National Homeland Research Articles

Israel in Exile: Jewish Writing and the Desert (review)

Reviewed by: Israel in Exile: Jewish Writing and the Desert Naomi Baldinger Ranen Omer-Sherman . Israel in Exile: Jewish Writing and the Desert. Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Pp. xvii, 210. Cloth $35.00. ISBN 0252030435. Biblical and liturgical Hebrew frequently conceptualizes God as "Makom," or "place," especially in the context of the exodus from Egypt. This concept, combined with a sense of urgency inherent in the contested national space of Israel, makes Ranen Omer-Sherman's Israel in Exile: Jewish Writing and the Desert a timely study of the desert's crucial role in the construction and reconstruction of Jewish ethics and identity. The desert, as a site both metaphorical and physical, has been a key trope in Jewish literature from the Bible to contemporary works both Israeli and diasporic. From the biblical narrative of desert wandering to twentieth century Zionist discourse of "making the desert bloom," the desert has been an unrivaled locus for nation-building and transformations both collective and personal. As a transitional space between exile and nation, between slavery and redemption, it challenges both collectivity and individual. It also opens space for encounters with alterity, including those dissenting views and revolutionary undercurrents inherent in collective discourses of Self. For example, Moses's encounter with the rebellious Korah and an Israeli officer's encounter with a dead Egyptian pilot provoke meditations on the definitions and limits of the nation and the self. As Omer-Sherman puts it, "the desert not only crystallizes the urgency of re-visioning the other and reappraising the self, but it affords a space for transformation outside of the particularism of the Zionist, or any other exclusionist, narrative" (161). Indeed, Israel in Exile is, to a large extent, a sustained meditation on the ethical possibilities that desert space opens. Chapter 1 introduces the multiple intersections of "poetics and politics" that inform Omer-Sherman's study, including the consistent thread of Levinasian ethics that runs through the book. Omer-Sherman writes that "the revelation in the desert continues to provoke an ethical orientation towards alterity" (13), citing Levinas's thoughts about Abraham's hospitality towards strangers in the desert he inhabited. Omer Sherman uses Levinas's concept of ethics as a perpetual orientation towards the Other, coupled with Theodor Adorno's injunction that "it is part of morality not to be at home in one's home," to craft a notion of Jewish ethics based in the experience of exile even when applied in the national homeland of Israel. In addition to introducing this notion of ethics, Omer-Sherman details the renewed interest in writings about the desert that emerged in the twentieth [End Page 71] century. To this end, he evokes various traditions of writing about the desert including British romanticism as well as diasporic Zionism. One of the unique features of Omer-Sherman's style is how he blends his broad and well-considered textual analysis with his own experiences in the desert. He writes that following his decision to make aliyah as a teenager, the desert provided a crucial place for him to explore the tensions inherent in his love for Israel and his increasingly critical stance towards its political positions with regard to the Arab other. This approach is unusual in academic writing, but it lends a sense of urgency and enthusiasm to Omer-Sherman's style, which is eminently clear and engaging. Israel in Exile's greatest strength lies in Omer-Sherman's close readings of contemporary Jewish texts that engage the trope of the desert. He interweaves his interpretation with biblical analysis informed by scholars like Ilana Pardes and theological reflections by the likes of Annie Dillard and Rabbi Aaron Soleveichik. Omer-Sherman devotes his second chapter to Shulamith Hareven's The Desert Trilogy, and argues that it offers a feminist critique of "the power of territorial redemption" (53) and an alternative reading of how Israel's national consciousness was forged. This divergent explanation challenges tribalism and emphasizes the ethical treatment of minorities. He treats Hareven's text as a contemporary midrash on biblical and prophetic texts that resonates in Israel's contemporary political context. In the next two chapters, he analyzes Amos...

Land as an Issue in Christian‐Jewish Dialogue

Land as an Issue in Christian‐Jewish Dialogue John T. Pawlikowski Two tendencies played a prominent role in shaping the Christian outlook on the issue of the Jewish People and the land of Israel over the centuries. These tendencies have their roots in the early centuries of Christianity. The first of these tendencies was the so‐called theology of “perpetual wandering” perspective with respect to the Jewish People. This theology became so imbedded in popular Western culture that even a plant came to bear its name. According to the “perpetual wandering” theology, Christians look upon Jews as forever relegated to the status of “displaced persons” among the nations of the world. A prevailing mindset is evident in many of the patristic writings. When the “veil of the Temple was rent” and the covenant between God and his people broken permanently as a result, Jews received “a bill of divorce,” as it where, and from that time onwards they were doomed to roam restless over the face of the earth. This perpetual wandering theology continued in force throughout Christian history into the modern period. The noted biblical scholar who in fact defended Nazism Gerhard Kittel and served as editor of the very influential Theological Dictionary of the New Testament1 viewed post‐biblical Judaism as largely a community in dispersion. “Authentic Judaism,” he wrote “abides by the symbol of the stranger wandering restless and homeless on the face of the earth.” And even the great Cardinal Augustin Bea, who played such a central role in the development, passage and initial implementation of Vatican II’s historic Nostra Aetate, revealed continued traces of a traditional Catholic mindset regarding Jews, the covenant and the land. In a 1966 work titled The Church and the Jewish People. Bea falls into the use of language quite reminiscent of perpetual wandering theology. “The fate of Jerusalem,” he tells us, “constitutes a sort of final reckoning at the end of a thousand years of infidelities and opposition to God.” From that point onward, Bea insists, Jews and Judaism existed merely as a “witness to their iniquity and to the truth of the Christian faith.”2 It is understandable, therefore, according to Bea, why many Christian bodies reacted to the reestablishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948 with considerable consternation and even outright opposition. And we also need to recall that in 1904 when Pope Pius X received Theodore Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionist effort to restore a Jewish state in occupied Palestine, the Pope ultimately offered a theological explanation for his unwillingness to support this effort. In his perspective since Jews did not accept Jesus Christ he could never endorse the notion of a Jewish national homeland—clearly shades of a perpetual wandering theology—even though he indicated to Herzl that he was in no position to stop this effort.3 From the above brief sample of Christian approaches to the question of Jews and the land beginning in the Patristic era, it should be evident that a long tradition exists within Christianity of an explicitly theological approach to the land of Israel. In fact, it is fair to say that rarely, if ever, in Christian history has Israel been merely regarded as a “political” issue for the churches. Any adequate understanding of Judaism’s attachment to the land within a Christian context must begin with a clear acknowledgment that the churches basically rejected this attachment for explicitly Christian theological reasons. While chapter four of Nostra Aetate is a very brief statement in comparison to most other documents from Vatican II, it in fact contains the seeds of a major theological revolution that undercut the validity of the classical “perpetual wandering” theology of Judaism within the churches. For, in asserting that there never existed any basis for a blanket accusation of deicide and in affirming the continuing validity of Jewish covenantal participation after the Christ Event and the bondedness that Christians and Jews now share through the covenant, Nostra Aetate decisively undercut the foundation of the displacement/perpetual wandering theology of the Jewish People that had dominated Christian theological and popular thinking for two millennia. For that reason it is quite accurate to...

Reform, Don't Merge, the Homeland Security Council

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Lynn Eden and Amy Zegart for their comments on earlier drafts. Notes 1. Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, “Homeland Security Presidential Directive-1/HSPD-1,” October 29, 2001, p. 1, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011030-1.html 2. Also see 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (New York: Norton, 2004), p. 406; Richard C. Clarke and Rand Beers, The Forgotten Homeland (New York: Century Foundation, 2006), pp. 129–33; P.J. Crowley, Safe at Home: A National Security Strategy to Protect the American Homeland, the Real Central Front (Washington, D.C.: Center for American Progress, 2008), pp. 60-1; Jonah Czerwinski, “A Future for the Homeland Security Council?” Homeland Security Watch, 21 November 2007, http://www.hlswatch.com/index.php?s=A+Future+for+the+Homeland+Security+Council; Clark A. Murdock and Michèle A. Flournoy, Beyond Goldwater-Nichols: U.S. Government & Defense Reform for a New Strategic Era, Phase 2 Report (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2005), p. 68; Cindy Williams, Strengthening Homeland Security: Reforming Planning and Resource Allocation (Washington, D.C.: IOBM Center for the Business of Government, 2008), p. 36; Christine Wormuth and Anne Witkowsky, Managing the Next Catastrophe: Ready (Or Not)? (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies), pp. 16–18. 3. Williams, “Strengthening Homeland Security,” p. 30; Wormuth, “Managing the Next Catastrophe,” p. 16. 4. Wormuth, “Managing the Next Catastrophe,” p. 16. 5. Wormuth, “Managing the Next Catastrophe,” pp. 4–5, 29. 6. U.S. General Accounting Office, “Combating Nuclear Terrorism: Federal Efforts to Respond to Nuclear and Radiological Threats and to Protect Key Emergency Response Facilities Could be Strengthened,” GAO-08-285T, November 2009. 7. Nelson Hernandez and Philip Rucker, “Anthrax Case Raises Doubt on Security,” Washington Post, 8 August 2008, p. A1. 8. Elizabeth Becker and Tim Weiner, “A Nation Challenged: Homeland Security; New Office to Become a White House Agency, New York Times, September 28, 2001. 9. Williams, “Strengthening Homeland Security,” p. 29; Wormuth, “Managing the Next Catastrophe,” p. 16. 10. Richard Neustadt, Presidential Power (New York: Free Press, 1990) 11. Becker and Weiner, “A Nation Challenged.” 12. Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, “Homeland Security Council Executive Order, Order Establishing the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council and Senior Advisory Committees for Homeland Security,” March 21, 2002, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020321-9.html. 13. U.S. General Accounting Office, “Information Technology: Homeland Security Information Network Needs to Be Better Coordinated with Key State and Local Initiatives,” GAO-07-822T, May 10, 2007. 14. Rep. Bennie Thompson (R-Miss.), Chair, House Committee on Homeland Security, Letter to Michael Chertoff, Secretary of DHS, July 23, 2008, http://fas.org/irp/congress/2007_cr/thompson082207.pdf. Thompson's letter summarizes the findings of a GAO study of the Next Generation initiative that GAO has not yet released. 15. U.S. General Accounting Office, “National Response Framework: FEMA Needs Policies and Procedures to Better Integrate Non-Federal Stakeholders in the Revision Process,” GAO-08-768, June 11, 2008. 16. U.S. General Accounting Office, “Influenza Pandemic: Further Efforts Are Needed to Ensure Clearer Leadership Roles and an Effective National Strategy,” GAO-07-781, August 14, 2007. 17. The National Homeland Security Consortium, “Protecting Americans in the 21st Century: Imperatives for the Homeland,” April 2008, pp. 1–2, http://www.nemaweb.org/?2253. Additional informationNotes on contributorsPaul N. StocktonPaul N. Stockton is a senior research scholar at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and can be reached at pnstock@stanford.edu

Italophilia meets Albanophobia: paradoxes of asymmetric assimilation and identity processes among Albanian immigrants in Italy

This paper discusses what we call the ‘Albanian assimilation paradox’. Since arrival in 1991, Albanians have become one of the most ‘integrated’ of all non-EU immigrant groups in Italy, based on their knowledge of Italian, geographical dispersion, balanced demography, employment progress and desire to remain in Italy. Yet they are the nationality most rejected and stigmatized by Italians – stereotyped as criminals, prostitutes and uncivilized people. Based on ninety-seven interviews with Albanians in three cities in Italy, we explore the multifaceted dimensions of their patchy assimilation. Although the hegemonic negative framing of Albanians by Italian media and public discourse plays a major role, other elements of the picture relate to Albanians’ complexly shifting identities, framed both against and within this discourse (and hence both resisting and internalizing it) and against changing concepts of Albanian national and diasporic identities derived from ambiguous perceptions of the national homeland.

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Human health risk assessment database, “the NHSRC toxicity value database”: Supporting the risk assessment process at US EPA's National Homeland Security Research Center

The toxicity value database of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) National Homeland Security Research Center has been in development since 2004. The toxicity value database includes a compilation of agent property, toxicity, dose–response, and health effects data for 96 agents: 84 chemical and radiological agents and 12 biotoxins. The database is populated with multiple toxicity benchmark values and agent property information from secondary sources, with web links to the secondary sources, where available. A selected set of primary literature citations and associated dose–response data are also included. The toxicity value database offers a powerful means to quickly and efficiently gather pertinent toxicity and dose–response data for a number of agents that are of concern to the nation's security. This database, in conjunction with other tools, will play an important role in understanding human health risks, and will provide a means for risk assessors and managers to make quick and informed decisions on the potential health risks and determine appropriate responses (e.g., cleanup) to agent release. A final, stand alone MS ACESSS working version of the toxicity value database was completed in November, 2007.

Application of QSARs and VFARs to the rapid risk assessment process at US EPA

With continued development of new chemicals and genetically engineered microbes as potential agents for terrorism and industrial development, there is a great need for the continued development and application of quantitative structure activity relationships (QSARs) and virulence factor activity relationships (VFARs). Development and application of QSARs and VFARs will facilitate efficient and streamlined use of dwindling resources and assessment of risks associated with exposures to chemical and biological agents. To facilitate the continued development of QSARs and VFARs at US Environmental Protection Agency, a two day workshop was organized June 20–21, 2006, in Cincinnati, OH, USA. This article summarizes the workshop report by highlighting the importance of continued QSAR research, the current state of VFAR science, and the guidance provided to the National Homeland Security Research Center and National Risk Management Research Laboratory by an expert panel for the continued use and development of computational approaches.

Homeland security preparedness: Balancing protection with resilience in emergent systems

AbstractThe report of the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection [PCCIP, Executive Order 13010, The White House, Washington, DC, 1997] which was issued in October 1997 set in motion a revolutionary and expensive national homeland security initiative under the rubric of critical infrastructure protection. The PCCIP addressed a plethora of sources of risk to the nation's critical infrastructures, along with numerous risk management options. For simplicity, we partition solution possibilities into two major types: protecting system assets and adding resilience to systems. Much of government research efforts focus on analyzing component systems and their assets. Systems engineers are particularly interested in characteristics that emerge from the system design, which are affected by changes to component systems, but also by changes that reflect the way systems are constructed and integrated. Adding resilience to a system expands the focus beyond component systems to include a study of emergent, system‐level attributes for homeland security consideration. Balancing protective and resilience actions through system‐level analysis will provide a means to improve the overall efficiency of regional and national preparedness. This paper explores concepts of emergence, resilience, and preparedness as a foundation for establishing a framework to assess the balance between the two areas of infrastructure risk mitigation. We propose several considerations that must be included in a framework to assess protection and resilience tradeoffs, and we present a simple illustrative study that demonstrates several of the framework concepts and provides a means for further discussion about the complex interactions that are faced when evaluating the resilience of a system. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng

Which comes first, the nation or the state? A multiple scale model applied to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the Caucasus

The aim of this article is to propose and apply a conceptual model to evaluate how national identity, state interests and territory, including both state territory and national homeland, may be interwoven in a particular conflict. The frozen conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh in the south Caucasus, the selected case study, appears to defy resolution efforts based on an assessment of self-determination of nations or on territorial integrity of the state. The article begins with the view that one-dimensional conceptions of ‘state’ and ‘nation’ are insufficient for understanding complex relations underlying territorial conflict. It is suggested that a more comprehensive understanding may be obtained and applied toward conflict resolution through a consideration of multiple scales and dimensions of activity in a particular conflict. The article focuses not only on the roles of states and nations, but also considers the meanings of territory and, most importantly, contributing factors to a sufficient capacity to compromise.

National Identity and Homeland in Bangladesh

As we examine conflicts the world over, we are struck by how many of them are propelled and fuelled by issues of national identity, and how many issues of national identity are wrapped up in land. ...

How the FBI Has Advanced the Effectiveness of Policing and Law Enforcement in America, While Serving as the Nation's Homeland Security Agency

In America the FBI has advanced the effectiveness of policing and law enforcement, while at the same time serving as the nation's homeland security agency. The concept of culture, which is the unique configuration of norms, values and beliefs that characterise the way that people agree to do things, has played a major part in this advancement. Management has had a great influence on how the FBI has become more effective. Early theories of organisations say that the proper way to manage is through control mechanisms. In the early 1800s, policing was the task that provided basic public safety services. The idea of dedicating human and financial resources to catching criminals can be traced back to Roman times. From these roots, the FBI has evolved and had tremendous success in crime fighting. Many of the FBI's efforts have been concentrated on fighting domestic terrorism; however, the FBI has had successes in a wide range of law enforcement tasks, from handling bank robberies to dealing with plots to overthrow the government.

The State of American Federalism 2007-2008: Resurgent State Influence in the National Policy Process and Continued State Policy Innovation

States played a prominent role in policy-making in 2007-2008 in several respects. States were more successful in securing relief from federal directives regarding the National Guard, homeland security, education, and welfare than in any prior year in the Bush presidency; they were unable to fend off several new mandates, however, particularly concerning the State Children's Health Insurance Program. States also continued to be the primary innovators in areas such as immigration, environmental protection, and health care, although they encountered new constraints in the form of federal court challenges and agency rulings. The Supreme Court made no notable contributions to the post-1992 decisions that initially curbed and recently deferred to federal power; however, several rulings interpreting federal statutes and reviewing state acts had important federalism implications.

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Drinking Water Contamination Warning Systems: Water Utilities Driving Water Security Research

This article highlights the Threat Ensemble Vulnerability Assessment (TEVA) Research Program, established in 2003 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Homeland Security Research Center to field questions concerning contamination warning systems (CWS) that are being developed by many water utilities. The article describes the partnership formed between the AWWA Water Utility Users Group and the TEVA Research Program to share information, data, and operational experiences. The article discusses two software tools that were developed and pilot‐tested through this partnership: TEVA‐SPOT (sensor placement optimization tool), a tool to identify the placement of optimal sensor locations, and CANARY, a tool to identify potential contamination incidents using real‐time water quality monitoring data.

Electronic Freight Theft Management System for Florida

An electronic freight theft management system has recently been developed by the Center for Advanced Transportation Systems Simulation. The system was designed to be a comprehensive online application for the reporting, documentation, and warehousing of information on intermodal freight theft and related occurrences. A hierarchical database structure is the foundation for data capture, storage, and retrieval. System deployment is intended to benefit conglomerate corporations, independent sole proprietor commercial vehicle operators, and law enforcement agencies. The online system can be used to assist law enforcement in prioritizing theft investigations or recovery operations by the significance level of the stolen cargo. If deployed nationally, it would offer criminal investigation officers a universal freight theft data system with interjurisdictional application and versatility to assist in cross-reference of available data through any available Internet connection and web browser. The system has been structured to allow application of data mining techniques to the database. The system has simplicity and scalability without loss of performance and has built-in alerts to identify stolen commodities that pose a possible threat to national homeland security. A system for Florida law enforcement has been designed and deployed. The new web-based system replaced the previous paper-based system that used a fax machine to distribute theft reports. The new system distributes reports and bulletins electronically via automated e-mails. This enhancement is projected to reduce response time significantly, provide greater accessibility to available data for officers, and increase the ability to provide more accurate theft recovery information.

Competing Priorities, Ambiguous Loyalties: Challenges of Socioeconomic Adaptation and National Inclusion of the Interwar Bulgarian Refugees

From the estimated ten million refugees in interwar Europe, more than 250,000 were ethnic Bulgarians who found their way in the Bulgarian Kingdom following Bulgarian defeats in the Second Balkan War and World War One. For a country with a population of five and a half million in the mid-1920s, this refugee flow constituted a significant challenge from economic, political, social, and cultural viewpoints. Similarly to Germany, Hungary, and Austria, the refugee presence served as a constant reminder of national failure because Bulgaria lost territories, perceived as a part of the national homeland, to all of its neighbors. The Bulgarian state received refugees from the Ottoman Empire, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Romania, and the interwar governments were compelled to deal with a large and diverse population that suffered harsh socioeconomic problems and psychological traumas. Due to the Convention for Emigration of Minorities between Greece and Bulgaria of 1919 as well as the Greek-Turkish War of 1921–1922 and the obligatory population exchange it initiated in the period 1922–1924, refugee flows in the Balkans lasted well into the mid-1920s. Hence Bulgarians were on the move throughout 1924 and 1925. Despite these strenuous circumstances, interwar politicians boasted the successful integration of the refugees. Immediately after World War One, the government provided temporary assistance to the newcomers. In 1926, an international loan allowed the agricultural settlement of the most destitute new arrivals, and all refugees were granted the rights of Bulgarian citizens. A second loan in 1928 guaranteed the continuation of vital infrastructure projects. By the end of the 1930s, both domestic and international agencies involved in the refugee accommodation viewed the process as a successfully completed mission.

Development of a Virtual Terrorist

National homeland security organizations are charged with developing the capabilities necessary to combat terrorist activities. This task includes evaluating technologies designed to train security personnel and test counter-terrorism systems. In support of this goal, SAIC has prototyped a simulation framework that leverages the technology of the Combat Automation Requirements Testbed (CART) program with commercially available software that renders 3-D players in a simulation of terrorist activities. Called Virtual Terrorist, an autonomous agent was developed to behave intelligently according to information about the environment in which it operates and the terrorist/insurgent mission to be accomplished. This paper discusses the structure of the HPM and its integration into a virtual environment.

Whose Homeland? Territoriality and Religious Nationalism in Pre-Partition Bengal

Scholarly inquiries into communalism in South Asia have often exclusively focused on politically constructed religious and ethnic identity categories. This article challenges these assumptions by arguing that territoriality and the designation of homelands played an important, but largely unrecognized, role in developing social and political boundaries in the region. By analyzing the writings of Bipin Chandra Pal during the Swadeshi period, this article points to the territorialization of a Hindu-based version of the national homeland as a key process in the development of communal difference in Bengal and South Asia more generally. It is concluded that the Hindu-dominated rhetoric of the early nationalist movement implicitly marked Hindus as the only true members of the nation. By implicitly excluding all other forms of social affiliations from the narrative of the homeland, it is argued that the stage was set for the contestation of territorial identity categories that played out through the 20th century in Bengal.

Indications and Warning for Homeland Security: Seeking a New Paradigm

Nothing is more important in the world of intelligence than preventing surprise. The most important surprise to prevent is the surprise attack on a nation's homeland. The United States has a very g...

The Volunteer Potential of Inactive Nurses for Disaster Preparedness

Inactive nurses' interest in volunteering for emergency preparedness was examined. A mail survey was sent to the entire Vermont Board of Nursing list of in-state inactive and lapsed registered nurses (n = 3,682). A high rate of undeliverable surveys (60%) was found and 611 surveys were returned for a 20% response rate. Twenty-seven percent of the respondents were interested in volunteering. Those interested in participating in volunteer work as part of a national homeland security effort were significantly more likely to (a) be younger in age (p < 0.0001); (b) identify themselves as "being a nurse" (p = 0.001); (c) be employed versus retired (p = 0.002); and (d) be currently volunteers (p = 0.001). Because 33% of the nation's nurses are over age 50, inactive nurses offer a potentially large pool of volunteers for emergency preparedness training and response in the years to come.