Pub Date : 2023-06-27DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2023.2226886
M. Samiei, J. Webster
Abstract The use of chemical weapons (CW) by Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War appears to have been subject to far less decisive US responses than similar accusations against Syria during the Syrian civil war. However, the two instances have not yet been subject to direct scholarly comparison. This article treats the Iraqi and Syrian instances as two distinct cases and compares US actions to prevent, investigate and deter CW use on each occasion. After demonstrating that the US responded more decisively to the allegations against Syria, we then employ process tracing to locate both cases within existing theoretical discussions of US intervention in the global South generally, as well as CW norm enforcement in particular. In doing so, we propose that, in addition to other factors including the US aspiration to world dominance and its resultant framing of its material and security interests as well as a lesser regard for citizens of the global South, the anti-US stance of either the CW perpetrator or victim can also affect how the US responds to accusations of CW norm violation. This casts further doubt on the veracity of stated humanitarian motives for US intervention abroad.
{"title":"Hypocrisy & Norm Enforcement: US Responses to Chemical Weapons Allegations against Iraq and Syria","authors":"M. Samiei, J. Webster","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2023.2226886","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2023.2226886","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The use of chemical weapons (CW) by Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War appears to have been subject to far less decisive US responses than similar accusations against Syria during the Syrian civil war. However, the two instances have not yet been subject to direct scholarly comparison. This article treats the Iraqi and Syrian instances as two distinct cases and compares US actions to prevent, investigate and deter CW use on each occasion. After demonstrating that the US responded more decisively to the allegations against Syria, we then employ process tracing to locate both cases within existing theoretical discussions of US intervention in the global South generally, as well as CW norm enforcement in particular. In doing so, we propose that, in addition to other factors including the US aspiration to world dominance and its resultant framing of its material and security interests as well as a lesser regard for citizens of the global South, the anti-US stance of either the CW perpetrator or victim can also affect how the US responds to accusations of CW norm violation. This casts further doubt on the veracity of stated humanitarian motives for US intervention abroad.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":"32 1","pages":"323 - 345"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48185314","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2023.2199484
M. Jouili
Abstract: Since the early 1970s, neoliberalism has not spared Tunisia’s subordinate integration into the global capitalist system. This process strengthened a dominant ruling class, closely connected to international capital interests, while leading to growing social polarization and rising socio-economic inequalities. Faced by popular resistance, authoritarianism, with the support of imperialist powers, became the needed political response to consolidate the neoliberal project. Beyond some democratic achievements, the 2011 uprising has failed to undo the development model at work. The imperialist powers, with the complicity of the ruling classes, were able to hijack the movement and direct it towards what I call an orderly transition, whose strategies entailed the use of financial aid and military assistance.
{"title":"Imperialism and Neoliberal Redeployment in Post-uprising Tunisia","authors":"M. Jouili","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2023.2199484","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2023.2199484","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Since the early 1970s, neoliberalism has not spared Tunisia’s subordinate integration into the global capitalist system. This process strengthened a dominant ruling class, closely connected to international capital interests, while leading to growing social polarization and rising socio-economic inequalities. Faced by popular resistance, authoritarianism, with the support of imperialist powers, became the needed political response to consolidate the neoliberal project. Beyond some democratic achievements, the 2011 uprising has failed to undo the development model at work. The imperialist powers, with the complicity of the ruling classes, were able to hijack the movement and direct it towards what I call an orderly transition, whose strategies entailed the use of financial aid and military assistance.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":"32 1","pages":"195 - 215"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46528920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2023.2199481
Corinna Mullin
Abstract: This article examines the rearticulation and reconfiguration of US-led imperialism vis-à-vis Tunisia in the aftermath of the 2010–2011 popular revolt. Challenging the prevalent economic-military binary in analyses of US-led imperialism in the region, it treats instead economic intervention in Tunisia as linked to and shaped by ‘security’ intervention, with the violence of the War on Terror laying the groundwork for a new wave of primitive accumulation. Employing conjunctural analysis, it considers how the 2015 attacks, largely targeting European tourists at a Sousse beach resort and the Bardo national museum, were mobilized to further Tunisia’s imbrications within imperialist security architecture through legal interventions, border violence, peripheral militarization, increased ‘security’ spending and neocolonial ‘expertise’, debt and racialized financialization. In doing so, the 2015 security conjuncture reinforced Tunisia’s peripheral status in the international system and enabled further surplus value drain, though not without resistance. The article concludes by reflecting on popular struggles and the current conjuncture, which is characterized not only by public health and economic crises, but also by the rise of a multipolar world order that, when combined with working class organization and mobilization, may provide an opening for Tunisia to delink from the imperialist core. Such a transformation would domore than any platitudes about human rights and ‘security sector reform’ to radically transform the nature of the Tunisian security state and the social relations it is designed to uphold.
{"title":"The ‘War on Terror’ as Primitive Accumulation in Tunisia: US-Led Imperialism and the Post-2010-2011 Revolt/Security Conjuncture","authors":"Corinna Mullin","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2023.2199481","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2023.2199481","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This article examines the rearticulation and reconfiguration of US-led imperialism vis-à-vis Tunisia in the aftermath of the 2010–2011 popular revolt. Challenging the prevalent economic-military binary in analyses of US-led imperialism in the region, it treats instead economic intervention in Tunisia as linked to and shaped by ‘security’ intervention, with the violence of the War on Terror laying the groundwork for a new wave of primitive accumulation. Employing conjunctural analysis, it considers how the 2015 attacks, largely targeting European tourists at a Sousse beach resort and the Bardo national museum, were mobilized to further Tunisia’s imbrications within imperialist security architecture through legal interventions, border violence, peripheral militarization, increased ‘security’ spending and neocolonial ‘expertise’, debt and racialized financialization. In doing so, the 2015 security conjuncture reinforced Tunisia’s peripheral status in the international system and enabled further surplus value drain, though not without resistance. The article concludes by reflecting on popular struggles and the current conjuncture, which is characterized not only by public health and economic crises, but also by the rise of a multipolar world order that, when combined with working class organization and mobilization, may provide an opening for Tunisia to delink from the imperialist core. Such a transformation would domore than any platitudes about human rights and ‘security sector reform’ to radically transform the nature of the Tunisian security state and the social relations it is designed to uphold.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":"32 1","pages":"167 - 193"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44796604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2023.2198668
Linda Matar, A. Kadri
Abstract: When Oman joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative to pursue economic diversification, the US intervened to stop it. Although the foundation stone for Chinese investment plans was laid in 2017, these projects were put on hold, while the US rushed to bolster its military presence in Oman. The article studies Chinese investment in Oman, accounts for what has developed so far, and highlights the reasons for which the US acted to stem the potential of non-oil development in Oman. The disruption of the China-Oman diversification project resembles the US’s targeting of China’s policy of expansion by mutual cooperation elsewhere, but with a twist: Oman sits close to two vital chokepoints, the Bab Al-Mandeb and the Hormuz straits. The article argues that such obstruction is central to the US’s mode of accumulation by militarism. Keeping Oman from auto-developing and building its autonomy makes of it a pliable client state ready to serve as an imperialist post to empire.
{"title":"China against US Imperialism in the Arabian Sea: The Case of Oman","authors":"Linda Matar, A. Kadri","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2023.2198668","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2023.2198668","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: When Oman joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative to pursue economic diversification, the US intervened to stop it. Although the foundation stone for Chinese investment plans was laid in 2017, these projects were put on hold, while the US rushed to bolster its military presence in Oman. The article studies Chinese investment in Oman, accounts for what has developed so far, and highlights the reasons for which the US acted to stem the potential of non-oil development in Oman. The disruption of the China-Oman diversification project resembles the US’s targeting of China’s policy of expansion by mutual cooperation elsewhere, but with a twist: Oman sits close to two vital chokepoints, the Bab Al-Mandeb and the Hormuz straits. The article argues that such obstruction is central to the US’s mode of accumulation by militarism. Keeping Oman from auto-developing and building its autonomy makes of it a pliable client state ready to serve as an imperialist post to empire.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":"32 1","pages":"285 - 303"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48823481","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2023.2199487
Patrick Donovan Higgins
Abstract: Commentators across Anglophone media and academic institutions frequently have minimized the role of US-led imperialism in Syria. This trivialization has been made possible by the covert nature of the war’s initial phases. Therefore, this article aims to piece together some of the most conspicuous aspects of the empirical record of the war. It begins with a historical overview of major US attacks against Syria, as well as prevailing attitudes about Syria within the US National Security Establishment (NSE), between the end of the WWII and 2011. The second part aggregates and reviews the existing empirical record on the current war, beginning with the Bush Administration’s preparations for operations subsequently launched under the Obama Administration in 2011, then continuing to be waged under the following administrations. The conclusion offers some theoretical remarks on the wider regional context of the US’s aims in Syria, highlighting their connections to various developments elsewhere in the region, ranging from similar wars nearby, to recent political losses suffered by the Palestinian national movement.
{"title":"Gunning for Damascus: The US War on the Syrian Arab Republic","authors":"Patrick Donovan Higgins","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2023.2199487","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2023.2199487","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Commentators across Anglophone media and academic institutions frequently have minimized the role of US-led imperialism in Syria. This trivialization has been made possible by the covert nature of the war’s initial phases. Therefore, this article aims to piece together some of the most conspicuous aspects of the empirical record of the war. It begins with a historical overview of major US attacks against Syria, as well as prevailing attitudes about Syria within the US National Security Establishment (NSE), between the end of the WWII and 2011. The second part aggregates and reviews the existing empirical record on the current war, beginning with the Bush Administration’s preparations for operations subsequently launched under the Obama Administration in 2011, then continuing to be waged under the following administrations. The conclusion offers some theoretical remarks on the wider regional context of the US’s aims in Syria, highlighting their connections to various developments elsewhere in the region, ranging from similar wars nearby, to recent political losses suffered by the Palestinian national movement.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":"32 1","pages":"217 - 241"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49508439","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-23DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2023.2191401
Max Ajl
Abstract: This article engages with Patrick Wolfe’s theoretical underpinnings and programmatic consequences of his settler-colonial theory. It contextualizes the renaissance of the settler-colonial paradigm, scrutinizing its theoretical innovations. In doing so, the article traces Wolfe’s work back to its origin in the work of Marcel Mauss and his notion of total social facts, discussing this theory’s political orientation around anti-racism and liberal subjectivity. It then shows how Wolfe applies his theory to Palestine, erasing class divisions and imperialism, militating against the theory and practice of national liberation. In conclusion it reflects on the use and limits of this theory for supporting anti-systemic struggle.
{"title":"Logics of Elimination and Settler Colonialism: Decolonization or National Liberation?","authors":"Max Ajl","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2023.2191401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2023.2191401","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This article engages with Patrick Wolfe’s theoretical underpinnings and programmatic consequences of his settler-colonial theory. It contextualizes the renaissance of the settler-colonial paradigm, scrutinizing its theoretical innovations. In doing so, the article traces Wolfe’s work back to its origin in the work of Marcel Mauss and his notion of total social facts, discussing this theory’s political orientation around anti-racism and liberal subjectivity. It then shows how Wolfe applies his theory to Palestine, erasing class divisions and imperialism, militating against the theory and practice of national liberation. In conclusion it reflects on the use and limits of this theory for supporting anti-systemic struggle.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":"32 1","pages":"259 - 283"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43306715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-25DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2023.2182053
Nina Farnia
Abstract This article challenges the anti-structural and ahistorical turn in recent histories of the Iranian Revolution. Tracing the genealogy of this anti-structural turn to the publication of Foucault’s writings on Iran, the author argues that the continued decline of US-Iran relations, coupled with hostility toward anti-imperialist scholarship in US academia, has created the conditions for an ahistoricism in US-based scholarship on Iran. This turn is further exacerbated by the lack of accessible archives to enable rigorous analyses of the Revolution. The article concludes by distinguishing between an intellectual, one who challenges the status quo to create a more just world, and a functionary, whose scholarly contributions are guided by the precepts of foundation funding and the State Department. Ultimately the article calls for a transformation in Iranian Studies toward radical intellectualism.
{"title":"The Iranian-American Intelligentsia in U.S. Foreign Affairs: Ahistoricism, Anti-Structuralism, and the Production of Idealism","authors":"Nina Farnia","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2023.2182053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2023.2182053","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract\u0000 This article challenges the anti-structural and ahistorical turn in recent histories of the Iranian Revolution. Tracing the genealogy of this anti-structural turn to the publication of Foucault’s writings on Iran, the author argues that the continued decline of US-Iran relations, coupled with hostility toward anti-imperialist scholarship in US academia, has created the conditions for an ahistoricism in US-based scholarship on Iran. This turn is further exacerbated by the lack of accessible archives to enable rigorous analyses of the Revolution. The article concludes by distinguishing between an intellectual, one who challenges the status quo to create a more just world, and a functionary, whose scholarly contributions are guided by the precepts of foundation funding and the State Department. Ultimately the article calls for a transformation in Iranian Studies toward radical intellectualism.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":"32 1","pages":"243 - 258"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46511200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-09DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2023.2176943
Matteo Capasso, A. Kadri
Abstract: This article provides a conceptual background to the general theme of this Special Issue ‘On Imperialism in the Middle East’. First, we posit that the concept of imperialism can be understood as a sociological process, through an approach that centres the primacy of politics vis-à-vis accounts that sever theory and praxis via empiricism. In probing this issue, the article shows how dominant academic narratives explaining wars in the region disarticulate them from history. Second, we show that wars, waste, and militarism—also termed as accumulation by waste—are the predominant activities of the US-led imperialist age, historically unleashed on the South of the world. Consequently, we end discussing how the study of US-led imperialism becomes the focus around which each article in this issue recentres its analytical contribution.
{"title":"The Imperialist Question: A Sociological Approach","authors":"Matteo Capasso, A. Kadri","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2023.2176943","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2023.2176943","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:\u0000 This article provides a conceptual background to the general theme of this Special Issue ‘On Imperialism in the Middle East’. First, we posit that the concept of imperialism can be understood as a sociological process, through an approach that centres the primacy of politics vis-à-vis accounts that sever theory and praxis via empiricism. In probing this issue, the article shows how dominant academic narratives explaining wars in the region disarticulate them from history. Second, we show that wars, waste, and militarism—also termed as accumulation by waste—are the predominant activities of the US-led imperialist age, historically unleashed on the South of the world. Consequently, we end discussing how the study of US-led imperialism becomes the focus around which each article in this issue recentres its analytical contribution.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":"32 1","pages":"149 - 166"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43991287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2023.2168378
Luke G G Bhatia
Abstract This article examines the intergenerational transmission of social movement activism in Bahrain, with a focus on the human rights movement and al-Khawaja family. The research argues that intergenerational transmission and the inheritance of capital, in a family setting, is a vital resource for the local and transnational movement. Specifically, the research investigates multiple generations of activists from the same families to unearth the effects of activism running across the various generations. In alignment with a growing trend in social movement scholarship, the article seeks a better understanding of the effects that authoritarian conditions have on social movements. The research uses a Bourdeusian analytical framework and is based upon sixteen interviews with three different generations of Bahraini human rights activists, retrieving their biographical trajectories. By approaching the intergenerational transmission of social movement activism and the inheritance of capital as constitutive of activists’ radical habitus, this paper demonstrates that the family is a crucial resource for social movements acting within the repressive circumstances of an authoritarian state.
{"title":"Intergenerational Transmission of Social Movement Activism in Bahrain","authors":"Luke G G Bhatia","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2023.2168378","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2023.2168378","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract\u0000 This article examines the intergenerational transmission of social movement activism in Bahrain, with a focus on the human rights movement and al-Khawaja family. The research argues that intergenerational transmission and the inheritance of capital, in a family setting, is a vital resource for the local and transnational movement. Specifically, the research investigates multiple generations of activists from the same families to unearth the effects of activism running across the various generations. In alignment with a growing trend in social movement scholarship, the article seeks a better understanding of the effects that authoritarian conditions have on social movements. The research uses a Bourdeusian analytical framework and is based upon sixteen interviews with three different generations of Bahraini human rights activists, retrieving their biographical trajectories. By approaching the intergenerational transmission of social movement activism and the inheritance of capital as constitutive of activists’ radical habitus, this paper demonstrates that the family is a crucial resource for social movements acting within the repressive circumstances of an authoritarian state.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":"32 1","pages":"71 - 89"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48210414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/19436149.2023.2169979
Itxaso Domínguez de Olazábal
Abstract Most analyses of European Union (EU) policies relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict do not question the epistemological framework on which these policies are based. The 1967 paradigm preferred by the EU does not address the inalienable rights of all Palestinians but rather focuses exclusively on a particular group, those Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, territories that have been under Israeli occupation since 1967. This focus ignores (or at most leaves in a second place) the rest of the Palestinian people: both 1948 Palestinians and the Palestinian diaspora, whose rights are part and parcel of the question of Palestine. This article examines how the EU bases its policies on different kinds of securitisation concerning distinct Palestinian communities. It does so through a two-step securitisation process that frequently rubber-stamps Israel’s narrative of securitisation. This compartmentalising program ultimately is complicit with Israel’s ‘divide and rule’ strategy and settler-colonial mechanisms, contributing to the deepening of Palestinian fragmentation. Moreover, it renounces exploring alternative proposals and paradigms that consider the rights of the Palestinian people as a whole and envisages decolonisation as the desired outcome.
{"title":"The European Union’s Policies in Historic Palestine: Two-Step Securitisation, Differentiation and Its Discontents","authors":"Itxaso Domínguez de Olazábal","doi":"10.1080/19436149.2023.2169979","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2023.2169979","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Most analyses of European Union (EU) policies relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict do not question the epistemological framework on which these policies are based. The 1967 paradigm preferred by the EU does not address the inalienable rights of all Palestinians but rather focuses exclusively on a particular group, those Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, territories that have been under Israeli occupation since 1967. This focus ignores (or at most leaves in a second place) the rest of the Palestinian people: both 1948 Palestinians and the Palestinian diaspora, whose rights are part and parcel of the question of Palestine. This article examines how the EU bases its policies on different kinds of securitisation concerning distinct Palestinian communities. It does so through a two-step securitisation process that frequently rubber-stamps Israel’s narrative of securitisation. This compartmentalising program ultimately is complicit with Israel’s ‘divide and rule’ strategy and settler-colonial mechanisms, contributing to the deepening of Palestinian fragmentation. Moreover, it renounces exploring alternative proposals and paradigms that consider the rights of the Palestinian people as a whole and envisages decolonisation as the desired outcome.","PeriodicalId":44822,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Critique","volume":"32 1","pages":"5 - 25"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44274226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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