The ACRPS has published the seventh issue of its social sciences and humanities journal Omran. In this issue, Omran continues to address surveillance systems in the Arab world (see Omran 6). As a contribution to uncovering Israeli imperial-colonial measures deployed against Palestinian society, this issue focuses on surveillance practices in Palestine. Arab scholars from a number of countries expose Israeli surveillance practices as a punitive measure used to corral and control a Palestinian population classified and categorized according to differing criteria and methodologies. This issue also offers a variety of studies and readings on cultural, social, and political topics, showcasing the paintings of Palestinian artist Hani Zurob, on the cover and inside pages.

Leading the issue’s collection of studies is a paper by Tunisian historian Mohammad al-Tahir al-Mansuri, “The Role of Peace and Commerce Treaties in the Western Mediterranean Basin during the Middle Ages”. Palestinian researcher Abbad Yahya discusses “Statistics and Social Research in the Occupied Territories: The Colonial Effect and the Fragmentation of Palestinian Society”. The issue further offers Arabic translations of a study by Nigel Parsons and Mark B. Salter, “Israeli Biopolitics: Closure, Territorialization, and Governmentality in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” and of Palestinian researcher Helga Tawil-Souri’s “Israel’s Digital Occupation of Gaza”. The collection concludes with Tunisian sociologist Mahir Traimish’s paper “The Political and the Sociological in the Arab Sphere: Shifts in Relationships”. 

The Winter 2013-2014 issue of Omran also presents two important studies; one by Sudanese researcher Shams al-Deen al-Ameen Daww al-Bait, “The Question of Citizenship in Sudanese Islamist Thought: Traditional, Renewalist, and Post-Salafist Approaches”; and another by Egyptian researcher Salma Mousa, “Popes, Presidents, and Protests: The January 25 Revolution and the Coptic Orthodox Church”.

In “Debates and Reviews,” the issue offers Syrian researcher Jad al-Karim al-Jabai’s study “The Parallel Society: A Basis for Understanding What is Taking Place in Syria”; Palestinian researcher Hani Awwad’s review of Adaptable Autocrats: Regime Power in Egypt and Syria by Joshua Stacher; a review of Martin O’Neill and Thad Williamson’s  Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond by Moroccan researcher Murad Dayani; and Syrian researcher Nerouz Satik’s reviews of Mohammad Jamal Barout’s The Modern Formation of the Syrian Jazira: Problems and Conundrums in the Shift from Bedouinization to Theoretical Urbanism and Ahmad Beydoun’s Lebanon between Reform and Ruin.

To obtain issues of the journal in hard or digital format, copies of individual articles, or an annual subscription, please visit the ACRPS Digital Bookstore: [insert link]. Currently, all printed issues of the journal publications are only available in Arabic. Selected titles are published in English on the ACRPS English website.