Palestinian Sovereignty and Peace in Israel

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Recent events involving the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers have escalated existing tension between Israel and Hamas-controlled Gaza and sparked a wave of protests across Israel. As a result, Israel has mobilized roughly 20,000 troops for a possible invasion of Gaza in an attempt to neutralize militant targets. Israel’s mobilization of troops and aerial strikes against Gazan targets, as well as Hamas’ continuing rocket fire have significantly reduced the possibility of a lasting peace in the region. Coupled with the broader geopolitical situation in which Israel and Palestine find themselves, a meaningful and lasting peace does not seem likely in the near future. Yet, there have been several important developments relating to the peace process in the Middle East that provide some hope for a better future.

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Canada's Cold War Part V

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Canada’s Cold War is often incorrectly dichotomized in historical scholarship. Examinations into the era often produce work strictly focused on the "front lines" (Europe) or "home front" (North America). Over the past few months we have probed Canada’s Cold War experience using a variety of analyses and perspectives, and have attempted to reconstruct a nuanced narrative to introduce our readers to some of the key events and personalities that shaped socio-cultural, political, technological, and economic change in Canada and abroad between the 1940s and 1970s. Today, in our fifth and perhaps final installment of Cold War history, we seek to determine if Canada was able to act autonomously during the era.

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Canada's Cold War Part IV

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Over the course of the past few months we have examined Canada’s role in the Cold War. Our examination thus far has situated Canadian interests generally within a North American context, where the United States has featured predominantly as Canada’s primary Cold War ally. Today we shift our focus away from North America and the Canada-United States bilateral relationship to examine a unique episode of the Cold War when Canada acted autonomously from its closest postwar allies.

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Is Russia of 2014 like Germany of the 1930s? Some Historical Context to Austria's Anschluss, Czechoslovakia and the Munich Agreement

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For many, the evolving situation in Ukraine harkens back to European history of the 1930s. Whether it is the German-Austrian Anschluss or the German claim to Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland, many across the world (and within Russia itself) have made the comparison between Russia's recent aggressive stance in the Crimea and the actions of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Such comparisons can be useful as they place the situation in Ukraine in a comprehensible (if perhaps simplified) framework. Most informed observers of contemporary affairs are broadly familiar with the events leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, and can easily understand a conception of Russia's action within such a comparison. Given the number of sources that have made the comparison in the last week, we thought it would be fruitful to remind our readers of those events in more detail.

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The Borderland: Between Russia and the Rest

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In early December 2013, we wrote about the controversy surrounding Ukraine’s decision to sidle alongside Putin’s Russia rather than sign agreements with the European Union that would allegedly bring the country closer to European integration. Over the last few months, the controversy has evolved considerably from a string of peaceful protests to violent unrest. The official response has escalated in turn, leading to violent clashes in the streets and hundreds of casualties since mid-January of this year. The most recent developments, however, have raised the stakes significantly as both Russia and Ukraine mobilize their militaries for war and a weary diplomatic community scrambles to ease the tensions.

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Wheat and Oil: Diefenbaker, Harper and Canadian-American Trade by Matthew Wiseman

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Matthew Wiseman, a PhD candidate at Wilfrid Laurier University, explores some of the ways in which Canadian prime ministers of the past have capitalized on Canada's resource-rich environment. He provides a historical background to debates surrounding Alberta's tar sands and Canadian economic policy.

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Roger Casement - Traitor and Humanitarian

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International and moral humanitarian action is very much a product of the 20th century. We've written about the history of humanitarianism in the past and its roots into centuries previous. Today we're exploring a facet of modern humanitarianism as it emerged in the early 20th century in the context of colonies and Empires.

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Opposition to Israeli Policy Isn’t Anti-Semitic

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Discussions about Israeli policy, Palestinian statehood, and just about any other issue involved in today’s Middle Eastern geopolitical landscape elicits a great deal of emotion. Some North Americans see a critique of Israeli state policy as an attack on not just the State of Israel, but also on Jews. Our previous post on Harper’s stance towards Israel fomented some heated discussion online, so we want to take an opportunity to provide a more pointed discussion on Israel.

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Stephen Harper's Strange Obsession with Israel

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The Canadian government's position on Israel has once again entered the spotlight this week, as Liberal fundraiser Stephen Bronfman pointed out that Justin Trudeau had actually been to Israel, while Israel's close friend Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not. A day later, reports emerged that the Prime Minister would be visiting Israel shortly – perhaps to visit the Bird Sanctuary that is being named in his honour. Again, the strange connection the Conservatives have forged with Israel seems stronger than ever but no less explicable.

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Canadian and EU Integration: No Easy Road

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Last week we explored some issues involving EU integration and Kiev’s decision not to sign the historic EU Association Agreement, which some argue would have put the Ukraine firmly on the road to prosperity. In light of the recent riots in the Ukraine’s capital—and the harsh government reaction to them—this post looks at some of the difficulties North Americans have when conceptualizing EU’s endless objective of expansion.

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Ukraine, EU Integration, and the Road to Prosperity

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Earlier this year, the European Union (EU) welcomed Croatia as the 28th member state, a decision which caused some degree of controversy. While some commentators claimed that the EU had already overstretched its boundaries, many politicians in the European community remain convinced that expanding the EU and signing European economic agreements is the optimal choice for the continent’s prosperity.

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The Other Path: Foreign Volunteers and the Fight for Freedom

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In this post, we look at "the other path" taken by some in times of war. In exploring how men from across Europe participated in the Spanish Civil War in 1936, we draw some parallels with the current situation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), where men from various background living in European countries have traveled to and participated in uprisings against regimes. 

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Common-Ground: Assad's Syria and Summer 1914

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According to most contemporaries in the summer of 1914, a European war couldn't have been further from the imagination. After all, they were living through Europe's longest, general peace since the Napoleonic Wars and many had never witnessed war. The small crises which riddled global news bulletins were not at all tied to the survival of their own countries. Yet, when the Balkans erupted for a third time in just a decade, European peace was broken and the Great War engulfed nations from around the globe. In this post, we raise questions about similarities between the situation in Syria and how states have reacted to US and British plans to attack Assad's regime.

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Intervention and Assad

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For about two and a half years, Western governments have stood idle whilst the leader of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, has contributed to a death toll of over 100,000. News of chemical weapons being used last week, however, has changed the posture of the US and the United Kingdom, who are now considering seriously military intervention. This post looks at the contradictory nature of the West's stance on Syrian intervention and the foreign policy issues associated with it. 

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Time for More Failed Peace Talks? The “Kerry Accords” and Israel

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In his 2011 book, The Anatomy of Israel’s Survival, Israeli journalist Hirsch Goodman posed a question that politicians and observers have dealt with for decades: can Israel survive? For Zionists and pro-Israelis, the question is frustrating, and most emphatically answer positively. Yet, against the backdrop of the Arab Awakening, the ongoing war in Syria, and the uncertainty of a new Iranian president, the answer to Israel’s survival is not as clear as it once was.

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Overstretching the EU's Overstretched Boundaries

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In this post, we suggest that given such severe financial crises, the EU should place a moratorium on the accession process. Croatia, which became the twenty-eighth member of the EU last month, brings with it a series of new challenges whilst other EU countries try to remedy their own. The post raises an important question: has the EU overstretched its boundaries?

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Canada and Israel

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Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has called for a “two-state solution” to the Israel-Palestine problem. It might not be the first time that such a solution has been sought, but Canada's support for it is questionable. Since coming to power in 2006, the Conservatives have been vocal supporters of the Israeli state. Though Canadian policy has often been supportive of Israel, it has never been as strong as it is today under Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

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Syria and the American Foreign Policy Dilemma

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After last week's conceptual history of humanitarianism, we would like to comment on the current state of humanitarian intervention and speak even more directly to the conflict in Syria, in which Western military intervention has been considered but rejected since it began more than two years ago. Today, we look at how intervention and human suffering have changed in the last decade since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

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Humanitarianism's Long History - Continuity and Change - Part 2

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This is the second and final part of our discussion on the history of humanitarian intervention. The previous post looked at long-term ideas as they relate to perceptions of suffering. As we move through the past, notions of who is suffering and from what have changed drastically. This can often dictate why and in what capacity states or organizations intervene in certain situations and not in others.

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Humanitarianism's Long History- Continuity and Change

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This week on Clio's Current we want to examine the history of humanitarianism in order to ask questions about pressing issues in the Arab world, notably in Syria. Before we do so, however, we think it's worthwhile to offer a short overview of the history of international humanitarianism, which stretches into the past much further than most might think.

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