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Egypt is still in the midst of a revolution after nearly twenty months of turmoil and protest. Nowhere is revolution more visible then in the capital city of Cairo where more than twenty million people have watched their city transform as the political situation unfolds. We sent Monocle’s Joseph Dana to find out how the city and its famous Tahrir square have changed in this time of transition.
How often do we hear that the debate on Israel is changing in the West? The emergence of a liberal coterie of American intellectuals who coalesce around “Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace” organisations such as J Street have seemingly awakened to the intricate nature of Israel’s precarious colonial adventures in the West Bank and Gaza. Today, it is not uncommon to read established writers and journalists argue that the “window for the two-state solution is closing” due to the irreversibility of the occupation.
The response in the United States has been to increasingly define Israel in two parts; sovereign Israel with recognised borders (by whom exactly is a pesky question) west of the Green Line and a separate Israeli regime in the area east of the Green Line. One prominent writer, employing a type of double speak that would have fit well in George Orwell’s landmark essay Politics of the English Language, has even posited that Israel can be understood as simultaneously an undemocratic and democratic state, depending on what side of the Green Line you are considering.
Knowingly or not, The One State Condition throws cold water on this diversionary debate through detailed historical research fit into a philosophical framework. Despite its verbose academic style, the book is a surprisingly lucid walk through decades of Israeli occupation that reads at times as a treatise on the nature of state creation. If one is able to avoid falling prey to the gravity of the authors dense knowledge, a startlingly clear picture of the nature of the Israeli regime is sure to surprise even the most intense observer of the Israeli-Palestinian discourse.
Half a century of separate and unequal state governance is a long time, the authors note in the introduction. Yet, the mainstream discourse of Israel and the Palestinian Territories is trapped within an imagined reality that attempts to impose a soothing false dichotomy on the nature of the Israeli regime. Ultimately, the book exposes how central this dichotomy is to the maintenance of Israel’s occupation and, more importantly, the camouflage necessary to obscure the system behind Israel’s colonial rule.
Read more at The National.
It’s not only in the contested cities of the Middle East where war has a footprint. Military demands, from surveillance technology to anti-terrorism defenses, are beginning to play an important role in shaping the urban environments of Western cities. From New York to London, the built environment is being adapted for challenges posed by decentralized forms of terrorist warfare. Bollards are rising around public buildings, cameras turning on in the street.
Israeli and Palestinians cities provide a look into the future of this type of urban planning. It is a future where 50,000 soldiers can transform a city into a military base overnight, and where guided missiles can destroy interior ministries and basic civilian infrastructure. If anything, Operation Pillar of Defense has shown that when the line dividing civilian and soldier is blurred beyond recognition, the consequences are disastrous for all.
Read more at Next American City
Sure, you could say this was a Twitter War.
You would say that, of course, because Israel announced the launch of the fighting on Twitter. You would say that because after the fighting started, a second front opened on social media, including a brief Twitter pissing match between Israel and Hamas’ militant wing.
You would say it was a Twitter war that if you saw the way that I kept in touch with my circle of friends, most of whom, like me, are reporters living in the Middle East and reporting on the war. From the moment the conflict started, I was fed with near constant updates from Twitter from colleagues on the ground in Gaza. Twitter is where my West Bank housemate, a correspondent for Radio France, announced that she had forgotten her flak jacket and helmet in her rush to be one of the first to reach Gaza.
I spoke with her also on the phone, as she grew increasingly anxious that Israel might launch a ground invasion. Hamas had already made clear that they might not let foreign journalists leave in that event; if that happened, they presumably wanted my friends and colleagues’ Twitter accounts to ring out with the very real sense of uncertainty, the dread of being trapped in the path of an advanced war machine.
Read more at Roads and Kingdoms
A resident of southern Israel cheers as Israeli jets pound the Gaza Strip.
Five days of escalating violence between the Israeli military and Gazan militants has left Israel in a panicked state of war. The southern area of the country is slowly transforming into a large military base, as thousands of Israeli reserve soldiers have been called up to possibly take part in what Israel has dubbed ‘Operation Pillar of Defense.’ As the death toll rises in Gaza and Israel faces increasingly hostile backlash from the international community, I report from the Israel-Gaza border.
While the media pays far too little attention to everyday developments on the ground and the international community stands idly by, the Palestinian voice has become divided and confused, its body politic fractured without recourse to action. This abject condition of stalemate and division is the subject Raja Shehadeh’s important personal diary of the past two years in Ramallah, Occupation Diaries. Shehadeh, a writer and prominent lawyer who helped found the Palestinian legal organization Al Haq in the late 1970s, is following up on the critically acclaimed 2007 collection of musings, Palestinian Walks. His carefully scripted prose has become an important source of insight into life on the West Bank amidst stagnation and the continued entrenchment of occupation.Occupation Diaries is a collection of sensitive meditations on the violent status quo between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as his own position in the changing Palestinian national struggle for liberation.
Read more at the Los Angeles Review of Books
While the American presidential election dominates international news, Palestinians on the West Bank are caught in their own election fever. After years of stagnation and mismanagement, over half a million Palestinians will return to the polls on Saturday to vote for new local leadership. But the regressive nature of the Palestinian political landscape threatens to derail the municipal elections before the first ballot is cast, succinctly demonstrating the current Palestinian leadership’s lack of vision.
Back in 2006 – the last time Palestinians went to the polls – Hamas won a surprising number of seats in the Palestinian parliament. This victory laid the groundwork for a bitter falling out with Fatah, the party that has historically represented Palestinians, and dominates the Palestinian Authority. Brief armed clashes between the parties gave way to division of control between Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza.
Read more at The National.
Over half a million Palestinians on the West Bank will head to the polls next Saturday, 20 October 2012, for the time since 2006 to elect municipal leadership. One month after large scale economic protests swept West Bank cities, many have deep skepticism that new local elections will usher in an era of change. However, one list of candidates in the conservative city of Hebron is sidestepping Palestine’s factional divide and is sure to surprise observers of the Middle East.
Listen to my radio package for Monocle 24 here (piece begins at minute 8:30) or download the entire programme via iTunes [Episode 251].
Germany is not the only country with a popular October beer festival. The fall festivity has unlikely roots in the West Bank, where the small village of Taybeh holds annual party in celebration of its locally made beer and storied heritage. I went to Taybeh for Monocle 24 to find out more about this celebration of beer in the West Bank.
You can stream or download the piece here or download via iTunes.
The southern Israeli city of Sedrot seems like an unlikely place for a real estate and tourism boom. Less than one mile from Israel’s border with the Gaza, it has been the target of rocket fire from Palestinian militants for several years. But despite the ongoing cross border violence, Sedrot’s housing market is improving and more Israelis are coming to visit the area. Sedrot, known as Israel’s front line, is an impossible success story of Israel’s strategy to encourage growth on the periphery of the country. I found out more for Monocle 24.
You can listen or download this piece here (Starts at minute 55) or download via iTunes.
Based on an album whose story is inextricably intertwined with the music’s meaning,Under African Skies showcases a revolutionary blend of traditional African rhythms with American pop music. The album is widely considered to be one of Simon’s greatest works and, more than a quarter of a century after its release, Graceland‘s musical genius is undeniable: it transcends political boundaries while squarely defining what they mean.
Read more at The National
There is a quiet cafe renaissance going on in Tel Aviv. With one eye on Europe and one turning away from the Middle East, the city’s cafe culture is fast becoming one of its most recognisable traits. Replicating European culture while cast in the shadow of the Middle East, Israelis are reflecting their country’s identity tensions through coffee. For Monocle 24′s weekly food show The Menu, I explored Tel Aviv’s cafe culture.
You can stream or download the piece here or subscribe to The Menu via iTunes.
The Middle East is not normally on the forefront of grassroots green design. But things are changing. A new design studio called ShamsArd in the de-facto West Bank capital of Ramallah is busy creating furniture and buildings entirely from reclaimed waste materials. Given the entrenched political contours of life in Palestine, simple initiatives which make furniture out of trash or buildings out of mud have the ability to shift social consciousness. For ShamsArd, good design extends beyond functional and attractive lines to highlight intellectual and social independence. Partly a response to the excesses of the recent building boom in Ramallah, the studio is helping Palestinians regain a sense of autonomy through green thinking and community empowerment as I found out for Monocle 24′s Section D.
You can stream or download the piece here or download the podcast via iTunes.
Das hübsche kleine Café liegt etwas versteckt in einer der verwinkelten Gassen der Altstadt von Jaffa. Nicht nur die Anwohner kommen gern hierher, auch Besucher aus dem Zentrum von Tel Aviv schätzen die Atmosphäre – bei gedämpfter Musik und gutem Essen kann man die Hitze und die Hektik in Israels heimlicher Hauptstadt für eine Weile vergessen. Ganz hinten, in einer kleinen Kammer, die auch als Waschraum dient, arbeitet Kasedai. Der Eritreer spült das Geschirr, manchmal bereitet er auch Essen zu, zwölf Stunden jeden Tag, unauffällig und zuverlässig. Kasedai ist vor der Diktatur in Eritrea geflohen, in den drei Jahren seines illegalen Aufenthalts in Israel hat er jede erdenkliche Art von Gelegenheitsjob angenommen. Im vergangenen Jahr konnte er genug Geld beiseitelegen, um seine Frau und die Kinder auf die strapaziöse Reise von Eritrea über die Sinai-Halbinsel nach Israel zu schicken.
Solchen Schicksalen begegnet man überall in den großen Städten Israels: Migranten verrichten die niedrigen Arbeiten, ohne die das Land nicht funktionieren würde. Früher verdingten sich Palästinenser in solchen Jobs, doch inzwischen sind die besetzten Gebieten abgeriegelt. Die Einwanderer aus Afrika und Ostasien, die deren Plätze eingenommen haben, sind – mit steigender Tendenz in den letzten Monaten – Ziel von ausländerfeindlichen und rassistischen Angriffen geworden, wie sie Israel in seiner Geschichte noch nicht erlebt hat. Über kaum ein Thema wird hier heute so heftig gestritten wie über die Einwanderungspolitik.
Continue reading »
The scenes are eerily reminiscent of the Egyptian revolution. Palestinians throwing stones in built up urban areas at security officials who respond with volleys of tear gas. But this is not fighting between Israel and the Palestinians; internal protests over the economics of everyday life are taking hold in the West Bank. Palestinians, like many others across the world, are taking to the streets in protest of the high cost of living due to the global rise in prices for everything from petrol to bread. Like seemingly everything in West Bank, these economic protests are compounded by the political crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and have the very real possibility of starting a large-scale rebellion.
For Monocle, I visited the protests and spoke to leading poltical commentators, economists and ordinary Palestinians to find out why the protests are happening now and where they could lead.
Stream or download this piece here (Begins at minute 32:00)
The graphic artist Guy Delisle presents the perspective of a curious foreigner as he navigates the minefield of the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate in Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City.
The Middle East has always been a magnet for foreign aid workers. Entrenched conflict and routine outbreaks of armed violence mean that cities like Cairo, Jerusalem and Beirut have had a strong presence of engaged foreign nationals.
Jerusalem, in particular, has a unique cross-section of foreigners, from diplomats to journalists, who exist in suspended animation; crossing from Israeli Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem to Palestinian East Jerusalem and Ramallah at will. They constitute the few people with the privileged ability to slip behind Israel’s network of walls and checkpoints in order to evaluate what is actually taking place on the ground.
Given the depth of perspective possessed by many of these individuals, one would expect a wealth of memories emanating from their circles. Yet this is not the case. The recent arrival of Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, a graphic novel by the talented Canadian comic-book artist Guy Delisle, is a welcome diversion from this silence.
Israel is synonymous with the resurrection of the guttural sounds of the Hebrew language. Once considered a dead language, Hebrew was given new life when the state of Israel was founded. But the achievement came at a cost. Yiddish, once the primer language of Jews worldwide, is fast becoming a relic in modern Israeli society. One cultural centre in Tel Aviv is working to preserve and celebrate illustrious past of what is truly a unique language. As part of Monocle 24′s week long series looking at language, I spoke with Mandy Chanan of the Yung Yiddish centre in Tel Aviv about the role of Yiddish in contemporary Israel.
You can download or stream the piece here (the piece begins at the one hour and half mark) or subscribe to the Globalist via iTunes.
Awash in Mediterranean sun, Tel Aviv revolves around the sea and the city’s cafe lined streets are seemingly always full of pedestrians strolling, running into friends or simply sitting on a bench in the midst of it all. The past year has seen the city of Tel Aviv confront the issue of pedestrianization head on with bold initiatives to close central streets to car traffic on weekends but not all residents are convinced it will help highlight the city’s pedestrian nature. I found out more in Tel Aviv for Monocle 24.
You can listen to this piece here (the segment begins at minute 21 but go ahead and listen to the entire episode)
(Anaglyphs Tablet Magazine; original photos Library of Congress)
What, then, is the best way to remember Jewish life under Muslim rule in the Middle East? It’s a question that has floated through the halls of Jewish academia for at least 30 years, alternately provoking idealized versions of peaceful life in the Arab world and dramatic tales of persecution. Especially among those dedicated to European Jewish history, which still struggles to understand the tragedy that befell European Jewry in the 20th century, there is a tendency to view life under Muslim rule as exceedingly peaceful, marked by co-existence and even mutual respect. Outside of academia, the question tends to adopt political contours, with people seeking to place blame either on the Zionist movement or the Arab populations that expelled their ancient Jewish communities after the creation of the state of Israel.
Whichever side one falls on politically, it is clear that, for Jews, Aleppo was lost in 1948. The recent destruction of the city’s ancient monuments is merely a reminder of what had already been lost. While the Aleppine community in Israel is not nearly as numerous or powerful as their brethren in Brooklyn—the largest Aleppine Jewish community in the world, covered widely for their financial success and excess—their proximity to Syria and relationship with Jews from other Arab countries give the events in their lost city a more immediate feel.
Read more of my piece about Jewish Aleppo on Tablet.
For more on this fascinating story, I spoke about the Aleppine Jewish community on Monocle 24′s The Globalist. Listen here (starts in hour two)
The Israeli government recently authorised hundreds of tenders for the construction of new hotels in Jerusalem and Israeli settlements ringing the city. Aside from creating a tricky tourist situation since the bulk of new hotel construction will be on territory deemed occupied by the international community, the move demonstrates the city’s need to expand its aging hotel infrastructure. One hotel, the American Colony, in the eastern part of the city, has a storied history of diplomatic intrigue and luxury not usually associated with the city’s limited hotel options.
I visited the hotel this week for Monocle 24 and found a place from another time. The American Colony is perhaps a remnant of a forgotten era in which journalism and diplomacy was marked by intimate conversation, not the constant buzzing of mobile phones and impersonal social media. An afternoon coffee in the hotel’s comfortable lobby still evokes the intrigue and glamour of newspapers’ golden age.
You can stream or download the piece here (begins at the one hour forty minute mark).
“The image of shadowy dictators and corrupt military men running the country from smoky offices overlooking a filthy, polluted Nile is a well-known trope in Egyptian literature. One work stands above the rest in its depiction of this discharge of society and how it is currently manifesting itself. Karnak Café, a short novella written by Nobel Prize winning Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz, captures the angst, uncertainty and disillusionment which all too often accompanies political transition and revolution in Egypt and beyond.”
When Israeli president Shimon Peres visited Athens this week for a series of high level meetings with his Greek counterpart, he was probably not thinking of the Palestinian village of Al Khader.Just outside of Bethlehem, Al Khader is one of the many villages dotting the West Bank that carry the potential to challenge the newly upgraded Israeli-European Union relationship.
Large natural gasfields recently discovered off the Haifa area have thrust Israel into the unlikely position of being a strategic asset to the European Union at a time of uncertainty over energy security.
Continue reading »
Hebron’s Shuhada Street. Fall 2011. Photo by Adam Golfer
What happens when a trade street is suddenly closed? What if a city’s mayor is unable to reach a city’s trade street? In the West Bank city of Hebron, holy to the world’s major monotheistic religions and a centre point of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, urban planning has taken a backseat to military concerns resulting in the closure of one of the oldest trade streets in the world. I went to Hebron to find out the effect this has had on the city for Monocle 24′s The Urbanist.
You can stream or download here or, if you prefer, download the podcast here. (Segment begins at minute 15:00)
American presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s visit to Israel underlined the closeness which has grown between Israel’s ruling Likud party and Romney’s Republican party in the US. On the heels of Romney’s visit a new get out the vote campaign for American citizens in Israel has swung into full gear. Yet, for all the warmth displayed for Romney in Israel, this presidential election has some in Israel worried about the shift in the American-Israeli relationship as I found for my latest piece for Monocle 24.
You can stream or download the programme here or download the podcast here (segment begins at 13:30)
Photo of the Syrian village of Jubata al Khahasb under shelling (joseph dana)
The fighting which has torn Syria apart over the last 16 months has now reached Israel’s doorstep. For the past several days, Syrian forces have shelled villages located just across the demilitarised Israeli border on the Golan Heights, a Syrian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. The violence has raised concerns in Israel over the direction of the Syrian conflict and stirred emotions along the border as I found out yesterday for Monocle 24.
You can stream or download this piece along with my interview update by clicking here (package begins at minute 6:00)