How the War Was ‘One’: Countering violent extremism and the social dimensions of counter-terrorism in Canada.

The current global “war on terror” highlights a fundamental quandary for all liberal democracies seeking to counter the violent extremism of their own citizens while maintaining civic rights and freedoms. This challenge accompanies a transformation in international conflict from inter-state war and superpower rivalry, to homegrown terrorism, radicalization-to-violence, Internet propaganda, and targeting and recruitment of vulnerable persons. These new threats shift the battlefield, as traditionally defined, to the home front, as extremist violence is nurtured by and perpetrated within public spaces, such as schools, places of religious worship, civil society and the home. Today, violence emanates from within liberal democratic society and its extremist motivations bypass the very institutions that would otherwise support civic rights, freedoms and multiculturalism. As such, attempts to counter extremist violence must appeal to the political, social, cultural, religious and familial aspects of human behavior alongside a parallel shift in efforts to keep citizens safe within their own social spaces. In recent years, Canada has been introduced to home grown and lone individual terrorism with the cases of attack against armed forces personnel in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Ottawa in 2014. This article identifies the social dimensions of counter-terrorism in the Canadian context, a propitious case by which to evaluate different approaches to countering violent extremism. Canadian initiatives - simultaneously proliferating and in their infancy – raise a host of questions about counter-terrorism in liberal democratic countries. For example, why do individuals radicalize-to-violence in rights-based and multicultural societies? How and when can the liberal democratic state best temper the radicalization process in ways that are effective and procedurally just? What state-society balance works best to counter radicalized viewpoints? Who are the appropriate stakeholders in mounting and monitoring counter radicalization programs? What risks accompany government engagement with communities against terrorist activity? And what are the appropriate measures of success? These questions lay the groundwork for an empirical analysis of prevalent programs in Canada against the background of the “war on terror”, multiculturalism, racial profiling, community policing and other contemporary Canadian values

Redefining security in the Middle East

The end of the Cold War brought about fundamental shifts in the international political system, which many scholars believe have had ripple effects in the field of national security. Literature on security during the Cold War era was primarily focused on the military, the state system, and superpower rivalry. However, with the end of the Cold War, the theory and practice of security has been subject to widespread rethinking, taking into consideration a larger variety of issues that were previously neglected. A major dilemma is that this shifting attitude has been slow to reach the Middle east, one of the most volatile, yet strategic, regions of the Cold-War era. Nowhere is the need to redefine security more pressing than in the Middle east. This book attempts to fill that gap. The contributors to the volume come from a wide variety of backgrounds, but have a common interest in dialogue in support of peace in the Middle east and aim to put forward new concepts, new policies and new discourses about security. There is no singular alternative or magical approach put forward, but a broader terrain is propounded for discussion, debate and analysis of the possibilities and constraints for conflict and conflict resolution in the region. This book will be of vital use to students of the Middle east peace process, as well as students of conflict analysis and peace studies

Border collapse and boundary maintenance: militarisation and the micro-geographies of violence in Israel–Palestine

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Drawing upon subaltern geopolitics and feminist geography, this article explores how militarisation shapes micro-geographies of violence and occupation in Israel–Palestine. While accounts of spectacular and large-scale political violence dominate popular imaginaries and academic analyses in/of the region, a shift to the micro-scale foregrounds the relationship between power, politics and space at the level of everyday life. In the context of Israel–Palestine, micro-geographies have revealed dynamic strategies for ‘getting by’ or ‘dealing with’ the occupation, as practiced by Palestinian populations in the face of spatialised violence. However, this article considers how Jewish Israelis actively shape the spatial micro-politics of power within and along the borders of the Israeli state. Based on 12 months of ethnographic research in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem during 2010–2011, an analysis of everyday narratives illustrates how relations of violence, occupation and domination rely upon gendered dynamics of border collapse and boundary maintenance. Here, the borders between home front and battlefield break down at the same time as communal boundaries are reproduced, generating conditions of ‘total militarism’ wherein military interests and agendas are both actively and passively diffused. Through gendering the militarised micro-geographies of violence among Jewish Israelis, this article reveals how individuals construct, navigate and regulate the everyday spaces of occupation, detailing more precisely how macro political power endures.This work was supported by the SOAS, University of London; University of London Central Research Fund

Issues of Gender and Palestinian Citizenship: Women’s Activism from National Liberation to Interim Self-Government

This paper explores the ways in which institutional changes accompanying the transformative period from nationalism to interim self-government impact Palestinian women and their political struggles. The intention is to distinguish between categories of “woman” and “nationalist” in discussions about citizenship during the transition to “self-rule”. The main question I address is, what are the gendered implications of statebuilding and citizenship in Palestinian society? To answer this question, I rely predominantly upon issues and debates from material published by grassroots women’s organisations, including independent study centres and advocacy groups, along with interviews of organised women. Recent changes have had a differential impact on Palestinian men and women because of the penetration of long-standing networks of patriarchal power in the statebuilding process. They have also had a differential impact on Palestinian women depending upon their location on the political spectrum, i.e. as independents or as members of groups which support or oppose the PNA. The construction of citizenship is informed by experiences and discourses of national liberation, so I will begin by exploring the concept of gender in Palestinian nationalism, and then proceed to a discussion of women, statebuilding and citizenship in the Palestinian context

Gendered Nationalism and Palestinian Citizenship: Reconceptualizing the Role of Women in State Building

In this essay, I draw on the move to contextualize gender theory in order to set out theoretical boundaries around the study of Palestinian women and citizenship in this crucial stage of state building. By exploring the complexity, contradiction and overlap in secular and Islamist perspectives on women in the future state structure, I hope to contribute to recognition of the diversity in the concept of “Palestinian feminism”. I will begin my discussion by defining gender as an analytical concept in order to explore the different ways in which the category of “woman” has served as site of contestation in the Palestinian context. I will then use this concept as a tool with which to discuss patriarchal institutions and the diversity of reactions by Palestinian women

HOW THE WAR WAS ‘ONE’: COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM AND THE SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF COUNTER-TERRORISM IN CANADA.

The current global “war on terror” highlights a fundamental quandary for all liberal democracies seeking to counter the violent extremism of their own citizens while maintaining civic rights and freedoms. This challenge accompanies a transformation in international conflict from inter-state war and superpower rivalry, to homegrown terrorism, radicalization-to-violence, Internet propaganda, and targeting and recruitment of vulnerable persons. These new threats shift the battlefield, as traditionally defined, to the home front, as extremist violence is nurtured by and perpetrated within public spaces, such as schools, places of religious worship, civil society and the home. Today, violence emanates from within liberal democratic society and its extremist motivations bypass the very institutions that would otherwise support civic rights, freedoms and multiculturalism. As such, attempts to counter extremist violence must appeal to the political, social, cultural, religious and familial aspects of human behavior alongside a parallel shift in efforts to keep citizens safe within their own social spaces. In recent years, Canada has been introduced to home grown and lone individual terrorism with the cases of attack against armed forces personnel in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Ottawa in 2014. This article identifies the social dimensions of counter-terrorism in the Canadian context, a propitious case by which to evaluate different approaches to countering violent extremism. Canadian initiatives - simultaneously proliferating and in their infancy – raise a host of questions about counter-terrorism in liberal democratic countries. For example, why do individuals radicalize-to-violence in rights-based and multicultural societies? How and when can the liberal democratic state best temper the radicalization process in ways that are effective and procedurally just? What state-society balance works best to counter radicalized viewpoints? Who are the appropriate stakeholders in mounting and monitoring counter radicalization programs? What risks accompany government engagement with communities against terrorist activity? And what are the appropriate measures of success? These questions lay the groundwork for an empirical analysis of prevalent programs in Canada against the background of the “war on terror”, multiculturalism, racial profiling, community policing and other contemporary Canadian values

Redefining security in the Middle East

The end of the Cold War brought about fundamental shifts in the international political system, which many scholars believe have had ripple effects in the field of national security. Literature on security during the Cold War era was primarily focused on the military, the state system, and superpower rivalry. However, with the end of the Cold War, the theory and practice of security has been subject to widespread rethinking, taking into consideration a larger variety of issues that were previously neglected. A major dilemma is that this shifting attitude has been slow to reach the Middle east, one of the most volatile, yet strategic, regions of the Cold-War era. Nowhere is the need to redefine security more pressing than in the Middle east. This book attempts to fill that gap. The contributors to the volume come from a wide variety of backgrounds, but have a common interest in dialogue in support of peace in the Middle east and aim to put forward new concepts, new policies and new discourses about security. There is no singular alternative or magical approach put forward, but a broader terrain is propounded for discussion, debate and analysis of the possibilities and constraints for conflict and conflict resolution in the region. This book will be of vital use to students of the Middle east peace process, as well as students of conflict analysis and peace studies