Middle east project
The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa
Middle East Project:announces an international conference on the future of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
Cape Town, South Africa
12-14 June 2009
‘RE-ENVISIONING ISRAEL/PALESTINE’
inviting South African and international scholars and professionals concerned about the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to review and debate the latest evidence, analysis, and theory related to existing and alternative strategies for its just and stable resolution.
CONFERENCE THEMES:
The International Law of Occupation Revisited
National Identities and Democracy in Israel-Palestine
The Political-Economy and Geography of Peace
Building Arab-African Agendas toward Justice and Democracy
Website: www.hsrc.ac.za/middleeastconference
International Conference:
‘Re-Envisioning Israel-Palestine’
Confirmed Participants
Convenor: Dr Virginia Tilley, Chief Research Specialist
Research Director: Dr Adrian Hadland, Research Managing Director
Administration: Tania Fraser, administrative assistant, Democracy and Governance
Contact: +27-(0)21-466-7924, mep@hsrc.ac.za
Theme 1: International Law of Occupation Revisited
Chair: John Dugard, Extraordinary Professor, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, and former Special Rapporteur on the Question of Palestine for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
Max du Plessis, Professor of Law, University of KwaZulu Natal (Durban)
Sahar Francis, Director, Addameer/Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association (Jerusalem)
Adrian Friedman, Advocate, Legal Resources Centre (Johannesburg)
Outi Korhonen, Associate Professor of Law, American University of Cairo
Stefan Lütgenau, Programme Director, Bruno Kreisky Foundation for Human Rights and convenor of the Working Group on Palestine/Israel for the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (Austria)
Daniel Machover, head of civil litigation, Hickman & Rose Solicitors, and co-founder, Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights (London)
Mazen Masri, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University (Toronto)
John Reynolds, Researcher, Al-Haq (Ramallah)
Bruce Ryder, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Centre for Public Law & Public Policy, Osgoode Hall Law School, University of York (Toronto)
Iain Scobbie, Director and Sir Joseph Hotung Research Professor in Law, School for Oriental & African Studies (London)
Elna Sondergaard, Director of the International Human Rights Law Programme, American University of Cairo
Theme 2: Identity and Democracy in the Middle East
Chair: Nadim Rouhana, Professor of International Negotiations and Conflict Studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Boston, and Director of the Mada al-Carmel/Centre for Applied Social Science (Haifa)
Adi Ophir, Professor of Political Philosophy, Cohn Institute, University of Tel Aviv
Fouad Moughrabi, Professor of Political Sciences, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga
Steven Friedman, Director, Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Johannesburg
Theme 3: Political Economy and the Politics of Conflict
Chair: Leila Farsakh, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts-Boston
Sara Roy, Professor of Political Science and Senior Research Fellow, Center for Middle East Studies, Harvard University (Boston)
Samia al-Botmeh, Director, Centre for Development Studies, Birzeit University
Jamil Hilal, sociologist, Bir Zeit
Alain Gresh, Editor, Le Monde Diplomatique
Jad Isaac, Director, Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ) (Bethlehem)
Theme 4: Arab-African Networks on Conflict & Democracy
Chair: Gerhard Maré, Professor of Sociology and Director, Centre for Critical Research on Race and Identity, University of KwaZulu Natal (Durban)
Adam Habib, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Development, University of Johannesburg
Jamal Juma’, Coordinator, Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (Ramallah)
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THEME DESCRIPTION
This conference responds to growing international concern about the dangerous stagnation of the Israeli-Palestinian ‘peace process.’ As present paradigms for the effective resolution of the conflict have proved inadequate, alternatives and new directions are urgently sought by diplomats, politicians, lawyers, and concerned professionals from both sides as well as the international community. This conference accordingly seeks to bring new thinking and academic analysis to the forefront that can illuminate strategies for a just and stable resolution of the conflict. To encourage and enable a holistic analysis, the conference will solicit presentations from a spectrum of disciplines.
The conference will especially seek to connect South African and Middle East scholars in order to foster new research linkages regarding democracy and identity in Africa and the Middle East. Strong representation by senior South African scholars and experts is expected.
Themes
Themes reflect workshops and activities of the HSRC Middle East Project (MEP) in 2007-2009. Each is chaired by a scholar involved in directing or supervising those events.
Theme 1: The International Law of Occupation Revisited
Theme Chair: John Dugard, Extraordinary Professor at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, and former Special Rapporteur on the Question of Palestine for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
The fortieth anniversary of Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, coupled with Israel`s continued failure to comply with international law, has suggested to some legal scholars that the fundamental character of the occupation may require re-assessment. This theme invites papers exploring whether features of other international law regimes, such as apartheid and colonialism, are manifest in Israeli policy and what this analysis implies legally for the conflict and the international community. Proposals developing theory about how frameworks of IHL and IHRL may evolve or co-exist are also welcome. (Participants will be invited to engage with the HSRC’s special project on this subject.)
Theme 2: Identities and Democracy in Israel-Palestine
Theme Chair: Dr Nadim Rouhana, Professor of International Negotiations and Conflict Studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Boston, and Director of the Mada al-Carmel/Centre for Applied Social Science (Haifa)
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is commonly understood as steered by two duelling and immutable national identities-Palestinian-Arab and Jewish-Zionist. Yet, recent historical scholarship has helped clarify the origins of these identities and demonstrated the possibilities of major identity transformations in Mandate Palestine. But what do these studies signify for the conflict? Are present identities to be held as immutable in order to defend related exclusive privileges or struggle for rights, and in what ways is transforming the terms of the conflict inextricably related to transforming the identities themselves? This theme invites papers considering how past and possible constructions of identities relevant to the conflict — such as identities based on nationalism, citizenship, religious affiliation, ideology, colonialism and culture, and victimhood — inform or constrain viable solutions to the conflict in Mandate Palestine. Topics could focus on empirical questions (e.g., mass popular perception; political mood, fears, and will; democratization and citizenship; social and political movements) and/or potential new directions (trajectories of popular thought; engagement with new democratic movements; the reform or redesign of national institutions; implications of altered identity discourses for established and rising leaderships).
Theme 3: The Political-Economy and Geography of Peace
Theme Chair: Dr Leila Farsakh, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts-Boston
However preferable or inevitable any given solution in Israel-Palestine might seem, its viability inevitably rests on geographic and economic realities shaping the lives of people on the ground. Political leadership and diplomacy must appreciate and confront these hard realities or risk becoming irrelevant and futile. This theme invites empirical analyses of economic and social factors that help clarify parameters for the conflict’s potential solutions: e.g. nature of economic relations between Israel and the Palestinian territories and their likely prospects; poverty rates and trends; health trends; trade patterns; the labour market developments; water and other natural resources; population growth; and the geopolitics of borders. While basing their analysis on empirical data, papers will analyse how these conditions impact prospects for peace and growth in the area and what they should signify for viable solutions to the conflict.
Theme 4: Arab-African Visions toward Non-racial Democracy in the Middle East
Theme Chair: Dr Gerhard Mare, Director, Centre for Critical Research on Race and Identity, University of KwaZulu Natal (Durban, South Africa)
Africa and the Middle East share much in common regarding colonialism, decolonisation, struggles for democracy, Western intervention, and nation-building. Less commonly recognised is their shared heritage of Western discourse about race and ethnicity, which have interplayed with local identities sometimes to dangerous or lethal effect. Theme five explores this comparison by encouraging new dialogue and shared research between African and Middle East scholars: e.g., in clarifying how concepts of race and ethnicity have fed into relevant national movements and strategies of mobilisation; how race, ethnicity and religion have operated as contested and multiple identities within South Africa, Israel, and Palestine; how such identities have articulated with issues of gender and class; and how regional identity discourses that have historically provided potent fuel for liberation movements (e.g., ‘Arab’ and ‘African’) have or should inform national identities today. One concern is to revisit the historical practices and perceptions that informed struggles for self-determination in colonial Africa, including notions of race and of ethnicity. Another is how colonial and post-colonial notions of race and of ethnicity, originating in the West, shaped, created, and articulated with pre-existing social identities. Here the contributions will centre on Israel and Palestine but could provide wider reference to similar and informative ideological and practical projects – whether in Rwanda, India, Sudan, or South Africa.