AUGUST 2006

Date : 12-3 September 2006

Venue : Trinity College Dublin , IIIS Seminar Room, C6.002, Level 6, Arts Building . Conference Organisers: Dr Ronit Lentin , Department of Sociology/Coordinator IIIS Global Networks research group David Landy, Department of Sociology, Global Networks IIIS & Dr Karen Fricker, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, IIIS

Registration

Contact David Landy dlandy@tcd.ie with your Name, Address and Contact Email. Registration form.

Please register by 20 August 2006. Please make cheques / postal orders payable to TCD Account no. 1 , and send with completed registration form to David Landy, IIIS, Trinity College Dublin , Dublin 2, Ireland.

Enclosed please find a cheque / postal order for:

€70.00 (waged) / €20.00 (unwaged)

1. Conference Overview

This conference aims to theorise what the late Edward Said called ‘the question of Palestine ' in the context of globalisation. An inter-disciplinary group of Palestinian, Israeli, British, American and Irish scholars will explore and debate the ways in which the Palestinian experience of being governed under a ‘state of exception' may be theorised as paradigmatic for new forms of global governance. The state of exception is characterised, among other things, by the law being suspended in the ‘military order' issued by the executive arm of government, often bypassing the legislature.

The Palestinian scholar Hunaida Ghanem develops Georgio Agamben's Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998) and Foucault's Society Must be Defended (2003) to argue that the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine is based on the reduction of the occupied to biological subjects. In a biopolitics regime, while the life of the subject-citizen is protected by the state, the life of the occupied subject is akin to ‘bare life' that may be killed at the state's whim. Through the continuing existence of a series of emergency laws, the Israeli state regulates the lives of both its Palestinian citizens and of the Palestinians in the occupied territories. Thus Palestine , not only Palestinians under occupation, becomes the global state of exception par excellence .

The conference is part of the IIIS Global Networks project. Themes discussed will include the ‘Palestinisation' of ethnic and racial conflicts, the globalisation of the conflict, the theorisation of Palestine as a ‘state of exception' and the centrality of the memory of the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) to the contemporary understanding of the conflict.

2. Conference Programme

DAY 1

Tuesday 12 September 2006

14.30-15.00 Registration

15.00-15.15 Introduction: Dr Ronit Lentin, Department of Sociology, TCD

15.15-17.30 Session 1: Globalising the ‘Palestinian question' Prof David Theo Goldberg, US Director, Humanities Institute, University of California Irvine Racial Palestinisation

Dr Gargi Bhattacharyya , UK

Cultural Politics and Religion, University of Birmingham

Globalising racism and myths of the other in the war on terror

18.00-19.30 Screening of ‘Just married', a documentary by Ayelet Bechar

DAY 2

Wednesday 13 September 2006

9:00-10:45 : Session 2: Theorising the state of exception

Dr Hunaida Ghanem, Palestine Post-doctoral fellow, Harvard University .

Localising Bio-Power, Globalising Thanato-Politics

 Raef Zreik, Palestine Harvard Law School

Israeli Constitutionalism: The persistence of exception in the era of globalisation

10:45-11:15 : Coffee

11:15-13.00 : Session 3: Who speaks for Palestine – memory and its appropriation.

Dr Laleh Khalili, Iran/US , Political and International Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

‘Standing with My Brother': Hizbullah, Palestinians, and the Limits of Solidarity

Dr Ronit Lentin, Israel/Ireland

Department of Sociology / IIIS, Trinity College Dublin

Globalising the memory of dispossession: Commemorating the Palestinian Nakba

13,00-14:00: Lunch. During lunch there will be screenings of ‘Abu Dis report', and
‘Qalandiya Report' by Tamar Goldschmidt, Jerusalem .   www.mahsanmilim.com

14:00-15:45 : Session 4. Palestine in a globalised world

Dr Ilan Pappe, Israel Department of Political Science, and Emil Touma Centre, University of Haifa

Post Nationalism, Globalisation and the Palestinian Refugee Question Dr Ghada Karmi, Palestine/UK, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter

The global implications of politicising international aid to the Palestinians   

15:45-16:15 : Coffee

16:15 -18.00: Session 5. Palestine challenging state boundaries?

Dr Bobby Sayyid, UK

Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies, University of Leeds

Palestine and the Muslim Ummah: Palestine as a signifier of a global Muslim space

Dr Conor McCarthy , Ireland

Department of English, Mater Dei Institute, Dublin City University

The State, the Text and the Critic in a Globalized World: The case of Edward Said

3. Conference speakers and abstracts.

Dr Gargi Bhattacharyya

Cultural Politics and Religion, University of Birmingham

Globalising racism and myths of the other in the war on terror

Abstract : This paper will consider the global impact of the 'war on terror' on ideas of 'race' and racism and argue that state racisms across western nations borrow from Israeli depiction and suppression of Palestinians.

Dr Gargi Bhattacharyya is a senior lecturer in Cultural Politics and Religion at the University of Birmingham . She is author of Traffick: The Illicit Movement of People and Things (2005), Race and Power: Global Racism in the Twenty-First Century (with John Gabriel and Stephen Small, 2001), Sex and Society (2002), and Takes of Dark Skinned Women (1998).

Dr Hunaida Ghanem

Post-doctoral fellow, Harvard University

Localising Bio-Power, Globalising Thanato-Politics

Abstract: By exploring the case of Israel and the United States , this paper will conceptualise the politics of life management within the citizen spheres on the one hand and occupied spaces on the other. The main thesis of this paper is that these two states illustrate a paradigmatic case of interconnected states using technologies of power to localise bio-power while externalising thanato-politics, making it the main tool of maintaining the relation with the ‘other' in the era of globalisation.

Dr Hunaida Ghanem completed her PhD at Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University Jerusalem, and is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Harvard University .

Prof David Theo Goldberg

Director, Humanities Institute, University of California Irvine Racial Palestinisation

Abstract : Racial Palestinianization articulates the Zionist project historically as a constitutively racial one, assuming the global language of race from the nineteenth century on.   Israel in its current configuration accordingly is a racial state, bolstered genealogically by dominant racial states but elaborating a new modality of state expression in and through racial terms.  Racial palestinianization accordingly elaborates a new model of racial articulation, key elements of which are now being adapted by players in the global conception, circulation, and communication of exclusionary and exploitative commitments, often to deadly ends  

Prof David Theo Goldberg is the Director of the systemwide University of California Humanities Research Institute, and Professor of Comparative Literature and Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California , Irvine .  His authored books include The Racial State (2002), Racial Subjects: Writing on Race in America (1997) and Racist Culture: Philosophy and the Politics of Meaning (1993).  His edited books include Anatomy of Racism (1990), Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader (1995), Race Critical Theories (2001) and A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies (2002). His current book, The Threat of Race , will appear in 2007.

Dr Ghada Karmi

Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter

Ending the Middle East conflict: The Palestine/Israel global state

Abstract : This paper will argue that the current conflict in Lebanon has its roots in the failure to resolve the Israel-Palestine problem. Israel's previous invasions of Lebanon in 1978 and 1982 were designed to destroy the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Hizbullah came into being as a result of this, operating as a local resistance movement to Israeli occupation.
Events thereafter acquired their own logic in the battles between Israel's army and Hizbullah, which have persisted to this day. The coming radicalisation of more of the Arab and Muslim population against Israel is an inevitable consequence of Israel's policies against Lebanon, but its roots lie in the unresolved conflict with the Palestinians.
Had that conflict been resolved, Israel would gradually have become a part of the Middle East region and not a foreign implant armed to the teeth. The settlements proposed so far were inadequate for the purposes of a durable peace. The only option that stood any chance of achieving this was the one-state solution, in which both peoples would share the land without partition or internal borders. This would create a new relationship between the two peoples without the need for territorial boundaries to define its national identity, and thus can be a model for a state in a globalised world in which connectedness is not based on territorial considerations.

Dr Ghada Karmi is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter . She is a Palestinian academic and writer who worked last year as an information consultant to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Her memoir , In search of Fatima , was published by Verso Press in 2002 . Her previous book (co-edited with Eugene Cotran) is The Palestinian Exodus, 1948-1998 (Ithaca Press, 1999).

Dr Laleh Khalili

Political and International Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

‘Standing with My Brother': Hizbullah, Palestinians, and the Limits of Solidarity

Abstract : This paper analyses various facets of the solidary relations between Hizbullah and Palestinians. Political actors increasingly invoke solidarity to explain transnational community of interests, aspirations and goals. The complex and dynamic relationship between the Lebanese Hizbullah and Palestinians –refugees in Lebanon or militants in Palestine– is fluid and can take on a variety of forms. Sometimes, Hizbullah acts as an ally, altruistically providing services to Palestinian refugees, or proffering its media apparatuses for reproducing Palestinian nationalist discourse and waging psychological warfare against their common adversary, Israel . Provision of financial and logistical support to militants in Palestine , as well as support for refugee civil rights in Lebanon are also elements of this alliance. At other times, in order to forge a united militant front throughout the Middle East , it pressures its allies toward further radicalisation of its tactics of struggle. However, Hizbullah's role and character are changing, and as it becomes more focused on local politics, the less moral or material authority it exercises over Palestinians and the closer their relation will be to an alliance based on equality and solidary sentiment.

Dr Laleh Khalili is a lecturer in Politics and International Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies.  Her book, Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration is to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2007.

Dr Ronit Lentin

Department of Sociology / IIIS, Trinity College Dublin

Globalising the memory of dispossession: Commemorating the Palestinian Nakba

Abstract : In the era of Truth and Reconciliation Committees, the issue of commemorating political trauma has assumed global dimensions. In the Israeli-Palestinian context, commemorating the Holocaust on the one hand and the Palestinian Nakba (1948 catastrophe) on the other are contested loci of political struggle. There are several non-state peace and dialogue networks in the Israeli-Palestinian context, based on globalisation from below, attempting to create fora for dialogue in the midst of the ongoing conflict. This paper explores the work of Zochrot, an Israeli network of intellectuals dedicated to commemorating the Palestinian Nakba, and poses pertinent questions about the global implications of commemorating political trauma.

Dr Ronit Lentin is director of the MPhil in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Department of Sociology, and coordinator of the Global Networks project at the Institute of International Integration Studies , Trinity College Dublin. Her books include Conversations with Palestinian Women (1982), Gender and Catastrophe (1997), Israel and the Daughters of the Shoah: Reoccupying the Territories of Silence (2000), Racism and Anti-racism in Ireland (with Robbie McVeigh, 2002), Women and the Politics of Military Confrontation: Palestinian and Israeli Gendered Narratives of Dislocation (with Nahla Abdo 2002), Re-presenting the Shoah for the 21st Century (2004), After Optimism? Ireland , Globalisation and Racism (with Robbie McVeigh, 2006), and Race and State (with Alana Lentin, 2006).

Dr Conor McCarthy

Department of English, Mater Dei Institute, Dublin City University

The State, the Text and the Critic in a Globalized World: The case of Edward Said
Abstract This paper will examine the figuration of the state in the work of Edward Said, both in relation to Israel and Palestine , and to the global context.  Said considered that one of the primary tasks of the critic was to make visible, in places as different as literary texts and planning policy, the putatively invisible and incremental violence of the state.  Accordingly, this paper will examine how he carried that task forward in his own work, and will consider how that work might be articulated with current global paradigms of state violence and authority as figured in the work of Schmitt and Agamben.

Dr Conor McCarthy lectures in Irish Studies at the Mater Dei Institute of Education, Dublin City University . He is the author of Modernisation, Crisis and Culture in Ireland 1969-1992 (Four Courts Press, 2000).

Dr Ilan Pappe, Department of Political Science, and Emil Touma Centre, University of Haifa , Israel

Post Nationalism, Globalization and the Palestinian Refugee Question

Abstract : The refugee issue is still recognised as the root of the Israeli-Arab conflict and the positions of both the Israeli and Palestinian side on it have not changed since 1948 and are still the major stumbling blocks for peace in the torn land of Palestine and Israel .

Hitherto, the discussion focused on rights: Palestinian demand for the implementation of these rights and Israeli rejection. I propose to look at the future of the Palestinian refugees within the context of the dialectical uneasy relationship between localism and globalism in Palestine and Israel .

A post-nationalist vision, should it be adopted by Israelis and Palestinians, would regard the return of the refugees not as a ‘demographic threat' but as a natural part of a globalised world, where people move back to their countries of origins once the political situation stabilises or the economic situation improves (see Ireland for example). It would be also part of the one world that Edward Said talked about in Culture and Imperialism , where the global community acknowledges the past structures of power, indeed of oppression and colonialism as part of the construction of a new relationship between victim and victimiser. The recognition of the Right of Return is such an acknowledgement and the actual return itself is an act of accountability that is part of a reconciliation process that saves the warring parties from sinking into, indeed indulging in, perpetuated emotions of revenge and retribution.

Indeed more than in any other time in history, our globalised world makes the return of Palestinians to Palestine accessible, possible and varied. Coming back to visit, to live part of the year or to settle is an individual choice that would lack any political significance providing a one state political structure is put forward as the ideal solution for the question of Palestine .

This paper will end by arguing that the two states solution allows globalisation to affect Palestine and Israel most negatively, whereas the one state solution allows the communities who share the land to benefit from the globalised world of the 21 st century, a world that offers a variety of human cohabitation as immigrants, guest workers, native population and returnees.

Dr Ilan Pappe is a senior lecturer in the department of Political Science, Haifa University. He is the chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Affairs in Haifa . He is the author of several books on the history of Palestine , including The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947-1951 (London and New York 1992) and A History of Modern Palestine ; One Country, Two Peoples (Cambridge 2003).

Dr Bobby Sayyid

Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies, University of Leeds

Palestine and the Muslim Ummah: Palestine as a signifier of a global Muslim space

Abstract : Palestine is key signifier in the circuit of what increasingly constitutes a global Muslim public space.  Among Muslims the conflict in Palestine tends to be read increasingly through an anti-Zionist register; this is he case even among Muslim populations who are geographically and culturally faraway from the epicentre of the conflict.  The circulation of the signifier of Palestine and its cognates helps structure a global Muslim subjectivity. It provides a common narrative which is not theological or historical, but contemporary; its contemporarity helps sustain the articulation of a Muslim identity as political act.  The significance of the Palestine conflict transcends national and regional boundaries and illustrates the global extent of political mobilisation of Muslims. We are clearly not witnessing a conflict between the forces of globalisation and narrow "ethnic" provincialism, but rather a complex relationship between two forms of globality: one centred on what Shaw calls ‘the Western conglomerate state' and the other a series of mobilisations organised around the name of Islam.  In this latter form of globality, Palestine becomes a marker of an alternative globalisation. 

Dr Bobby Sayyid is a Research Fellow in ‘Race', ethnicity and postcolonialism at the Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies (CERS), University of Leeds . Among his books is A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism (Zed Books 2003, 2 nd edition), and A Postcolonial People: South Asians in Britain (with Nasreen Ali and Virinder Karla, Hurst, 2006).

Raef Zreik Harvard Law School

Israeli Constitutionalism: The persistence of exception in the era of globalisation

Abstract : One of the main themes that dominate the globalisation discourses in the last few decades is the question of Human Rights and the rule of law. The World Bank, WTO and many other international bodies demand compliance with these standards as a precondition for granting financial assistance. Here there is a celebration of the moment of rule: the rule of law is after all the law of rules. At the same time, the question of the rule of law is constantly being raised in the last few years, particularly after September 11, 2001 and the so-called war on terrorism - regarding the status of war prisoners, or suspects of terror activities. Many countries, led by the US deploy the rhetoric of exception to situate these people beyond any normative regime, signifying a celebration of the moment of exception.

This paper will focus on Israeli constitutionalism through the dynamic of nationalism and constitutionalim as manifested by the duality of rule (constitution) and exception (the nation).The point of departure is Kelsen-Schmitt debates about norm and exception. The paper will ask when is the rhetoric of rules deployed and when does the rhetoric of exception prevail? What is the politics of this oscillation and kind of power relations that it aims to hide? The study of the case of Israel and Israeli constitutionalism will serve as a test case of the increasingly globalised process of what might be called "the politics of rule and exception".

Raef Zreik is a writing his SJD thesis at Harvard law school. He holds an LLM from both Columbia Law School and the Hebrew University and an LLB from the Hebrew University . Practiced law for several years in Israel and as a political activist, he established several NGOs that deal with human rights issues. Among his publication are " Palestine as Exile: Notes on the Dialectic of Sameness and Difference" ( Global Jurists ), “Palestinian question: Themes of power and justice" ( Journal of Palestine Studies ) and Exist from the scene (Forthcoming, Ashgate Press). He has published articles on citizenship, identity and space.

Just Married , by Ayelet Bechar, Israel 2005. 71 minutes. NOGA, Channel 8.

Two Palestinian couples fall in love and marry, knowing they will not be allowed to live legally in Israel because of its new Law of Citizenship. Kifah, who holds an Israeli ID, decided to marry a Palestinian from Gaza . She organises a wedding party – without the groom. Suhad, a student from Bethlehem , marries Rabi'a from Jerusalem . After the wedding, she becomes an illegal resident in Israel . The film won the Wolgin Award for Best Editing, Jerusalem Film Festival, 2005, and the Best Documentary Film, International Women Film Festival, Israel 2005.

mahsanmilim - reports from the west bank : a birth at Qalandiya checkpoint, soldiers abusing peddlers trying to make a living, old women crawling in order to pass a concrete wall built in Abu Dis splitting it, and with it people's lives and families, a queue and soldiers with pointed guns, harassment and endurance, and a child selling gum since before he was five, a poem written and read by a cancer ridden man on a mount of rubble there to make people's life miserable just because they are Palestinians. Testimonies, reports, filmed and written, films, video segments, thoughts and stories. 

www.mahsanmilim.com

Respondents / discussants:

•  Anaheed Al-Hardan, Near and Middle Eastern Studies , School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

•  David Landy, Department of Sociology, TCD

•  Nitza Aminov, Political activist, Jerusalem.

4. Registration

Contact David Landy dlandy@tcd.ie with your Name, Address and Contact Email. Registration form.

Please register by 20 August 2006. Please make cheques / postal orders payable to TCD Account no. 1 , and send with completed registration form to David Landy, IIIS, Trinity College Dublin , Dublin 2, Ireland.

Enclosed please find a cheque / postal order for:

€70.00 (waged) / €20.00 (unwaged)

5. Directions and accommodation

Conference Directions
IIIS Map
Dublin maps 1 2 3

Accommodation
In relation to booking accommodation for this conference, attendees may find the following links useful:
Accommodation listings
http://www.visitdublin.com/


Further Information

Dr Ronit Lentin
Department of Sociology / IIIS
Tel: 00 353 1 608 2766
Email: rlentin@tcd.ie

David Landy
Department of Sociology / IIIS
Tel: 00 353 1 608 3200
Email: dlandy@tcd.ie