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.     

The Palestinian Fidâ'i as an Icon of Transnational Struggle: The South Lebanese Experience

How did the Palestinian Resistance build the key transnational figure of the fidâ'i and why did South Lebanon play a major role in this process? Assessing the hypothesis of the ‘Lebanonisation’ of this symbol of the Palestinian national struggle, this article will examine the role and the symbol of the fidâ'i in the context of Lebanon in the 1970s, through an analysis of the actions of the fidâ'iyyn and the values and ethics that fidâ'iyyn were supposed to embody. Drawing on interviews with former fidâ'iyyn and previous research on the topic, I will consider the two dimensions of the presence of the fidâ'iyyn: first, their location in South Lebanon and how this borderland became a significant part of their struggle in the political consciousness of the marginalised local population; and second, the nature of the symbol they began to represent for Lebanese groups, especially those who became involved in Resistance groups like the student brigade (al-katibe al-tullabiyya).     

Things that matter: nostalgic objects in Palestinian Arab homes in Israel

This article addresses the complex identity of Israel's Palestinian Arab citizens from an atypical perspective: through manifestations of their material culture. The cultural expressions that will be examined are objects from the past and objects that relate to the past, particularly to the rustic Palestinian life profoundly destabilized by the 1948 Arab–Israeli war. These objects, displayed in the homes of some of Israel's Arab citizens, are interpreted by contemplating their design, the design of their environment, their relationship to other objects, and their placement within the domestic sphere. Our study is animated by the desire to sketch a cultural portrait of Palestinian Arab Israelis, as well as by a methodological interest in interpretations based on a socio-architectural reading of objects.

This article reveals the various layers of meaning within these nostalgic displays in all their diversity, and will discuss at length their uniqueness, which is linked to the past traumas and present difficulties of Israel's Arabs. Our main purpose is to develop a line of thought whereby objects that express nostalgia are understood as the embodiment of a consciousness that is characteristic of the present.     

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.     

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.     

Lebanese–Palestinian Governance Interaction in the Palestinian Gathering of Shabriha,South Lebanon – A Tentative Extension of the ‘Mediated State’ from Africa to the Mediterranean

This article offers a qualitative case study of the interaction between Lebanese state institutions and Palestinian authorities concerning the unofficial Palestinian camp of Shabriha. It particularly highlights the indirect nature of these interactions and the brokering role of Lebanese political parties. Governance in Shabriha is conceptualized as a manifestation of a ‘mediated state’, a notion that has been instrumental in understanding governance in sub-Saharan Africa but has not yet been applied to the Mediterranean. Based on empirical insights from Shabriha, the article offers a tentative reconsideration of the mediated state concept in order to extend it to scholarship on Mediterranean politics and governance.     

Social Alienation and Estrangement in Four Stories by Palestinian Writer cAlā Ḥlayḥal

This article examines the novella al-Sīrk (2001) and three short stories (?Zawjī Sā'iq Bā?', 2008, ‘Ta^cāyush’, 2008 and ‘al-Sajjāda’, 2003) by contemporary Palestinian writer ^cAlā ?lay?al (Ala Hlehel). These texts manifest a preoccupation with the breakdown of human relationships and related themes of failed communication and miscommunication between people. These themes articulate the alienation, isolation and estrangement of individuals from one another, from community and society. The purpose of the present study is an analysis of the portrayal of social decay, alienation and estrangement in these texts, revealing structural expressions of degeneration, as well as a deterioration of interpersonal relations articulated by stymied communication, miscommunication and neglect, often expressed textually through irony and hypocrisy. These particular works were chosen because of their preoccupation with the themes at hand, and also because these are masterfully written stories in their own right deserving critical analysis. While ?lay?al's stories resound with the theme of alienation which has marked Palestinian literature from its formative stages onwards, they reject a staunchly committed stance and do not issue moral imperatives or political slogans. The nuances of these texts are examined in light of other works of Palestinian literature, and especially considering the intertextual references therein.     

Building capacities,exerting power: The European Union police mission in the Palestinian Authority

This article offers a Foucauldian approach to examine the European Union Police Mission in the Palestinian Authority. Using Foucault’s ideas on ‘policing’, ‘discipline’ and ‘normalization’ and applying an interpretive approach, the article argues that the EU police mission rests on ideas, visions and techniques that problematize local capacities and skills in the policing of the population. It highlights the epistemic context of knowledge creation within which the local becomes an object of intervention through two techniques: benchmarking and capacity-building. The article also discusses what is left invisible and unaddressed in EUPOL COPPS activities.     

The Educational Philosophy and Curriculum of the Palestinian Nationalist Movement: From Arab Palestine to Arab-Islamic Palestine

The educational curriculum produced by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) is said to be situated on the intellectual basis of faith in Allah. The curriculum presents Islam as one of three essential components of the Palestinian identity. The place given to Islam in the educational philosophy and curriculum of the PA signifies a departure from the place given to Islam in the PLO's earlier documents and Fatah's earlier discourse; in fact, owing to the elevated position of Islam, the discourse in the curriculum more closely resembles that of the PLO's Islamist opposition, namely Hamas. This article compares the Palestinian identity discourse as it is presented in the PA educational philosophy (1998) and school curriculum (2000–2006) with the identity discourse in the PLO's earlier philosophy of education as well as Hamas' philosophy of education. The explanation for this change in the discourse of the Palestinian nationalist movement takes into account Fatah's bid to maintain legitimacy in a deeply divided society and Hamas' challenge to Fatah in the Palestinian arena as well as the background of the Islamic revival across the greater Muslim world.     

‘I came naïve from the village’: on Palestinian urbanism and ruralism in Haifa under the British Mandate

ABSTRACT

During the Mandate period (1920–1948), Haifa attracted thousands of Palestinian rural migrants, who constituted a significant portion of its Arab population. The article examines the experience of rural migrants in urban life and the influence of this social group on urban society. I argue that rural migrants contributed to Haifa’s economic development, participated in political and cultural activity and formed a connecting link between the city and their villages of origin. Rural migrants played a significant role as agents of change in Palestinian society, owing to the conjunction of rural and urban characteristics in their daily life. To demonstrate this, I focus on three arenas of their agency: the labour market, civil society and militias during the Arab Revolt. Their involvement in civil associations and in the Arab Revolt was central to their construction of modernity, and they disseminated it in widening circles in their villages of origin and among their acquaintances in the city.     

Pantheonizing the Jerusalem Haram: from Pan-Islamic to a national Palestinian pantheon

Analyzing the initiative to establish an Islamic–Arab–Palestinian pantheon in the holiest place in Jerusalem against the background of the Arab–Jewish conflict in Palestine, this article discusses the transformation of the Haram pantheon from an all-Islamic burial place to a Palestinian national one in which the Husayni family was given priority. Understanding decision-making regarding who was entitled to be buried in this special place is the main focus of the article. The eight personalities who were buried at the Haram signify different motivations according to the authority in charge of allowing the burial in the Haram, family ties and networks and the political needs of the Arabs of Palestine as well as the Hashemites.     

‘Oh,the Happy Queen’: On Feminization and Humour in Ḥuzāmah Ḥabāyib's Novel,Qabl an tanām al-malikah

This article examines the writing of ?uzāmah ?abāyib, a new generation Palestinian writer, who is considered one of the foremost Palestinian women writers. It focuses on her novel Qabl an tanām al-malikah, which serves as an example of the bold and dissident writing of the new generation of Palestinian women writers. The article examines the way in which ?abāyib creates a feminization of humour and a kind of a ‘feminine humour’. ?abāyib employs humour in order to shed light on the darkness of life and show how despite everything and in spite of an arduous and troubled life, women know how to enjoy the small and everyday things in life.     

Book Review Essays

Books reviewed in this article: Milton Viorst, What Shall I Do With This People? Jews and the Fractious Politics of Judaism Daryl Champion, The Paradoxical Kingdom: Saudi Arabia and the Momentum of Reform Simon Henderson, The New Pillar: Conservative Arab Gulf States and U.S. Strategy Akbar S. Ahmed, Islam Under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post‐honor World Nathan J. Brown, Palestinian Politics After the Oslo Accords     

Palestinian Oral History as a Source for Understanding the Past: Insights and Lessons from an Oral History Project among Palestinians in Israel

The purpose of this article is to further explore the potential for Palestinian oral history to be used as a source for understanding the past. It examines existing directions in this field and highlights new approaches based on a discussion of an oral history project conducted by the author of this paper - a Jewish Israeli - in the Upper Galilee between the years 2006 and 2011. The article sharply illustrates the necessity and the urgency of recording Palestinian oral history with regard to the period that preceded the 1948 war, especially where written sources are lacking. It demonstrates the richness of oral history among Palestinians in Israel and exemplifies its ability to capture a vivid picture of a segment of Palestinian rural life before the Nakba. Methodologically, the article emphasizes the significance of cross-checking non-dependent oral sources as well as cross-checking oral sources against written testimonies as a means of striving for the truth and as a useful way of examining the reliability of oral sources.     

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.     

The Social Texture of the Baqa Well:Drawing History from an Old Well in a Palestinian Arab Town in Israel

Water sources have always played a significant role in Palestinian rural life. Springs and wells are frequently depicted in orientalist sources, yet they have barely been studied from the perspective of oral history. This article explores the social texture of an ancient well, located in the Palestinian Arab town of Baqa al-Gharbiyya in Israel, by using fragmented memories of the old women and men who drew water from that well more than half a century ago. This study examines the well as a powerful reservoir of local memories, focusing on the feminine experience that was formed at the well, on its symbolic meaning in the lives of Palestinian women, and on a silent language of implicit expressions that was once used at the well.     

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.     

The Struggle Against Oppression Everywhere: The Global Politics of Palestinian Liberation

This article situates the Palestine Liberation Organization in an international network of liberation movements in the 1960s and 1970s. As such, it is a transnational history of the early days of the Palestinian liberation movement, whereas most scholars have treated that movement inside the confines of the long-running Arab–Israeli conflict. By analyzing the intellectual and political linkages between the PLO and other liberation movements in Algeria, Cuba, and Vietnam, the article seeks to reframe the Palestinian struggle in the context of other postcolonial struggles of that era.     

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.     

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.