Palestinian state‐building: police and citizens as test of democracy

This article explores police‐society relations by assessing the impact of current state‐building efforts by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank. The article presents an outline of the emerging civilian policing model and its wider implications for citizens’ rights and the dominant political order. The specific focus of the paper rests on an examination of the potential tensions associated with the perceived need for strong coercive security structures (including the civil police) as part of state‐building efforts and the desire by the population for increased freedom and pluralism. This issue is further complicated by the ambiguous nature of the current experiment in limited autonomy underway in those areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip where Israeli redeployment has taken place.     

The Nakba in Palestinian Memory in Israel

Changes in the international, regional and domestic arenas in the late 1990s resulted in discursive change with regard to interpretation of the Al Nakba in the political and civil societies of the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel. Apart from fuelling a discursive challenge to the Israeli dominant discourse about the 1948 events, this reinterpretation allowed the Palestinian Arab citizens to discuss the historical roots of the problems they experienced within the Israeli political and civil societal spheres. This article analyses the nature and significance of discursive change of the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel on the Nakba by referring to its impact on their identity politics as well as their political and civil societal activities.     

The wall has feet but so do we: Palestinian workers in Israel and the ‘separation’ wall

While the Israeli-constructed wall in the occupied West Bank seemingly signifies a shift to a policy of separation, every year thousands of West Bank Palestinians legally and illegally cross its bounds into Israel for work. In this article, I explore the varying regimes of (il)legality and (im)mobility that have accompanied the construction of the Israel–West Bank separation wall, which decisively impact the lives of Palestinians who work in Israel. The peculiar separation legislated by the wall, which is often treated as a de facto ‘border’, obscures the ways in which it facilitates continued Israeli territorial expansion and deepens the subjugation of the Palestinian population. As a border, the separation wall functions more as a colonial frontier, the asymmetry of which has powerful implications for the border crossings of documented and undocumented workers, as well as their respective experiences of illegality inside the West Bank and in Israel. It is in the context of West Banker Palestinians who work in Israel, I argue, that the doctrine of separation embodied in the wall is exposed as not only deceptive, but also obfuscating of the relation of asymmetrical dependence between the two entities.     

The Vicious Cycle of Building and Destroying: the 2014 War on Gaza

The 2014 summer war on Gaza was the third in the last six years and in many ways the most devastating one. While the triggers to this war were the kidnapping and killing of the three Israeli teenagers and the subsequent kidnapping and burning alive of a Palestinian teenager, the real reasons can be traced back to the international community's failed and myopic policies towards Gaza. Moreover, by adopting the ‘West Bank first’ strategy the international community has failed to blow some fresh air into what is left of the so-called Middle East Peace Process and has acted as the abettor of the recent war.     

Where is the State of Israel? Testimonies from IDF Nachal soldiers on Israel’s territorial integrity

The present article aims to uncover how and where combatants in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) draw the boundaries of the State of Israel. The territorial integrity of Israel remains unsettled and IDF’s combatants cannot look merely towards fixed territorial borders and legal agreements when drawing the demarcation lines between Israel and its neighbours. The article’s empirical basis is a longitudinal study of 34 soldiers in the IDF’s 50th Battalion in the Nachal Infantry Brigade in the period 2006–2010, and explores how this group ‘mapped’ the State of Israel during their military service. The article shows how the combatants operated in a strategic universe where the boundaries of Israel’s territorial integrity were drawn by stressing the combatants’ sense of attachment to certain areas as Israeli Jews; not merely as Israeli citizens. This became particularly clear and overt in the case of the West Bank, which they viewed as a patchwork of Israeli and Palestinian territories.     

Beyond Fateh Corruption and Mass Discontent: Hamas,the Palestinian Left and the 2006 Legislative Elections

The unanticipated victory of Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections was a defining moment in the study of Islamist politics; the results were a startling surprise to all parties, not least Hamas. Much of the literature that assesses the electoral success of Islamists focuses on the distinct characteristics of Islamist groups, paying less attention to the complex interplay of factors that may account for their success. Examining Hamas's performance in the 2006 legislative elections, this article endeavours to: (1) challenge pervasive analysis which asserts the distinctiveness of Islamist political organisations; (2) situate the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections within a broader discussion of opposition politics in the Arab world; and (3) highlight the significance of long-term organisational trajectories and election campaign strategies in accounting for Islamist electoral performance. Findings in this article have important implications for how we understand Islamist and leftist opposition politics in light of the Arab Spring.     

‘A source of considerable annoyance’: an Israeli–Palestinian backchannel in the efforts to release the blocked Palestinian bank accounts

In addition to the great emotional toll that the Nakba inflicted on the Palestinian people, the 1948 exodus occasioned substantial material losses for the refugees as well. As the 1948 War ground to a halt, the international community had to decide how to deal with all of this, and in the early 1950s the matter of the so-called ‘blocked’—or frozen—Palestinian bank accounts became one of the main issues on the UN Palestine Conciliation Commission’s agenda. Initially, its effort included the government of Israel and the British-owned Barclays Bank. As things progressed, however, Israeli diplomats also engaged a group of Palestinian refugees in an informal backchannel. This article sheds light on this largely overlooked episode and shows how the channel was established, and how the Palestinian group faced nothing but strong international opposition, most notably from the British Foreign Office. Protecting the interests of its regional ally Jordan, as well as those of Barclays Bank, the Foreign Office did what it could in order to make sure that this particular Israeli–Palestinian backchannel was promptly closed.     

FIGHTING WITHOUT WEAPONS: PALESTINIAN DOCUMENTARY FILMS AND ACTS OF RESISTANCE

Film production has for a long time been a prominent medium for Palestinians to resist Israeli occupation and create a cultural memory. Though there are some academic studies on the subject, a critical framework of analysis for such films remains underdeveloped. This article argues that Palestinian film production has surged particularly in recent years as part of an increasingly globalised dimension to Palestinian resistance, alongside such initiatives as the Electronic Intifada and the BDS movement. Early Zionist rhetoric asserted the non-existence (or invisibility) of Palestinians. Several decades later, when the Arab revolt was shut down, the Israeli official propaganda largely shifted to a discourse of “emergency”, which decontextualizes the anti-colonial nature of Palestinian resistance. The films 5 Broken Cameras (2011) and Private (2004) both engage with Israeli colonialism and the state of emergency by acting as tools of witnessing, laying bare the occupational strategies the Israelis use under emergency law and revealing the arbitrary nature of such practices as the Separation Wall. The films challenge Israeli authority through their depictions of predominantly non-violent forms of resistance, which counters their historically constructed invisibility as a people, as well as the colonialist narrative of “terrorism”. Non-violent resistance makes the recognition of Israeli authority problematic, as the settlers cannot use brute force to drive out the Palestinians if there is no documented incident in context to justify violence. Furthermore, the article argues that the form of the films – pseudo-documentary and especially “talking witness” documentary – enables their emotive content to reach out to an international audience, which could potentially respond. Thus, the films not only contain acts of resistance, but they significantly are tools of resistance in the conflict.     

Explaining Political Islam: The Transformation of Palestinian Islamic Movements

This article aims to present a comprehensive explanation of the development of Islamic political movements among the Palestinians. It focuses specifically on the analysis of three Islamic movements: two that are active among the Palestinians of Israel (e.g. the 1948 territories)—the Southern Islamic movement and the Northern Islamic movement—and the Hamas movement that is active among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Through the analysis of these movements, the authors have identified three different major strategies used by the movements under consideration: The ‘politics of acceptance’ by the Southern Islamic Movement, the ‘politics of difference’ by the Northern Islamic Movement, and the ‘politics of resistance’ by Hamas. Four factors together constitute the basis for a multi-layered explanation of the different approaches adopted by political Islam: the context, the public orientation, the leaders' movements' preferences and the interpretation of the religious text.     

Between private and collective in new generation Palestinian literature: Akram Musallam as a test case

The article examines new generation Palestinian writing in the West Bank, focusing on the ongoing tension between the private and the collective dimensions in literary works there. The works of Palestinian writer of Ramallah, Akram Musallam (b. 1971), serve as test case. The article shows that Musallam's novels preserve a connection to the Palestinian problem and the national-political life on one hand, and create meanings beyond time and place limited by this connection, on the other. The tension between the private and the collective is not only well reflected in Musallam's writings, but in fact constitutes their main pivot and it is embodied in an original and unique inner thematic and stylistic struggle within his writings. Musallam's works serve as an example of the fact that despite recent trends to forsake the collective and focus on the private, Palestinian literature almost always relates, either directly or indirectly, either through creative or less creative means, to collective Palestinian issues.     

Opposition to Israel’s first Qadiya

ABSTRACT

In 2017, following a fraught 22-year struggle, Israel appointed the first female judge (sing. qadiya, pl. qadiyat) to its Islamic (shari’a) courts. This contrasts with the earlier appointments of qadiyat around the world, most notably in the Palestinian Authority in 2009. The Israeli shari’a courts’ jurisdiction over family law, a field of law which engages in women’s issues, makes the introduction of qadiyat particularly salient. This article is among the first to focus academic research on the issue of qadiyat within Israel and is based on field interviews with practitioners and academic experts, as well as documentary primary and secondary sources. This article finds that the obstacles that delayed the appointment of Israel’s first qadiya were a manifestation of the political impact Muslim minority status had on the country’s Muslim and Jewish establishments.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy , by Seymour M. Hersh. No Trumpets, No Drums: A Two-State Settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict , by Mark A. Heller and Sari Nusseibeh. The Other Walls, the Arab-Israeli Peace Process in a Global Perspective , by Harold H. Saunders. Revised edition. Palestinian Lawyers and Israeli Rule: Law and Disorder in the West Bank , by George Emile Bisharat. Payback: America's Long War in the Middle East , by John K. Cooley. Syria and the Middle East Peace Process , by Alistair Drysdale and Raymond A. Hinnebush. Egypt and the ArabsndashForeign Policy and the Search for National Identity , by Joseph P. Lorenz. Kissing through Glass: The Invisible Shield between Americans and Israelis , by Joyce R. Starr. Both Right and Left Handed: Arab Women Talk about Their Lives , by Bouthaina Shaaban.     

Palestinian Political Prisoners: Hunger Strikes and the Battle for Dignity

Thousands of Palestinians have been imprisoned in Israeli jails since 1948, reflecting an objective of Israel's occupation of Palestine to break the spirit of Palestinians in their struggle for liberation. A form of protest often undertaken by Palestinians in response to their political imprisonment is hunger strike. Indeed, when considered in relation to governance as an enactment of power upon people in prison, hunger strikes are an attempt of powerless prisoners to exercise some level of power over their circumstances. Concepts around hunger strike as form of protest are complex and multidimensional, and may reflect the interests of an individual or group, and/or speak more to the broader rights of people. Of interest to this study is the relationship between hunger strike and human dignity as manifest as a form of protest by Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli jails. Specifically, this study aimed to investigate the extent to which the concept of human dignity is a fundamental principle guiding Palestinian political prisoners' initial decision to hunger strike and then to continue to hunger strike. To facilitate the investigation, a stratified sampling approach was used to support the collection of quantitative data via a survey of 29 expolitical prisoners who had participated in hunger strikes during their imprisonment in Israeli jails. The collected data were related to three core dimensions of the protest construct: motivations for undertaking the protest (hunger strike); personal feelings when undertaking protest; and the experienced responses to/outcomes of the protest. Analysis of the participants' responses and the reporting of the main findings was informed by reference to key theoretical frameworks developed by Habermas, Kant, Sartre, and Durkheim. This study found that Palestinian political prisoners often considered human dignity to be more important than food. They therefore believed that hunger strike was a way to express that they would not surrender their dignity nor stray from their resistance. This article contributes to the important debate on the extent to which the hunger strike is an effective way to protest against the loss of human dignity experienced as a Palestinian political prisoner.     

The Struggle over Turkish Village Coffeehouses (1923–45)

D.I. Soyfyer, in his Krakh Sionistskikh tyeoriy, The Bankruptcy of the Zionist Theories (Dniyepropyetrovsk: Promin's Press, 1980; 192 pp.)

A.B. Doyev's Sovryemyenniy Iudaizm i Sionizm, Contemporary Judaism and Zionism (Frunze: Kirgizstan Press, 1983; 68 pp.)

Myedzhdunarodniy Sionizm: istoriya i politika (sbornik statyey), International Zionism – History and Politics: A Collection of Articles (Moscow: Nauka Press for the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, 1977; 176 pp.)

Zionism: Enemy of Peace and Social Progress. Volume 2 of this work (1983)

I. Zvyagelskaya (authoress of a book in Russian on the Israeli military élite in politics), entitled ‘Who Is Obstructing the Settlement of the Middle East Conflict’ (pp. 137–68).

Ye. Dmitriyev (a prolific writer on the Arab‐Israel conflict), entitled ‘Zionist Ideas as Reflected in Israeli Government Policy on A Middle East Settlement in the Early 1980s’ (pp. 205–19).

Felitsia Langer is an Israeli Jewish lawyer, close to the leaders of the Israel Communist Party, who specializes in defending Arabs suspected of terrorism before the Israeli Courts. Her Oni moi brat'ya, They Are My Brethren (Moscow: Progress Press, 1979; 192 pp.)

Gorst’ rodnoy zyemli: Sovryemyennaya Palyestinskaya novyella, A Handful of the Fatherland Earth: Contemporary Palestinian Stories (Moscow: Progress Press, 1981; 312 pp.),

This Leitmotif is set by the title of the first story, ‘Return to Haifa’ (pp. 21–64) by Ghassan Kanafani (1936–73),

Ghassan Kanafani and entitled Lyudi pod solntsyem, People under the Sun (Moscow: Raduga Press, 1984; 343 pp.)

Put’ k miru na Blidzhnyem Vostokye, The Road to Peace in the Near East (Moscow: Myedzhdunarodniye Otnoshyeniya Press, 1974; 248 pp.)

Ye. Dmitriyev and V. Ladyeykin includes a chapter on ‘The Arab People of Palestine’ (pp. 55–74).

A.P. Barishyev, entitled Blidzhniy Vostok: problemi mira na rubyedzhye 80‐kh godov, The Near East: Problems of Peace at the Threshold of the 80s (Moscow: Znaniye Press, 1979; 64 pp.).

L.L. Vol'nov, Livanskiy dnyevnik, Lebanese Diary (Moscow: Political Literature Press, 1980; 96 pp.).

U vrat Vostoka: Ochyerki o Livanye, At the Gate of the East: Essays on Lebanon (Moscow: Misl’ Press, 1982; 112 pp.),

Liban: ekho agressii, Lebanon: Echo of the Aggression (Moscow: Political Literature Press, 1984; 112 pp.).

M. Ye. Hazanov's OON i Blidzniyevostochniy krizis, The United Nations Organisation and the Near‐Eastern Crisis (Moscow: Myedzhdunarodniye Otnoshyeniya Press, 1983; 176 pp.),

Hazanov's book is Palyestinskaya problyema: Dokumyenti OON, myedzhdunarodnikh organizatsiy i konfyeryentsiy, The Palestinian Problem: Documents of the UN, International Organisations and Conferences (Moscow: Progryess Press, 1984; 240 pp.).

D. Sokolov, entitled ‘Palyestinskaya tragyediya i istoki Palyestinskogo dvidzyeniya soprotivlyeniya (1917–1949 gg.)’,

‘The Palestinian Tragedy and the Origins of the Palestinian Resistance Movement, 1917–1949’ (Palyestinskiy Sbornik, Vol. 26 (89), 1978, pp. 3–21).

(Palyestinskiy Sbornik, Vol. 27 (90), 1981, pp. 3–22.)

Ye. Dmitriyev, is entitled Palyestinskiy uzyel: k voprosu ob uryegulirovanii Palyestinskoy problyemi, The Palestinian Knot: Towards the Question of Settlement of the Palestinian Problem (Moscow: Myedzhdunarodniye Otnoshyeniya Press, 1978; 304 pp.).

al‐Qadiyya al‐Filastiniyya: al‐'Udwan wa‐'l‐muqawama wa‐subul al‐taswiya, The Palestinian Problem: Aggression, Resistance, Means of Resolution (Moscow: 1983; 230 pp. Oriental Studies in the USSR, 3).

The Palestine Problem: Aggression, Resistance, Ways of Settlement (Moscow: ‘Social Sciences Today’ Editorial Board, 1984; 277 pp. Oriental Studies in the USSR, 9).     

Constructing Palestine through Surveillance Practices

State-building is normally associated with the setting-up of institutions such as the army, police force, judiciary and political system. By considering the Palestinian case of state-building, the paper relies on constructivist analysis to examine the use of surveillance as a discursive practice in State construction. Two central aspects of surveillance practices are considered in this paper: population count and spatial monitoring. Examination of these practices is situated in the asymmetrical power relations between Israel and the Palestinians. Conflict over land and people is manifested in the construction of citizenship, identities and geographical boundaries. The paper examines the historical and contemporary role of the census in both the Palestinian and Israeli case in the social construction of spaces and categorization of people. Examples are drawn from the first Israeli census taken in 1948, the monitoring of Palestinian refugees by the United Nations, and the contest over Jerusalem and borders as a consequence of the Oslo Agreement.     

Is a Just and Lasting Peace Possible?

The right-wing drift in Israeli public opinion that brought Benjamin Netanyahu to power for the fourth time has deepened the existing political stalemate, sharpened internal Palestinian discontent with the Palestinian Authority (PA), and further undermined its legitimacy. After nearly a quarter of a century of negotiations, since the Madrid conference in late 1991, the PA appears to have reached the end of the line. Its attempt to “internationalize” the conflict by seeking recognition as a state by the UN Security Council and the General Assembly is meant in part to gain time and fill the political gap. Palestinian civil society groups perceive Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) as an alternative strategy to the failed “negotiated process” to end occupation even if it is a long term effort. A stable and just peace does not appear possible in the near future, and in the long run the nature of the solution need not be the one deemed at present as the only possible one.     

The Future Israeli-Palestinian Relationship

In this concept paper, the Joint Working Group on Israeli‐Palestinian Relations‐a group of influential Palestinians and Israelis that has been meeting periodically since 1994 to discuss final‐status issues in the Israeli‐Palestinian negotiations‐explores the future relationship between the two societies after the signing of a peace agreement. The paper considers a relationship based on total separation between the two societies and states as neither realistic nor desirable. Instead, it envisages a future relationship based on mutually beneficial cooperation in many spheres, conducive to stable peace, sustainable development, and ultimate reconciliation. The basis for such a relationship must be laid in the process and outcome of the final‐status negotiations and in the patterns of cooperation established on the ground. Efforts at cooperation and reconciliation cannot be pursued apart from their political context. The paper argues that the only feasible political arrangement on which a cooperative relationship can be built is a two‐state solution, establishing a genuinely independent Palestinian state alongside of Israel. The resolution of final‐status issues must be consistent with the sovereignty, viability, and security of both states. The paper then proceeds to describe several models for the relationship between the two states and societies. It advocates a model of close cooperation, but proposes that this relationship be built in stages. The scope and speed of expanding and institutionalizing cooperative activities must be determined by experience‐by the extent to which such activities meet the needs of both parties, enhance mutual trust, and reduce inequalities between the parties. Finally, the paper discusses three avenues for promoting a cooperative relationship based on equality, reciprocal benefit, and mutual trust and respect: the development of functional ties and civil‐society institutions across national borders; programs directed toward attitude change and stereotype reduction; and efforts to close the economic and political gap between the two societies.     

Palestine at the end of the state-building process: Technical achievements,political failures

More than two decades of Palestinian state-building have produced neither peace nor a state. In fact, the Palestinians are seemingly further away from statehood today than at any point since the state-building process began in the mid-90s, despite the fact that the West Bank’s institutions now perform, according to the UN, the EU, the World Bank and IMF, above the threshold for what is expected of a state. In this situation – with the Palestinians technically ready for statehood and large parts of Europe and the U.S. not politically ready to recognize Palestine – it is unclear what strategic objectives the internationally supported state-building process now can achieve in the Palestinian territories, except for upholding the status quo.     

Parsing Pegasus: An Infrastructural Approach to the Relationship between Technology and Swiss Security Politics

How do technologies matter for security politics? This article introduces the kind of arguments an infrastructural approach would focus its answer on. It illustrates how the approach would work by focussing on how the spyware Pegasus developed by the Israeli company NSO matters for Swiss security politics. It follows the infrastructural approach showing how and why it would tend to three things primarily: the politics of the infrastructures Pegasus is inscribed in, the politics of the processes of infrastructuring the software generates and the infrapolitics that sustain and transform these processes and infrastructures. The article also discusses the strengths and weaknesses of infrastructural approaches, underlining that since they are relational, processual and radically open epistemologically and ontologically, infrastructural approaches are suitable for opening new agendas, re‐problematising and re‐imagining the politics of security technologies. They are less suited for studies premised on a fixed understanding of the politics of security technology.     

Religious Geopolitics of Palestinian Christianity: Palestinian Christian Zionists,Palestinian Liberation Theologists,and American Missions to Palestine

The introduction of Protestantism into the Middle East by American missionaries in the nineteenth century met with limited success while the responses and internalizations of local converts proved incredibly diverse. The two resultant theological descendants are Palestinian Christian Zionists and Palestinian Liberation Theologists. The article provides a short history of these two movements and highlights influential voices through interviews and media analysis. This article argues that hybrid religious identifications with nation and place has transcended, in some cases, political struggle for territory.