Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace

Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and de‹ciency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself the enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency. (Ibn al-Haytham)1

국제정치이론 = Theory of international politics

Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis

The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development, by Sara Roy. Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1995. xiv + 332 pages. Bibl. to p. 364. Index to p. 372. Maps to p. 375. $27.95 cloth; $17.95 paper. Reviewed by Sharif S. Elmusa This meticulously researched book traces the evolution of the economy of the Gaza Strip under the British Mandate (1917-48), Egyptian administration (1949-67) and Israeli occupation since 1967. Its primary focus, however, is on the last period. The author convincingly argues that Gaza's economy, mainly because of Israeli policy and, to a lesser degree, Palestinian failures, has undergone a process of "de-development." By dedevelopment, Sara Roy means essentially dispossession, as manifested in land confiscation and water appropriation for the Israeli settlements; integration of Gaza's economy with that of Israel, as manifested in Israel becoming the preponderant partner of trade in goods, services and labor; and de-institutionalization, as manifested in the restrictions on, and undermining of the building of institutions capable of managing productive investment. Thus, behind the veneer of higher personal incomes in Gaza, which originated from remittances from Israel and the Gulf states, lies a hollowed economic shell without the pith needed for self-sustained growth or the development of a structurally balanced economy. The significance of de-development for Gaza, the author stresses, lies not in making its annexation to Israel easier, but in making separation from Israel more difficult. One can see this conclusion amply corroborated by the pressure that Israel has been able to exert on the Palestinian Authority (PA) through the periodic closures of the Occupied Territories and by banning Palestinian workers from entering Israel. Roy compares and contrasts her own "paradigm" of de-development with those of modernization and dependency, both of which she finds wanting as explanatory tools for the unique changes in Gaza's economy under Israeli rule. In spite of the rough-hewn presentation of the two "theories," this is essentially a sound view of their applicability in Gaza's case. But, unfortunately for theory (and for Gaza), de-development, as the author states, is peculiar to the Gaza Strip (and the West Bank). And if the value of a paradigm stems from the range of situations or phenomena it can explain, then the de-development paradigm is of limited theoretical utility. Nonetheless, explaining de-development in the contrasting light of other theories imparts to the study theoretical depth beyond the descriptive plane. The author also successfully probes the "policy-roots" of de-development. She views the Israeli policy as having been driven chiefly by political-ideological, not economic, calculus. Such calculus is rooted in the Zionist project, which aimed at taking away the land and was blind to, and disinterested in, the long-term impact this would have on the indigenous Palestinian population. The policy itself, however, was neither planned nor accidental, but somewhere in the middle. It was basically a pragmatic approach dictated by Israeli interests, and it was fundamentally inimical to the welfare of the Gazans. It may be that the presently available evidence makes this middle-ground hypothesis the only plausible inference. …

The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development

System and Process in International Politics.

This thesis examines the impact of the New World Order on the Arab-Israeli peace process. It argues that, since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the old bipolar World Order has disappeared and a new unipolar one has emerged. The United States of America, as the only remaining single superpower, has enjoyed a great degree of influence and a kind of hegemony in international affairs. Its military superiority and economic, technological and diplomatic strength, in the absence of any competing power, have given it the upper hand to pursue its own policies and its own interests. This American unipolarity and hegemony are clearly demonstrated in the Middle East peace process. The United States' unipolarity on the international level and its hegemony on the regional level have allowed it to pursue policies to resolve the Arab- Israeli conflict. Regional states, released from the constraints or protection of the patron- client relationships fostered under the bi-polar Old World Order, have adjusted their own policies to take into account this New World Order. A neo-realist understanding of this has been developed which assesses this process in terms of international and regional balance of power and "rules of the game”. This method had been used to understand the reasons for and nature of the Arab- Israeli peace negotiations that started at Madrid in 1991 and developed in Oslo in 1993. The thesis argues that these negotiations were in fact a single process which was the direct result of this American-led New World Order. Whether through direct or indirect American involvement or through the indirect or direct acknowledgement by regional actors of the nature of the New World Order, American interests and preferences have been strongly reflected in the peace process.

Saad A. Elshelmani

Papers

The new world order and its impact on the Arab Israeli peace process (1991-1999)