Arbella Bet-Shlimon

@abshlimon

Historian (Iraq + elsewhere), Assyrian, Seattle | author, City of Black Gold (sup.org/books/middle-east-studies/city-black-gold) | personal account | she/هي/ܗܝ

552 Following824 Followers156 Posts

Bluesky

Is this your profile?Claim it and abshlimon.dirty.social is yours.Claim profile

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· 10d

proofs 👀

Photograph of a computer screen featuring uncorrected pdf proof of Chapter 2, Revolutionary Possibility and the Bounds of Imperial Subterfuge in Iraq, by Arbella Bet-Shlimon

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· 28d

Well, I’m going to talk in public about my latest article—why it’s important to write critiques like this, the challenges, what editors tell us to leave out—with the great Mariam Georgis. Register here if you’re interested 🙏🏽 us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Register for Our Next Webinar
Dr. Arbella Bet-Shlimon
Dr. Mariam Georgis,
Discussant
Dr. Nahrain Bet Younadam,
Moderator
Wednesday, July 29
11:00am PDT | 2:00pm EDT
How did the story of Assyrians, Indigenous to and an intrinsic part of the fabric of the so-called Middle East, begin to disappear in dominant academic narratives? Join Assyrian Studies Association for a conversation between Dr. Arbella Bet-Shlimon and Dr. Mariam Georgis about the challenges and urgency in critiquing dominant modes of scholarly inquiry about Assyrians in light of the recent publication of Dr. Bet-Shlimon's article, "Propaganda of the Victims': Atrocity Denial, Ethnic Nationalism, and the Disparagement of Assyrians in Middle East Studies" published in Review of Middle East Studies this year.

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Apr 24

My own prior work, especially my book about Kirkuk, takes a critical angle on ethnicities and nationalisms. But in case that critique has been misunderstood, I’d like it to be read through this lens:

A good critique of ethnic nationalism is one that is conscious of the political work of knowledge production. Conceptualizing ethnicity and nationalism as modern formations forged in particular contexts allows us to view them as processes contingent on recent circumstances rather than as primordial categories. This understanding opens the possibility of modifying those concepts—or, where necessary, abandoning them for new ways of being in community—to end violence perpetrated along ethnic and national fault lines. The critical study of ethnicity and nationalism should, in other words, aim to help dispossessed people live freely. It must account

for differences in power between dominant, oppressive ethnic nationalisms that undergird state-sponsored mass violence and the communal mobilizations of those resisting
elimination. It is not a bludgeon to coerce minoritized people to adopt state-endorsed descriptors like "Iraqi Christian" that erase their language and heritage because their own peoplehood is allegedly bigoted. It is not a game in which academics prove how clever they are by locating discontinuities among the ancestors of genocide survivors to win squabbles they choose to pick with those they baselessly deride as nationalists. That is not what Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm did, and it is not what anyone citing them today should do. That is an amoral and intellectually vapid exercise.

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Mar 16

Thinking about the My Lai massacre this March 16th. Specifically, thinking about how Iraqi nationalist historian Khaldun Sati al-Husry compared it to the Simele massacre of Assyrians in 1933—by way of dismissing it as a tragic but normal occurrence

No historian, with the evidence available, whether circumstantial or other-wise, can claim that Summayl was a planned massacre ordered by the general commanding in the north or the higher command in Baghdad. Summayl has nothing of the deliberate and premeditated German massacres of Auschwitz and Belsen, or the Russian one of Katyn Forest. It is more like the American massacre of My-Lai, ordered by a junior officer on his own. The world has sadly learned since 1933 that My-Lais occur in modern wars. At the time, Summayl shocked the civilized world, and brought Britain's relations with Iraq and with Faysal to breaking point.

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Feb 22

We’ve lost Vince Rafael today. One of his last published works was this essay about the celebration and subsequent erasure of an atrocity in the U.S. colonization of the Philippines www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

The New York Review of Books: Massacre Under the
Starry Flag
Vicente L. Rafael
The history of a single photograph reveals how an atrocity in the Philippines was forgotten by its American perpetrators.
October 23, 2025 issue

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Feb 10

#seattle

Handwritten cardboard sign resting on a children’s stroller at a park where families are hanging around and kids are playing on a sunny day. The sign says “GO HAWKS F*** ICE FREE PALESTINE”

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Dec 9

Trying to finish an overdue r&r but sidetracked by colleague contacting me for advice because they are dealing with the problem discussed in the article I need to r&r

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Nov 4

costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/findings

United States Post-9/11 Wars
• The wars have been accompanied by erosions in civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad.
• The U.S. government is conducting counterterror activities in 78 countries.
• An estimated 3.6-3.8 million people have died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5-4.7 million and counting.
• At least 940,000 people have died due to direct war violence, including civilians, armed forces on all sides, contractors, journalists, and humanitarian workers.
U.S. policymakers scarcely considered alternatives to war in the aftermath of 9/11 or in debating the invasion of Iraq. Many of those alternatives are still available.

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Oct 29

The word “ceasefire”—the cry of protests two years ago, including ones I was part of—was vacated of all meaning once people who supported the genocide started to claim that they wanted one. And now this

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel's military said Wednesday that the ceasefire was back on in Gaza after it carried out heavy airstrikes overnight across the Palestinian territory that killed 104 people, including 46 children, according to local health officials.
The strikes — the deadliest since the ceasefire began on Oct. 10 — marked the most serious challenge to the tenuous truce to date.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the strikes after accusing Hamas of violating the ceasefire for handing over body parts this week that Israel said were partial remains of a hostage recovered earlier in the war. That was compounded by the shooting and killing an Israeli soldier during an exchange of gunfire in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza.

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Oct 6

Gabriel Winant just under a year ago, in November 2024: www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...

In our time, there are entrenched institutional liberal forces, not only in formal politics but in the universities, the press, the legal system, the nonprofit sector, and even the corporate world, that intone the threat Trumpism poses to democracy and the rule of law, yet work every day to defeat their own internal left-wing challengers: student protests, labor struggles, "woke excesses." When they raid encampments (student or unhoused) or bust unions, they do Trump's work for him, remaking Americans in authoritarian ways. The phenomenon that Trump represents can only be defeated when liberal institutionalists cease trying to quash the insurgent left in the name of protecting democracy, and instead look to it as an ally and a source of strength. This is not because the ideas of the left already represent a suppressed silent majority—a fantastical, self-flattering delusion-but because it is only the left that has a coherent vision to offer against the ideas of the right.

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Sep 19

♥️

Lots of little boxes of microfilm reels of Arabic-language newspapers from the mid to late twentieth century stacked on dense library shelving

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Sep 19

well

A message written by the president and provost of the University of Washington to the campus community that, when run through an AI detector, comes back as almost entirely AI generated

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Sep 9

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

The Gaza family torn apart by IDF snipers from Chicago and Munich
Five-month investigation reveals how four members of one family were shot and killed in a single day and highlights a pattern in which Israeli troops target unarmed civilians

"They're thinking: 'Oh I don't think [I'll get shot] because I'm wearing civilian clothes and I am not carrying a weapon and all that, but they were wrong," said Raab, who majored in biology at the University of Illinois before joining the Israel Defense Forces.
"That's what you have snipers for."
After Salem was shot, his father, Montasser, 51, rushed to the site, and tried to collect his sons' bodies for burial, but was also fatally injured by a sniper.
The need for a dignified funeral for loved ones is a core human instinct, protected in law and explored in art for millennia. It is at the emotional heart of Homer's Iliad, one of the earliest surviving works of literature.
But on that day, Raab treated love and grief as cause to kill. "They just kept on coming to try and take these bodies," he said.
The video of Salem's killing, and footage of other attacks on unarmed Palestinians, was posted online five months after his death, part of a montage made by a soldier called Shalom Gilbert to celebrate a deployment in Gaza.

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Sep 8

So how many fake names are there in this clown car? (Dartafiwijhak from Kharatuz is definitely fake, the one right above it looks fake too though I don’t get the joke)

Heading of Gaza genocide denial letter from “scholars for truth about genocide dot com”

Signature 427 is Prof. Ali Bouzeghba of Bouzeghba University, 428 is Slobodan Dartafiwijzhak of University of Kharatuz

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Sep 3

There are even visual exhibits to give a sense of the difference between administrative warrants (which do not give immigration officers the ability to access private spaces) and judicial warrants

2. What kind of a warrant does an immigration officer require to enter restricted access campus spaces?
To enter a restricted access campus space, a federal officer must have a judicial warrant.
Immigration officers may have either an administrative warrant or a judicial warrant.
Administrative warrants do not authorize a federal officer to enter homes and other restricted access spaces on university campuses.
Judicial warrants authorize them to enter restricted spaces without consent.
Because most of the work conducted by immigration officers is not reviewed in advance by federal judges, more often than not immigration agents have administrative warrants, not judicial warrants. Accordingly, in most cases, immigration officers will not have a warrant that authorizes entry to restricted access spaces without the university's consent.

Exhibit 1: Department of Homeland Security
Administrative Warrant
This type of warrant does not authorize a federal officer to enter a restricted access space on campus. Note that it states "Department of Homeland Security" at the top, and that it is signed by an immigration officer or immigration judge, and not by a federal or state judge.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
WARRANT OF REMOVAL/DEPORTATION
not a
To any immigration olicer of the United States Department of Homeland Secur
name at anen
who endered the United States at
is subject to removal/deportation from the Unted States, based upon a final order by an immigration judge in anclution, deportation, or remeval prol a denigrated official
Board ef immigration Appeals a Unted Sates District or Magistrate Court Jusge
• folowing peousions of the immigr
ecretary of Homel
e hor direction…you to take into custody…

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Aug 10

The final statement by Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif, written months ago in anticipation of his likely death, posted on Twitter/X by a friend. Israel assassinated him tonight along with his reporting team in an airstrike in Gaza.

Anas Al-Sharif أنس الشريف @
This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.
First, peace be upon you and Allah's mercy and blessings.
Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people, ever since I opened my eyes to life in the alleys and streets of the Jabalia refugee camp.
My hope was that Allah would extend my life so l could return with my family and loved ones to our original town of occupied Asqalan (Al-Majdal). But Allah's will came first, and His decree is final. I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification—so that Allah may bear witness against those who stayed silent, those who accepted our killing, those who choked our breath, and whose hearts were unmoved by the scattered remains of our children and women, doing nothing to stop the massacre that our people have faced for more than a year and a half.

I entrust you with Palestine—the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls.
I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland. I entrust you to take care of my family. I entrust you with my beloved daughter Sham, the light of my eyes, whom I never got the chance to watch grow up as I had dreamed.
I entrust you with my dear son Salah, whom I had wished to support and accompany through life until he grew strong enough to carry my burden and continue the mission.

I entrust you with my beloved mother, whose blessed prayers brought me to where l am, whose supplications were my fortress and whose light guided my path. I pray that Allah grants her strength and rewards her on my behalf with the best of rewards.
I also entrust you with my lifelong companion, my beloved wife, Umm Salah (Bayan), from whom the war separated me for many long days and months. Yet she remained faithful to our bond, steadfast as the trunk of an olive tree that does not bend-patient, trusting in Allah, and carrying the responsibility in my absence with all her strength and faith.
I urge you to stand by them, to be their support after Allah Almighty. If I die, I die steadfast upon my principles. I testify before Allah that I am content with His decree, certain of meeting Him, and assured that what is with Allah is better and everlasting.

O Allah, accept me among the martyrs, forgive my past and future sins, and make my blood a light that illuminates the path of freedom for my people and my family. Forgive me if I have fallen short, and pray for me with mercy, for I kept my promise and never changed or betrayed it.
Do not forget Gaza... And do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.
Anas Jamal Al-Sharif
06.04.2025
This is what our beloved Anas requested to be published upon his martyrdom.
3:25 PM • 8/10/25 • 675K Views

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Jul 7

from one of the co-authors 😬

Shai Farber @farber_shai • 12/3/24
Just published: My new study in @LegalProfJournal explores how Al tools are transforming legal education in Israel, creating more personalized and engaging learning experiences for law students. doi.org/10.1080/096959..
#LegalEducation #AlinLaw #LawSchool

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Jul 7

Israeli scholars publish a paper featuring at least one apparently AI-generated fake citation of a nonexistent article by a Palestinian scholar

Nimer Sultany on Twitter/X: Al-generated fake citations is becoming an epidemic. This article in the Journal of Conflict & Security Law claims to be a "thorough examination", but weak analysis is also based on fake citations, including a fake article that I supposedly wrote.

Legal frameworks for mass terrorism: the October 7th attack and implications for security law
Shai Farber, Ofek Efraim Alaluft
Journal of Conflict and Security Law, 2025

Footnote: For example, Sultany argues that in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, the US government dramatically shifted its approach to combating terrorism-from a model of criminal law enforcement to a war para-digm. This was despite the fact that under federal law, many terrorist acts are classified as criminal offenses rather than acts of war. Nimer Sultany, 'Law's Counterterrorist Decisions' (2002) 115 Harvard Law Review
1217, 1221. (This is the article Sultany says he never wrote)

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Jun 13

Imagine sitting down for the incomprehensible task of writing your child’s obituary and…getting ChatGPT to do it. After ChatGPT induced your child’s suicidal psychosis. Imagine. I can’t.

"I'm dying today," he wrote, according to a transcript of the conversation. "Let me talk to Juliet."
"You are not alone," ChatGPT responded empathetically, and offered crisis counseling resources.
When the police arrived, Alexander Taylor charged at them holding the knife. He was shot and killed.
"You want to know the ironic thing? I wrote my son's obituary using ChatGPT," Mr.
Taylor said. "I had talked to it for a while about what had happened, trying to find more details about exactly what he was going through. And it was beautiful and touching. It was like it read my heart and it scared the shit out of me."

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Jun 6

A must-read by the great Alex Boodrookas on run-ins with campus police, courts, surveillance, censorship, and the public denunciation of scholars of the “Middle East” who tell the truth about Palestine www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

Scholars of the Middle East are caught in an inescapable bind. Activist spaces are the only ones left open to us, but we are dismissed as biased when we use them. We are invited to share our insights only if they are deemed uncontroversial by the self-appointed gatekeepers of the conventional wisdom. If we condemn—or even just name—the genocide unfolding before our eyes, we are deplatformed and silenced. The logic is circular and impenetrable. It is also poison to the body politic. It rests on a nonsensical conception of objectivity that privileges power over truth. This catch-22 is no novel creation of the new administration. The
institutions most complicit in its creation are the pillars of society ostensibly dedicated to the pursuit of justice-the press, the courts and the academy itself. They have constricted the boundaries of respectable discourse until they fit comfortably within the Beltway consensus. Rather than confronting reality, they have become apologists for genocide and architects of the post-truth world.

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Apr 11

teach-in

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Apr 8

We know who some of them are now. Don’t look away. archive.ph/dUUo3

On the morning of March 14th, while Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Vice-President J. D. Vance debated a possible U.S. attack on Houthi targets in a now infamous Signal chat, it was afternoon in Yemen, and a five-year-old boy named Hamad was still alive. Hamad had spent the day running around the city with his father, and when night fell he was back home, playing in the yard with his cousins, likely slipping one too many sweets into his mouth.

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Mar 27

Jeffrey Goldberg on the people killed in the #Yemen airstrike he learned about via signal groupchat (from NPR):

Deepa Fernandes: There's little talk of the fact that this attack killed 53 people, as we mentioned, including women and children. The civilian toll of these American strikes. Are we burying the lead here?

Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, those, unfortunately, those aren't confirmed numbers.
Those are provided by the Houthis and the Houthi health ministry, I guess. So we don't know that for sure. Yeah, I mean, obviously we're, well, I don't know if we're burying the lead, because obviously huge breaches in national security and safety of information, that's a very, very important story, obviously. And one of the reasons, you know, it's a very important story is that the Republicans themselves consider that to be an important story, when it's Hillary Clinton doing the deed, right? So that's obviously hugely important.
But yeah, I think that covering what's going on in Yemen, the Arab and Iran backed terrorist organization, the Houthis, that are that are firing missiles at Israel and disrupting global shipping and occupy half of Yemen, and all kinds of other things in the US, you know, and the Trump administration criticizing the Biden's response and Europe wants Trump to do more. I mean, yeah, there's, there's a huge story in Yemen. But Yemen is, as you know, is one of the more inaccessible places for Western journalists. So maybe this becomes like a substitute for a discussion of Yemen. I don't know.

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Mar 14

Arsema’s family has been neglected by SPD and the school district and they are still trying to understand what happened. WMS students are scared and confused. As an alum I’m heartbroken. Seattle Times: www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

While Seattle police and school district officials held a news conference in English outside the school last Thursday, Mekonnen and Yitna said they were not told how their daughter died until two days later, when a detective visited them for the first and only time on Saturday morning. The detective referred to the crash as "an accident," and said the family could not review surveillance footage because Arsema's death was still under investigation, Ajema said.
The Seattle Police Department did not respond to questions about the parents' comments on Thursday.

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Feb 1

🤔

What is your discipline?
Political science
Not political science

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Jan 17

Note that “we don’t know what happened; let the historians debate it!” is a common form of genocide denial that people will deploy indefinitely long after historical consensus is settled. It is a common rebuttal to histories of the Armenian genocide, for example, more than a century later

Anne Hyde, a council member and a University of Oklahoma history professor, said she voted to veto "to protect the AHA's reputation as an unbiased historical actor," noting that the organization does congressional briefings. She also said the current war in Gaza "is not settled history, so we're not clear what happened or who to blame or when it began even, so it isn't something that a professional organization should be commenting on yet."

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Jan 17

Faced with an overwhelming vote by its members to condemn scholasticide in Palestine, the American Historical Association council has vetoed the resolution. Entirely in character for an organization that’s long been useless, but still galling

Update as of January 17, 2025: The AHA
Council deplores any intentional destruction of Palestinian educational
institutions, libraries, universities, and archives in Gaza. The Council considers the
"Resolution to Oppose Scholasticide in Gaza," however, to contravene the Association's Constitution and Bylaws, because it lies outside the scope of the Association's mission and purpose, defined in its Constitution as "the promotion of
historical studies through the encouragement of research, teaching, and publication; the collection and preservation of historical documents and artifacts; the dissemination of historical records and information; the broadening of historical knowledge among the general public; and the pursuit of kindred activities in the interest of history." After careful
deliberation and consideration, the AHA Council vetoes the resolution. The AHA
Council appreciates the work of Historians for Peace and Democracy and recognizes the diversity of perspectives, concerns, and commitments among AHA members.

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Jan 9

There are—and were—historians in Gaza, too

Mezna Qato on Twitter/X: There is one remaining professor of history in Gaza. Everyone else has been murdered, has had to flee, was kidnapped or missing and presumed dead. I thought about him all day yesterday. I just told him the news on the AHA vote. He was pleased. He sends his greetings to the 428.

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Jan 9

I appreciate the Americans who keep accidentally revealing that they think all history is history of the US/Europe and everything else is distant “world affairs” that a real (non-DEI) “graying,” “quiet” historian would never think about (here’s NYT’s Pamela Paul pearl-clutching over the AHA vote)

Clearly there was a real consensus among professional historians, a group that has become considerably more diverse in recent years, or at least among those members who were present. One could read it as a sign of the field's dynamism that historians are actively engaged in world affairs rather than quietly graying over dusty archives, or it may have been the result, as opponents suggested, of a well-organized campaign.

Arbella Bet-Shlimon@abshlimon· Jan 6

An underreported Syria story: Iraqi Yazidis kidnapped by ISIS in 2014 and living in HTS-controlled Idlib have been found since December 8th and have started returning home. There are undoubtedly many more still in Syria