Phenomenal World Issue 1 is here: AMERICAN POWER With writing on ‘declinism,’ the dollar, the Donroe Doctrine, Iran, Cuba, Brazil, Venezuela, China, the Gulf, and more. Now all online— phenomenalworld.org/issue/issue-...
lb
@lbhungalia.bsky.social
Author of Elastic Empire | Associate Professor of Geography and International Studies @ UW-Madison https://www.sup.org/books/middle-east-studies/elastic-empire?tab=1
A brief history of America’s long war, oil/capital, and imperial decline in the Gulf. www.jadaliyya.com/Details/4730...
America, War, and Imperial Decline in the Gulf
The US–Israeli war on Iran is the latest phase of the United States’ long-war in the Persian Gulf, a fifty-year project to secure imperial power in a region defined as a “vital interest” since the 197...
jadaliyya.com
"The partition is simply another vehicle for annexation. This is no Marshall Plan for Palestinians, to say the least, but effectively a fire sale of their land and resources." An essay on how we got here from Aslı Ü. Bâli and Aziz Rana: www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
The Path to the Trump Doctrine
From Syria to Lebanon to Gaza, the coercion central to the new regime has been incubated in the Middle East.
bostonreview.net
If you've ever found your name on a list, or feared landing there, you're not alone. Today, doxxing is imbued with terrifying state powers, but it's an old strategy of deputization that has terrorized people for centuries. The power of lists is division, but we can draw from histories of refusal.
Boston Review@bostonreview.bsky.social · last yr.From runaway slave lists to Canary Mission, the state has long deputized citizens to enforce its will. New from Shiri Pasternak:
The ‘alphabet soup’ of databases on which CBP is drawing in airports to secondary search, detain and deport
The airport panopticon is getting people deported and detained
One lawyer called it a ‘feedback loop’ of surveillance.
theverge.com
NEW — Per Homeland Security & State Department sources, the Trump administration is staking its entire case to deport Mahmoud Kahlil not on whether he broke a law, but on Secretary of State Marco Rubio “personally” deciding Khalil would “compromise” US foreign policy.
Marco Rubio Personally Signed Off to Detain Mahmoud Khalil on 'Foreign Policy Grounds,' Sources Confirm
The government is staking its entire case to deport Khalil on whether Rubio “personally” thinks the Columbia student protest negotiator would “compromise” US foreign policy.
zeteo.com
The Elastic Empire framework can also allow us to avoid the traps set by the flaming dumpster fire of bipartisan politics & navigate the harms caused by the US as one that’s moves through various iterations/performances of imperialism.
Activism/academia: Not sure continuing to issue public statements, as if political conditions haven't shifted, is a great idea. US leftists have something to learn from activists operating in authoritarian and other openly violent spaces. (Photo: Eject resistance symbol. Artist: Asim Butt
So excited - congratulations, @lbhungalia.bsky.social! I think this might have been the very first book for which I was part of the acquisitions discussion at @stanfordpress.bsky.social; it knocked my socks off then, and knocks my socks off still. So pleased to see it gain this recognition.
Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA)@mesa1966.bsky.social · 2y agoThe #MESA2024 Albert Hourani Book Award Winner is Lisa Bhungalia for “Elastic Empire: Refashioning War through Aid in Palestine” (Stanford University Press). Read More [https://mesana.org/awards/awardee/mesa-book-awards/lisa-bhungalia]
Sednaya prison outside of Damascus is called the human slaughterhouse. The things that I read happened there will never leave me. Just the absolute most twisted things a human can come up with. The fact that we’re counting down the minutes to it being obliterated is beyond. Just incredible.
A book I’m very much looking forward to reading, “Elastic Empire: Refashioning War Through Aid in Palestine,” which recently received both the 2024 Albert Hourani Book Award and the 2024 Palestine Book Awards.
I made a starter pack of a motley crew of folks I enjoy. Let me know if you’d like to be added to this list (or taken off)! go.bsky.app/9yxgizB
Today the US vetoed a UNSC res calling for a ceasefire in Gaza marking the 49th time it has wielded its veto power against Israel-related UNSC draft resolutions & the 4th time in the past year The UNSC voted 14-1 in favor, the US being the only opposed www.middleeasteye.net/news/49-time...
This is an excellent interview with @lbhungalia.bsky.social on Israel’s war on UNRWA, and the weaponisation of aid as “asphyxiatory violence”. I also highly recommend the book Elastic Empire to anyone interested in humanitarianism and the politics of sanctions www.phenomenalworld.org/interviews/l...
Weaponizing Aid | Jack Gross & Dylan Saba
An interview with Lisa Bhungalia on UNRWA
phenomenalworld.org
The Knesset designating the UNRWA and the Biden admin entirely defunding it constitute asphyxiatory violence, a master class on the decisions and their horrific impact by @lbhungalia.bsky.social for @phenomenalworld.bsky.social www.phenomenalworld.org/interviews/l...
Weaponizing Aid | Jack Gross & Dylan Saba
An interview with Lisa Bhungalia on UNRWA
phenomenalworld.org
It is not only with weapons and vetoes at the UN Security Council, but also through aid, that the US inscribes its imperial influence on Palestine. I review Lisa Bhungalia's “Elastic Empire: Refashioning War through Aid in Palestine” for Informed Comment. www.juancole.com/2024/08/refa...
Refashioning War through Aid in Palestine - Elastic Empire
Review of Lisa Bhungalia, “Elastic Empire: Refashioning War through Aid in Palestine” (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2023). Munich, Germany (Special …
juancole.com
A smart, incisive convo w/ Kareem Rabie on everything from the combined and uneven spaces of colonisation and violence linking Gaza to Ramallah, to the function of genocide in SC, to how the present may be fracturing the status quo and to concur w/ Kareem, T. Friedman is indeed ‘a very stupid man’
Combined and Uneven Catastrophe | Joshua Craze
We need to see what is happening in the West Bank as part of a much longer story of Palestinian dispossession.
thebaffler.com
Some critical reads rn: Darryl Li on the Sinai solution in the early occupation period and its continued relevance t.ly/Ke0F_ Esmat Elhalaby on Gaza & historical through lines t.ly/ckLYX Neve Gordon on foreboding developments in the West Bank t.ly/HwjAW