Irish Network for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

  by Sean McCafferty  Operation 'Guardian of the Walls', May 2021 (Wikicommons) The proliferation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) - particularly loitering munitions - represents a significant development towards Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems, demanding deeper reflection on the military deployment of machine learning . Most military UAVs are semi-autonomous systems and need human oversight for lethal action, yet the development of autonomous systems is already a reality. The UAVs developed by Israeli Aerospace Industries and Elbit, for instance, can be deployed with varying levels of autonomy and are already being used by Israel in occupied Palestine. Technologies such as deep neural network image classifiers , which, when incorporated into UAVs allow for automated target recognition systems, also increase the possibility of inaccurate violence and human fatalities.  This article looks at the incorporation of deep neural network image classifiers into the automated t...

Sunday of Unity Protests, 3 November 2019. Photo by Katarzyna Wodniak. Blog By Waleed Serhan On 17 October 2019, Lebanese citizens from various sects began protesting en-masse under the slogan “killun yaani killun” meaning in Arabic “all of them means all of them”. By “them” the protesters were referring to the political class and sectarian leaders that have been ruling Lebanon since the end of the civil war in 1990. While the protests had been attributed to a WhatsApp tax imposed by the government, it was the inability of Lebanese citizens and residents of Lebanon  to withdraw normally from their bank account deposits in US Dollars  that caused an aggravated state of alarm among the various populations of Lebanon. The acute and ongoing economic crisis that Lebanon has been enduring since late 2019 has been described by the  World Bank  as possibly one of the worst three economic crises worldwide in the past 150 years. With the drastic devaluation of the local curren...

  "Apartheid-Free Space" mural in the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Source: Wikicommons. by Claudia Saba Amnesty International (AI) has followed Human Rights Watch (HRW) in issuing a warning that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians amounts to a crime against humanity, specifically, the crime of apartheid as defined in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Both reports, that by HRW and that by AI , found Israel to be also practicing persecution, another crime against humanity, defined in the Rome Statute as intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights against a group or collectivity by reason of their identity.   For Palestinians, HRW's and AI's reports are welcome but also very late. Why has it taken this long for organizations specialized in the identification and condemnation of human rights violations to call out one of the most flagrant human rights violators in the world? It is also curious that HRW and AI produced their...

Do You Remember What Are You Burning? (2011) (by author) The first Irish exhibition by Kurdish artist Hiwa K takes its title from one of the works on display. Titled ‘Do you remember what are you burning?’ (2011), this work shows a group of people busy with burning the words of books they hold in their hands using a magnifying glass. The fierce sunrays of Sulaymaniyah, in Iraqi Kurdistan, burn and ‘smoke away’ the ink. The act of burning words is a powerful metaphor to explain a concept that political scientists have variably called façade or backsliding democracy, with the most radical ones explaining that neoliberal governance is indeed a potent vehicle through which democracy is weakened to the benefit of the few. In a recorded conversation with the curator, Hiwa K explains that in the past authoritarian leaders used to burn books, but today, they do not need to engage in such a symbolic act to defeat democracy. It suffices to burn the content of books, the printed words, to prevent...

  by Yvonne Leckey, Sinead McGilloway and Rita Sakr  Families from refugee backgrounds living in high income countries, often experience poorer psychological and wellbeing outcomes due to the many health, social and cultural challenges experienced post-migration (Fazel et al. 2012).  Over half of the world’s refugees are children aged under 18, many of whom have come from conflict-affected countries where they have experienced multiple traumas. The long-term effects of pre-migration traumas, including conflict, violence, separation and/or loss of family members, may persist without adequate supports, potentially exacerbating existing difficulties. Post-migration, refugees commonly face stigmatisation and discrimination in their host countries, contributing further to poor mental wellbeing.  In response to the refugee crisis in 2015, the Irish Government established the Irish Refugee Protection Programme (IRPP), with a commitment to accept up to 4000 refugees through ...