident and constructive manner. (shrink)

This paper outlines what we call a network model of collective emotions. Drawing upon this model, we explore the significance of collective emotions in the Palestine-Israel conflict. We highlight some of the ways in which collective shame, in particular, has contributed to the evolution of this conflict. And we consider some of the obstacles that shame and the pride-restoring narratives to which it gave birth pose to the conflict’s resolution.

National identity and attachment to national culture have taken root even in this era of globalization. National sentiments find expression in multiple political spheres and cause troubles of various kinds in many societies, both domestically and across state borders. Some of these problems are rooted in history; others are the result of massive global immigration. As US Secretary of State John Kerry tries to broker a new round of Israel-Palestine peace talks, the Israeli government continues expanding its settlements (...) in disputed territories. As this proposal is being written, Japanese citizens are debating whether their politicians should visit the Yasukuni Shrine (靖國神社), where the spirits of fourteen Class A war criminals from WWII and more than one thousand others convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East are honored with a distinguished resting place. As the Chinese government’s plan to bring economic prosperity to the Xinjian province unfolds, ethnic conflicts between Han Chinese and local Uyghur Muslims intensify. Tibetans still demonstrate to the Chinese government, some through the dramatic sacrifice of self-immolation, their determination to pursue a Tibet that is truly free and autonomous. The recent inflow of Muslim immigrants across Europa and North America forces those liberal democratic societies to rethink the meaning of multiculturalism. Should the state respect Muslim women’s freedom to wear burkas in public? What about other aspects of certain Muslim traditions such as arranged marriages or the honor killing of teenage girls who see boys their parents do not approve? Since these immigrants voluntarily moved from their homeland to a new society, do they have a duty to give up such practices, which conflict with their new societies’ fundamental commitment to individual autonomy? Eric Hobsbawm suggests that nationalism is a contingent phenomenon in history—it arises with important historical events such as industrialization and print journalism; eventually, it will disappear. Anthony Smith, on the other hand, argues that nationalism is deeply rooted in the human need for collective faith and dignity. How should we understand today’s nationalism? Is it a transient phenomenon that eventually will be eradicated from the world, or is it a timeless issue that confronts and will remain a challenge for every society? Is the conventional distinction between civic and cultural nationalism still relevant or helpful? The problems and ongoing challenges of nationalism are very much alive throughout East Asia where the myth of ethnically and culturally homogeneous nations is still paramount. In addition to the examples provided above, East Asian societies are increasingly multicultural, inevitably forcing their governments to come up with new immigration and border-control policies, revisit their laws regarding labor policies, sociopolitical discrimination, socioeconomic welfare, and, more fundamentally, rethink the constitutional make-up of the citizenry and the ideal of social harmony, one of their most cherished political values. Nevertheless, contemporary theoretical analyses, whether philosophical or empirical, of the phenomena surrounding nationalism, in all its forms, are almost exclusively focused on cases in western cultures and societies, preventing the East Asian people from developing a coherent idea of who they are or should be in a way that can track their deeply-held values and norms (such as Confucianism). One of the primary aims of this conference therefore is to address this ongoing neglect and explore new concepts and theories that are socially relevant in East Asia. Not only will this provide access to the particular experiences of nation, citizenship, and nationalism throughout East Asia but it will bring to bear philosophical concepts, approaches, and styles of reasoning about them that currently are not part of this critical debate. Providing an opportunity to hear these distinct and different East Asian voices and opening up these conceptual and methodological resources to scholars around the world will greatly advance the understanding and appreciation of nationalism. In addition to this primary aim, the proposed conference will achieve two other, novel, and important goals. First, by design, it will bring to bear a multi and interdisciplinary approach to the problems of nationalism. We are not privileging either conceptual or empirical studies in the organization of our conference and will bring together philosophers, political scientists, sociologists, and historians, making every effort to invite scholars who explicitly employ or are interested in exploring different and at times hybrid approaches. Second, we will draw together scholars from around the world: China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, North America, and Europe, including leading figures in the field, who will serve as keynote speakers for the conference. Combining these two additional goals will enable us to organize a uniquely diverse conference, both in terms of intellectual discipline and national origin. Along with our primary aim of introducing East Asian voices and theories, this will make our event original, distinctive, and unprecedented in value. Our age is one in which it is unavoidable for people of different cultural backgrounds to live together in many different places. For the sake of justice and stability, a comprehensive re-examination of nationalism is both urgent and necessary. (shrink)

This review-essay looks at a recent trilogy of works on Israeli history, the political history of the relationship between the United States and Israel, and the effect of the Israel lobby on the relationship between the two states. While the books attempt to construct a narrative that essentially blame the lobby for close to one hundred years of American malfeasance in the Middle East, they falter due to their idealism, their weak grasp of regional political economy and American (...) capital accumulation, and their conspiracism. Instead, this review proposes a reinterpretation of regional political economy, materially grounding the lobby and the Special Relationship while situating the two within the patterns of accumulation pushed by Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler’s ‘weapondollar-petrodollar coalition’, the main determinant of American foreign policy in the Middle East. (shrink)

Hamas’s deliberate attack on October 7th against innocent civilians is absolutely wrong. Therefore, it should be universally condemned. And yet, I wonder how a universal recognition of an absolute duty of respect for human dignity can help solving the existential conflict confronting Israelis and Palestinians. Ideally, a two-state solution proposed by the international community can be seen as a reasonable and fair compromise. Nevertheless, the reality on the ground is different. Thus far the existence of one state has precluded the (...) existence of another with no end in sight to their mutually destructive violence. Their conflict demands that people who are reasonable and fair-minded try to understand it holistically and to offer an impartial assessment of this intractable conflict without relativizing the undeserved human suffering of all those involved and affected by it. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the current war on Gaza in 2024 that followed the Hamas attack on October 7th 2023, reading the events is a wider historical context. The paper has three main parts. In the first part, the paper argues against the fragmentation of the question of Palestine historically and geographically, arguing instead for the importance of the overall context of the conflict. The second part considers the issue of Palestinian resistance. How can the Palestinians resist occupation? This (...) part is mainly descriptive and indicates the impasse that the Palestinians found themselves in it after the Oslo accords in 1993. The third and last part moves to normative questions regarding the question of self-defense both on the part of the Palestinians and on the part of Israel and tries to outline the ways these arguments can develop. (shrink)