Irish Network for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

34,361+  By Natasha Remoundou   The children dive  from the Aegean’s pink rocks  into the water. One or two of them - the best swimmers-  with an amphibian dip  emerge onto the surface carrying in their gasps  as many pebbles  as they can salvage from the uncertain direction of the ascent, and strange pearls  from the melanoid bellies of sea urchins  they steal with their teeth  to offer them to their sunburnt mothers. With their amateur acrobatics -and mostly with the thorns- they could have driven them mad  if they, eclipsed behind sunglasses  with distorted mirror lenses, had not slumbered. And just like this,  and while the summer reverie  and the games mainly in a deliberate lethargy  were plunging us,  we lingered  with a question under the sun: that is,  were the ruins on the sea bottom of their cacti palms the most unusual objects we had ever seen, or was it the beast  that cried ...

 By  Dr. Claudia Saba Damascus Gate, 'Bab Al-Amud', north-west entrance to the walled city of Jerusalem. Photo by: Claudia Saba, 2014 The recurrent episodes of carnage in the Israel-Palestine arena must be understood properly and acted upon accordingly if an end to them is desired. The death and destruction taking place as of May 2021 were sparked by the intended eviction of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, from homes they have inhabited for generations. The families have been terrorized with the threat of eviction for years and on 10 May the Israel High Court was due to rule on the case, a ruling that has now been postponed in light of the popular uprising.  An analysis of the case through the lens of protracted social conflict theory is helpful to understand the complexity of the situation, particularly for new students of the conflict, though it is by no means the only lens through which to see it. For example, the Israeli polity has been theorized as a r...

Ten years ago, millions revolted against autocratic rulers in the Arab world. In spite of a long protest history, Palestine was one of the quietest settings during the uprisings. What is the impact of the Arab Spring on Palestine ten years on? What are the differences between Arab Spring participants and Palestinians refraining from revolt? Considering the situation in Palestine on the ten-year anniversary of the Arab Spring, Yaser Alashqar (Trinity College Dublin) and Stephanie Dornschneider (University College Dublin) reflect jointly on their latest research findings to answer these critical questions. The impact of the Arab Spring on Palestine   Why has there been no Palestinian Arab Spring?  

By Yaser Alashqar As outlined in this commentary, my research has been concerned with the continuing impact of the Arab Spring uprisings on the question of Palestine. Erupting in December 2010 in Tunisia, the movements of popular protests swept through other key states in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region and included Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain and Libya in 2011. The collective protests focused on challenging similar grievances such as authoritarianism, political mismanagement, oppressive security regimes, the lack of economic opportunities and freedom. Although previous scholarly work has demonstrated that the Palestinian experience of the Intifada (popular uprising) and the Palestinian cause held an important place in the consciousness of Arab Spring protesters , the sudden wave of protests across the Arab world has posed a difficult challenge to the centrality of the Palestinian question in Middle Eastern affairs. Arab states and peoples became extremely preoccupied ...

By Stephanie Dornschneider   The armored dove. Banksy graffiti on the separation wall. (2017, Dornschneider) Ten years ago, millions of Arab protestors suddenly brought down dictators who had been in power for decades. Within months, Tunisia’s Ben Ali, Egypt’s Mubarak, Yemen’sSaleh, and Libya’s Gaddafi were forced to leave. Like the protestors in these countries, Palestinians were suffering from severe grievances, due to political oppression and economic hardship. Yet, Palestine was one of the quietest settings during the Arab uprisings. What differentiates Palestinian non-protestors from Arab Spring participants? My research on the reasoning processes underlying decisions to protest suggests that negative, risk-adverse thinking kept Palestinians from mobilizing. By contrast, participants in the Arab Spring embraced much more positive, risk-accepting thinking. Psychology research finds that emotions and affect are key to risk-related behavior, such as participation in the Arab upr...

  In today's podcast, Dr Roberto Mazza discusses the digitisation and relocation of the Jerusalem Archives.  Dr Mazza is currently Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Limerick. He has published two books with IB Tauris, in 2009 'Jerusalem from the Ottomans to the British' and in 2011 'Jerusalem in World War I: the Palestine Diary of a European Consul'. Dr Mazza is the Executive Editor of the Jerusalem Quarterly.  Dr Mazza also runs the Jerusalem Unplugged podcast, dedicated to Jerusalem, its history, and its people. Jerusalem Unplugged is available at  https://jerusalem-unplugged.simplecast.com/ and on all major platforms.

By Sardar Aziz  For the first time in history, a Vatican pope, Pope Francis arrived in Baghdad on 5 March. The trip lasted four eventful days. He was welcomed by the Iraqi PM, government, members of Christian communities and members of the diplomatic corps. This was the third time lucky as two previous plans for visiting Iraq by the Pope were cancelled for obvious security reasons.  Officials in the Iraqi government aimed at turning the trip into a political event. “A political event,” according to Iain MacKenzie (2008: 28), “ is a counter-actualisation of a turning point in the virtual but nonetheless real domain of intensive political relations; a domain which political theorists usually refer to as 'the political’”.    The governing elites hoped to turn the visit into a rupture with the status quo and send a positive image of the country to the world. The visit was significant in many ways, hence, worthy of reflections.  The current government is a caretaker ...