The intifada: Two assessments

Zeev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising ‐ Israel's Third Front. Edited and translated by Ina Friedman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990. Pp.352. $22.95. ISBN 0–67530–3     

From Hasbara to the Palestine-Israel Sport Conflict

This analysis highlights the role of sport—particularly football—in nation-building. Using netnographic techniques, it focuses on the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and nationhood through the efforts of the Palestinian Football Association [PFA] to challenge Israeli hegemony and function independently of Israeli surveillance in a sovereign Palestinian nation-state. It explains how the PFA has attempted to harness its status, manifested in its Fédération Internationale de Football Association [FIFA] membership, to threaten Israel’s own FIFA membership and its international image. The value of this analysis stems from the way it embeds the empirical narrative within a broader international relations analytical/theoretical framework that problematises the central concept of “soft power” that has predominated the current “sports and international relations” literature.     

The demise of Oslo and Hamas’s political engagement

Abstract

This article explores the consequences of the Oslo Accords on the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas. It shows how the movement positioned itself from the onset in opposition to the treaty and ensuing peace negotiations, rejecting the changes which took place within the Palestinian political establishment; namely, the creation of the interim self-governing Palestinian Authority. It demonstrates how Hamas’s refusal to grant the Oslo Accords any legitimacy was a primary factor in its decision to boycott the first Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections in 1996. With the failure of the peace negotiations and the subsequent eruption of the Second Palestinian Intifada, the framework for the implementation of the Oslo Accords was seen to have effectively collapsed. This article argues that it is this perceived ‘demise’ of the peace process which—to a large extent—underpinned Hamas’s decision to participate in the PLC elections a decade later, in 2006. In mapping this transition, the article explores the factors motivating Hamas’s subsequent entry into the Palestinian political establishment.     

The Evolutionary Path of Hamas: Examining the Role of Political Pragmatism in State Building and Activism

Of the two major Palestinian factions, Hamas has demonstrated that it is more radical and willing to use acts of terrorism than Fatah. While some arguments have made the case that Hamas has become more moderate in light of efforts to develop stable institutions of government and societal organizations, there has not been conclusive evidence of this ideological shift. In fact, the continued adherence to the Muqawama (resistance) Doctrine represents a decisive facet of the movement's enduring pledge to nullify the state of Israel through a prolonged war of attrition. This article examines the role of political pragmatism in the evolution of Hamas. First, it discusses why the moderation argument alone does not provide an adequate understanding of the movement's evolution, especially since it continues to embrace the use of terrorism and violence as facets of Islamism and as an extension of the Muqawama Doctrine. Second, rather than solely using the moderation argument, this article offers an alternative approach which considers how the combination of strategic policy approaches implemented by Hamas has reflected the role of pragmatism in pursuing its domestic and foreign policy agendas, which are intertwined with the values of the Muqawama Doctrine.     

Human Rights Dilemmas in Using Informers to Combat Terrorism: The Israeli-Palestinian Case

ABSTRACT

Using informers is a basic tool in preventing terror attacks and the nature of current terror threats makes it even more crucial. This use, however, often leads to human rights violations, both of the informers and by them, and to many problematic ethical questions. Drawing on the Israeli–Palestinian example—where a main strategy of Israeli intelligence activity in the Palestinian areas has been an extensive use of informers—this article presents the main human rights dilemmas in the field, divided into three stages: recruitment, operation and post-operation obligations, and also points to the possible counter-productive consequences of such a use.     

What Makes Negative Frames Resonant? Hamas and the Appeal of Opposition to the Peace Process

Increasingly, scholars are applying Social Movement Theory to explore how radical Islamist groups strategically employ framing to legitimize the use of violence. What has not been explicitly examined, however, is under what conditions radical frames are more resonant with the public than more moderate alternatives. This article argues that the strength of a particular frame depends on the credibility of the competing claim-makers. Drawing on public opinion polls from the Palestinian Territories, the article shows that the resonance of Hamas’ frames vis-à-vis the peace process between 1993 and 2006 depended on the ability of the Palestinian leadership to maintain its legitimacy. Since the Gaza take-over and Hamas’ shift to a position of leadership rather than opposition party, the organization's inability to deliver in the economic realm or to even feign any progress regarding the peace process damaged its credibility and reputation. Accordingly, its frames vis-à-vis the peace process also started losing their resonance with the public. An understanding of the dynamics of credibility can also help explain the continued moves towards national reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.     

The Security Imperative in Counterterror Operations: The Israeli Fight Against Suicidal Terror

ABSTRACT

Israel has had a long tradition of fighting international and Palestinian terror. This article looks at how Israel counterterrorism strategy and tactics have developed since the establishment of the State in 1948. By initially providing a working definition of terrorism, the article then goes to show how Israel has sought to defend itself from different Palestinian terror tactics. This article shows how Israeli security forces have struggled safeguarding, and sometimes disregarded Palestinian human rights. This article concludes by arguing that given the responsibility of democratic governments of defending their citizens from imminent terror attacks, such governments often find themselves paradoxically violating human rights. Despite attempts to reduce such human rights abuses, governments will never do so at the expense of their own security.     

Comparing event flows— The New York Times and The Times of London: Conceptual Issues And Case Studies†

This paper examines two newspapers, The New York Times and The Times of London, to test the similarities and differences in the collection of events interaction data over a three‐year time interval (from 1969–71). Two divergent approaches are taken—one involving gross aggregation over the “ who did what to whom about what” format and the other investigating specific studies of conflicts. The conflict studies included in the paper are those of India‐Pakistan, Jordan‐Palestinian guerillas and the general Middle East and Vietnam arenas. It was found that both sources have different reporting styles during non‐conflict periods. However, the central and most important point in this study is that events data are of a consistent and comparable nature over different sources when they are of a conflict orientation. Thus, the events data gathered from The New York Times and The Times of London are essentially conflict indicator data which represent similar patterns of of interactions.     

Millenarian groups and law enforcement agencies: The lessons of Waco

Why do violent movements participate in elections? To answer this question, we examine Hamas's formation of the Reform and Change Party and its iconic victory in the 2006 elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council. We argue that Hamas's formation of this party was a logical step, following nearly two decades of participation in local and municipal elections. Hamas's need to attract resources from external donors, who make funding decisions based on civilian support for the movement, best explains why Hamas decided to participate in local elections in the early 1990s, taking Hamas on a path that eventually led to its 2006 legislative victory. Hamas's foray into elections was consistent with its dual strategy of directing violence against Israel and building Palestinian support through welfare services. We demonstrate that changes in political opportunities (Fatah's decline and the increase in Hamas's popularity), institutional incentives (lax electoral laws and the holding of municipal elections), and the rise of moderate voices within Hamas explain the timing of its entry into legislative elections. Finally, we discuss Hamas's electoral victory, the need for cooperation between Fatah and Hamas, and the role played by international actors as significant factors influencing prospects for peace and democratization in the region.     

Middle East conflicts

Charles D. Smith, Palestine and the Arab‐Israeli Conflict, third edition. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996. Pp.xx + 358, maps, index, chronology, biblio, notes. £14.99 (paper). ISBN 0–312–12817–7 (cloth); ‐09649–6 (paper).

Edgar O'Ballance, The Palestinian Intifada. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998. Pp.xxii + 252, maps, index, chronology, biblio. £42.50. ISBN 0–312–21172–4.

Edgar O'Ballance, Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism 1979–95. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997. Pp.xx + 228, index, chronology, biblio. £42.50. ISBN 0–333–65472–2.     

Islam,institutions and insurgency: territorial and network jihad

Contemporary research and policies often reduce Islamic insurgency to a simpli?ed notion of jihad, and, simultaneously, the religious doctrine of jihad to pure militancy. Such an approach fails to consider the complexities that de?ne and di?erentiate Islamic insurgents, and hinders further understanding of when, how and if they implement jihad. This paper attempts to address these shortcomings by considering how the ideological histories in?uencing territorially-based movements yield either an adherence to a modern jihad doctrine or a secular nationalist doctrine. Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian Territories provide the case studies wherein this distinction is manifest in their respective popular bases, institutions and military relations. Responding to assumptions of an emergent ‘third form’ of jihad—the network—this study applies the inverse model of the territorial doctrines to the Arab-Afghans and al-Qaeda (the network headed by Osama bin Laden) in order to elucidate its potential explanatory limitations, as well asto o?er some insights.     

Europe under occupation: the European diplomatic community of practice in the Jerusalem area

ABSTRACT

This article shows how the existence of a community of European practitioners in the Jerusalem area gives substance to the European stance on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The often-stated European Union (EU) support for a two-state solution could appear meaningless in the absence of peace negotiations. However, European diplomats (i.e. diplomats of EU member states and EU officials) in the East Jerusalem–Ramallah area are committed to specific practices of political resistance to Israeli occupation and recognition of Palestinian institutions. These practices have led not only to a specific political geography of diplomacy, but also to a community of practice, composed of European diplomats and based on their daily experience of resisting occupation and bestowing recognition. It is this group of officials who represent and actively “do” Europe’s position and under occupation.     

Old (Molotov) cocktails in new bottles? “Price-tag” and settler violence in Israel and the West Bank

In the early morning of July 31, 2015, masked attackers threw firebombs into two Palestinian homes in the West Bank village of Duma, south of Nablus, killing three Palestinian civilians. Contrary to claims by Israeli and Palestinian politicians, this attack was neither an isolated anomaly nor just another incident of settler violence. Instead, it was the latest attack in an important but largely unknown phenomenon called “price-tag,” in which a loosely connected group of young Israelis called “hilltop youth” burn Palestinian mosques and destroy property in hundreds of attacks accompanied by threatening graffiti that references Israeli settlers, outposts, and anti-Arab slogans. Using an original dataset of price-tag incidents and interviews with key actors, we demonstrate that the perpetrators, targets, and strategies of price-tag are different than previous patterns of settler violence. Whereas previous settlers saw the Israeli state as legitimate and largely decided to cooperate with it, the hilltop youth have decided to confront it by using price-tag attacks to deter settlement withdrawals and chain-gang the state into a conflict with the Palestinians. This analysis of the strategic logic of price-tag reveals its potential to shift the political landscape within and between Israelis and Palestinians.     

Dislocated Masculinity: Adolescence and the Palestinian Nation-in-exile

Taking as its starting-point emerging discussion about genderand nationalism, this article considers the masculinities constructedby and for adolescent males born into a Palestinian refugeecamp in Jordan. I consider the relationship of these masculinitiesto the construction of the camp as a moral and socio-politicalspace. Through the employment of ethnographic material, thearticle demonstrates the ways in which young males—throughthe performance of a particular, dominant vision of masculinitytermed mukhayyamji—serve to reproduce the camp as authenticlocation of an exilic national community. The article also examinesthe implications for individual young men of this interplaybetween masculine performance and the reproduction of the campas a moral and socio-political space. It explores the consequencesboth for those who fail or choose not to uphold the idealized,mukhayyamji adolescent masculinity and for those who evincethe skills and qualities that this entails. It is argued that,while the former risk marginalization from the camp as a moraland socio-political community, the latter face marginalizationfrom the economic life of wider Jordanian society and, withthat, endanger the transition to social adulthood. Thus, a setof paradoxes emerges for young males that reflects the ambiguousposition of the Palestinian refugees in Jordan at a specificmoment in the history of Jordan and the Palestinian nationalstruggle.     

The Israeli defense forces and unconventional warfare: The Palestinian factor and Israeli national security doctrine

The basic premises of the Israeli national security doctrine were laid down by the first Prime Minister, David Ben‐Gurion, who emphasized the decisive role of the neighboring sovereign states as the crucial enemy. This view continues to guide the architects of Israeli strategic thought despite the growing importance of a non‐state actor, that is, the Palestinian national liberation movement.     

Japan's ikumen discourse: macro and micro perspectives on modern fatherhood

Ikumen is a buzzword that describes fathers who are actively involved in childrearing. This article focuses on the process in which the term ikumen and its meaning are diffused and investigates how soon-to-be fathers, themselves potential ikumen, view the ikumen discourse. Our endeavor is to grasp the transformation of father roles and the wider family in contemporary Japan through the public and individual engagement with the term ikumen. In this article, we combine macro and micro approaches to analyze ikumen as a discourse circulating in Japanese society and study the way in which the subjects of the discourse – soon-to-be fathers – view the ikumen discourse and interact with it. Utilizing an analysis of newspaper articles, we inquire into the process in which the concept ikumen became popular in Japan and the images that are affiliated with it. Through interviews, we then investigate how soon-to-be fathers as potential ikumen themselves perceive the term. Our results show the way in which an ikumen discourse emerged in Japan in opposition to the term kazoku sabisu, which since the 1970s describes the activities fathers engage in for the satisfaction of their families and fulfillment of social expectations. However, while the term is very popular in the media, the young families we interviewed see ikumen more skeptically. They both resist the popular discourse and adapt it into their construction of paternal identities through a differentiation between a strong versus a weak ikumen image.     

从阿拉伯民族主义到巴勒斯坦民族主义——20世纪上半叶巴勒斯坦地区民族主义的发展与转型

实现从阿拉伯民族主义向巴勒斯坦民族主义的缓慢转型是20世纪上半叶巴勒斯坦地区民族主义发展的典型特征。这一转型分为3个发展阶段:19世纪末至20世纪20年代,巴勒斯坦民族主义体现为泛阿拉伯民族主义与叙利亚民族主义的复合体;20世纪20年代是巴勒斯坦民族主义萌芽的时期,它逐步放弃了与叙利亚统一的目标,并召开了4次巴勒斯坦大会;20世纪30年代至第二次世界大战结束,巴勒斯坦民族主义最终形成,其突出标志是1936～1939年的反英民族大起义。巴勒斯坦民族主义的形成对于巴勒斯坦确立民族认同、进行社会动员、追求民族解放发挥了重要作用,但是巴勒斯坦民族主义的内部矛盾、民众基础薄弱、缺乏足够独立性等历史局限性也对巴勒斯坦民族独立运动产生了十分消极的影响。     

Disquieting growth: urban space in Kawashima Yūzō's film Suzaki Paradise Red Light

This article examines how Japanese postwar cinematic texts manifest and comment upon contemporary political and economic events, and considers the usefulness of cinema for a more complete historical understanding of the period. In particular, it argues for the significance of fūzoku eiga, or ‘films of customs and manners’ by analyzing a representative text of that genre, Kawashima Yūzō's 1956 film Suzaki Paradise Red Light. Although Kawashima's film has been treated as an apolitical melodrama, a close textual analysis reveals it to be a counter-narrative to the success story of postwar economic recovery and growth that the Japanese state sought to promote. Key to this analysis is an examination of the urban space of the Suzaki neighborhood in Tokyo, as depicted in the film. Kawashima's tour of Suzaki addresses the issues of the economic stagnation within the metropolis, uneven development, and the liminal space of muen, or ‘no ties,’ which offers a brief refuge from an increasingly disciplined everyday life.     

The symbiosis between Palestinian ‘Fayyadism’ and Israeli ‘economic peace’: the political economy of capitalist peace in the context of colonisation

Abstract

Recent years have seen both the Palestinian Authority and Israeli government conveying the supremacy of economic approaches over politics to achieve peace and stability. More specifically, the encounter and symbiosis between Palestinian 'Fayyadism' as a professional application of neo-liberal approaches to state-building and economic development, and the Israeli strategy of 'economic peace' towards the Palestinians have shaped much of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict dynamic, with a particularly discernible materialisation in the West Bank. This article critically analyses this dynamic in light of the recently revived theory of 'capitalist peace', which, despite valid criticism, entails considerable similarities with the basic assumptions of 'Fayyadism' and 'economic peace'. While two key dimensions express this symbiosis—security co-ordination and economic normalisation—the article focuses mainly on the economic part, particularly the case of joint industrial zones, which exemplify the most extreme example of this symbiosis.     

The unlikely terrorist: women and Islamic resistance in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories

Islamic resistance groups in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories have been accused of using terrorist tactics to achieve their aims. Although some critics suggest that such groups may also have hijacked the democratic agenda in ways that disadvantage women, their supporters claim that they are promoting a model of modernity that is empowering women. This article examines the reasons why some Lebanese Shi'i and Palestinian women support the resistance against Israeli invasion and occupation that is justified in terms of religion. Far from seeing the actions of Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories as acts of terrorism, many women welcome the resistance as it brings dignity and meaning to their lives and enhances feelings of national identification.