Violence and the Middle East

Bucknell Alternative Delegation

'Students Speak'

Forum on Campus Activism

ELC Forum January 26, 7pm

Announcement

News Related to class content:

President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order halting the issuance of visas to individuals from  countries seen as supporters of state terrorism.

Iran, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia 

Syrian refugees refused entry indefinitely. Current refugees being investigated

Additionally, The Refugee Admission program has also been halted.

New related to class content

9 senior level state department employees have resigned. 

Undersecretary for management: Patrick Kennedy

Assistant Secretary of State for Administration: Joyce Anne Barr

Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs: Michele Bond

Ambassador Gentry O. Smith: director of the Office of Foreign Missions.

Habit Bozarslan: Violence in the Middle East

Sociologist at the centre for sociological and political studies in France

violence has been under theorized across the social sciences. When it has been studied, particularly in the Middle East, it has been simplistically reduced to factors of culture, religion and economy.

Kurds and the PKK

Layla Zana

• The first Kurd to be elected to Parliament in Turkey
• Arrested for 10 years over suspicions that she supported the PKK

Lead by Abdullah Ocalan it has fought against the Turkish state in order to achieve autonomy and ultimately a state. 

Active from 1984- early 2000s. Leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured in 1999. During this insurgency, the south east of Turkey under a constant state of warfare. 

• more than 4,000 villages and Hamlets destroyed in the southeast
• more than 30,000 killed.

Since the Syrian Civil War:

• Rumors of Turkey allowing ISIS to cross Turkish-Syria border to fight Kurdish groups.

• Fall 2016:Members of the mainstream Kurdish People and Democracy Party (HDP) have been rounded up and accused of supporting the PKK. 

• Erdogan: "Europe aids Terrorism"

Israel-Palestine

State of Israel founded in 1948 over the objections indigenous Palestinian population

• Al Nakba: Catastrophe

The creation of Israel creates situation in which 750,000 Palestinians become refugees that fled and were actively displaced from their villages.

A partition of Israel and Palestine was agreed to by UN resolution in 1947. However, Palestine is not a state but under military occupation.

Military Occupation

Abdul Hamid Abu Srour

• 19 years old
• Lived in the Aida Refugee camp in the West Bank
• Killed himself in a suicide bombing in Jerusalem.

Last Week:

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the building of 2500 new settlements in the West Bank

In group conversations I want you to engage with the text around these three conceptual nodes:

• messianism
• Privatization of violence
• Class, religion, youth
• The reinvention of hope