Islamism in the Diaspora: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon

In recent years there has been increasing academic interestin Islamism in the Middle East, not least in Palestinian Islamismchampioned by groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whichare waging a war of attrition against the Israeli occupationof the West Bank and Gaza. There has been less concern withIslamism among the Palestinian refugees dispersed in MiddleEastern countries such as Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. The articleoutlines the sources of Islamism (‘political Islam’)among Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The rise of Islamismis a complex mix of contingent factors that is fuelled by socialand political deprivation and shaped by divergent views on Palestiniannationalism (secular vs. Islamist), the Islamist revival inLebanon and ‘strategic localization’ that turnsrefugee camps into battlefields between Palestinian factions.The Islamist groups cater for narrowly defined segments of therefugee population and have been unable to attract wider support.Instead, they cater for minor, camp-based constituencies whichcompete with secular groups for internal control of the campsand, by implication, of the Palestinian nationalist cause itself.     

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.     

Health,work opportunities and attitudes: a review of Palestinian women's situation in Lebanon

This study examined the health status, employment opportunities, and aspirations of Palestinian women refugees in Lebanon. Data were obtained from 1501 women registered with a UN relief agency and living in 5 regions; 80% lived in camps. 27.6% were aged 20-34 years, 27.1% were aged 35-44 years, and 24.7% were aged 45-60 years. 92% were women with children. About 43% of the 988 women with children had used or currently used contraception. 63% of these women had over 4 children. Among the 24 teenagers, 6 were current users; 41.7% had a child under the age of 16 years, and 62.5% had more than 1 child. Only 25% of all respondents had fewer than 3 children. Short birth intervals were common. About 16.4% of respondents were working. About 25% of mothers and 17% of all respondents never attended school. Tradition, marriage, and financial constraints were reported as reasons for education deficits. A very high rate of women miscarried. 5% had abortions. Mothers reported self-fulfillment reasons for high fertility. Health status included high and early fertility, short birth intervals, frequent miscarriages, lack or misuse of birth control, high child mortality, and lack of knowledge about women's health. Women's work, albeit very limited, was essential to the household. Employed women were older, household heads, and with multiple burdens. Women had aspirations for themselves and their children for education, work, a return to peace, and a home in Palestine. Attainment fell short of aspirations, mostly due to lack of support within the family and the school system, and tradition. Many young women with aspirations had low expectations of success.     

Widening the Protection Gap: The 'Politics of Citizenship' for Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon, 1948-2008

Lebanon has been a reluctant host to Palestinian refugees since1948. A mainstay of Lebanese policies vis-à-vis the Palestinianrefugees has been preventing their permanent integration andsettlement in the country. The question of naturalizing refugeesis one of the most contentious political issues in Lebanon today.Palestinian refugees tend to live in conflict-ridden environments,often at the margins of the host society. This first of allapplies to the camp-based refugees, who languish in dilapidatedand overcrowded camps. Unable to return to Palestine and marginalizedby the host society, they are caught in a legal limbo. In orderto understand the complex legal regime that governs their refugeestatus, it is necessary to examine their rights as refugeesin international law, regionally as hosted by Arab League statesand nationally as residents of Lebanon. The rights regime iscomplex and contributes to a critical ‘protection gap’for the refugees. This article demonstrates how this protectiongap was created and widened by historically contingent, international,regional and national legal rights regimes.     

Civil war,genocide and political order in Rwanda: security implications of refugee return

Scholars and policy-makers now recognise the security risks posed by refugee militarisation, including the spread of civil war and regional destabilisation. These analysts pay little attention to the militarised exiles once they return home. Instead, repatriation is uncritically accepted as the most desirable solution to refugee crises and as a prerequisite for post-conflict peace-building. Undoubtedly, the vast majority of the refugees desire a peaceful and stable return home. For the minority of militarised exiles, however, return may facilitate a continuance of their programme of political violence. This article examines whether and how previously militarised refugees engage in political violence upon return. It does this by tracing five decades of forced migration in Rwanda, paying particular attention to the Tutsi exiles in Uganda and their eventual militarised return. In the Rwandan case, leaders relied on the mechanism of socialisation, defined as transformative learning and the development of new worldviews, to achieve their goals. Such socialisation operated in exile to form the Tutsi exile army and later functioned as a tool for the coercive imposition of political control in Rwanda.     

Human security and the separation of security and development

This article advances a counter-intuitive argument about what are argued to be the links between security and development in human security. The argument is counter-intuitive because the merging of development and security is explicitly part of the human security discourse. However, this paper will argue that human security can better be understood not through its own discourse, but placed in the context of the changing relationship between the developing world and the developed world after the end of the Cold War. Rather than the merging of security and development it will suggest that human security is representative of a period in international relations in which there is a separation of security and development. The broader international context is one in which the developing world is less of a security concern to the developed than was the case during the Cold War.     

History writing and securitization of the other: the construction and reconstruction of Palestinian and Israeli security discourses

In conflict situations the protagonists are driven by rival visions of the past. The protracted conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is a particularly extreme case to illustrate this point. In protracted conflict like the Israeli–Palestinian conflict historians themselves are acting as combatants. In this regard, the article argues that history writing, particularly in the cases of protracted conflicts, constitutes an important part of the construction and reconstruction of security discourses whether by supporting mainstream security discourses or by challenging them. By discussing the role of history writing in the securitization process, this article aims to contribute to the centuries-long debates over the history-writing–politics nexus by taking a security studies perspective.     

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.     

Environmental vulnerability as a legacy of violent conflict: a case study of the 2012 waste crisis in the Palestinian gathering of Shabriha,South Lebanon

In 2012, South Lebanon faced a solid waste management crisis that particularly affected Palestinian refugee communities, which were excluded from municipal service mandates. By means of a case study of the Palestinian community living in Shabriha, this article demonstrates that the vulnerability to the environmental effects of this waste crisis ultimately stems from a legacy of violent conflict. Lebanon's fragile political order and history of protracted war have crucially shaped governance arrangements in Shabriha. These arrangements excluded Shabriha from legal dumpsites and recycling facilities and thereby decisively exacerbated the environmental consequences of the waste crisis. At first sight, Shabriha's resort to indirect, informal and politicised social networks to remedy its marginalisation constituted an effective form of resilience. However, drawing on an entitlements approach to vulnerability, we argue that these coping mechanisms also entrenched Shabriha's institutional marginalisation because they exacerbated its dependence on informal governance structures.     

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.     

Human security and the rise of global therapeutic governance

This article discusses the emergence of global therapeutic governance or the influence of social psychology on international development policy. Therapeutic governance links psychosocial well-being and security, and seeks to foster personalities able to cope with risk and insecurity. The article analyses how Western alarm at the destabilizing impact of development eroded its support for an industrialization model of development. The article then examines how the basic needs model is underpinned by social psychological theories and involves an abandonment of national development. Finally, the article considers development as therapeutic governance and the implications of abandoning national development for the concept of human security.     

Engaging the narrative in ontological (in)security theory: insights from feminist IR

Ontological security theory (OST) provides a unique account of how state Self-identity is formed and reformed in international relations. OST postulates that state Self-identity is usefully understood by inquiring into the foundation of a state's sense of Self: its autobiographical narrative. We seek to amend this line of argument by further suggesting that the autobiographical narratives of states are ‘gendered’. Feminist theorizing about the relationship between gender and power implies that the dominant autobiographical narrative of state Self-identity is ‘gendered’ masculine. The power of this masculinized autobiographical narrative flows from an ‘internal othering’ process of counter ‘feminine’ autobiographical narratives that exist alongside the masculinized autobiographical narrative. Our goal is to suggest that opportunities do arise for counter ‘feminine’ narratives to challenge the dominant autobiographical narrative due to their interdependence and we explicate two practices by which masculinized narratives can be engaged, challenged and disrupted.     

巴勒斯坦民族解放斗争的领袖--阿拉法特

亚西尔·阿拉法特(Yassir Arafat,1929年8月24日～2004年11月11日),生前是中东政治风云中的重要人物,从1969年任巴解组织主席起,执政35个春秋,是中东地区执政年代最长的政治家和领导人之一.难能可贵的是,他数十年不屈不挠,带领巴勒斯坦人民为抵抗以色列的侵占而进行了艰苦卓绝的斗争.他的事业赢得了世界绝大多数国家和人民的深切同情与支持.     

The World Bank's (post-)conflict agenda: the challenge of integrating development and security

Linkages between security and development, and the need for national and international organizations to integrate these areas and concerns in policy, are widely recognized. It is, however, less clear how to practically accomplish this. Different policies will address different security and development concepts and aspects, and choices on focus and priority need to be made. This can generate tensions and resistance within organizations, resulting in limited integration. A case study of the World Bank's attempt to be more ‘conflict-sensitive’ demonstrates this dynamic. This attempt has had various positive aspects, but the integration of conflict concerns in its programmes and policies remains uneven and somewhat limited. While there is certainly room for improved integration, this should not be pursued beyond the point where the Bank's comparative advantage is undermined and resources from its core mission of combating human poverty diverted.     

Human security as power/knowledge: the biopolitics of a definitional debate

This article interrogates the parameters of the human security debate as a site of biopolitics in order to gain an understanding of how it has been possible to shape the debate in certain ways and not others. The role of cosmological realism in grounding knowledge claims within the debate is explored. By privileging objectivist claims to knowledge of human (in)security, it is argued that empiricism and rationalism, as forms of cosmological realism, foster the production of logics which facilitate forms of biopolitical intervention. The quest for precision, measurement, causality and policy relevance that define the production of human security knowledge is shown to have important political effects beyond the definitional debate itself in terms of agency, normalcy, and the scope for intervention. Therefore, this article demonstrates how the demarcation of human security as a field of knowledge is a process pregnant with relations of power that are important to understanding contemporary political dynamics.