Most human rights organizations who have taken a negative position on the Prawer plan have done so, not because they wish to advance Bedouin human rights but rather because they have become enmeshed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and are using human rights issues as weapons in that conflict.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons should be a technical agency of the UN. But it has arguably become a piece in a geo-political chess game dominated by the US, invited into Syria to act in contravention of its remit.
The pro-Israel lobby is not only important in the US, but is a transnational phenomenon, fostered by transnational organisations – many headquartered in Israel – and funded in large part by transnational corporate actors.
The tendency to simplify, deny or demonize the other is very common among Palestinians and Israelis alike. The reasoning beneath these mental approaches is clear: we don’t know and/or understand you, thus you don’t – or didn’t – exist.
The Iron Wall of Jabotinsky has to be torn down, and it can only be torn down through long term civil and ideological struggles against this heritage of Zionism, with the Palestinians living inside the green line playing a crucial part.
Arab Awakening's columnists offer their weekly perspective on what is happening on the ground in the Middle East. Leading the week, Orientalism and decentralized repression: the case of Egypt.
The whole structure is designed to look like any other building both outside and inside.The goal was to give the client a sense of security without giving them the feeling that they were in a bunker.
The three countries, and groups within them, are locked in narratives of confrontation, victimhood and fear. At present, their narratives are incompatible and seemingly unbridgeable. That is the real cause of the current conflicts.
When would-be peacemakers insist the past is past and the only way to resolve the conflict is to look to the future and find a compromise solution to the competing claims, they underestimate the power of the narrative in determining identity and meaning.
Arab Awakening's columnists offer their weekly perspective on what is happening on the ground in the Middle East. Leading the week, Political fault lines threaten Libya's stability.
A week that begins with the death of a former Israeli Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and ends with the gathering of thousands to commemorate the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin 18 years ago.
Arab Awakening's columnists offer their weekly perspective on what is happening on the ground in the Middle East. Leading the week, Tunisia’s political impasse.
