The Palestinian national movement: politics of contention, 1967-2005

Reviewed by: The Palestinian National Movement: Politics of Contention, 1967-2005 Gregory Mahler, Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs The Palestinian National Movement: Politics of Contention, 1967-2005, by Amal Jamal. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2005. 229 pp. $22.95. The first thing to say about this book, as will be obvious to any potential reader, is that it is extremely timely. The Palestinian national movement is in the news on almost a daily basis, has proven to be among the top news stories of the last six months, and it is not likely to go away in the near future. The Palestinian National Movement provides a very good and well-documented portrait of a national liberation movement that has faced challenge after challenge, frustration after frustration, and yet has not only survived but has grown stronger over time. Although discussion of more distant historical material is included where needed, the concentration of the book focuses upon the period following the Six Day War in 1967, when the nature of so many Palestinians' lives changed dramatically as Israel became the occupying power in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The first chapter of the book focuses upon the historical context of the Palestinian national movement and includes discussion of who the political elite were in Palestine and how the outcomes of the 1967 War affected the lives of Palestinians. The War resulted in an Occupying Power (Israel), and led to a mobilization of the nationalist movement in a way that it had not been mobilized previously, shifting the political process "from nation building to state building" (p. 15). There is much discussion of the changing political structures of the Palestinians under Occupation, and how the Palestinians resisted the Israeli policy of "de-Palestinianization" on a regular basis. The issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is a significant one, of course, both because of interactions between the Israelis and the Palestinians and because the philosophy and practice of Israeli settlements had significant consequences for what the Israelis were prepared to let the Palestinians do. This was a large "zero-sum game," and as Israeli settlements grew there were corresponding diminutions of Palestinian communities. Jamal does a very good job of describing the efforts of the PLO leadership as they tried to coordinate Palestinian dissent and resistance to the Israeli occupation. [End Page 194] This resistance often resulted in deportations, destruction of Palestinian property, and limitations on political freedoms of Palestinians. Of great interest is Jamal's discussion of the relationship "between exterior and interior in the Palestinian national movement" (p. 38), in which decisions were often made based upon which audience was being considered—the domestic Palestinian audience, the Occupying Israeli audience, or the more external World audience. Differences between the Fatah/PLO leadership and the Palestinian National Front began to surface in strategic terms, and the Palestinian National Guidance Committee often found itself in a position of having to struggle to make peace among the various groups of Palestinian political elites. The "politics of steadfastness" (p. 63) is the term used by Jamal to discuss the Palestinian strategy for responding to Israeli policy in the occupied territories, and a substantial effort is made in this book to discuss and analyze this complicated and terribly important topic. What can be called the "politics of occupation" has been a major, indeed, the major influence affecting the lives of Palestinians over the last four decades, and the discussion presented here examines the role of the Jordanians in this challenge, the role of domestic para-political structures such as the General Federation of Trade Unions, and the role of international actors in helping to provide financial assistance to keep the Palestinian organizations going. Among the most interesting areas of analysis for this reader was the discussion of Palestinian political leadership that is offered here, and the examination of the interaction between Islamic actors and more secular actors. Jamal tells us that "after founding Hamas and experiencing direct confrontation with the occupation authorities, the religious elite of the occupied territories sought to establish itself as an authentic representative of the Palestinian masses" (p. 110). This...

Review

Book Reviews 169 Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993, by Yezid Sayigh. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. 953 pp. $99.00. Yezid Sayigh's Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993 is perhaps the definitive account on the subject of the Palestinian national movement. A leading scholar on Middle Eastern politics and professor at Cambridge University, Sayigh has produced a panoramic and nuanced study that charts the life of the Palestinian movement through its turning points and between-from its origins with the diaspora in 1948/49, to the establishment of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1964, to the revolutionary years between the 1967 and 1973 wars, to the PLO's steady attempt to build a state without a territory during the 1970s and 1980s, to the PLO's much anticipated return to Palestine with the signing ofthe 1993 Oslo Accords. Based on hundreds of interviews with Palestinian leaders and the rank-and-file, volumes ofprimary documents and internal memos from the various political and guerilla organizations, and a thorough reading ofthe secondary literature, this is an exhaustive and very well written book that leaves the reader in debt for Sayigh's dogged determination and skillful analysis. What distinguishes Sayigh's account ofthe Palestinian national movement from the crowd is its depth and breadth, and the analytic narrative that he uses to fashion the historical materials. In his effort to cover the events that shaped the history of the Palestinian national movement, Sayigh provides a thorough airing of the background conditions and political motivations that informed the decisions and the ultimate outcome of the event in question. Arguably the most novel aspect here is Sayigh's detailed account ofthe internal dealings and politics within the Palestinian nationalist movement, including the struggles both within the PLO and between the key constituencies and those outside the organization. Many works attempt to assess the roles and motives ofthe different players; few actually and convincingly do so. The historical details are informed by an overarching narrative that makes two central claims. The first is that the armed struggle "provided the political impulse and organizational dynamic in the evolution ofthe Palestinian national identity and in the formation of parastatal institutions and a bureaucratic elite, the nucleus of a government " (p. vii). Armed struggle, in other words, had significant effects that extended beyond the stated political or strategic goal in its conflict with Israel. Indeed, the decision to use violent rather than political or diplomatic means oftentimes compromised if not completely undercut the ability of the Palestinian national movement to obtain its publicly declared objectives. Yet armed struggle's enduring legacy was to help defme the Palestinian national identity. Social scientists and historians have long noted how violence and wars have been central to nation and state formation, observing 170 SHOFAR Winter 2000 Vol. 18, No.2 how these processes are central to group and identity fonnation and boundary drawing; Sayigh makes a real contribution by noting how a similar process unfolded here. Anned struggle, moreover, helped to distinguish the PLO from other Arab states and political actors. Whereas once Palestine was infused in Arab politics, and Arab politics was infused in Palestine, over time there has been a clearer demarcation and separation between the two. Although there are many factors that have led them to become disentangled and enabled the Palestinian movement to peel itselfaway from the grasp of other Arab states, anned struggle was central to this process. This was not without its cost to the Palestinian movement; the more the PLO differentiated and separated itselffrom the Arab states, the less likely Arab states were ready to sacrifice for and support the PLO. Two questionsjump out in Sayigh's discussion ofthe relationship between national identity and anned struggle. First, ifanned struggle was central to the fonnation ofthe Palestinian nationalist identity, then how might that constitutive feature have shaped the favored policies and repertoires? What other fonns ofcollective action and protest were considered and perhaps dismissed? In other words, certain policies might well have been selected not because they were more "efficient" but instead because they were viewed as more legitimate...

Palestine: Children Laboring

Barriers to the access to health services in the occupied Palestinian territory: a cohort study

Introduction M.Litvak The Evolution of a Founding Myth: The Nakba and Its Fluctuating Meaning E.Webman The Memory that Never Dies: The Nakba Memory and the Palestinian National Movement M.Milstein Memory 'From Below': Palestinian Society and the Nakba Memory M.Milstein Constructing a National Past: The Palestinian Case M.Litvak Historical Discourse in the Palestinian Media of the Palestinian National Authority S.Birnbaum Palestinian Women and Collective Memory H.Brand A Dream of Severance: Crisis of Identity in Palestinian Fiction in Israel M.Ghanayim

Violent clashes of June 2007 saw Hamas ousting Fatah from the Gaza Strip, thereby making patent the existence of a deep politico-military split within the Palestinian national movement. This article sheds light on the present face of the conflict in the Palestinian territories by adopting a historical-analytical perspective that emphasizes the role played by the availability of small arms and light weapons, as one of the many structural factors that underlie the transformation of the Palestinian struggle. Aware of the essentially contestable and reductionist nature of this endeavor, the authors examine the way in which the weapons acquisition process has changed in the time period from the beginning of the first Intifada in 1987 to the Gaza take-over by Hamas, 20 years later. In doing this, they extend the applicability of existing theories about the correspondence between access to weapons and the changing nature of insurgency, so to better understand a complex case where a national struggle has been spiralling into internecine violence and splintering, in what we may call “another Palestinian Nakba.”

This chapter explores the impact of Palestinians on the 1967 War and vice versa, with a focus on the Palestinian national movement. Its main argument is that the descent into war was propelled not only by the conflict between Israel and Arab states but also by a multifaceted struggle among Palestinians and Arabs for control over mobilization for the Palestinian cause. This struggle was defined by three overlapping realms of contestation: that among Arab states, between Palestinians and Arab states, and among Palestinians. During the years leading up to the war, Palestinian groups, principally Ahmed Shuqairi's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Fatah movement, advanced competing claims to be the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and their aspirations. Yet their competition was also testimony to the ambiguous boundaries between the Palestinian national struggle and the larger Arab world. In developing their own conceptions of Palestinian nationalism, they were forced to address its relationship to the call for Arab unity. In vying for resources and power, they could not depend on Arab governments. These governments, themselves competing for stature and security in regional politics, in turn invoked the Palestinian cause as justification for attempts to dictate, restrict, or interfere in Palestinian mobilization. Aspirant Palestinian leaders thus positioned themselves in a matrix of opportunities and constraints constructed by rival Arab state interests. This positioning influenced the strategies that both Palestinian and Arab leaders pursued in the conflict with Israel. It was, therefore, a crucial piece of the story of the third Arab-Israeli war.

Changing nationalism and Israel's ?open frontier? on the West Bank

This innovative study examines the internal dynamics of the Palestinian political elite and their impact on the struggle to establish a Palestinian state. The PLO leadership has sought to prevent the rise of any alternative in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that can challenge its authority to represent Palestinian aspirations for self-determination. Drawing on Palestinian sources and interviews with Palestinian political leaders, Jamal argues that the Fatah leadership has attempted to mobilize new social forces - local secular-nationalist and Islamist movements - while undermining their ability to develop independent power structures. This policy has served to radicalize the younger local elites, contributing to the tensions that precipitated the first and second intifadas. Israel's policies have undermined the legitimacy of the national elite, while enhancing the Islamist opposition's ideological legitimacy. In this way, internal elite disunity and growing political differentiation have worked against development of a common Palestinian strategy of state-building. Amal Jamal is Lecturer in Political Science at Tel Aviv University.

Mahmoud Darwish: Literature and the Politics of Palestinian Identity

Palestinian national identification slowly but consistently strengthened following the 1967 War despite Israel's ongoing effort to undermine it. Not unlike Zionism, which, as some scholars claim, precipitated the appearance and development of Palestinian national identity at the turn of the twentieth century, Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip helped generate the reemergence of Palestinian nationalism. This chapter argues that many of the controlling apparatuses employed to manage the inhabitants affected the Palestinian population as a whole, thus highlighting the similarities among the residents of the two regions rather than their differences. Thus, while Israel deployed several controlling practices to repress Palestinian nationalism and to encourage other forms of identification, the contradictions and excesses of its controlling apparatuses actually reinforced the sense of a shared predicament, which strengthened national identification. In hindsight, it is not surprising that Israel failed to suppress the rise of national identity. But in order to better understand how Palestinian nationalism reemerged and how it, in turn, led Israel to emphasize sovereign power and de-emphasize disciplinary and biopower, it is useful to look back at one of the sites where the struggle over national identification manifested itself most forcefully: the municipal elections in the West Bank.

This paper aims at studying the effects of the Oslo Accords on Palestinian identities of those residing in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with emphasis on comparing between refugees and non refugees living in these areas. Based on data gathered through a census conducted on Birzeit University students in 1994, and other data gathered from three census conducted on similar samples of adults from the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1997, 2001, 2006. This paper will especially endeavor to answer the following questions: Did the Oslo Accords have an effect on Palestinians’ identity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip? If so, is there a difference in identity amidst the residence of these areas and between refugees and non refugees?Available data indicated that during the Oslo era Palestinian identity remained, and after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, the strongest identity amongst the residence of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Nonetheless, this identity lost a part of its power due to the implementation of traditional identities, particularly religious identity. The failure of the peace process with Israel and the deteriorating economical situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, especially after Al-Aqsa Intifada, contributed in promoting Islamic Movements, in particular Hamas, thus promoting the religious identity. Whereas, the promotion of traditional identities - especially tribal, local or regional - was a direct result of the receding role of political parties particularly leftist parties. During this phase and with the support of the Palestinian Authority of these identities, in addition to the deterioration economical situation and the separation of Gaza Strip from the West Bank though imposing hundreds of military borders into closed areas (or cantons) during Al-Aqsa Intifada, tribal and local identities were reinforced. The data also indicates that there isn’t an immense, or clear, difference between the identity of refugees and non refugees based on the various census conducted. During the Oslo era the religious, tribal, local and Arab identities have advanced amongst refugees and non refugees, and these identities have assembled in its prominence to the Palestinian identity. The similarity between the identity of refugees living inside or outside a refugee camp and between non refugees, and the impact of the Oslo Accords on this identity, can be interpreted in terms of the influence of social and political factors to which refugees and non refugees are subordinated to (such as the establishment of a Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the oppressive practices of the occupation, the failure of the peace process and the deteriorating economical status).Despite the similarities between the identity of refugees and non refugees, refugees are distinguished from non refugees based on their asylum identity (they feel that they are refugees). From the various samples, more than 83% of refugees said that they enormously feel that they’re refugees. In general this identity is a bit more reinforced amongst refugees living in camps in comparison to refugees living outside of camps. Also the majority of refugees living outside of camps (75% or more from various samples) indicated that they too feel that they are refugees.

Muhammad Amin al-Husayni, the principal leader of Palestinian nationalism during the British mandate, was one of the modern Arab world's most controversial figures. He played a role in the 1992 Wailing Wall disturbance, took part in the Iraqi revolt of 1941, and was the target of British and Zionist assasins during World War II. Philip Mattar now offers the first full-length biography of this intriguing figure, weaving a fresh and objective revisionist account. Mattar clarifies al-Husayni's role in the politics of Palestine in the mandate era and the Palestinian national movement. He describes his rise to religious power as Mufti of Jerusalem and head of the Supreme Muslim Council. He also demarcates two major phases in al-Husayni's career. During his first, between 1917 and 1936, he was a cautious and pragmatic leader who, while opposing Zionism, cooperated with the British mandatory officials. The second phase, however, after 1936, was marked by militancy, frustration, and ultimately failure.

Allegations concerning the Palestinian national movement's wall-to-wall support of Fascism, and specifically Nazism, are currently being voiced in political contexts as well as in allegedly neutral scholarly contexts. It has become fashionable to recognize Mufti Amin al-Husayni's close collaboration with Mussolini and Hitler as characteristic of the entire Palestinian movement.1 Most researchers disregard the variations between factions within the movement and particularly the significant transitions experienced over time by advocates of Fascism and Nazism. A close reading of contemporary Palestinian newspapers indicates the complex and dynamic attitude of the Palestinian public toward Fascism and Nazism, which was contingent to a great degree on the evolution of Palestinian national identity in particular and Arab identity in general.