[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Occupation, Intervention and Law and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the O.I.L. Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each biweekly roundup to OIL@jadaliyya.com by Monday night of every other week.]
Israel-Palestine
"Let the Police Mow the Lawn": Israeli Right-Wing Demands Stronger Crackdown as Netanyahu Increases Attacks on East Jerusalem, Dan Cohen
Mondoweiss reports on the Israeli right-wing reaction to recent police repression against Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
Will US Demand Truth about Israeli Killing of Palestinian-American Child?, Ali Abunimah
Abunimah surveys the US State Department failure to condemn the Israeli military killing of a fourteen-year-old Palestinian-American boy in the West Bank.
Netanyahu's Not Chickenshit, the White House Is, Stephen M. Walt
Walt responds to the recent episode of an anonymous Obama administration official using colorful language to describe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's approach to his country's dealing with Iran. The incident reveals a desire on the part of the US to apply pressure to Israel to achieve meaningful detente with Iran and a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite administration proclamations of a "special relationship" between the two countries.
Disrupting Apartheid, Kumars Salehi
Kumars Salehi, a member of UC Berkeley Students for Justice in Palestine, interviews Lara Kiswani, head of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center and a key organizer behind the Block the Boat actions seeking to block Israeli shipping companies from unloading at ports in the United States.
This Is How An Academic Boycott of Israel Actually Works, David Palumbo-Liu
A recent Chronicle of Higher Education article on the academic boycotts of Israel falsely claims the movement's objectives harm Palestinians and mistakenly attribute the value of such boycotts to to "piggybacking on the global BDS movement," writes Palumbo-Liu.
A Small Band of Activists is Humiliating an Israeli Shipping Giant, Murtaza Hussain
The Intercept covers a successful attempt by Palestinian activists in California to re-route a container ship from an Israel-based shipping company to an alternate destination in Russia.
Law
Zivotovsky and the Disaggregated State, Peter Spiro
Spiro covers the oral arguments in Supreme Court case over whether the US may issue passports stating the birthplace of a citizen is "Jerusalem, Israel."
Ghoncheh Ghavami's Defiance Will Not Ruffle Iran's Realpolitik, Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi
Writing for The Guardian, Sadeghi-Boroujerdi criticizes the Iranian government detaining and torturing of Ghoncheh Ghavami, a British-Iranian woman who had been protesting a ban on women attending volleyball matches.
PATRIOT Act Warrants Used More for Drugs Than for Terrorism, Kevin Drum
A provision of the PATRIOT Act giving federal agents the power to issue search warrants without informing the parties being searched beforehand has been used for thousands of more investigations pertaining to narcotics than terrorism.
Libya's Armed Factions May Have Committed War Crimes: Amnesty International, Reuters
Amnesty International has claimed to have satellite imagery of Libyan militias shelling residential areas in west Libya.
Islamic State
Iraqis Prepare ISIS Offensive, with US Help, Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt
The New York Times reports on a planned spring offensive against Islamic State by Iraqi security forces.
US Plan for Proxy Army to Fight ISIS in Syria Suffers Attack, Martin Chulov
The Guardian covers a series of violent Syrian opposition defeats at the hands of ISIS.
Airstrikes against Islamic State Do Not Seem to Have Affected Flow of Fighters to Syria, Greg Miller
Despite US-sanctioned air strikes in Syria, the rate of more than 1,000 foreign fighters entering the country a month largely seems to have held up, writes Miller.
Peshmerga, Syrian Rebels Battle Islamic State in Besieged Kobani, Omer Berberoglu
Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters have teamed up with Syrian rebels to fight Islamic State rebels in the Syrian town of Kobani.
Why Iraqi Army Can't Fight, Despite $25 Billion in US Aid, Training, David Zucchino
Zucchino, reporting for The Los Angeles Times, writes that Iraq's security forces are poorly equipped and lack trust among their leadership despite significant material aid from the United States.
Qatar Pares Support for Islamists but Careful to Preserve Ties, Amena Bakr
Bakr draws two insights from Qatari ambiguity with regards to its role in the US-led offensive against Islamic State: that the kingdom feels pressure from fellow Gulf States to take a stance against Islam, and that it hopes to avoid cutting off Islamist groups completely from its sphere of influence.