Middle East Monitor Conversations

 It has been 13 years since Egyptians took to the street and changed their political landscape, but who was behind the protests that ousted President Hosni Mubarak? And what happened to the movement that forced him out? 11 February marks the 13th anniversary of the ousting of long-term Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. A popular uprising, known as the Arab Spring, began a few weeks earlier and the pressure of the street protests forced Mubarak to leave power. 2011 looked set to be the year Egypt entered a new democratic era, however, the 2013 coup against the country's first democratically elected President, Mohamed Morsi, soon shattered these hopes. The protests were lead by the Revolutionary Youth Council, but what was this movement and what happened to them? Joining us to answer this question is Rusha Latif. Rusha Latif is a researcher and writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. A first-generation Egyptian American, she travelled to Cairo in 2011 to conduct ethnographic research on the uprising. Her interests include social movements and revolutions; the study of gender, class and race/ethnicity; Islamic studies; and Middle Eastern studies. She is the author of Tahrir's Youth: Leaders of a Leaderless Revolution.

UNRWA isn't only an aid agency, it is vital for advocating for the rights of Palestine refugees on a global stage, is that why Israel seeks to shut it down? Join this week's MEMO in Conversation as we discuss why UNRWA is being targeted. This week's special episode of MEMO in Conversation features an in-depth discussion with Dr Lex Takkenberg about the recent decision by Israel's western allies to suspend funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). This controversial move comes at a perilous time as a humanitarian catastrophe unfolds in Gaza due to Israel's military aggression.To analyse the context, consequences and complexities around this funding cut and discuss the history of UNRWA, we speak to Takkenberg who has extensive experience working in various roles within UNRWA. He helps unpack key issues related to the rights of Palestinian refugees under international law and why their plight remains unresolved more than 70 years after the formation of the UN agency set up to support them.We explore the allegations prompting the funding cuts as well as the devastating impact the measures will have on desperately needed aid programmes. The discussion provides insight into Israel's decades- long hostility towards UNRWA and why the agency serves a vital symbolic purpose for advocating for the rights of Palestine refugees on the global stage. This timely interview sheds light on an unfolding crisis threatening stability in an already volatile region.Dr Lex Tekkenberg is a Dutch national, who currently serves as senior adviser with Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD) and is a non-resident professor at the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs. Dr Takkenberg worked with UNRWA from 1989 until late 2019, most recently as the first Chief of its Ethics Office. Prior to that, he held a range of other positions with the UN body, including as General Counsel, Director of Operations, and (Deputy) Field Director in Gaza and Syria. Before joining UNRWA, he was the Legal Officer of the Dutch Refugee Council for six years.

Israel's sense of invincibility and security were shattered on 7 October 2023 and now its atrocities are playing out in full view of the world, but has it lost its international legitimacy?On 6 October 2023, Israeli leaders were feeling confident of their international standing. Normalisation with the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and talks in the air about impending normalisation with Saudi Arabia. The Palestinian issue seemed forgotten, the status quo allowed Tel Aviv to close Gaza off from the world, settlers to steal more land in the occupied West Bank and everyone seemed to have given up on the idea of a Palestinian state. On 7 October, Israel's sense of invincibility and security with the status quo came crashing down. But despite the political disaster of the Hamas attack, some within the Israeli government saw it as an opportunity to expel and ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians, believing they would have immunity. However, the ongoing atrocities playing out in full view of the world, with growing anger in the West, outrage in the international community and a genocide case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) indicate that Israel has lost a lot of its international legitimacy. Additionally, with talks of a ceasefire and the failure of the Israeli occupation army to crush Hamas, Israel has been left unable to achieve any of its stated goals in Gaza. Join us as we speak to former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy on what the current situation means for Israel and for Palestinians. Daniel Levy is the president of the US/Middle East Project (USMEP), which strives to advance a dignified Israeli-Palestinian peace; an end to occupation, discrimination and refugeehood in which international legality is upheld, respecting the rights of all people.From 2012 to 2016, Levy was director for the Middle East and North Africa at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Prior to that he was a senior fellow and director of the New America Foundation’s Middle East Taskforce in Washington D.C. Levy was a senior adviser in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and to Justice Minister Yossi Beilin during the Government of Ehud Barak (1999-2001). He was a member of the official Israeli delegation to the Israel/Palestine peace talks at Taba under Barak and at Oslo B under Yitzhak Rabin (1994-95).  Levy was born and educated in the UK where he now resides and where he graduated with an MA and BA from King's College, Cambridge. He has testified before the UN Security Council three times during 2020-2022. 

The United Nations Refugee and Work Agency (UNRWA) plays a critical role in the lives of millions of Palestinians. Setup in 1949 to support the 750,000 Palestinians expelled by Israel in the 1948 Nakba, the agency performs a number of functions from providing emergency aid and medical care, to running schools across the occupied Palestinian territories and the neighbouring Arab countries which host Palestine refugees. The decision by a number of western states to pull funding to UNRWA, citing an ongoing investigation by the agency into whether 12 former employees were involved in the 7 October attack on Israel, came just hours after the International Court of Justice released it preliminary verdict in South Africa's case against Israel for war crimes and potential genocide committed in Gaza. Many feel the decision was political and aimed at punishing the Palestinians. To assess the impact of the withdrawal of funding and the possible motivations behind it, we are joined by former UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness. An award winning journalist, Gunness was UNRWA spokesman between 2007 and 2020 and a BBC correspondant for 25 years. He is founder and director of the Myanmar Accountability Project, a legal initiative which brings criminal prosecutions against war criminals in the Myanmar junta.

 How does the International Court of Justice (ICJ)'s ruling that Israel must prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to genocide and prevent a genocide taking place affect its manoeuvres in Gaza and will its main supporters and funders have to change tack?What does the International Court of Justice (ICJ)'s almost unanimous voted to call on Israel to ensure no acts of genocide are carried out against Palestinians in Gaza mean for Israel's supporters? Join us for MEMO in Conversation with legal expert from Law for Palestine, Kathryn Ravey, as we explore the anticipated ramifications on third-state responsibility, prevention and complicity. Ravey reveals details of the work of Lawyers for Palestine and the actions it will be taking following the ICJ judgment. We also look at the global fallout, probing whether the ICJ's credibility is at stake amid Gaza's symbolic significance in the global narrative between the Global North and the Global South.Dedicated to international human rights, Ravey focuses on corporate accountability and justice for marginalised communities. Her background centres on advancing human rights through evidence-based research, strategic communication and meaningful stakeholder engagement to work for a more equitable world. She completed a master's degree in Human Rights at London's UCL, focusing her dissertation on "Equity within Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Unpacking the Standard of 'Maximum Available Resources'."

More and more young American Jews are disillussioned with Israel and believe in the protection of Palestinian lives in the occupied territories and have been at the forefront of protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. But what's made distance themselves from Tel Aviv?'Israel is at the core of Jewish identity worldwide and its existence provides security for Jews everywhere.' This often repeated narrative, which aside from ignoring the diversity of belief, opinion and politics of world Jewry, is one we hear wheeled out to supress and oppress Palestinians. Israel has constructed it's legitimacy on its Jewish identity and things like its war on Gaza are justified as being necessary for protecting the identity of the state and therefore Judaism. While the Zionist movement and Israel have a long history of being rejected by large swaths of the Jewish community, Westerners, particularly Americans, strongly associate the two together and thus hold the belief that to oppose Israel is to oppose Judaism and therefore it is anti-Semitic. During the Cold War, Jews in America were encouraged to see Israel as part of their identity and this was reinforced through institutions, charities, education, media and other avenues. While dissent existed, by the 2000s Israel enjoyed wide support among American Jewry. However, over the last decade a new generation of American Jews openly questioned the idea of Israel and opposed its treatment of Palestinians. The ongoing war on Gaza has seen opposition to Israel's actions rise up among Jews under the age of 40, leading many to wonder whether a generational chasm has opened up between older and younger American Jews and Israel? Helping us to understand this generational shift is Simone Zimmerman. Simone is the co-founder of IfNotNow, a grassroots organisation mobilising the American-Jewish community against the Israeli occupation of Gaza and calling for a ceasefire in the enclave. Simone was also featured in a film 'Israelism' in 2023, which is currently touring, and follows her and an American veteran of the Israeli military Eitan, as they turn against Israel’s occupation of Palestinians and question the support for Israel among US Jews. 

In times of genocide what responsibility does a teacher and a historian have? Israel's onslaught on Gaza has left more than 23,000 Palestinian civilians dead, many more injured and shows no sign of slowing down. While pro-Israel supporters frame all Israeli actions through the prism of 7 October 2023, the latest Israeli invasion of Gaza was decades in the making. With dispossession and ethnic cleansing of Palestine dating back to 1948, how has the decades of occupation shaped what we are now seeing? How does Israel's assault on Gaza compare to previous wars and Israeli violence against Palestinians? MEMO in Conversations is joined by Rashid Khalidi. Rashid Khalidi is Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. He received a bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1970 and a D.Phil. from Oxford University in 1974, and has taught at the Lebanese University, the American University of Beirut and the University of Chicago. He was president of the Middle East Studies Association, and is co-editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies. He served as an adviser to the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid and Washington Arab-Israeli peace negotiations from October 1991 until June 1993.Khalidi is author of eight books, including the best-selling The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017, and Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, has co-edited three others and has published over 100 academic articles. He has written op-eds in the New York Times, Washington Post and many other newspapers and has appeared widely on TV and radio in the US and abroad.

Does Israel have a right to use the Holocaust to justify its bombing of Gaza? And how is the global silence towards its crimes hindering the establishment of a Palestinian state and halting Tel Aviv's plan to annex the occupied territories? Join us as we discuss the ongoing genocide in Gaza ahead of the ICJ hearing.  In this week's MEMO in Conversation we speak to renowned historian Professor Omer Bartov, the author of Genocide, the Holocaust and Israel-Palestine: First-Person History in Times of Crisis, Professor Bartov offers invaluable insights into the ongoing genocide, challenging perspectives on Israel's actions. We explore pressing questions including the impact of South Africa's genocide proceedings at the ICJ. Professor Bartov delves into the exploitation of the Holocaust in justifying policies, the role of international pressure for a just resolution and the potential future for Palestinians amidst annexation and forced displacement. Don't miss this eye-opening conversation on accountability, power dynamics and the path to ending Israel's illegal occupation. Born in Israel and educated at Tel Aviv University and St. Antony's College, Oxford, Omer Bartov's early research concerned the Nazi indoctrination of the Wehrmacht and the crimes it committed in World War II. He is Samuel Pisar Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University in the US and has been published numerous times, including Israel-Palestine: Lands and Peoples.

20 years ago, CAGE UK was set up to advocate for detainees held unjustly in Guantanamo Bay. Now, the rights group is expanding and becoming global at a time when systemic injustices are prevalent, seen especially in the repression of pro-Palestine activism. In this week's conversation, MEMO speaks with CAGE about the organisation's 20-year long journey from advocating for Guantanamo Bay detainees to tackling systemic injustices like the criminalisation of pro-Palestine solidarity. We discuss trends of repression via counter-terrorism laws, how inflated terrorism rhetoric compounds discrimination, the thinking behind CAGE International and its latest report on the crackdown on pro-Palestine solidarity in light of events in Gaza. Anas Mustapha is the head of Public Advocacy at CAGE UK, guiding media strategy and pioneering high-impact research and reports. He is a speaker and advocate against the abuse of state power, specialising across the breadth of UK Counter Terrorism. Anas holds a degree in English language, is a native Arabic speaker and a student of Islamic sciences.

 In an effort to beat the Abbasid Caliph Al-Nasir, the shah of the Khwarezmian Empire turned to magician Siraj Al-Din Al-Sakaki to create a magical statue that would help win the battle. But things took an unexpected turn. Join MEMO's conversation to find out more about the importance of magic in Middle Eastern history.Siraj Al-Din Al-Sakaki (1160-1229) is best known for his work on Arabic grammar, which students of the language throughout the world use until this day, but very few know he worked as a magician in both the Khwarazmian and Mongol courts. The author of grimoire, a how-to guide for budding magicians, Al-Sakaki offers instructions to students on how to conjure Jinns, how to draw up contracts with the devil, how to cast love spells and how to inflict a humiliating defeat on your enemies as well as a deep dive into the world of magical donkeys. Al-Sakaki was taken very seriously by the rulers of his day, he even managed to survive a talisman gone-wrong, where he was asked by the shah of the Khwarezmian Empire to create a magical statue that would enable them to beat the Abbasid Caliph Al-Nasir in battle and take Baghdad. Al-Sakaki created the talismanic statue and buried it - however the statue magically changed direction while underground causing the shah to lose the battle. Al-Sakaki takes us into the fascinating world of medieval sorcery popular in Middle Eastern and Islamic societies. MEMO in Conversation is joined by Emily Selove, who is translating Al-Sakaki's works into English, to help us understand the man and his magic. Dr Emily Selove is an associate professor in Medieval Arabic Language and Literature at the University of Exeter. She is also the convener of the University of Exeter’s Centre for Magic and Esotericism. Her most recent publication is a short monograph for the Cambridge Elements Series: The Donkey King: Asinine Symbology in Ancient and Medieval Magic. She was the PI of a Leverhulme-funded research project, "A Sorcerer's Handbook," (2019-2022) which will create an edition and translation of Siraj Al-Din Al-Sakkaki's magic handbook, Kitab Al-Shamil wa-baḥr Al-kamil (The Book of the Complete). Her early research focused on the figure of the uninvited guest (or "party-crasher") in medieval Arabic literature. Her translation of another 11th-century book of party-crashing is titled Selections from the Art of Party-Crashing in Medieval Iraq.  She also co-authored a textbook to introduce beginning students to the city of medieval Baghdad, Baghdad at the Centre of a World: 8th-13th Century,  and has created a collection of cartoons titled Popeye and Curly: 120 Days in Medieval Baghdad to accompany this textbook.