Producing Victimhood: Landmines,Reparations, and Law in Colombia

This research theorizes Colombia's 2011 Victims’ and Land Restitution Law (the Victims’ Law) as a biopolitical program that intends to foster the lives of conflict‐affected populations through providing an array of reparation measures. Based on fieldwork with internally displaced landmine victims in Colombia's Magdalena Medio region, I highlight how the Victims’ Law constitutes the identity of which populations count as “victims” worthy of reparations, how such parameters are contested, and how landmine survivors’ sense of themselves as “victims” is mediated via their experiences with the Victims’ Law and the reparation programs it provides. In particular, I highlight the possibilities and limitations of reparation measures that hinge on small‐scale business incubation programs for landmine victims to show how a legally recognized victimhood category presupposes “self‐responsible” neoliberal subjects who must confront contexts of conflict and state neglect.     

Mission Impossible: UN Special Representative Gunnar Jarring and His Quest for Peace in the Middle East

On 23 November 1967, Gunnar Jarring, a Swedish diplomat, was appointed the United Nations Special Representative to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Security Council had decided to launch a peace effort in the Middle East following the Six-Day War in June 1967. Israel had won a sweeping victory, and the Arab states had suffered a devastating loss. After the war, Israel controlled a territory almost three and a half times the size of the country itself. But what should be done with these newly conquered territories? Should Israel be allowed to keep them? Over the course of some three and a quarter years, Jarring shuttled between the representatives from the three countries involved in the peace endeavour: Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. (Syria refused to participate.) Despite his arduous efforts, he failed miserably to produce viable progress in the Arab-Israeli conflict.     

Turkey's Bid for European Union Membership: Between "Thick" and "Thin" Conceptions of Europe

A team of Central Europe-based political geographers examines Turkey's bid for European Union (EU) membership, one of the most controversial issues confronting that country's and EU politics. The authors analyze Eurobarometer public opinion survey data on EU enlargement (and particularly Turkey's EU membership) across the 27 polities of the enlarged EU as well as in Turkey itself. The analysis of the data points to clear regional differences in support for Turkey's EU membership. Moreover, the authors' statistical analysis indicates two major components around which public perceptions of Turkey's EU membership coalesce. The first, identified as a "thick" component, based on the idea that EUrope embodies a specific cultural identity, opposes Turkish membership, whereas a second "thin" component, comprised of institutional-procedural norms, leaves the door open to Turkey. They argue that it is at the complex intersection of these two opposing views that Turkey's bid for EU membership should be located and eventually decided.     

Debating the transatlantic relationship: rhetoric and reality

The rhetoric surrounding the crisis in transatlantic relations is overcharged. Although the United States and Europe have reached a turning point, the changes that they need to make are neither fundamental nor controversial. No matter how you polarize the debate, the solution combines more flexibility and more cooperation. Moreover, this solution has been known for some time. Hence the real questions to consider are not about how this crisis came about, but why it persists. At least part of the answer lies in the structure of interdependence. Although both sides in the Atlantic alliance have an interest in flexible cooperation, the United States is much more central to the countries of Europe than 'Europe' is to the United States. Because of this asymmetry, a crisis that started from real misunderstanding has been extended as Americans appear neglectful and Europeans oversensitive. Part of the answer also lies in our expectations of the relationship. Some observers suggest that the crisis will only end when both sides realize that it is time to grow up. Perhaps they already have.     

Herzl and the Palestinian Arabs: Myth and Counter-Myth

According to conventional Zionist historiography, Herzl thought little about Arabs, and what he did have to say about them reflected benign and progressive, albeit paternalistic, sentiment. Critics of Zionism, on the other hand, claim that underlying the paucity of Herzl's comments on Arabs was a conspiracy of silence, for already in 1895 he was allegedly planning the expulsion of the Palestinians, although he only confided this dark scheme to his diary. This essay throws new light upon Herzl's attitudes towards Palestine's Arabs. It explores a variety of historiographical questions raised by the gulf that separates the camps of scholars who have written on this subject, and it critiques the way that historians have read Herzl's diary and privileged it over his other writings.     

The Guests' Guests: Palestinian Refugees,Lebanese Civilians,and the War of 2006

Abstract: In the war between Israel and Hizbullah in 2006, 10,000 displaced Lebanese citizens were granted shelter and hospitality by Palestinian refugees in the camps of southern Lebanon. For the duration of the war, the Palestinian guests became hosts to their own hosts, and this temporary reversal of the usual relations of refuge set the scene for the rebuilding and renegotiation of relations between Palestinian refugees and their host country and its citizens. This paper addresses these events through a focus on the nature, politics and ethics of Palestinian hospitality and argues that hospitality was not simply a selfless act of giving, but also an instrumental act that had the potential to transform Palestinian–Lebanese relations in lasting ways.     

David and Hazael: War,Peace, Stones and Memory

Abstract

This paper reexamines the rise and fall of two regional empires: the Israelite kingdom of David and Solomon, and the Aramaic kingdom of Hazael and his son Bar-Hadad III. The author presents a comparison between these two regional empires, discussing the following main points: the rise to power of the founders: David and Hazael and their charismatic character; their wars and peace treaties; the boundaries and the administrative organization of these two empires, and the decline and fall of the kingdoms in the days of the founder's sons: Solomon and Bar-Hadad III. The author is of the opinion that the existence of a regional empire in the days of Hazael and his son is of great significance for the reality of the empire of David and Solomon, since the former clearly proves that in certain geopolitical circumstances the making of a regional empire that controlled most of the area between the Euphrates and Philistia was entirely possible. The phenomenon of the Aramaean regional empire of Hazael and his son does not prove the existence of an Israelite regional empire, but it indicates that the biblical account of the rise and fall of an Israelite empire in the days of David and Solomon was possible, and even reasonable.