Israel in the Middle East the Aftermath of the Arab Spring (2010-2017)

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Eyal Zisser
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sense Of Security ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Arab Spring

This article describes how in the middle of the winter of 2010 the “Spring of the Arab Nations” suddenly erupted without any warning all over the Middle East. However, the momentum of the uprisings was impeded rather quickly, and the hopes held out for the “Spring of the Arab Nations” turned into frustration and disappointment. While many Israelis were focusing their attention in surprise, and some, with doubt and concern as well about what was happening in the region around them; suddenly, in Israel itself, at the height of the steamy summer of 2011, an “Israeli Spring” broke out. The protesters were young Israelis belonging to the Israeli middle class. Their demands revolved around the slogan, “Let us live in our land.” However, similar to what happened in the Arab world, the Israeli protest subsided little by little. The hassles of daily life and security and foreign affairs concerns once more became the focus of the public's attention. Therefore, the protesters' hopes were disappointed, and Israel's political, economic, and social order remained unshaken. Thus, towards the end of 2017, the memory of the “Israeli spring” was becoming faded and forgotten. However, while the Arab world was sinking into chaos marked by an ever deepening economic and social crisis that deprived its citizens of any sense of security and stability, Israel, by contrast, was experiencing years of stability in both political and security spheres, as well as economic growth and prosperity. This stability enabled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party to remain in power and to maintain the political and social status-quo in Israel.

Israel and the Arab Spring

2016 ◽  
pp. 59-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eyal Zisser
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Arab Spring

In the middle of the winter of 2010 the “Spring of the Arab Nations,” suddenly erupted without any warning all over the Middle East. However, the momentum of the uprisings was impeded rather quickly, and the hopes held out for the “Spring of the Arab Nations” turned into frustration and disappointment. While many Israelis were focusing their attention in surprise, and some, without a doubt, with concern as well, on what was happening in the region around them, suddenly, in Israel itself, at the height of the steamy summer of 2011, an “Israeli Spring” broke out. The protesters were young Israelis belonging to the Israeli middle class. Their demands revolved around the slogan, “Let us live in our land.” However, similar to what happened in the Arab world, the Israeli protest subsided little by little. The hassles of daily life and security and foreign affairs concerns once more became the focus of the public's attention. And so the protesters' hopes were disappointed, and Israel's political, economic, and social order remained unshaken.

6. The Puzzle of Political Reform in the Middle East

2019 ◽  
pp. 132-157
Author(s):  
Augustus Richard Norton
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Political Reform ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter assesses the critical issue of political reform in the Middle East. The Arab world has been slow to respond to the global processes of democratization. The chapter then highlights the political economy of states, the persistence of conflict, regime type, and the ambiguity over the relationship between democracy and Islam. This relationship is not necessarily a contradictory one. Islamic discourse is marked by participation and diversity rather than by rigidity and intolerance. Further, as the Arab Spring has illustrated, civil society is vibrant and growing in many states across the region. Meanwhile, responses from the West to political reform have been lukewarm, with stability and regional alliances privileged over democracy. The evidence from the region, even before the Arab uprisings, is that peoples want better and more representative government, even if they remain unclear as to what type of government that should be.

The Changing Contours of Saudi Arabia: Mohammed bin Salman and the Paradox of Saudi Reforms

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (Summer 2021) ◽  
pp. 253-261
Author(s):  
Adil Shafi
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Era ◽  
Crown Prince ◽  
Domestic Affairs ◽  
Broad Overview

This review article aims to provide broader nuances about Saudi Arabia amid the rapid developments taking place in the Middle East in general and Saudi Arabia in particular, following the rise of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). This article begins with Salman’s Legacy, edited by Madawi al-Rasheed, and subsequently, takes up Madawi al-Rasheed’s The Son King and Ben Hubbard’s biography of MBS. It provides a brief summary of the books under review and analyzes their different themes while critically examining their prevailing shortcomings. The rise of MBS has brought about visible changes, not only in the political body of Saudi Arabia but in the wider Arab world as well. Salman’s Legacy: The Dilemmas of a New Era in Saudi Arabia, edited by Madawi al-Rasheed, seeks to highlight these challenges and provide a broad overview of Saudi Arabia, ranging from domestic affairs to foreign affairs and exploring the factors that drive the Saudi regime.

Nasser's Gamble

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Ferris
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Original Material ◽  
Egyptian Revolution ◽  
Arab Nationalism ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Arab Spring

This book draws on declassified documents from six countries and original material in Arabic, German, Hebrew, and Russian to present a new understanding of Egypt's disastrous five-year intervention in Yemen, which Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser later referred to as “my Vietnam.” The book argues that Nasser's attempt to export the Egyptian revolution to Yemen played a decisive role in destabilizing Egypt's relations with the Cold War powers, tarnishing its image in the Arab world, ruining its economy, and driving its rulers to instigate the fatal series of missteps that led to war with Israel in 1967. Viewing the Six Day War as an unintended consequence of the Saudi–Egyptian struggle over Yemen, the book demonstrates that the most important Cold War conflict in the Middle East was not the clash between Israel and its neighbors. It was the inter-Arab struggle between monarchies and republics over power and legitimacy. Egypt's defeat in the “Arab Cold War” set the stage for the rise of Saudi Arabia and political Islam. Bold and provocative, this book brings to life a critical phase in the modern history of the Middle East. Its compelling analysis of Egypt's fall from power in the 1960s offers new insights into the decline of Arab nationalism, exposing the deep historical roots of the Arab Spring of 2011.

Critical International Relations Theories and the Study of Arab Uprisings: A Critique

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-150
Author(s):  
Ahmed M. Abozaid
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Other ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Western Perspective

This study articulates that most of the critical theorists are still strikingly neglecting the study of the Arab Uprising(s) adequately. After almost a decade of the eruption of the so-called Arab Uprisings, the study claims that the volume of scholarly engaging of dominate Western International Relations (IR) theories with such unprecedented events is still substantially unpretentious. Likewise, and most importantly, the study also indicates that most of these theories, including the critical theory of IR (both Frankfurt and Habermasian versions), have discussed, engaged, analysed, and interpreted the Arab Spring (a term usually perceived to be orientalist, troubling, totally inappropriate and passive phenomenon) indicate a strong and durable egoistic Western perspective that emphasis on the preservation of the status quo and ensure the interests of Western and neoliberal elites, and the robustness of counter-revolutionary regimes. On the other hand, the writings and scholarships that reflexively engaged and represent the authentic Arab views, interests, and prospects were clearly demonstrating a strong and durable scarce, if not entirely missing. Keywords: International Relations, Critical Theory, Postcolonial, Arab Uprising(s), Middle East, Revolutions.

scholarly journals Narrating technonatures: discourses of biotechnology in a neoliberal era

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 186
Author(s):  
Myles Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Economic Implications ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Status ◽  
Political Economic

This article considers the role played by discourses of nature in structuring the cultural politics of anti-GMO activism. It argues that such discourses have been successful rhetorical tools for activists because they mobilize widely resonant nature-culture dualisms that separate the natural and human worlds. However, these discourses hold dubious political implications. In valorizing the natural as a source of essential truth, natural purity discourses fail to challenge how naturalizations have been used to legitimize sexist, racist and colonial systems of injustice and oppression. Rather, they revitalize the discursive purchase of appeals to nature as a justification for the status quo, indirectly reinforcing existing power relations. Moreover, these discourses fail to challenge the critical though contingent reality of GMOs' location within the wider framework of neoliberal social relations. Fortunately, appeals to natural purity have not been the only effective strategy for opposing GMOs. Activist campaigns that directly target the political economic implications of GMOs within the context of neoliberalism have also had successes without resorting to appeals to the purity of nature. The successes of these campaigns suggest that while nature-culture dualisms remain politically effective normative groundings, concerns over equity, farmers' rights, and democracy retain potential as ideological terrains in the struggle for social justice.

Lightning Rods Rather Than Light Switches: Arab Economic Sanctions against Canada in 1979

2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norrin M. Ripsman ◽  
Jean-Marc F. Blanchard
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Economic Sanctions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Tel Aviv

The literature on economic sanctions consists of a series of studies assessing whether sanctions ''worked'' or not. Very little has been written on the factors that make economic sanctions more effective at achieving their intended purposes. This article examines the threatened 1979 Arab world boycott of Canada after Prime Minister Joe Clark announced the government's intention to relocate its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. After determining that sanctions played a contributing role in motivating a Canadian policy reversal, it generates hypotheses from this misunderstood case about the political and economic factors that can contribute to the success of economic sanctions.

Arab League

1951 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 619-620
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Political ◽  
Collective Security ◽  
Military Alliance ◽  
The Press ◽  
Arab League ◽  
Syrian Conflict

On May 14, 1951 meetings were held of the Council and Political Committee of the Arab League in Damascus. Press reports indicated that the meeting of the Political Committee concerned the question of whether or not the Arab states should put into effect a real military alliance. On the same day the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Egyptian Chamber of Deputies had discussed the ratification of the Arab collective security pact. Egypt had been the originator of the pact which although initialled by six of the seven Arab nations had only been ratified by Saudi-Arabia. The press deduced from these reports that Syria wanted to know where it stood in case the Israeli-Syrian conflict became more serious. Iraq had already offered any support Syria asked for and sent some military detachments and an anti-aircraft unit through Syrian territory to the Israeli border. The Acting Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Israel (Sharett), however, in an address to the Knesset Parliament in Jerusalem, warned the Political Committee that Israel was firmly resolved to defend every inch of her territory against encroachment or domination by Syria.

The Society of the Digital Swarm

2019 ◽  
pp. 95-110
Author(s):  
Daniel Toscano López
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Digital Communication ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Regimes ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Reality Principle ◽  
The Way

This chapter seeks to show how the society of the digital swarm we live in has changed the way individuals behave to the point that we have become Homo digitalis. These changes occur with information privatization, meaning that not only are we passive consumers, but we are also producers and issuers of digital communication. The overarching argument of this reflection is the disappearance of the “reality principle” in the political, economic, and social spheres. This text highlights that the loss of the reality principle is the effect of microblogging as a digital practice, the uses of which can either impoverish the space of people's experience to undermine the public space or achieve the mobilization of citizens against of the censorship of the traditional means of communication by authoritarian political regimes, such as the case of the Arab Spring in 2011.

9. Regionalism and Alliances in the Middle East

2019 ◽  
pp. 201-225
Author(s):  
Louise Fawcett
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Domestic Policy ◽  
External Influence ◽  
Regional Institutions ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Regional Trends ◽  
The Arab Spring

This chapter describes the changing dynamics of regionalism and alliance-making in the Middle East, processes that are closely related to and reflect states' foreign and domestic policy choices. The Middle East is not a region without regionalism at the societal or interstate level. There have been multiple forces for cooperation, particularly in the Arab world, based upon common identity, interests and beliefs; multiple alliances that intersect the Arab and non-Arab world; and evidence of cooperation in both broader and narrower regional settings like the Gulf. Global as well as regional trends and influences also push the Middle East into new arenas of cooperation. However, outcomes are mixed: an array of factors including regime insecurity, local rivalries, and external influence inhibit attempts at regional cooperation. Events since the Arab Spring have presented opportunities but also further challenges for Arab regional institutions as new divides and regional alignments emerge.

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