Following a provision of the Doha agreement, signed by Lebanese political leaders to put an end to the May 2008 crisis, the Lebanese parliament discussed the country’s Parliamentary Electoral Draft Law and voted for reform on September 29th, 2008. But many of the proposals made by the National Commission were rejected, leading Minister of the Interior Ziyad Baroud to qualify it as “a cup half full”. But is this too optimistic?
Liberal fire-brand William Gladstone launched his election campaign to become British Prime Minister in 1880 during what was being described by contemporaries as the ‘Great Depression’. The ‘People’s William’ was elected primarily on the back of his promise to reverse the Conservative Party’s jingoistic, imperialist foreign policy under Benjamin Disraeli’s tenure.
Analysing the record of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq since 2003 has often been an exercise in reconciling seemingly contradictory interpretations and dynamics. The key point on which such interpretations implicitly or explicitly diverge is on the role of the state in Iraqi history, particularly its strength and weakness in the exercise of political authority.
The purpose of the study is to determine the likely involvement of major world actors if Iran continues to defy the United Nations in its quest for nuclear power. It will conclude that military action against Iran is likely. However, if either the U.S. or Israel leads an attack, they will likely not enjoy the military support of other nations.
This essay first briefly explains the significance of ‘structural violence’ in Israeli society, before going on to critically examine dominant conceptions of ‘suffering’ in the Israeli context, arguing that the pragmatic and rationalist bias of this notion itself constitutes one major hindrance to ‘healing’. Finally, I consider the role of silence and memory in perpetuating suffering in Israel, looking specifically at the two imbricated elements of Holocaust memorialisation and the construction of the Other, arguing for a more processual rather than essentialist conception of suffering, community, healing and memory.
In order to discuss the mechanisms through which involuntary minorities are socially, economically and politically excluded primarily I am going to define the meaning of the term ‘involuntary minority’. Following this, a brief identification of the main direct and indirect mechanisms clarifies the direction of the discussion. To examine the mechanisms used I have selected three examples of involuntary minorities to focus on; Palestinians in Israel, black Americans in the U.S. and refugees/asylum seekers in Britain.
The Palestinian refugee crisis has been one of the biggest sources of conflict between the Palestinian Arabs and what are now known as the Israelis, since the partition confirmed by the UN General Assembly on 29th November 1947. In answering the proposition, it shall first be necessary to establish whether the Zionists sought to peacefully integrate Arabs into their proposed state, as they themselves claim. Then it shall be wise to question if the Palestinians fled their homeland because they were terrified of the Israeli forces, or for other reasons. As Israeli and Arab behaviour in the immediate period after the 1949 Armistice Agreement is assessed, it shall be contemplated why the issue is so difficult to resolve. It shall also be maintained that there are disputes over who are and are not refugees, and that there is much Palestinian anger at how Arabs are treated inside Israel today.
Since the turn of the century, Iran has emerged as an increasingly powerful actor in the Middle East. However, Tehran’s Islamist regime is seen to pose a number of political and security challenges to both neighbouring and ‘western’ states. The question of how to respond to the assertive and confrontational policies of the hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has therefore proved to be a hot topic for the media, academics and politicians alike. This essay will consider what strategy western states should pursue with regards to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, an issue of central importance for regional and global stability. Whilst this is merely one of many Iranian policies that needs ‘dealing with’ from a western perspective, it is widely considered to be the most significant threat and, thus, is a useful case study through which to consider relations between the West and Iran more generally.
Modern Arab nationalism originally developed as a backlash to the colonialisation of the Middle East by western powers such as Britain and France. Despite decolonisation, European imperialism was maintained through sympathetic conservative monarchs and the construction of an informal empire. As such, Arab nationalism continued to play a prominent role in Middle Eastern and global politics through much of the Cold War.
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