There is no such state as Palestine. But nearly 70 years after the termination of the British mandate for Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel, Palestine remains a home for the Palestinian. It is an identity not dependent on the existence of a Palestinian state, nor arrested by the presence of an Israeli one. Palestinians have a home relationship with Palestine, where home is a sense of belonging that comes from within, that isn’t earned and given, but personal and chosen, even while it is communal. Home is a self-determined relationship of person to place. The relationships of Palestinians with Palestine are complicated and inconsistent, but I contend that the complications and inconsistencies of understanding Palestine as home functions as a spatial strategy of holding out for justice. Where home is an intensely personal attachment with effects that vary between individuals, the nation-state seeks to create a matrix relationship between nations and territories that defines those who belong to the exclusion of all others. The persistence of Palestinian home relationships with Palestine stand argument against a nation-state world order founded on the idea that certain people belong natively to certain place.

The Middle East is a large geographical area, and while people think of it as a homogeneous area in terms of language and culture, the region IS actually more of a melting pot of ethnic, religious, racial and linguistic groups. Understanding the distinctions between these groups is of paramount importance to understanding the region. Historical rivalries between some groups, for example, Sunni and Shia Muslims, go back hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. Yet, people continue with life. How do countries continue to deal with each other when there are open, unsettled questions, such as boundaries or control of islands? Is there a resolution method that will finalize these issues for once and ever? Chapter One will discuss methodology and research implementation. Chapter Two will review theories of conflict resolution as described in the literature. Chapter Three will review the historical background of conflict in the Middle East in general, these four conflicts in particular and the role that Kuwaiti diplomats played (to the limited extent that it can be determined). Chapter Four offers overall conclusions and suggestions.

The focus of this research was to obtain, specifically, data on the marriage customs of the Druze in the Shouf Mountains of southeastern Lebanon. Ten Druze informants were selected and classified according to sex, age, marital status and religious status (sheik/sheika). A detailed questionnaire was designed to use during the interviews with these informants. However, after two interviews, it became apparent that a variable questionnaire was necessary to take advantage of the new, richly-detailed, cultural information that emerged with each informant. New questions were developed, in the field, to reflect and gather this new ethnographic data on Druze marriage customs.

The essay charts forty years of Zionist history to illuminate the remarkable evolution of Israel's unified, apolitical army and Israel's "democratic civil-military tradition," forged in the fires of opposing military styles, ideological rivalry, competing underground forces, war and civil war.

The purpose of this study is to attempt to solve why the Taliban have been successful in Afghanistan. In an attempt to solve why, I develop and test a theory on the Taliban's success against the U.S. in Afghanistan. My theory claims that the Taliban have been successful due to U.S. forces committing wrongdoings towards Afghan civilians. These wrongdoings, in turn, pushed civilian support away from the U.S. and its allies in this war. Afghan civilians would side with the Taliban, as they sought protection from the invading forces in their country. As a result of this gain in support, the Taliban were able to bolster the preexisting social ties they had, which allowed them to garner more fighters and resources; the bolstering of their social networks made their success more achievable. I test my theory qualitatively through interviews with American veterans who served in the War in Afghanistan. Through the process of interviews, no evidence that indicates that U.S. forces mistreating Afghans is conditional for Afghans choosing the Taliban. Interviews instead indicate that Afghans chose the Taliban due to pressure and coercion. Despite the introduction of pressure, coercion, and other new potential factors I ultimately have determined my study to be inconclusive due to limitations that prevented the ability to conduct deeper research; those limitations will be explained in the Conclusion section.

In 2020, over a million international students enrolled at universities in the United States. A significant percent come from Muslim-majority countries whose governments sponsor their education abroad. As overall international enrollments decrease, recruiting this population remains attractive to U.S. institutions. International students face the challenge of entering higher education in a foreign country and culture, navigating their education during a time of political battles over immigration and issues of diversity. Muslim students face prejudice and exclusion due to Islamophobia in the U.S. Universities have a responsibility to understand and fully support students from whom they benefit financially. This study examined the experiences of 11 Muslim international students and alumni at one American Jesuit university, exploring how being at a religiously affiliated institution influenced their university experience. A qualitive approach was utilized to understand their experiences through semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Findings confirmed that Muslim international students experience multiple challenges and demonstrated the importance of community and impact of institutional interfaith identity on supporting and shaping their experiences. The framework of Community Cultural Wealth and spiritual capital highlight the tools and strengths students engage to successfully navigate their time at the institution. Findings supported the opportunities universities have to push back against Islamophobia by providing opportunities for all to engage with and learn from one another, and showed Jesuit universities’ institutional interfaith identities and educational pedagogy as critical in helping students fully develop themselves and influence the good of society.

What contributes to sectarian conflict? Some existing literature essentializes sectarian identities and blames ancient hatred between different groups as the cause of conflict, this thesis argues that sectarian conflict occurs when sectarianism is politically employed by elite actors facing state weakness. The proposed theory suggests that a drop in state capacity regardless of the cause, can motivate political elite actors to instrumentalize the salience of sectarian identities as a form of either repression or cooptation targeting the sectarian outgroup for the purposes of regime survival. The theoretical claims in this study are examined using a qualitative comparative case study analysis of the Saddam Hussein and Nouri Al Maliki regimes in Iraq. The findings reveal that both Hussein and Maliki instrumentalized sectarian rhetoric and exploited divisions as a strategy of gaining or preserving political power during periods of increased state weakness. For example, Saddam's use of the Faith Campaign fueled the increased salience of sectarian identities in Iraq while Maliki's political purge campaigns marginalized the Sunnis. Furthermore, the approach of this study reveals variation in the forms of regimes that can successfully exploit and instrumentalize sectarian rhetoric, ranging from minority and majority sectarian coalitions to personalist autocratic and semi-democratic governments. The findings of this thesis can allow policymakers to identify the root causes of sectarian based conflicts more accurately. In addition, ethnic and sectarian identity groups can be influenced by politicians and potentially shaped by external actors under certain conditions outlined in the thesis.

This thesis seeks to explore the social, cultural, economic and political factors that influence female labor force participation rates. Specifically, this research will focus on female economic activity in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region. MENA is often understood as being monolithic in its treatment of women. This study aims to challenge this rhetoric by evaluating the factors that impact female labor in MENA. Upon considering multiple social, cultural, economic and political factors, this thesis will focus on the role of oil and religion in influencing female labor rates. Finally, this study will explore these influences on a micro-level and the role of oil and religion will be examined as to how they apply to female economic activity in both Tunisia and Saudi Arabia.

This project examines the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons during the Syrian civil war in 2013 and places the disarmament process in the context of the international nonproliferation regime and the history of United States weapons of mass destruction (WMD) policy. Additionally, I argue that U.S. policy on WMDs does not operate by a fixed set of standards; rather, cultural assumptions about a state and its weapons (such as the USSR, Iraq, Israel and their WMDs) are used to justify nonproliferation action. I present weapons as a mode of Othering that the U.S. and the nonproliferation regime employ to justify the designation of an enemy state. This analysis also examines the “myth of neutrality” of humanitarian intervention and applies these concepts to nonproliferation intervention.

This Letort Paper proposes that actions, policies, and deeds—those of the U.S. Government and al-Qaeda—be leveraged as a means of delegitimizing al-Qaeda terrorist propaganda. Two chief fronts—changing deeds and challenging deeds—is proposed. Changing deeds requires that the United States carefully and systematically examine its own foreign and military policies and their specific consequences for the Arab and Muslim world. Challenging deeds comprises systematically countering with evidence and fact al-Qaeda’s two greatest propagandistic fabrications: that the United States is a crusader at war with Islam, and that al-Qaeda is the vanguard defender of a besieged and oppressed Muslim Umma. Provocative at times, and even controversial in its willingness to reconsider long-standing U.S. Government policies, this Letort Paper is adamant that it is not spin, empty platitudes, and “lipstick on pigs,” but actual deeds, that are our surest bet for defeating this ignoble adversary. / https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1128/thumbnail.jpg