The struggle around the negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal gave place to heated debates in the United States in 2015. Tremendous amounts of resources were mobilized by pro-Israeli actors to “securitize” (Buzan, 1994) Iran towards two audiences: American lawmakers specifically and the American public more broadly. However, despite the magnitude of the attempt, the securitizing actors have not managed to derail the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA). This paper is interested in understanding this outcome. It analyzes it as the result of a strong movement of counter- and de-securitization, led by the Obama administration and J Street, to impose a different narrative. Counter- and de-securitization concepts have only recently gained attention (Christou & Adamides 2013; Stritzel & Chang 2015; Han 2020) and have not been fully developed, let alone applied to empirical cases. Building on these authors, this paper examines how counter- and de-securitization processes can occur concurrently with the securitization move in an attempt to resist this latter. Moreover, it argues that the counter-move actors are not necessarily the ones targeted by the securitization attempt – i.e. the referent subjects – but can also be distinct actors with appropriate capital able to assert themselves in the same field. In our case, the Obama administration, J Street and other organizations advocating for the JCPoA were not the referent subjects of the securitization move. Still, they initiated a counter-move. This proved to be decisive in preventing the original securitization from succeeding. This allows us to (re-)conceptualize security as a contested construct and to broaden the analysis of its production to a wider set of actors involved. Methodologically, the paper builds on a lexicometry and content analysis of 1) the texts published between January 2013 and September 2015 by three main pro-Israeli organizations (Commentary Magazine, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy), 2) Obama’s most important speeches on the deal and 3) J Street publications during the period running up to the vote in Congress. It starts by examining the ins and outs of the securitization process carried by the pro-Israeli organizations, most of them revolving around AIPAC. Secondly, it studies how newer pro- Israeli organizations holding opposite views have, along with the Obama administration, successfully challenged the mainstream ones through a counter- and de-securitization move by distinguishing between a threatening potentially-nuclear Iran without a deal and a peaceful non-(too-)threatening Iran with a deal.

This paper outlines the challenge of planning for and teaching an upper-division lecture-seminar on the Israel/Palestine Conflict remotely during Fall 2020 -- in the context of a global pandemic, and in the midst of a highly partisan US presidential election. I start by outlining the challenges that typically attend teaching on this topic. I then take up the circumstances faced when planning for it late last summer: the transition to remote teaching and an increasingly partisan political climate. Finally, I describe a set of assignments intended to address those challenges, assessing their successes and limitations. This paper is submitted with the support of the Committee for Undergraduate Middle East Studies (CUMES).

Palestine is not universally recognized as a state and experiences only restricted sovereignty. The protracted conflict with Israel limits Palestine’s access to official tools of international relations and diplomacy. Palestine has to rely instead on soft power tools like public diplomacy and international cultural cooperation as alternative avenues of international engagement and communication with the wider world. The paper construes the Palestinian Authority's (PA) cultural policies as tools to preserve and represent its culture in the conflict with Israel in the international sphere. The main case studies will be the designations of Jerusalem (2009) and Bethlehem (2020) in the Arab League's "Arab Capitals of Culture" program. In this paper, we demonstrate that Palestine’s participation in the Arab Capitals of Culture Program has goals beyond showcasing the area’s cultural richness. It is a government strategy, illustrating how the political is interwoven with the cultural sphere: First, the framing of cities as Palestinian, especially Jerusalem, is used as a tool to establish sovereignty. Second, publicizing the anticipated Israeli opposition to such framing, and the legal or physical roadblocks Israel erects to hinder implementation of the program, will evoke international solidarity. And third, celebrations of Palestinian culture strengthen Palestinian cultural identity, enhance national pride and belonging. The present study gives fresh insights into cultural aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It deepens our understanding of the role culture and cultural policy play in intractable conflicts and it contributes to our knowledge of cultural policy-making and cultural diplomacy. It also sheds light on the Arab Capitals of Culture program, an initiative modeled after the European Capital of Culture program, but much less studied.