Editor's Note

This is Al-Muntaqa ’s 16th issue, following its special issue on the genocide in Gaza. This current one contains five research articles focused on Iraq, Sudan, and Palestine, one analytical essay based on data from the Arab Opinion Index, and one book review. As usual, the articles cover different disciplines, from history, to political sciences, anthropology, sociology, and governance. In the lead article, Dina Khoury discusses the relationship between World War I and Iraqi national identity. She argues that there was no national consensus on what WWI meant for Iraqi identity up until 1958. It is only after the fall of the Hashemite dynasty that the memory of WWI was incorporated into the narrative of Iraq as an anti-imperialist modern state. Hassan Elhag Ali Ahmad’s article on Sudan’s post-2018 transitional period examines the shifts within the hybrid coalition overseeing the transitional period, focusing on its contentious politics. It examines the mechanisms of conflation, multiple targeting, zero-sum engagement, and ideology in the process of building and dismantling alliances within the coalition. Firas Mekkiya assesses Iraqi judiciary’s independence since 1921 that has rendered the Iraqi judiciary a unique model in Arab judicial history. He analys how an unbalanced total separation of the judiciary from the executive and legislative branches granted the judiciary in Iraq an “excessive” independence. Mekkiya proposes reforms that would ultimately establish an independent but responsible judiciary that safeguards it from the emergence of judicial oligarchies or dictatorships. This issue also includes two papers on Palestinians in different localities. Abdallah Abolouz analys the psychological acculturation phases of Saudi-born millennials of Palestinian origin who relocated to Jordan after the Saudi government’s imposition of Expat Dependent Levy Taxes in July 2017. Based on autoethnography, Abolouz narrates their experiences, emphasizing the relocation impact on their sense of belonging. Meanwhile, Ashraf Othman Bader and Asem Khalil, drawing on newly released archival material and on interviews, dissect Israel’s colonial paternalism during the first decade of its post-1967 military rule over the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and Palestinians’ resistance to it. They meticulously show how the social “welfare” system installed policies of control, regulation, and exploitation of Palestinians. Using data provided by the Arab Opinion Index on the war in Gaza, Yara Nassar examines the responses of Egyptians, Jordanians, and Lebanese to Israel’s genocidal conduct. She reveals the extensive impact of the war in Gaza on them, their strong sense of solidarity with Palestinians, dissatisfaction with Western support for Israel, and growing anti-Western sentiment, particularly toward the United States. The issue also includes a book review by Yassine Haggan of Rachid Benbih’s New Women’s Migrations in Africa: Determinants and Dynamics.