This issue includes three articles. Nasooha M’s article “‘A History Buried Alive’: Resisting Amnesia and Reclaiming Palestinian Native Ecology in the Works of Susan Abulhawa” shows how the Zionists destroyed indigenous Palestinian ecology and replaced it with an alien ecology, hoping to bring about indigenous cultural amnesia. Through the works of Susan Abulhawa, the author argues that literature plays a significant role in combating Zionist machinations of erasure by becoming lieux de mémoire.
Reem Hazboun Taşyakan’s article “The Arab American Polyphonic Novel and its Indictment of the Post 9/11 Political Agenda” discusses Laila Halaby’s Novel Once in a Promised Land and Laila Lalami’s novel The Other Americans. The author utilizes Mikhail Bakhtin’s concepts of “polyphony” and “dialogism” and Jody Byrd’s “cacophony” to indict the Orientalist narrative that dominated US government and society about Arabs and Muslims. The author’s treatment of the two novels highlights the complexity of human interaction among polyphonic characters that debunk the rigid binaries of the dominant US narrative.
Manar Shorbagy’s article “Triangular Dynamics: US Response to China’s Assertiveness in the Middle East” argues that the rise of China on the world stage, including the Middle East, prompted regional states to “triangulate” their relationships to minimize US pressure on them. The author shows that the Biden administration has been concocting coalitions based on the Abraham Accords, to protect US interests in the region against China. Biden’s coalitions, however, ignore the Palestinian “issue.” But those states cannot ignore the steady escalation in the “occupied territories,” which makes those coalitions quite ineffective. Furthermore, those states would like to remain neutral in the US–China rivalry, something that works contrary to US desires.