Israel

Human rights situation in the Middle East (ME) is a central concern in contemporary political as well as academic discourses. There is a considerable amount of literature on the subject, both academic and journalistic, in the Western world. A large part of that literature blames the ME in different ways for its ‘terrible’ conception and treatment of human rights norms. They typically, do not hesitate to contextualise it as ‘Middle Eastern’ phenomenon. It is fascinating, though, that such contextualization is proposed predominantly without a substantial and appropriate context analysis. In this article, a context analysis is conducted, adopting an Area Studies Approach to identify the major features of a Middle Eastern context where human rights norms experience the region’s realities. As a result, four particular items, Islam, oil, Islamic-Western relations, and Israel are proposed as the main factors that form the real context of human rights in the Middle East. This analysis demonstrates that the influential causes of human rights violations in the ME are from both internal and external sources. The internal sources are highlighted in the dominant works of the field. It is interesting, however, that these works largely ignore the external ones. The nature of external factors, Western or attached to Western treatment of the Middle East might reveal the real motivations behind such remarkable overlooking.

Research on the special relationship between the United States and Israel has usually been focused on strategic aspects, whilst fewer scholars have focused on non-material dimensions of the relationship. In addition, the existing research is mostly confined to the political and decision-making realms, with very few excursions into the academic arena. The current article aims to fill this lacuna through the study of pro-Israel academic discourse in America, focusing on the specific case of the field of terrorism studies. Critical discourse analysis of pro-Israel academic texts in this field is carried out to reveal the discourse, themes and arguments used to build this ideational pillar of the special relationship and move towards a common identity between the US and Israel. The common ingroup identity model (CIIM) is used to describe the process through which a common identity is constructed. The article concludes that defining the Self, defining the Other, and defining the norms are the three main strategies employed in the studied texts to achieve this goal.

This study intends to review Israel's efforts to increase political and economic relations with Arab countries. It is clear that most Arab countries did not have any ties with Israel since the 1980s, and only two Egyptian states had established political relations with Israel since the 1973 war. But over the past few years, and especially after the start of the third millennium, a new trend has been formed by the Israeli authorities, which is still ongoing. This exit-isolation process is aimed at establishing friendships with Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and other Arab league members. However, the occurrence of the Islamic Revolution and the initiation of a new ideology in the Middle East brought the new Israeli regional strategy closer to speed, and Iran gradually became the main enemy of the two sides’ in the third millen-nium. It seems that the Arab countries have forgotten their aspirations towards the Pal-estinian people and help Israel achieve its goals.

The end of Cold War created a unique opportunity for both the Arabs and Israelis to end their animosity and for the United States to play an important role to bring them to peace negotiations. Therefore, during the 1990s, the U.S. facilitated several rounds of talks between Syria and Israel, but the negotiations complicated gradually. The talks were stalled over the fact that Israel did not want to withdraw from the Golan Heights prior to concluding security arrangements and normalization of relations with Syria. There were variety of reasons that prevented Syria and Israel from reaching a peace agreement. Besides, unresolved issues such as the Golan Heights, the biased role of the United States in the Syrian-Israeli talks left the process at an intractable impasse. The fact that the U.S. had strategic relations with Israel and due to the increasing power of the Zionist lobby in the U.S. Congress, Washington failed to be an honest broker. Both Syrian and Israeli inflexibility, mutual mistrust and suspicious along with tentative and conditional nature of talks were proved hindrances. The U.S. could play an active role through urging both Damascus and Tel Aviv to comply with the basic and logical needs of peace, pushing the Israelis to withdraw from the Syrian territory, urging the Syrians to moderate their positions-allowing new demarcation of border-strengthening confidence-building measures between the parties and assuring them that peace will provide their basic needs, and in no way will the conflict be settled at the expense of either’s interests.

The inhuman acts of Israel in the Gaza Strip (2008-9) have seriously violated the international humanitarian law.International documents such as the Geneva Convention (IV) and Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions (II) relating to protecting civilians during armed conflicts have clearly indicated violation of humanitarian law during Israeli’s deadly offensive at the turn of the year. Under these laws and other documents such as Convention on the Rights of the Child, the crimes and violence against Gaza’s children created a particular form of inhuman acts. Also, in accordance with the statute of International Criminal Court, the Israeli onslaught can be called as war crimes and genocide. Considering the violation of fundamental human rights of Gazans in all circumstances, the prosecution of persons who committed the crimes are possible regardless of their nationality or ratification of treaties and conventions.

The significance of the role of interest groups in domestic politics in the US and EU countries is an undeniable fact. Lobbies, as a kind of interest group, play a crucial role in shaping the foreign policy of western countries. Israeli lobbies increasingly seek to transform the US and EU approaches in the Middle East in favor of Israel interests. In cooperation with their American counterparts, Israeli lobbyists struggle to strengthen their political presence in the EU states to ensure the achievement of their political aims. This article tries to explore these lobbyists’ objectives and activities in recent years across Europe. Findings indicate that they are committed to fighting anti-Semitism in Europe, to inhibit the growth of the BDS movement, to deviate the peace process in the Middle East from its normal path and toward Israel interests, to persuade EU leaders to take strict measures against Iran and the last, but not the least, to delegitimize Iran and Hezbollah in EU institutions and provoke EU states to recognize Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. This article basically seeks to explore the reasons behind Israelis’ efforts to establish Jewish lobbies across Europe. . To answer the research question, a case study of Israeli lobbies, established by influential Jews in the EU countries, is conducted.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the complicated crises that traces back to nearly a century ago. It caused severe challenges and brought about disastrous consequences both for the Middle East region and the conflicting parties. Numerous attempts have taken place so far by different states, organizations and individuals to establish a lasting and comprehensive peace in this conflict, but given the intransigence positions of the conflicting parties, the attempts were futile and still there is no light at the end of this tunnel. The limitations of the realistic viewpoint that dominates the conflict and considers its signs rather than its root causes, made us tackle the issue through a proper, more appropriate approach.. To us, critical studies, particularly the emancipation approach which goes beyond the realistic limitations, deliberates the contemporary and historical conditions together with its nature and tries to remove situations leading to the conflict is a more viable strategy to achieve a lasting peace.

The AKP’s policy towards Palestine is the main core of this article. The Turkish authorities have tried to play as the mediator in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and have attempted through various political and economic initiatives to support a peace agreement between both sides. However, after the 2008 Gaza war, the AKP government’s foreign policy stance towards Israel began to change, at least officially. This war, alongside to other events such as 2009 Davos, the 2010 Low Chair and the 2010 Mavi Marmara, produced a public political conflict in the Turkish-Israeli relations. This tension extended from the 2008 Gaza war until the normalization deal between the two countries in June 2016. But this political tension did not have very impact on the other current fields of cooperation between Ankara and Tel Aviv. This emphasizes clearly that both countries were pragmatic in maintaining efficient and strategic ties. The major research question can be stated as the following: What has been the Turkish government's policy on the Palestinian issue between 2002-2020? In addition we want to assess the proximity and distance of Turkey's policies from Iranian perspectives and positions.

This article aims at examining Russia's relations with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Moscow's motives and goals for the establishment and enhancement of those ties. We explore Russia's worldview to position the Middle East and Hamas in a pre-established frame, subsequently examining the reasons behind the development of these relationships. This article sets out to answer a two-fold question: What has been Russia's aim of receiving Hamas leaders and establishing high-level relations with this movement since 2006, and what components have influenced these interactions at international and regional levels? The paper argues that Russia considers its relations with Muslim nations and movements not only a foreign policy principle but also a domestic issue. Hence, it seeks to take advantage of the U.S. retrenchment from the region to expand its influence, play a mediatory role in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and elevate its reputation among Muslims inside and outside the country. Recognizing Hamas' position, Russia resolved to develop its ties with Hamas' leaders, started negotiating with all the parties in the Palestinian national reconciliation process, and provided political, economic, cultural, financial, and security support to eventually affect Hamas' stance vis-à-vis Israel.

US- Iran relations were special and strategic ones and after the Islamic revolution and upon suspension of diplomatic ties, these relations were replaced by a sustainable enmity and hate even after four decades. This matter is unique in the history of diplomatic relations. Based on the direct and face to face negotiations between Iran and the United States regarding nuclear issues in the 11th government, the necessity of the analysis of the factors contributing to the continuous conflicts between two countries has attracted the attention of the researchers and scientists in the field of international relations and has posed the question as to why even four decades after Islamic Revolution, the two countries have failed to establish a rational, logical and free from slogan relations. This question can be addressed from various viewpoints including nuclear deal, terrorism, Middle East peace process and human rights. The aim of the present study is to investigate the role of the human rights’ issue and its effect on the US – Iran relations, with a descriptive-analytical manner, hypothesizing that this issue has no noticeable weight and importance in the continuous conflict between two countries .To confirm this hypothesis, human rights situations in Pahlavi era are considered and compared with similar situations in Islamic Republic, and then their contribution to the US – Iran relations is analyzed . A historical - analytical method is used to explain the evidences and findings .

According to Article 7 of the Rome Statute, the crime of Apartheid refers to actions, policies, and courses of conduct with the purpose of maintaining an institutionalized regime of systematic racism and racial domination. Based on this definition, the word "Apartheid" will not only refer to the historical regime of South Africa (1948-1994) but is also recognized as a crime against humanity on par with torture and slavery. Due to certain similarities in legal systems and roots of establishment, Israel and the Apartheid Regime of South Africa have been considered to be analogous in various international documents sponsored by the United Nations until 1991. This study aims to analyze the historical rationale behind this recognition and the reversal of course by the United Nations General Assembly, which was initiated with the revocation of A/RES/3379 resolution (the equation of Zionism with racism). Furthermore, in the light of recent developments on domestic and international levels, it seems several unaligned trends are gaining ground in this respect to reaffirm the previous attribution of the crime of Apartheid to Israel. Through using E-Library data and employing the descriptive-analytical method, the veracity of the said trends, their projection, and their perseverance will be further discussed in this paper.