Editor’s Note

Usrat Al-Jabal': The Politics of Space in Hussein Barghouthi's Among the Almond Trees" argues that Hussein Barghouthi's memoir utilizing the ruins of the monastery in Kobar as a portal for "ancestral memories" "disrupt" colonial narratives that rely on linearity in imagining space and temporality.Barghouthi's treatment of the landscape as a dynamic player makes the memoir "a site of ecological and anti-colonial resistance.The argument relies on solid theory such as Derrida's concept of hauntology.Asma Hussein's "Refaat Alareer's 'If I Must Die': The Death of the Author, the Afterlife of the Tale" discusses Alareer's poem "If I Must Die" as a culmination of his trajectory in resisting oppression through "the performative role of tales and storytelling."The article examines the complex relationship in the poem between storytelling, mortality, and resistance."The article studies the way in which Alareer transforms storytelling to a "mode of cultural survival" while anchoring his universal poem to Gaza/Palestine.Mohamad Mokdad and Omar Abou Taha's "The legal effects of the maritime border demarcation agreement on the Lebanese state" advances a legal analysis of Lebanon's maritime frontier delimited by the agreement with Israel, signed on October 27, 2022.The article discusses the studies conducted during the negotiations and the political pressure exerted on Lebanon by the US to arrive at a weak agreement for Lebanon.The article points out the "legal gaps" in the agreement and potential avenues to correct those gaps in Lebanon's favor.