Search

This report results from the discussions of papers submitted by many researchers and experts from seven Arab countries. The discussions of participants also were inserted in this paper. The symposium was held by the Middle East Studies Center (MESC) in Jordan at its annual symposium in 2021. Twenty-three researchers, academics, and strategic experts from Jordan, Palestine, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, and Lebanon submitted their papers in front of distinguished participants and guests from different fields to discuss the Arab strategy in dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict. The report aims to study the opportunities, tools, and strategies to achieve the Arab and Palestinians' struggle goals. The symposium also aims to develop a strategic vision with specific features for the current decade (2021-2030) in confronting Israel and its expansion project, ending the occupation, and implementing refugees' return in the short and medium term. The outcomes would serve the Arab and Palestinian decision-making process regarding the conflict, which suffers from a vision absence. The symposium discussion for the last decade of the conflict provided an accurate and deeper understanding of the obstacles hider strategic conclusions of the conflict. It also highlighted the needed strategic components in managing the conflict with Israel. The symposium found out that the Palestinian resistance in Gaza Strip created an advanced situation in thwarting and defeating the Israeli army in four battles since 2008. Furthermore, the "Sword of Jerusalem" battle in May 2021 has significantly impacted the direction of many politicians and experts to reconsider the course of the conflict, the halted peace process, and the current controversial relationship with Israel. The symposium was organized in eight sessions. Each session discussed one ax, including Arab strategies and tools in conflict management and its consequences during the period 2011-2021, Palestinian strategies and tools, the opportunities and transformations imposed by the Palestinian-Israeli confrontations 2008-2021, the role of thought and ideology in conflict management, the vision and potential prospects for conflict trends and tools at the Palestinian, Arab and international levels during the period 2021-2030, and the features of a new Arab strategic vision to deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Israeli expansion project in the region. The report concluded with the main findings of the symposium and proposed a project for the new Arab strategy. The most important is the vision, objectives, means, and potential until 2030. Finally, 15 Arab researchers and experts reviewed the resulting vision draft from the participants. The strategic vision was to confront, contain and limit the Israeli aggression and its expansion project. The new strategy aims to reduce Israeli risks to the Palestinian cause, Arab national security, and the nation's higher interests in the short and medium-term by developing a new workable Arab strategy governed by precise objectives. It also concluded that the Arabs officially hold their responsibilities towards supporting the resilience of the Palestinian people and creating the necessary environment for an advanced situation to form a unified Palestinian National Front. The ground gains should support such a front during the recent battle named the "Jerusalem Sword" 2021. Therefore, it is essential to revive and redefine the Palestinian national project based on the national program and Palestinian priorities. Moreover, Arab countries, political forces, Palestinian factions, Arab research centers, and Arab civil society institutions were encouraged to adopt the symposium strategy. Research and studies centers also have to take on their duty to bridge the gap between the cultural and intellectual dialogue of the elite and the decision-makers choices to make any proposed strategy a reality and public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Israel's technologically advanced Iron Dome short‐range missile defence system as a deep empirical case study to examine how affective atmospheres mediate the relationship between state power and the agency of technological objects deployed to govern (in)security. Drawing theoretically from productive tensions between more‐than‐human theories of object‐oriented ontology, actor‐network theory and affect theory, it evaluates Iron Dome as a scintillating 'bright object' with variable capacities and limitations that exceed the sum of its components. Iron Dome both overreaches and contradicts the intentions and governance logics of state elites within a spatio‐temporally distributed array of architectures, infrastructures and practices. Within this milieu, its affective power is ambivalent and capricious, and can both enhance and undermine the atmospheric production of security in ways that exceed both instrumental functionality and human intentions. These findings indicate how a geography of security that attends to the affective dimension of object politics can account for the complex and non‐causal ways in which technologies can either reinforce or inhibit security as an anthropocentric endeavour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Middle East Studies Center held a seminar entitled "Israeli- Palestinian Confrontation 2021: Strategic Dimensions," which aims to monitor the strategic dimensions of the results of the confrontation politically, militarily, socially, intellectually, and at multiple levels: Israeli, Palestinian, Arab, and international. The seminar highlighted the postconfrontation opportunities for Palestinians and Arabs, as well as to find out the emerging paths and tools necessary for Palestinians and Arabs to manage the conflict, to change its equations in favor of achieving the goals of the Palestinians through ending the Israeli occupation and the return of Palestinian refugees. Fifteen researchers, academics, and strategic experts from Algeria, Jordan, Palestine, Sudan, and the United Kingdom participated. The seminar was divided into two sessions. The first session addressed the strategic dimensions of confrontation. The second has studied strategic opportunities to the post-confrontation. This report projects the outcome of the papers of researchers and experts and the participants' discussions, and it is divided into six main parts. At the Israeli level, the seminar concluded that the recent confrontation had reflected a significant and central strategic challenge to Israel. Participants noted that the current fight had affected the political weight and overall national value of Hamas behavior and thinking at the Palestinian level. It demonstrated the unity of the Palestinian people and restored their compass to the Palestinians in Israel and their suffering of discrimination. The confrontation contributed to the vision, based on the suspicion that real Israeli power revived the spirit of resistance for the Arab peoples, especially for the new Arab generation. Moreover, it strengthened the Palestinian-Muslim Arab voice in Western Israeli-aligned capitals. Concerning strategic opportunities for the Palestinian people beyond confrontation; participants noted that adopting the strategy as a demonstration instead of a negotiation approach, and ending the division, in addition to deepening the building of a global solidarity movement with the Palestinians, will be the most critical political opportunities offered by this confrontation. In discussing the strategic opportunities for the Arab world to manage the conflict with Israel, participants summarized the most prominent. It included leaving the box of peace agreements, not necessarily by formally abolishing them, but by effectively eliminating their effects, supporting the unity of the Palestinian people and their struggle, and establishing a fund to support Palestine in every Arab State. Concerning the paths and tools necessary to counteract the Israeli occupation at the Palestinian level, the participants stressed the need to create a new Palestinian strategic vision for managing the conflict and confrontation. Furthermore, at the Arab and international levels, the fight results must be invested to enhance the status of the Palestinian cause and develop relations with Arab and Islamic States, particularly Jordan. The aim is to agree on a shared vision in defense of Jerusalem and counter Israeli policy of transfer and any other alternative homeland projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By examining America's handling of the Phantom sale to Israel in light of the Middle East peace initiative, this paper will contend that, prior to the birth of America's unequivocal pro-Israeli stance, the Johnson administration viewed the Israeli-Jordanian negotiations simply as a spur to the neighboring Arab states to agree peace terms, thereby stemming the Soviet influence. Using the Phantom deal as leverage to coax Israel towards peace, while also reassuring them vis-à-vis national security, would therefore help peace become a reality. However, the approach failed, and so the Johnson administration had no choice but to give Israel the Phantoms, without exacting any corresponding peace concessions. This paper will therefore contend that the Phantom sale epitomized the failure of the Johnson administration's peace initiative, concluding that not only the power of lobbying and Israel's increasing strategic importance, but also this very failure, helped create America's de facto pro-Israeli policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the conflict management for the Israeli-Palestinian territorial conflict. It notes that several studies have been affected by the stories of Palestinian and Israeli practitioners and uneven access to sources of knowledge. It offers a commentary on the three papers in the 2010 issue of the journal "Eurasian Geography and Economics" (EGE) and argues that the papers show the movement beyond conventional narratives to form alternative approaches for conflict resolution.

This paper explores the impact of violent conflict on undergraduate students. In order to strengthen student resilience during periods of heightened insecurity, teachers and institutions must identify the difficulties that their students may be experiencing. Based on a case study of students in Israel, this paper identifies specific difficulties that students experience during ongoing conflict. Although this study is based on students in Israel, it opens up a broader discussion of the impact of violent conflict on student populations worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances the notion that procedure should be restored to the high road from which it has been diverted in the last decades. In the 1960s and 70s, the traditional approach, which subordinated procedure as ancillary to substance, was replaced by a much richer understanding of procedure's significance. But this trend was reversed largely as a result of the drive for efficiency that has dominated the courts and their alternatives. One of the side effects of this development has been the channeling of technology's impact on dispute resolution procedure to what I term the "efficiency paradigm." While the technological revolution of the recent decades has had a far reaching impact on substantive legal arrangements and doctrines, it has had only a limited effect on procedure, where it has typically been neglected or narrowly viewed as efficiency-enhancing. In this fashion, procedure has been pushed back to its subsidiary role with regards to substance. This paper advances a more comprehensive view, which underscores the potential of new technologies to advance a wide range of procedural values (including efficiency) under a "multidimensional learning paradigm." These themes are explored in the arena of digital technology in the courtroom and, specifically, by focusing on a particular case study - that of the Israeli court computerization, which is simultaneously caught up in the efficiency paradigm and creates the basis for a shift to the alternative approach that is promoted in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, much of the public discourse regarding conflict in the Middle East has pondered the possibility of military intervention, but far less attention has been paid to the optimal mechanisms for conflict mediation. There remains considerable confusion in the study of conflict resolution about how to locate the right time, or 'ripe moment' for this type of third-party involvement. This is a crucial area of policy relevant research. When attempting to model ripeness, most of the literature has relied on expected utility models of decision-making and found that crucial but nebulous factors that are important in the MENA region, such as conflicting parties' psychology, religious and political beliefs, as well as grievances compounded over time, cannot easily be incorporated into the framework. This paper offers a plausibility probe to highlight the potential of an augmented approach. Using Poliheuristic (PH) Theory that reflects the non-compensatory nature of political risk, it creates a litmus test for third-party mediation based not on what conflicting parties aim to achieve, but what outcomes and processes they must avoid. The result is a relatively simple identification of 'bad' timing, as well as theory-informed mechanisms designed to help practitioners generate better conditions for mediation. This probe contributes to our understanding of the relationship between political fragility and conflict in the MENA region by indicating how political fragility might be conceptualized as a process that can be mapped and perhaps interrupted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to obtain insight into court-referred mediation in the Israeli Labor Courts, by analyzing its processes and outcomes, as a function of tactics used by both the disputants and the mediator. Design/methodology/approach – Observation of 103 court-referred mediations, for each of which a detailed process and outcome were documented. Data on disputants' refusal to participate in the mediation was also collected. At the end of each mediation case, disputants were given a questionnaire in which they expressed their satisfaction with the outcome and their evaluation of the mediator's contribution. Findings – A low rate of refusal to participate in court-referred mediation was found. Also, the higher the ratio of soft tactics to pressure tactics employed (by all parties involved) during the process, the higher the rate of agreements. Mediators use significantly more soft tactics than disputants, and are more active in using tactics. The two significant variables that predict the mediation's agreement are the ratio between soft tactics to pressure tactics used by all parties, and mediator contribution to the process. Practical implications – The significant role of soft tactics in the process, outcome, and satisfaction of court-referred mediation may serve as a guideline for disputants and mediators. Originality/value – This unique research, which examines the impact of tactics on court-referred mediation, may provide added and significant theoretical insight into its process and outcome, as well as a better understanding of other “hybrid” (compulsory at the beginning, voluntary at the end) mediations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the complexities encountered by teachers and students when dealing with conflictual historical narratives in the context of integrated bilingual schools in Israel. The narratives presented are based on rich ethnographic data gathered from a long-standing research effort in the schools. They offer insights into how those involved in the educational initiative draw selectively from formal and informal sources in order to support their identification and sense of belonging within their particular political, national and religious communities. The vignettes rendered present a complex picture that is not necessarily encouraging in terms of the potential of education to help overcome situations of intractable conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a case of couple therapy conducted in the Student Psychological Service of the Ben Gurion University in Israel. The presenting problem is ambivalence toward marital commitment. The male in the couple is an adult child of divorce (ACD). Therapy is based on Madanes' (1981) theory that couples presenting with symptoms experience hierarchical incongruity in the division of power. Intervention strategies are designed to balance power so that the need for the symptom disappears. The strategies include: definition of conflict themes, clarification of expectations from self and partner, exploration of family dynamics in the family of origin and their relationship to present conflict themes, acquisition of more adaptive communication and negotiation skills as well as conflict resolution and contract setting skills. The male's difficulties to make a marital commitment are explained in terms of his role in the family of origin. Success of therapy is defined in terms of resolution of the ambivalence regarding marital commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflict resolution between different social groups is an issue that has continued to gain high profile news coverage both nationally and in a global context. In this respect, it has been shown that carefully designed and managed physical activity programmes can make a small but nonetheless invaluable contribution to reconciliation and co-existence within deeply-divided communities and socially fractured societies. Where this has been successful it is possible that projects such as these can be designed to be tangible products that not only facilitate co-existence work but can also be part of a more sustainable product that local coaches, teachers and community leaders can continue to promote through the teaching of core values and principles. This paper highlights how outdoor and adventurous activities (OAAs) can be used as a means to address co-existence and reconciliation within a deeply-divided society and outlines the work that is currently being undertaken in northern Israel by an English and German project team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The resolution of long-term and protracted conflicts requires peace builders to address the underlying structural, relational, and cultural roots of the conflict. But, operating within a two-level game of domestic and international cross- pressures, policymakers may opt for shortcuts that would circumvent the major issues in contention and postpone engagement with the root causes of conflict. Analyzing the operation of Israeli policymakers, this paper identifies two policy paradigms employed in the Palestinian peace process: the neo-liberal reliance on market economy and the realist position of partition, by agreement or unilaterally. While these paradigms seem to mirror-image each other, it is argued here that both attempted to circumvent the major issues of peace and neglected the structural causes of conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]