Susan Musarrat Akram

Protecting Syrian Refugees: Laws, Policies, and Global Responsibility Sharing: Report Summary

This article provides an excerpt of a report that maps out how the Syrian refugee crisis is being played out in four of the main states hosting the refugees, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey. This excerpt focuses on the laws and policies in the host states and how they are creating particularly devastating consequences for Palestinian refugees. The excerpt sets out the Report’s conclusions and recommendations, primarily the call for a global Comprehensive Plan of Action ( CPA ), with various components within and outside the Middle East region that build on existing legal obligations to better allocate responsibility for the refugee population and lift the overwhelming and unsustainable burden from the current frontline host states. The conclusions and recommendations combine legal and policy measures that would allow close the Palestinian refugee ‘protection gap,’ stem the phenomenon of trafficking and disasters-at-sea, prevent further fallout of the Syrian humanitarian crisis, and create incentive amongst the larger community of states to intervene to end the regional conflict.

The Wall and the Law: A Tale of Two Judgements

Israels construction of a 670 kilometre wall and barrier through the West Bank and East Jerusalem has generated international political controversy, and two significant judicial rulings. In July 2004, the International Court of Justice issued its Advisory Opinion to the United Nations General Assembly, stating that the Separation Wall violated international human rights and humanitarian law, and proposing that Israel immediately dismantle it, with reparations to its victims. The week before, the Israeli Supreme Court released its decision in Beit Sourik Village Council vs Israel, finding that the Wall complied in principle with legal norms, but portions of it must be re-located to reduce avoidable harm to Palestinian villages. This article critically assesses the two decisions against the requirements of international law. It also tracks the response of the international community to Israels continued construction of the Wall in the aftermath of these two judicial rulings.

Aftermath: following the bloodshed of America’s wars in the Muslim world

Aftermath is the story of America’s latest imperial wars, told through the voices of those who have been victimised, dispossessed, displaced, wounded and embittered. It puts faces and voices to human beings whom America has reduced to numbers in the identity-based politicisation of the Middle East region. Rosen has deliberately eschewed the familiar tropes of ‘embedded’ journalists parroting the official line about the ‘US democracy project’ in Iraq and Afghanistan, or al-Qaida terrorism in the region, or ‘age-old Sunni-Shi’ite conflict’ in Iraq and Lebanon. Rosen embedded himself not in the US or other military, but in the homes, streets, mosques, churches and community centres of ordinary Iraqis, Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians and Jordanians. The entire book is based on firsthand interviews; there is not a single published source cited. This, more than any other aspect, is the value of Rosen’s work: he makes the everyday horrors of the US’s Middle East conflicts real through the voices of the people living there. From local politicians to salafi jihadists, to refugees, to slum dwellers, to Mahdi Army militiamen, to religious leaders, Rosen gives them reasons and histories that make their actions understandable, if not justifiable. This is not a book for the faint of heart or for novices on the history and politics of the Middle East. Without some understanding of the historical, cultural, religious and political underpinnings of the countries of the region, much of the book will be difficult to follow. Dense, detailed, meandering at times, following the tales of hundreds of people, it is sometimes even difficult for the Middle East specialist to keep track of who is saying what and why. Rosen begins his seven-year journey in Iraq in April 2003, a month after the US invasion. He relates the clash between the Iraqi people’s hopes for real liberation and the reality of the US’s ‘liberation’ project in Iraq. Despite the destruction of the initial invasion, there was widespread hope and even genuine goodwill on the part of many Iraqis towards the American invaders. The various Bush doctrines and the various US generals designated to carry them out are 425990 RAC53310.1177/0306396811425990ReviewsRace & Class