Orit Bashkin, Impossible Exodus: Iraqi Jews in Israel (New Texts Out Now)

Orit Bashkin, Impossible Exodus: Iraqi Jews in Israel (New Texts Out Now)

Orit Bashkin, Impossible Exodus: Iraqi Jews in Israel (New Texts Out Now)

By : Orit Bashkin

Orit Bashkin, Impossible Exodus: Iraqi Jews in Israel. Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures: Stanford University Press, 2017.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book?

Orit Bashkin (OB): Impossible Exodus tells the story of 123,000 displaced Iraqi Jews who immigrated to Israel during the years 1949-1951. I wanted to challenge the notion that Israel served as a melting pot for Jewish communities and to illustrate instead how the adoption of Israeli citizenship was a long, excruciating and traumatic experience. I also wished to write a history that did not focus on the ways in which Israeli institutions discriminated against Jews who previously resided in Middle Eastern states (Mizrahim). I preferred examining the history of individuals; I turned to the Iraqi Jews themselves: their daily life in tents and shacks; their attempts to support their families; and the resistance of Iraqi children, women, and workers to the state`s policies. Similarly, I was motivated by a desire to challenge the romantic notion, prevalent in the Arab Middle East today, that all Jews of Middle Eastern descent could function as a bridge to Israel`s Arab neighbors and the Palestinians, and that these Middle Eastern Jews wish to return to their countries of origin. If given the option, this narrative suggests, Iraqi, Egyptian, and Moroccan Jews will come back to their old Arab motherlands. I emphasize, alternatively, that many of these Iraqi Jews, because of enormous pressures of the state, became Israeli patriots, focusing, for example, on those Iraqi Jews who used their Arabic speaking skills in order to work in the state`s intelligence, security and propaganda apparatus.  And as I was writing about poor, devastated and displaced Iraqi Jews, it was difficult not to think about the present – the Iraqi, Syrian, Yemenite, and other refugees, who, like the people I depicted, face the traumas of displacement and dehumanization.

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address?

OB: Impossible Exodus looks at the Iraqi "exodus" to Israel to underscore the dual processes of dehumanization and rehumanization involved in migration. The book shows how in their first years in Israel Iraqi Jews were dehumanized; the state`s elites treated them (as well as other migrants) as "human material" (homer enoshi), a word quite common in state documents of the time, referring to Iraqi Jews as a faceless collective whose settlement and livelihood should be determined by national considerations regarding Judaification, territorial expansion, and demographic battle against the Palestinians. I show, then, how an urban and educated Iraqi community became a transferable, silenced material. But I also analyze mechanism of rehumanization, the victories in the battle to maintain human dignity the Iraqis managed to win under impossible conditions. Inspired by literature on African American life in the USA, I underline the significance of everyday experiences of Iraqi Jews and their culture of resistance. Another important theme challenges, once again, the state`s perception as "the only democracy in the Middle East." Adding to an exciting literature about Israel of the 1950s, especially by Shira Robinson and Maha Nassar, I illustrate how the ruling labor Zionist party at the time controlled the life of Iraqi Jews; I examine its corrupt electoral campaigns, the hegemony of its representatives of the transit camps where Iraqi Jews resided in shacks and tents, and its ability to determine what Iraqi Jews ate, drank, and wore, where they worked and how much they got paid. At the same time, the book argues that despite the near impossibility of powerless immigrants to challenge labor Zionism, Iraqi Jews did join Israeli political parties, wrote petitions to the ministers and politicians, and participated in electoral campaigns. While they achieved some measure of agency, Iraqi members in all parties, Iraqi Jewish activists repeatedly complained that the Israeli parties’ Eastern European leaderships were unsympathetic to their concerns, their pains, and their sufferings. Even in the a-Zionist Israeli Communist Party, where Iraqi Jewish activists forged amazing connections with Palestinian activists and intellectuals like Emile Habibi, the Eastern European leadership belittled the significance of ethnic tensions in Israel. Finally, I suggest that the term “sectarianism”, used to describe religious and ethnic relations in states like Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, is more than apt to understand Israel of the 1950s. Iraqi Jews themselves used the term "sectarianism" (Arabic: ta’ifiyya) to describe how the state generated a separation between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews or between Arabic speaking Jews, Muslims and Christians. Evoking scholarship by Ussama Makdisi and Max Weiss, then, I demonstrate that with the existence of Palestinians forced to become Israeli citizens, and with the presence of large group of extremely poor Mizrahi Jews, Israel became a place where one`s housing, political affiliations, and employment were often determined by one`s ethnic and religious identity.

J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

OB: Impossible Exodus is by now a part of trilogy. I definitely did not intend to write a trilogy as I set to write my Ph.D. thesis, but I think now all parts fit thematically together: my first book, The Other Iraq, dealt with radical, democratic and progressive voices in the public sphere of monarchic Iraq, and explained how such voices were crushed by colonialism, anticommunist campaigns, and dictatorship. My second book, New Babylonians, depicted one community whose members operated within the monarchic public sphere, the Iraqi Jewish community. I analyzed its Arab culture, its Iraqi patriotism, and its democratic and left leaning activists, writers and politicians, and I explained the reasons for its eventual displacement by the Iraqi state and by the Iraqi state`s irresponsible dealings with Israel. Impossible Exodus shows what happened to these Iraqi Jews in Israel. In a sense, it is the continuation of the tragedy depicted in the last chapter of New Babylonians which focused on the displacement of Iraqi Jews and their leaving Iraq. Impossible Exodus starts in the minute when these Iraqi Jews arrive to Israel and find themselves in the state`s largest absorption and classification camp, called The Gate of Aliya [Sha`ar ha-Aliya].   

J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

OB: Impossible Exodus, I hope, will be read by individuals interested in Middle Eastern history, Jewish history, history of migration and immigration, and scholars of ethnicity and minority cultures. I certainly want Iraqi Jews to read this book; it tells their story in Israel, perhaps for the first time. I hope Iraqis read it; I don`t think many Iraqis living in Iraq and in the Diaspora know the degree of suffering of Iraqi Jews in Israel; they should know about it. I hope Israelis, and scholars of Israel, read it to learn more about the sordid history of the state. I especially hope that liberals, who believe that Israel was a functioning democracy until 1967, will face some challenges, as they discover the less-than-democratic features of the state. At the same time, I wish the book to appeal to larger audiences, to scholars of African American histories or scholars of migration and displaced peoples. Despite the great emphasis in Israeli historiography on the exceptionalism of the Jewish state, readers will find in the book many parallels to global cases concerning communities of migrants and refugees elsewhere in the world. The Iraqi Jewish struggle to obtain civil rights also has important global parallels. Finally, I hope that when readers ponder about the pains of Iraqi Jews, they will take a moment to consider the present refugees, those who still suffer as I write these lines.  

J: What other projects are you working on now?

OB: Impossible Exodus inspired me to continue writing the histories of Israel during the 1950s, and initially I thought of writing a new project about poor Mizrahi and Palestinian children in Israel during the years 1948-1967. However, since the state changed its archival policies, making it more and more difficult to access files from this period, I dropped this project. I am engaged in two projects at the moment; one which deals with the image of Jews in the nahda`s press and prose fiction, and another, which studies the relationship between Arab and Islamic movements, on the one hand, and the Irish national movements, on the other; from the early pro-Irish essays of Islamic reformers like Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad ‘Abduh, to the relationship between the IRA and the PLO. I have done much work on the former, and only beginning to explore the latter. 

J: How is your book related to contemporary Israeli realities and politics?

OB: Impossible Exodus might explain why Mizrahi Jews vote for right-wing parties, despite the fact that the neoliberal policies of Israeli right marginalize further poor Mizrahim. First, the book sheds light on labor Zionism`s discriminatory attitudes towards the Iraqis, elucidating why many still resent the Israeli labor movement. When writing my book, I often asked myself if I had been born to Iraqi Jewish Israeli parents, what my own political inclinations might have been. The book, then, seeks to underline the paradox of labor Zionism. On the one hand, Labor Zionism created the communities that led to its demise rather than cultivating faithful Mizrahi voters. On the other hand, if the goal was to Zionize Iraqi and other Mizrahi Jews, the success is well beyond what the state leadership could have hoped for. In the rightwing narrative, Mizrahim became (or discovered they always were) more Zionist than those Zionist socialists who wished to Zionize them. But I also wanted to tell a silenced history, that of the Mizrahi Israeli left. While today many Israelis associate the Israeli left with wishy-washy, politically uncommitted, whiteness, against which Mizrahim are positioned, I turned to the historical Mizrahi left, focusing on Iraqi communists who faugh with Palestinians and other progressive Jews for the creation of a just and progressive state. I integrated into the book their articles in Hebrew and in Arabic, especially in al-Ittihad and al-Jadid, their posters, and their works of poetry and prose, protesting the discrimination of all those whom the state categorized as belonging to the wrong race, religion or color.  

Finally, in Israel today, a Mizrahi revival is taking place with the appearance of many new history, poetry, and prose books, and renewed political and cultural activities. This revival is important, especially because of its critique of the liberal Zionist left, or what is called “the white left,” and its lack of commitment to uncover the horrors of the 1950s or to close socioeconomic gaps within Israel society today. Yet while a minority of Mizrahi activists champions a joint alliance with Palestinians, other focus on a more sectarian position, turning, for example, to rightwing politicians who promote the Mizrahi cause, while denying Palestinians’ rights. Perhaps the most glaring example is Israel`s minister of culture, Miri Regev. While fostering her own image as a Mizrahi black panther, devoted to undo Israeli ethnic divisions amongst Jews, she is nonetheless relentless in her commitment to anti-Palestinian politics and to a vision of greater Israel (captured recently in a hideous dress she wore at the Cannes film festival designed as the united city of Jerusalem). Impossible Exodus locates the roots of these ideological divisions in Israel of the 1950s when most Iraqi Jews chose to struggle the state as discriminated Jewish citizens in a Jewish state. I am afraid that the book suggests that eventually the state was very successful in its divide-and-conquer policies, and it offers a very bleak vision of the future of Israel-Palestine. While I am proud of the past histories I have uncovered, when it comes to the future of Israel-Palestine, I hope I am mistaken.

Excerpt from the Chapter: "Israeli Babylonians"

Autobiographies, press items, and petitions sent from Iraqis to different government bodies unpack the meanings of Mizrahi in various Israeli contexts. First, the word, as uttered by Ashkenazim, signified Arabness and at times blackness. In the press, the skin color of Iraqis and Mizrahim in general was “dark-brown” (Hebrew: shahum; plural: shhumin), a blend between the word “black” (shahor) and “brown” (hum). While Jews from Middle Eastern countries were also called a variety of derogatory terms meaning “black,” the coining of a term to describe a black-brown color indicated something new: something in between the color of the dark Arabs and the Ashkenazi Jews. Ashkenazi Jews, who had often been perceived as dark and black in Europe, now reenvisioned themselves as white and European vis-à-vis the Arabs and the Jews of the Middle East. Iraqis recall the unbelievable ignorance regarding their culture: Ashkenazim assumed they came from desert lands where camels roam the streets and where Western culture was virtually unknown. They report that Ashkenazim were placed in better jobs, that teachers and professors made derogatory remarks to Iraqi students and humiliated them in class, and that promotions in the workplace were denied based on origin. They also noted that they stayed longer in the transit camps, while Ashkenazi families were evacuated to other neighborhoods. In some cases, this long stay formed bonds of friendship between Iraqi, Egyptian, Tunisian, and Iranian Jews who stayed with them in the transit camps, especially among children. These experiences, be it that of a young Iraqi woman begging an Ashkenazi professor to let her continue with her studies in the university, or a woman being told that her children would amount to nothing more exalted than carpenters and welders, made them realize that their problem was not only an Iraqi problem, it was a Mizrahi problem.

Iraqi Jews addressing the state’s officials and institutions during the 1950s protested discrimination and identified themselves as Mizrahim. As early as 1950, Eliyahu Nissan, writing to the journal of the Association of Aram Naharayim, called for “awakening, unity, and the formation of an ideological, political, and militant force for changing the political, one-sect-based [had-‘adati] order, which reigns in the state, which hurts us and all the other non-Ashkenazi communities. Your slogan in your journal should be: equal rights, in law and in practice.” If not, cautioned Nissan, we will become “the dirt of the land.”

Iraqis buttressed their arguments about the discrimination they faced with facts. A fellow Iraqi, Ephraim Nahum, similarly complained that the name Iraqi had become a slur. They are being called Schwarze Juden (Black Jews). As an example he cited the Ministry of Religious Affairs, “which is more Ashkenazi than Israeli in its conduct and manners.” Young Iraqis began to collect data not only on the number of Iraqis with positions in state institutions but also on the number of Mizrahim, whom they believed were beginning to constitute the majority of the country’s population. The historian Avraham Ben Ya‘aqov noted that the Mizrahi communities in Israel made up about 42 percent of the population, but were not represented proportionally. He acknowledged that the prime minister was trying to rectify the situation, but that low-level bureaucrats were thwarting the rise of the new generation. Shlomo Ben Menachem ‘Eini represented the discrimination in the Israeli Internal Revenue Service in numerical terms: it employed only three Sephardi clerks out of a hundred (in addition to twelve supervisors). When he recommended an Iraqi trainee he was told there was no job for her.

Iraqi-Jewish educator Victor Mu‘allim explained in 1957 how race divided Jewish Israel into a first and second Israel. Israel was composed of two branches: European and Eastern. Mu‘allim also pointed to the demographic paradox of Mizrahi life in Israel. On the one hand, Mizrahi families were told to have many children in the interest of national security (so that a sizeable Jewish majority will come into being). On the other hand, the state did nothing to support these children. He proposed that gap between second Israel and Ashkenazi Israel was deepening; the second Israel consisted of thousands of souls, living in densely populated apartments and in slums, who did not graduate from high school or attend universities. In a letter to the newspaper ‘Al ha-Mishmar following the riots in Wadi Salib, he denounced the violence of the rebels, yet added:

For years we warned the heads of the majority party of to stop classifying people based on their country of origin. . . . In Wadi Salib, Migdal ha-‘Emek, and Beersheba, there were days of tensions as a result of the existence of poverty, destitution, unemployment, bitterness, ignorance, and sickness. The problem of the discrimination of the people of the East is a problem of a social nature.

The riots about which Mu‘allim is speaking here involved North African Jews for the most part. While he did not condone the violence, he was sympathetic to the participants’ concerns as Mizrahim: they were discriminated against and deserved the support of fellow Iraqis. Being Mizrahi signifies here being victimized by the state despite being Israeli citizens.

[Excerpted from Impossible Exodus: Iraq Jews in Israel with author permission, (c) 2017.]  

New Texts Out Now: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein, guest eds. "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis." Special Issue of Conflict, Security & Development

Conflict, Security and Development, Volume 15, No. 5 (December 2015) Special issue: "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis," Guest Editors: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you compile this volume?

Mandy Turner (MT): Both the peace process and the two-state solution are dead. Despite more than twenty years of negotiations, Israel’s occupation, colonization and repression continue–and the political and geographical fragmentation of the Palestinian people is proceeding apace.

This is not news, nor is it surprising to any keen observer of the situation. But what is surprising–and thus requires explanation – is the resilience of the Oslo framework and paradigm: both objectively and subjectively. It operates objectively as a straitjacket by trapping Palestinians in economic and security arrangements that are designed to ensure stabilization and will not to lead to sovereignty or a just and sustainable solution. And it operates subjectively as a straitjacket by shutting out discussion of alternative ways of understanding the situation and ways out of the impasse. The persistence of this framework that is focused on conflict management and stabilization, is good for Israel but bad for Palestinians.

The Oslo peace paradigm–of a track-one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution–is therefore in crisis. And yet it is entirely possible that the current situation could continue for a while longer–particularly given the endorsement and support it enjoys from the major Western donors and the “international community,” as well as the fact that there has been no attempt to develop an alternative. The immediate short-term future is therefore bleak.

Guided by these observations, this special issue sought to undertake two tasks. The first task was to analyze the perceptions underpinning the Oslo framework and paradigm as well as some of the transformations instituted by its implementation: why is it so resilient, what has it created? The second task, which follows on from the first, was then to ask: how can we reframe our understanding of what is happening, what are some potential alternatives, and who is arguing and mobilizing for them?

These questions and themes grew out of a number of conversations with early-career scholars – some based at the Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem, and some based in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere. These conversations led to two interlinked panels at the International Studies Association annual convention in Toronto, Canada, in March 2014. To have two panels accepted on “conflict transformation and resistance in Palestine” at such a conventional international relations conference with (at the time unknown) early-career scholars is no mean feat. The large and engaged audience we received at these panels – with some very established names coming along (one of whom contributed to this special issue) – convinced us that this new stream of scholars and scholarship should have an outlet.  

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures do the articles address?

MT: The first half of the special issue analyzes how certain problematic assumptions shaped the Oslo framework, and how the Oslo framework in turn shaped the political, economic and territorial landscape.

Virginia Tilley’s article focuses on the paradigm of conflict resolution upon which the Oslo Accords were based, and calls for a re-evaluation of what she argues are the two interlinked central principles underpinning its worldview: internationally accepted notions of Israeli sovereignty; and the internationally accepted idea that the “conflict” is essentially one between two peoples–the “Palestinian people” and the “Jewish people”. Through her critical interrogation of these two “common sense” principles, Tilley proposes that the “conflict” be reinterpreted as an example of settler colonialism, and, as a result of this, recommends an alternative conflict resolution model based on a paradigm shift away from an ethno-nationalist division of the polity towards a civic model of the nation.

Tariq Dana unpacks another central plank of the Oslo paradigm–that of promoting economic relations between Israel and the OPT. He analyses this through the prism of “economic peace” (particularly the recent revival of theories of “capitalist peace”), whose underlying assumptions are predicated on the perceived superiority of economic approaches over political approaches to resolving conflict. Dana argues that there is a symbiosis between Israeli strategies of “economic peace” and recent Palestinian “statebuilding strategies” (referred to as Fayyadism), and that both operate as a form of pacification and control because economic cooperation leaves the colonial relationship unchallenged.

The political landscape in the OPT has been transformed by the Oslo paradigm, particularly by the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Alaa Tartir therefore analyses the basis, agenda and trajectory of the PA, particularly its post-2007 state building strategy. By focusing on the issue of local legitimacy and accountability, and based on fieldwork in two sites in the occupied West Bank (Balata and Jenin refugee camps), Tartir concludes that the main impact of the creation of the PA on ordinary people’s lives has been the strengthening of authoritarian control and the hijacking of any meaningful visions of Palestinian liberation.

The origin of the administrative division between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the focus of Tareq Baconi’s article. He charts how Hamas’s initial opposition to the Oslo Accords and the PA was transformed over time, leading to its participation (and success) in the 2006 legislative elections. Baconi argues that it was the perceived demise of the peace process following the collapse of the Camp David discussions that facilitated this change. But this set Hamas on a collision course with Israel and the international community, which ultimately led to the conflict between Hamas and Fateh, and the administrative division, which continues to exist.

The special issue thereafter focuses, in the second section, on alternatives and resistance to Oslo’s transformations.

Cherine Hussein’s article charts the re-emergence of the single-state idea in opposition to the processes of separation unleashed ideologically and practically that were codified in the Oslo Accords. Analysing it as both a movement of resistance and as a political alternative to Oslo, while recognizing that it is currently largely a movement of intellectuals (particularly of diaspora Palestinians and Israelis), Hussein takes seriously its claim to be a more just and liberating alternative to the two-state solution.

My article highlights the work of a small but dedicated group of anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli activists involved in two groups: Zochrot and Boycott from Within. Both groups emerged in the post-Second Intifada period, which was marked by deep disillusionment with the Oslo paradigm. This article unpacks the alternative – albeit marginalized – analysis, solution and route to peace proposed by these groups through the application of three concepts: hegemony, counter-hegemony and praxis. The solution, argue the activists, lies in Israel-Palestine going through a process of de-Zionization and decolonization, and the process of achieving this lies in actions in solidarity with Palestinians.

This type of solidarity action is the focus of the final article by Suzanne Morrison, who analyses the “We Divest” campaign, which is the largest divestment campaign in the US and forms part of the wider Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Through attention to their activities and language, Morrison shows how “We Divest”, with its networked, decentralized, grassroots and horizontal structure, represents a new way of challenging Israel’s occupation and the suppression of Palestinian rights.

The two parts of the special issue are symbiotic: the critique and alternative perspectives analyzed in part two are responses to the issues and problems identified in part one.

J: How does this volume connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

MT: My work focuses on the political economy of donor intervention (which falls under the rubric of “peacebuilding”) in the OPT, particularly a critique of the Oslo peace paradigm and framework. This is a product of my broader conceptual and historical interest in the sociology of intervention as a method of capitalist expansion and imperial control (as explored in “The Politics of International Intervention: the Tyranny of Peace”, co-edited with Florian Kuhn, Routledge, 2016), and how post-conflict peacebuilding and development agendas are part of this (as explored in “Whose Peace: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding”, co-edited with Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper (PalgraveMacmillan, 2008).  

My first book on Palestine (co-edited with Omar Shweiki), Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-development and Beyond (PalgraveMacmillan, 2014), was a collection of essays by experts in their field, of the political-economic experience of different sections of the Palestinian community. The book, however, aimed to reunite these individual experiences into one historical political-economy narrative of a people experiencing a common theme of dispossession, disenfranchisement and disarticulation. It was guided by the desire to critically assess the utility of the concept of de-development to different sectors and issues–and had a foreword by Sara Roy, the scholar who coined the term, and who was involved in the workshop from which the book emerged.

This co-edited special issue (with Cherine Hussein, who, at the time of the issue construction, was the deputy director of the Kenyon Institute) was therefore the next logical step in my research on Palestine, although my article on Jewish-Israeli anti-Zionists did constitute a slight departure from my usual focus.

J: Who do you hope will read this volume, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MT: I would imagine the main audience will be those whose research and political interests lie in Palestine Studies. It is difficult, given the structure of academic publishing – which has become ever more corporate and money grabbing – for research outputs such as this to be accessed by the general public. Only those with access to academic libraries are sure to be able to read it – and this is a travesty, in my opinion. To counteract this commodification of knowledge, we should all provide free access to our outputs through online open source websites such as academia.edu, etc. If academic research is going to have an impact beyond merely providing more material for teaching and background reading for yet more research (which is inaccessible to the general public) then this is essential. Websites such as Jadaliyya are therefore incredibly important.

Having said all that, I am under no illusions about the potential for ANY research on Israel-Palestine to contribute to changing the dynamics of the situation. However, as a collection of excellent analyses conducted by mostly early-career scholars in the field of Palestine studies, I am hopeful that their interesting and new perspectives will be read and digested. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MT: I am currently working on an edited volume provisionally entitled From the River to the Sea: Disintegration, Reintegration and Domination in Israel and Palestine. This book is the culmination of a two-year research project funded by the British Academy, which analyzed the impacts of the past twenty years of the Oslo peace framework and paradigm as processes of disintegration, reintegration and domination – and how they have created a new socio-economic and political landscape, which requires new agendas and frameworks. I am also working on a new research project with Tariq Dana at Birzeit University on capital and class in the occupied West Bank.

Excerpt from the Editor’s Note 

[Note: This issue was published in Dec. 2015]

Initially perceived to have inaugurated a new era of hope in the search for peace and justice in Palestine-Israel, the Oslo peace paradigm of a track one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution is in crisis today, if not completely at an end.

While the major Western donors and the ‘international community’ continue to publicly endorse the Oslo peace paradigm, Israeli and Palestinian political elites have both stepped away from it. The Israeli government has adopted what appears to be an outright rejection of the internationally-accepted end-goal of negotiations, i.e. the emergence of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. In March 2015, in the final days of his re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the Jewish settlement of Har Homa in Palestinian East Jerusalem, which is regarded as illegal under international law. Reminding its inhabitants that it was him and his Likud government that had established the settlement in 1997 as part of the Israeli state’s vision of a unified indivisible Jerusalem, he promised to expand the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem if re-elected. And in an interview with Israeli news site, NRG, Netanyahu vowed that the prospects of a Palestinian state were non-existent as long as he remained in office. Holding on to the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), he argued, was necessary to ensure Israel’s security in the context of regional instability and Islamic extremism. It is widely acknowledged that Netanyahu’s emphasis on Israel’s security—against both external and internal enemies—gave him a surprise win in an election he was widely expected to lose.

Despite attempts to backtrack under recognition that the US and European states are critical of this turn in official Israeli state policy, Netanyahu’s promise to bury the two-state solution in favour of a policy of further annexation has become the Israeli government’s official intent, and has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading ministers and key advisers.

[…]

The Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank also appears to have rejected a key principle of the Oslo peace paradigm—that of bilateral negotiations under the supervision of the US. Despite a herculean effort by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, to bring the two parties to the negotiating table, in response to the lack of movement towards final status issues and continued settlement expansion (amongst other issues), the Palestinian political elite have withdrawn from negotiations and resumed attempts to ‘internationalise the struggle’ by seeking membership of international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), and signing international treaties such as the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court. This change of direction is part of a rethink in the PA and PLO’s strategy rooted in wider discussions and debates. The publication of a document by the Palestine Strategy Study Group (PSSG) in August 2008, the production of which involved many members of the Palestinian political elite (and whose recommendations were studiously discussed at the highest levels of the PA and PLO), showed widespread discontent with the bilateral negotiations framework and suggested ways in which Palestinians could ‘regain the initiative’.

[…]

And yet despite these changes in official Palestinian and Israeli political strategies that signal a deepening of the crisis, donors and the ‘international community’ are reluctant to accept the failure of the Oslo peace paradigm. This political myopia has meant the persistence of a framework that is increasingly divorced from the possibility of a just and sustainable peace. It is also acting as an ideological straitjacket by shutting out alternative interpretations. This special issue seeks a way out of this political and intellectual dead end. In pursuit of this, our various contributions undertake what we regard to be two key tasks: first, to critically analyse the perceptions underpinning the Oslo paradigm and the transformations instituted by its implementation; and second, to assess some alternative ways of understanding the situation rooted in new strategies of resistance that have emerged in the context of these transformations in the post-Oslo landscape.

[…]

Taken as a whole, the articles in this special issue aim to ignite conversations on the conflict that are not based within abstracted debates that centre upon the peace process itself—but that begin from within the realities and geographies of both the continually transforming land of Palestine-Israel and the voices, struggles, worldviews and imaginings of the future of the people who presently inhabit it. For it is by highlighting these transformations, and from within these points of beginning, that we believe more hopeful pathways for alternative ways forward can be collectively imagined, articulated, debated and built.