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Hamas's surprise bloody attack on Israel on October 7, 50 years plus one day since the October 1973 war, and the massive Israeli military response in Gaza has dominated media coverage regionally and globally for the past two plus months.American mainstream media for the most part has avoided a serious discussion of the Hamas context, the "root causes" of the conflict, the long-term implications of Israel's indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, the morality, ethics, legality, and proportionality of the Israeli massive military operations in Gaza, and the diminishing stature and credibility of the United States among Arab and Muslim publics. The Hamas ContextHamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya—Islamic Resistance Movement; the acronym means Zeal) emerged in 1987 in the West Bank and Gaza under the Israeli occupation after the first Palestinian Intifada as an alternative to the secular PLO. Israel, Jordan, and a few other Arab states were concerend about the growing strength of the PLO's secular nationalist ideology and thus initially supported Hamas's creation. Like other local Sunni Islamic political parties and movements — for example, PAS in Malaysia, Refah and AKP in Turkey, the Islamic Action Front in Jordan, and the Islamic Movement in Israel — Hamas was grounded in the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood.Hamas's political program and charter focused primarily on resisting the occupation and the state of Israel. Hamas never followed the Wahhabi Salafi radical Tawhidi doctrine of Islam emanating from Saudi Arabia. In most of its history, Hamas, unlike al-Qaida and ISIS, never subscribed to or practiced global jihad against the perceived enemies of Islam. Its operational context has always been Palestine and its leaders have always been Palestinians. Many of them spent years in Israeli jails where they learned Hebrew. Most of Hamas's political leaders are currently in exile in different Middle Eastern countries, especially in Qatar with whose leadership they maintained close relations.Hamas also comprises a political wing, which over the years participated in governing institutions in the West Bank and Gaza, and a military wing (Qassam Brigades) that has built a fighting force and planned and executed military operations against Israel. Hamas is not a monolithic group, which reflects the reality of Palestinian society in Gaza and the West Bank.Hamas's charter rejects the existence of the State of Israel in Palestine, but its political wing has engaged with Israel, especially since 2007, on pragmatic matters that affect the Palestinians' daily lives in Gaza and has shown a willingness to accept a two-state solution. Beginning in 2017, Hamas began to move slowly toward accepting a possible two-state solution to the conflict, implying recognition of Israel. Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzouk affirmed this position in a recent interview with the Washington based Al- Monitor but soon after tried to walk it back, claiming it was taken out of context.Israel, the U.S., and most other Western countries for years viewed Hamas as a local militant nationalist religious movement. And in order to further the cause of the two-state solution and undermine Israel's claim that there was no unified Palestinian interlocutor to negotiate with, some Palestinian leaders and Arab countries, particularly Qatar, suggested that the U.S. designate Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization, which it did in the late 1990s. After the Hamas election victory in Gaza in 2006, which incidentally was another intelligence failure, some important factions within Hamas sought a pragmatic engagement with Israel on such issues as labor, the power grid, water, fishing, and commerce. Some analysts within the U.S. government at the time judged that reaching out to the pro-engagement faction within Hamas would serve Israeli and U.S. national interests. Unfortunately, Israeli and U.S. policymakers rejected that judgement.Hamas's jihadism moves globalIsrael's goal of eliminating Hamas as a movement is unattainable. Liquidating the current military leaders of Hamas will bring a new cadre of leaders to the top. Hamas, like other resistance organizations, has developed leadership succession plans that go down to second, third, and fourth tiers. American and Israeli intelligence agencies for the most part have focused on the first tier with scant knowledge of the leadership tiers below that.Israeli and American policymakers have also yet to focus on the transformation of some of Hamas's military leaders shifting from a local, nationalist, religious ideology resisting the Israeli occupation and calling for a Palestinian state into a global jihadist ideology. If such a transformation takes root, Hamas would essentially move away from the Muslim Brotherhood ideology to a radical, Wahhabi Salafi jihadist paradigm. Extremists within the Wahhabi paradigm do not accept the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine.Much of the jihadist radicalization of many Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, occurred in Israeli jails. Although some were recruited by Israeli intelligence services, especially the Shin Beit, as assets and collaborators; others became more radicalized and secretive. Palestinian economic, social, and political dehumanization in Gaza and the West bank, together with Israeli hubris about its military power and presumed penetration of Palestinian society, have led many Palestinian activists, including within Hamas, to adopt a narrative of jihadism grounded in Wahhabism, al-Qaida, and ISIS. It's highly unlikely that Hamas's political leaders would be allowed to participate in any discussions about postwar Gaza unless the whole Hamas movement, including the military wing, jettisons the global anti-Jewish jihadist paradigm and returns to its local, anti-occupation resistance posture.The way forwardThe most recent public opinion poll in the West Bank and Gaza shows a significant rise in Hamas's popularity in both areas with nearly 90% calling on Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president in Ramallah, to resign. The poll, which was conducted between November 22 and December 2, finds that Palestinians view Hamas as the most legitimate group in the West Bank and Gaza.The path forward encompasses two crucial steps that are essential for a resolution of the conflict. First, the wider conflict must be viewed in the context of the political, security, economic, and human rights aspirations of both peoples between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.Second, Washington must engage government and community representatives from Israel, the Palestinians, Arab states, the EU, and the U.N. in a serious, initially private, conversation about the long-term political status of Palestine that goes beyond Hamas and the current PA regime in Ramallah.This might sound like a pipedream, but we see the alternative in Gaza — and it is ugly.

Tese de Doutoramento em Urbanismo com a especialização em Urbanismo apresentada na Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Doutor. ; Premissa Em Arquitectura, o desenvolvimento, a confirmação ou a negação de alguns paradigmas culturais e teóricos deve ser antecedido pelo mesmo processo em relação ao mais básico e prioritário dos objetos em questão, ou seja, o veículo das mesmas conjeturas, o produto de estes três anos de formação de terceiro ciclo: a tese de doutoramento. Esta é precisamente uma pesquisa, uma investigação de carácter experimental, original e inédita, confrontada meticulosamente com capacidades e técnicas capazes de controlar o seu processo. Não constitui uma prática de deificação de verdade dogmática, não tem validade universal, não revela a soma absoluta do saber. Pelo contrário, quer gostemos quer não, a investigação, como atividade, é de natureza duplamente parcial: epistemológica e temporal. Por sua vez, derivado de visões anteriores e baseado em inúmeros estudos, é um segmento do saber com uma certa legitimidade, transmissível entre pensadores e operadores da comunidade científica. Ao mesmo tempo, não tem validade cronológica ilimitada e não constitui uma meta invejada, mas sim um ponto de partida para futuras pesquisas académicas, próprias e de outrem, para um avanço disciplinar contínuo. É também importante precisar que o objeto de estudo não é produto de um capricho, e a investigação que dele resulta não constitui um exercício ocioso. Persiste, no entanto, a convicção de que é necessário que sejamos comedidos, mantendo-nos o mais possível dentro do nosso campo disciplinar específico, agora cada vez mais adulterado por desvios e fascinações sócio-antropológicas, com as condições da contemporaneidade na esfera de um realismo saudável. Objeto da pesquisa O objeto desta pesquisa é, portanto, aquela paisagem moderna dos segmentos costeiros do sul da Europa feita de geografia e de objets trouves, formas e materiais comuns, arquiteturas ainda "não acreditadas", resultantes de práticas não muito claras – traços de cidades informais litorais, produtos de auto-construção, ilegalidades, e ambiguidade normativa – que têm normalmente origem, necessidade, sentido e uso autónomos, relativamente a eventuais leituras formais e convencionais, mas que podem interessar bastante a quem se ocupa do território contemporâneo antrópico. Quer se queira quer não, estes manufatos, pela presença cénica por vezes tão imponente e violenta, outras vezes insignificante e camuflada, representam uma quota consistente da paisagem contemporânea e das ocasiões profissionais de nós arquitetos, cada vez mais forçados a manipular, com o olhar e com as nossas obras, a transformar e a corrigir este tipo de situações complexas, em vez de enriquecer os nossos territórios com nova edificação. Só os edifícios abusivos em Itália chegam aos 17%, enquanto que a percentagem aumenta entre os 30% e os 40% se considerarmos as construções que persistem ao longo da costa; a vizinha Grécia evidencia práticas semelhantes; se considerarmos também os edifícios autorizados do ponto de vista normativo, mas nunca 'dirigidos' a quem os observa, é óbvio que falamos pelo menos de metade daquilo que há anos temos constantemente debaixo dos olhos. Um fenómeno de quantidades e dimensões tais que é legítimo, por um lado, reconhecer que o atual sistema positivista normativo é, resumidamente, bastante ineficaz, e, por outro, falar de situações inadiáveis, e não de dissertação teorética gratuita. Talvez tenhamos realmente passado um ponto sem retorno. É possível conjeturar a demolição de quilómetros e quilómetros de construção ao longo da costa? Como reutilizar e armazenar os milhares de restos de metros cúbicos de materiais de construção civil não recicláveis? É economicamente sustentável? É dialeticamente correto? É culturalmente sincrónico? Cada empreendimento demiúrgico, adequado a reimplantar uma hipotética idade de ouro ou o sublimado "ponto zero" do estado natural das coisas, arrisca a parecer mais arrogante e insensato – mesmo que não seja considerado assim pelo senso comum – que uma humilde e realista tentativa de reconhecer certas formas que adornam o território honestamente rejeitado na consciência da autonomia disciplinar e dos limites – dentro dos quais a nossa investigação pode definir-se, de um certo modo, como científica – das nossas competências de estudiosos de arquitetura, que não se confundem com as nossas aspirações vagas de cidadãos e utentes sociais. Trata-se, na verdade, de abandonar por um momento os impulsos políticos e sociológicos e a prática da "reportagem da degradação" – muito em voga hoje – para se limitar, e não se trata de limites, pelo contrário, a investigar, na qualidade de arquiteto, a forma, e compreender até que ponto, objetos e linguagem, não considerados áulicos e sem acreditação, possam constituir, pelo contrário, materiais de construção de interesse. Exatamente como outros, não só no campo arquitetónico, têm repetidamente tentado, ao longo da história, uma cultura nova de partilha. O significado de acreditação A tese de doutoramento entende, portanto, propor uma leitura da paisagem contemporânea, olhando a dinâmica da acreditação como o principal instrumento de reavaliação de alguns objetos e segmentos costeiros da nossa área geográfico-cultural, a fim de enfrentar mais adequadamente a complexidade da gestão de território. A pesquisa explora, portanto, algumas técnicas compositivas para a acreditação, ou seja, contextualiza o objeto, ou o conjunto de objetos, em novos e variados possíveis sistemas de relações funcionais da construção da paisagem, do espaço coletivo, da forma e da contemporaneidade. A acreditação de um objeto está ligada a características intrínsecas e extrínsecas ao mesmo. Esta reside seguramente em atributos formais – forma, dimensões, escala, relação com a paisagem, materiais utilizados – mas sobretudo, amaldiçoando um estéril e perigoso elenco numérico das qualidades a registar, evitando a redução da arquitetura a sistemas meramente quantitativos, em características extrínsecas ao próprio objeto. Em primeiro lugar, a capacidade de criação – aliás, compositiva - que descreve o objeto a ser acreditado, a partir da operação de lançar um olhar sobre este, que é já projeto, transformando-o e tornando evidente com a produção de uma forma (seja ela uma fotografia, uma colagem, um desenho, um poema, uma composição musical) esta transformação. Uma transformação que consiste sobretudo na ativação de novas relações entre o objeto e outros elementos e layers do território, sejam estes materiais ou imateriais. Método e resultados esperados A acumulação de fragmentos da contemporaneidade sobre a forma de um ábaco de elementos de um vocabulário possível, a abstração das formas que adornam a nossa geografia, o confronto sistemático entre "objetos encontrados", esquecimento de hoje, e casos do passado pelos quais existe uma clara e universal atribuição de qualidade, o desnivelamento de um diálogo organizado entre elementos de pontuação, geneticamente heterogéneos, de diversas frentes costeiras, pode constituir um exercício saudável de observação para poder superar o paradigma do pitoresco e da lente da retórica, principais limites da pesquisa de onde é sempre difícil libertar-se. Desta forma, os investigadores, estudiosos, e administradores que colocarem as lentes dadas por esta pesquisa, e através das quais observarem a paisagem, poderão dialogar, debater e criar avanços disciplinares significativos no sentido de compreender as formas do território, concentrando-se nos mecanismos de reconhecimento e acreditação dos elementos que contribuem para a definição da paisagem contemporânea. A utilidade da dissertação é modernizar e atualizar o paradigma em vez de forçar a realidade a uma evolução improvável de "regresso ao futuro", para constituir uma base disciplinar, seja para elaborar cenários possíveis, seja para estruturar sistemas de avaliação de propostas de criação, seja para uma articulação normativa territorial de nova geração para áreas distintas. ; ABSTRACT: Premises Before proceeding with the widening, confirming or retracting of a few cultural and theoretical archetypes in the field of architecture, it may come useful to do the same with the most basic and overriding of the subject matters under examination: that is the vehicle of the conjectures themselves, the result of a third level three year education program: the PhD thesis. Indeed, it is a research, an investigation carrying an experimental flair; original and unreleased, tackled thoroughly by means of skills and techniques able to control its process. It does not intend to be the deification of dogmatic truths, it is not valid all-round nor reveals the absolute summa of knowledge. On the contrary, whether liked or not, the research activity has a two natured incompleteness: of epistemological and temporal nature. In turn, it derives from previous points of view and is based on upstream studies. It is a section of knowledge having a certain validity domain, transmissible and interchangeable among thinkers and operators belonging to the scientific community. Moreover, and at the same time, it has no limits in its chronological validity and it is not the seeking for a target: rather, a starting point inspiring confidence for future academic researches – both of the writer and reader's – for an incessant disciplinary progress. It is also useful to point out that the subject matter of this study is not the result of a whim; the investigation that it prompted, not an idle exercise. Instead, it was the persisting need urging one to measure oneself – trying one's best to remain as much as possible within his specific educational field (now, more than ever, diluted by the many social-anthropological bewitching) – with a healthy realism at the core of the being contemporary. Object of research Therefore, the object of this research is the contemporary landscape of the coastal segments in Southern Europe, made of geography and objets trouvés, ordinary shapes and materials, unacknowledged architectures, often a result of not very straightforward practices – sections of informal coastal towns, products of self building, unauthorized development and regulation ambiguity – which normally are autonomous in their origin, needs, sense and use in respect to a conventional formal reading, but rising great interest in those who are involved in the field of contemporary anthropized environments. Whether we like it or not, these products (human crafts showing, at times, a brutal and imposing stage presence and at times an insignificant or minor and muffled one) represent a considerable part of contemporary landscapes and of professional chances for us architects, being ever more forced to manipulate, transform and correct, both with our gaze and action, the complexity of these set outs, rather than enriching our territories with new volumes. Abusive buildings in Italy cover over 17% of the gross, while the percentage increases reaching 30-40% if considering buildings along coastal areas. Nearby Greece shows similar routine. If, on the other then, one wishes to broaden the dissertation also to those buildings authorized under the regulation point of view, yet upsetting those who observe them, it is obvious that they cover at least half of what we have constantly observed for years. A phenomenon in terms of quantity according to which it is licit on one hand to recognize that the present positivistic regulatory framework is, basically, most useless, and on the other to speak of a compulsory situation, and not of an uncalled for theoretical disquisition. Perhaps we have truly reached the point of no return. Is it at all possible to hypothesize the demolition of whole stretches of buildings along the coastal areas? How to manage the clearing out and hoarding of further billions of square meters of non-recyclable rubble? Is it financially sustainable? Is it dialectically correct? Culturally synchronic? Any demiurgical activity undertaken in order to re-establish an hypothetical golden age or exalted "zero point" of the natural state of things could appear more presumptuous and senseless – although never considered as such by a very popular common sense – than a humble and realistic attempt to give value to certain shapes studding the territory, describing it honestly being aware of the freedom settled by the discipline and boundaries – within which our research may be defined almost nearer a scientific one – of our expertise as academics in architecture, which must not be confused with our aspirations as dwellers or social users. Indeed, it is all about leaving aside for a moment political or sociological drives and the now very popular "environmental degradation reports", to limit oneself – and that is no limit – to investigate as architects, as we are, the shape, understand to which extent objects and languages that are not accredited nor considered noble can instead represent building material tickling a certain interest. Exactly like others, who have experienced, over and over again and not only in the architectural field, the new culture of sharing. The Sense of acknowledging Therefore, the aim of this PhD thesis is to suggest a reading of contemporary landscape, using the dynamics of the acknowledging as a fundamental means to reassess some objects and coastal segments of our cultural and geographical area, with the final objective of tackling more appropriately the complexity of the managing this territory requires. This research investigates some compositional techniques for the accrediting (that is, the putting at stake) of the object itself - or of the objects if a plurality – in new and many possible ways functional to the setting of the landscape, of the collective space, of the shapes of contemporaneity. The inclination of an object to be accredited is connected to its intrinsic and express characteristics. For sure it may be found in its formal qualities – shape, dimension, scale, relation with the landscape, employed materials – but, above all, preventing a sterile and dangerous numerical list of its qualities (an appalling tendency afflicting our time is to reduce architecture to systems measuring mere quantities, in characteristics extrinsic to the object itself. First of all the ability to design – rather, of composition – of who is describing the object to be accredited; starting from the first gaze, which is already designing, transforming it and making that transformation evident by giving it a shape (whether with a photograph, a collage, a drawing, a poem or musical composition). A transformation mainly consisting in activating new relationships between the object and other elements and layers of the territory, both material and intangible. Method and expected results Exercising gathering fragments of contemporaneity, in the form of an abacus of elements composing a possible vocabulary, the abstraction of the forms that stud our geographies, the systematic comparing of disregarded "found objects" of the present and cases of the past for which there exists an established and universal awarding of quality; the unveiling of an orderly dialogue between punctuation elements - genetically heterogeneous – of the different coastal fronts, may represent a healthy training to observation in order to overcome the paradigm of picturesque and the lens of rhetoric; main limits to research, from the domination of which it is always hard to set free of. In this way researcher, academics and managers who will be seeing the landscape through the glasses of this research may converse, discuss and produce significant guideline improvements towards the understanding of the territory, focusing on the mechanisms of acknowledgement and accreditation of the elements concurring to the definition of the contemporary landscape. To update and modernize the paradigm instead of forcing reality in an unconvincing evolution recalling a "return to the future" could represent the disciplinary grounds for developing possible landscapes, for structuring evaluation models for creative proposals, and for the issuing of a new generation of territory laws and regulation dedicated to distinctive areas. ; N/A

Der Autor faßt zunächst Einwände zusammen, die im amerikanischen Senat gegen die NATO-Osterweiterung laut werden. Die zentrale Frage, die die Clinton-Administrative zu beantworten hat, lautet: Ist das strategische Hauptziel der Allianz-Erweiterung die Stärkung der Rolle der NATO durch die Aufnahme weiterer geeigneter Mitglieder, oder aber die Schaffung einer "neuen NATO", der gegenüber Moskau seinen Einfluß auf Grundsatzentscheidungen geltend machen wird. Die Antwort hänge davon ab, wie die US-Regierung und der Senat die doppeldeutigen Formulierungen des Grundaktes zwischen Rußland und der NATO interpretieren werden. Die zweite wichtige Diskussionsfrage sei die Eignung der Beitrittskandidaten für die NATO-Mitgliedschaft. Diese Frage wird von dem Verfasser trotz einiger Vorbehalte positiv beantwortet. (BIOst-Hrs)

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