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American writer Andy Griffith once stated, “Whether a man is guilty or innocent, we have to find that out by due process of law.” For anyone who lives in a democratic society, these basic principles are a given but following Israel’s detention of Lara Alqasem, it appears as though the international media pushed those principles aside.
After Israel detained Lara Alqasem at Ben-Gurion Airport, numerous media outlets across the globe were up in arms.

The Huffington Post called the move anti-democratic. Salon Magazine claimed that her detention goes against the “Jewish liberal tradition.” The Independent stated that detaining Alqasem was an attack on her academic freedom.
However, now since the Israeli Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Alqasem, what do such critics have to say? Do they still view Israel as an anti-democratic state fighting against the Jewish liberal tradition who attacks the academic freedom of any potential critic?

The international media did not behave fairly towards Israel. The Israeli Knesset passed a BDS Law, which barred foreigners active in the BDS Movement from coming to the State of Israel. Israel passed this law because frequently in the past, BDS supporters would come and engage in hostile actions towards the country. It was a law that was passed by a democratic government, who is presently fighting a war against terrorism. When a nation is at war, it is common to pass such laws.

Israel does not ban individuals based on religion and nationality. For Israel, all that mattered was the fact that she served as President of the Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Florida, which supports BDS. During her tenure, she held an event in support of Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh and promoted the boycott of Sabra Hummus. Given the present political situation in Israel and also the passage of the BDS Law, it was only natural that Alqasem would be detained.

However, even though Israel had every reason in the book to deport her immediately, the State of Israel gave her the right to appeal her deportation all the way to the Israeli Supreme Court and Alqasem was given legal representation. Ultimately, she was successful in her desire to study in Israel because she claimed her support of the BDS Movement was a thing of the past.

According to the Times of Israel, Alqasem erased her social media account in order to hide current support for the BDS Movement. Dr. Dana Barnett, who heads Israel Academia Monitor, a group that monitors anti-Israel activities within academia, also noted how problematic it was for Alqasem’s supporters in the Israeli Supreme Court to argue that the fact that she wished to study in Israel was proof that she was not a supporter of the BDS Movement anymore since BDS Movement co-founder Omar Barghouti studied ethics in the philosophy department at Tel Aviv University. In addition, she proclaimed that Kobi Snitz of BDS from Within, Dr. Neve Gordon, Dr. Rachel Giora and Dr. Anat Matar all advocated in favor of BDS while being part of Israeli universities: “Using Israeli products and services does not stop BDS activists from calling for BDS.”

But these facts were all ignored by the Israeli Supreme Court, who wished to give Alqasem the benefit of the doubt since she was a young student activist and not one of the main leaders of the BDS Movement. This demonstrates that Israel is a democratic country which honors the liberal Jewish tradition and respects the academic freedom of its critics.

The post Op-Ed: Lara Alqassem verdict highlights Israel’s vibrant democracy appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro de printemps de Politique étrangère (n°3/2018). Céline Marangé propose une analyse de l’ouvrage de Shaun Walker, The Long Hangover: Putin’s New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past (Oxford University Press, 2018, 288 pages).

Voici un essai sur le poids de l’histoire en Russie et en Ukraine. Son auteur s’interroge sur les « fantômes du passé » (la « longue gueule de bois »…) qui hantent les mémoires et tourmentent les vivants : les ivresses idéologiques et les excès de violence du XXe siècle taraudent encore les consciences. Correspondant du Guardian à Moscou, Shaun Walker cherche moins à développer une argumentation serrée qu’à rassembler des témoignages évocateurs. D’une plume alerte, il brosse une succession de portraits qui composent un tableau d’ensemble.

La première partie explore les ambiguïtés du rapport au passé à partir de quatre événements traumatiques de l’histoire russe contemporaine. Elle montre que l’importance accordée par Vladimir Poutine à la restauration de l’État russe entrave le travail de mémoire et contribue à imposer une histoire officielle. La fétichisation de l’État empêche, en effet, de reconnaître sa nature criminelle à l’époque stalinienne.

Le premier chapitre illustre la perte de repères induite par l’effondrement du communisme et l’implosion de l’Union soviétique. Le deuxième s’intéresse à la mémorialisation de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, objet d’un réinvestissement politique croissant. En atteste la fête du 9 mai qui commémore la victoire sur l’Allemagne nazie avec toujours plus de pompe depuis l’époque brejnévienne, alors que cette journée était auparavant réservée au souvenir des morts. Le troisième chapitre évoque l’écharde tchétchène et son histoire. Il montre comment de la deuxième guerre de Tchétchénie émerge un nouveau contrat social, fondé non seulement sur l’amnistie de milliers de combattants en échange d’une loyauté quasi-féodale à l’égard du président russe, mais aussi sur deux amnésies imposées, celle de la déportation et celle des guerres récentes.

Le quatrième chapitre, sans doute le plus touchant, porte sur la mémoire des répressions staliniennes à partir de l’exemple de la Kolyma. L’auteur cherche – presque en vain – dans la région des traces de ce passé, d’abord à Magadan, puis sur la « route des os ». Il croise le chemin de personnages tragiques tout droit sortis d’un roman de Dostoïevski : Oleg le chauffeur, Panikarov le collectionneur, Olga l’Ukrainienne, déportée sans raison en 1946 et libérée en 1956 avec interdiction de rejoindre sa terre natale. Chacun à sa manière témoigne de l’extrême difficulté que les survivants et les descendants éprouvent à affronter un passé lancinant.

La deuxième partie du livre éclaire les antagonismes du présent à la lueur du passé. Elle montre que les conflits autour de l’Ukraine s’enracinent dans des expériences historiques et des visions opposées du passé. L’auteur revient sur l’histoire de l’Ukraine dans l’entre-deux-guerres puis expose comment, dans les années 2000, le président Iouchtchenko a instrumentalisé la politique de la mémoire et réhabilité des figures controversées pour conjurer sa baisse de popularité.

Particulièrement éclairant, le chapitre sur les Tatars de Crimée explique l’attitude inébranlable des dirigeants tatars après l’annexion de la Crimée à la lumière de l’histoire longue de leur peuple, floué par le pouvoir impérial russe au XVIIIe siècle et déporté par les autorités soviétiques en 1944. Les derniers chapitres décrivent la spirale de la violence et la nostalgie de l’Union soviétique qui ont conduit à la déstabilisation du Donbass.

Toute personne intéressée par la culture politique russe devrait lire ces pages qui offrent, de manière vivante et incarnée, une réflexion sur l’imbrication du passé et du présent.

Céline Marangé

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Following complaints by two French Muslim women, fined for wearing a full-body veil or niqab, a UN Committee of independent human rights experts ruled in their favour on Tuesday, stating that their freedom to practice their religion had been infringed.

Joint Session on Congress, 2017 (Wikipedia)

United States foreign policy has lacked an aspirational guiding principle for a generation.  One reason might be the historic volatility of political parties, unlike anything in the past century.

United States foreign policy has a record of long-term trends that depend in part on the political parties in power.  During the Cold War, for example, Congressional Democrats were sometimes considered “softer” than “hardline, anti-Communist” Republicans. The President is the primary source of modern U.S. foreign policy.  FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan: these men drove American foreign policy and thereby much of world politics for the half-century during and after World War II.

The Presidency rotated between political parties fairly regularly after World War II. Democrats filled the White House (from 1933) until 1953. Then it was Republicans for eight years, Democrats for eight years, Republicans again for eight years, Democrat Jimmy Carter for four years, and Republicans for the last decade of the Cold War.

But the party caricatures of strong Republicans and soft Democrats were not always complete pictures.  Truman, a Democrat, led the Korean War. Kennedy, a Democrat, (unsuccessfully) invaded Cuba  and (successfully) faced down Soviet premier Khrushchev in the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Meanwhile Nixon, a Republican, initiated détente with the Soviet Union and established diplomatic relations with Communist China.

Presidential administrations came and went with some regularity. From Truman through G.H.W. Bush, the average presidency lasted just over five years.  But Congressional leaders lasted in power for decades.

In the Senate, John Stennis (1947-1989) and Russell Long (1948-1987) served for approximately the entire Cold War.  Warren Magnuson and Milton Young served from the end of World War II into the early 1980s.  Robert Byrd, Daniel Inouye, Strom Thurmond, Edward Kennedy, James Eastland, Quentin Burdick, William Proxmire, and Clairborne Pell each served in the Senate for all or nearly all of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (and in most cases, beyond that).  Richard Russell, Ted Stevens, Ernest Hollings, A. Willis Robertson, Clifford Case, Margaret Chase Smith, Jacob Javits, and Carl Hayden all served for at least 20 years of the Cold War.  Of these 20 Senators, 14 were Democrats.

In the House, Democrats held the majority almost the entire Cold War.  After the 1948 elections, Republicans held the majority only in 1953 and 1954.  At least 46 members of the House of Representatives, mostly Democrats, were in office for at least 30 years between 1947 and 1990.  Another six men make the 30-year mark with combined House-Senate service.

In short, the lack of volatility in the House and Senate during the Cold War contributed to a remarkable continuity in Congress’s membership – and leadership.  The Senate was led by just three Democrats – Lyndon Johnson, Mike Mansfield, and Robert Byrd, for most of the Cold War.  Of the seven Speakers of the House from 1947 to 1990, only one was a Republican, for just two two-year terms, 1947-1949 and 1953-1955.

Historical Volatility

The question of continuity and volatility of political parties can be seen from a longer time frame as well.  The back-and-forth changes of party control in Congress and the White House seen during the past decade are unlike anything in the last hundred years.

From 1914 through 2016, there were 52 presidential-year or mid-term elections.  From 1914 through 1990, a party in control of the White House, Senate, or House of Representatives lost at least one of those in 13 of those 39 elections.  From 1992 to 2016, a party lost control of at least one of these bodies in nine of those 13 elections.  If the Democrats win the House in 2018, as is largely expected, that would be a change in party control in 10 of the last 14 elections.  That is, a change in party control of the presidency, Senate, or House (or a combination) in 33 percent of the elections from 1914 to 1990, and in 70 percent of the elections since 1992.

From 2006 to 2016, a party has lost one of these in five of those six elections (83 percent).  If the House flips to Democrats in 2018, that would be changes in six changes in the last seven elections (86 percent).

There is no comparable volatility in the last hundred years.  The closest comparison is the decade after World War II.  Compared to the results of the previous election, both the House and Senate flipped parties in 1946, 1948, 1952, and 1954 – four out of five elections, and the White House flipped in 1952. In the decade after the 1944 election, World War II ended, the Cold War began, and the Korean War was fought for three years. The Soviets launched a successful nuclear weapons test, Mao turned China communist, and the U.S. was involved in the overthrow of regimes in Iran and Guatemala.  Truman integrated the military, and the Supreme Court decided Brown vs Board of Education.  It was a period of sharp economic swings, with short periods of GDP growth over five and even ten percent, followed by sharp economic contractions.

The electoral volatility since 2006 has some possible explanations as well.  After the attacks of September 11, 2001, Republicans were re-elected in Congress in 2002 (restoring their 2000 Senate victory temporarily lost by the switch of Jim Jeffords to the Democrats) and to the White House in 2004. But the following elections were influenced by increasingly unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the election of the country’s African-American president during an historic financial crisis, and the rise of TEA Party intra-Republican divisions during the subsequent recession.  Immigration and identity politics emerged as important issues.  Candidates Obama and Trump campaigned relatively independent from their national party organizations, and in their own ways were social media innovators.  Party favorites like Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton struggled.  #NeverTrump Republicans and Clinton’s 2016 battle against “outsider” Bernie Sanders revealed prominent intra-party divisions in both parties.  Whichever party wins in November 2018, in January 2019 Congress will have its fourth change in Speaker of the House in 12 years.

Implications of Party Volatility

This sharp – and sustained – rise in volatility among party control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives raises a number of questions for further inquiry.  What causes these periods of volatility – seen after World War II and in the past ten years? Is this a temporary phenomenon, or a “new normal”? What are the implications – including for American foreign policy – of this volatility?  Some of these answers might include analysis that the United States has had difficulty building and advancing a positive, cohesive, big-picture, aspirational foreign policy because it has lacked – among other things, institutional continuity.

Photo: Wikipedia via Speaker.gov

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