The Palestinian National Movements: Politics of Contention, 1967-2005 (review)

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 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 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 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 in a way that it had not been mobilized previously, shifting the political process from nation 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 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 oc- cupation. 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 Istaeli audience, or the more external World audience. Differences 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. …

Review

Mahmoud Darwish: Literature and the Politics of Palestinian Identity

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.

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...

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

T extension of the higher education “franchise” to significant numbers of young people with modest means and from underprivileged strata since the mid-1970s has had far-reaching social and political consequences for Palestinian society. This brief article will investigate how Palestinian institutions of higher education—primarily the four universities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip—were implicated in the formation of an influential and hegemonic generation of activist intelligentsia in the crucial two decades preceding the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. It will also discuss this generation’s fortunes under the current social and political regime in Palestine. It is appropriate to locate the widening of opportunities for higher education in the mid-1970s within the general trajectory taken by the Palestinian national movement during the same period. It may be noted briefly that changes in the strategic thinking of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) after 1974 identified the Occupied Territories as the site of the future Palestinian state and the main arena for the struggle for its realization. Thus, the establishment of an infrastructure of national institutions as well as a network of political parties and front organizations to promote the struggle can be viewed as the cornerstones of the Palestinian state-building strategy. The few institutions of higher education existing in the Occupied Territories were thus “nationalized,” and their rapid expansion after the mid-1970s was supported by funds channeled by the PLO into the Occupied Territories. Wide sectors of society took advantage of this unprecedented availability of highly subsidized “mass” university education, and enrollment in local institutions of higher education rose dramatically during the 1970s and 1980s. Although the PLO and some political parties were instrumental in providing university education in the Arab world and abroad (mainly through scholarships offered by some Arab and then-socialist countries), the bulk of university graduates in the Occupied Territories after the 1970s have been the products of the local educational system. Palestinian universities during the latter part of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s were the prime site for the formation of a cadre of political activists who at important junctures were in the vanguard of the national resistance to occupation. While such cadres were also being recruited and built within other institutions such as secondary schools, labor unions, and women’s organizations, the universities were by far the most enabling medium for the crystallization of a politicized cohort of activists. Higher education has been perceived as, and has actually been, an avenue of social mobility for sons and daughters of peasants, refugees, and the urban middle and lower classes in Palestinian society. In this sense, graduates of local universities constitute a significant segment of the growing middle strata in Palestinian society, especially in the period after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority and the expansion of employment opportunities in the growing public and private sectors. What concerns us here, however, is how Palestinian universities were implicated in this process by constituting the environment par excellence for the elaboration of a politically hegemonic elite during the period prior to and after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. The “nationalization” of the universities during this critical period meant above all that—by virtue of the fact that they were being supported by public, national funds (through the Palestinian Council for Higher Education)— they were part of the national project. As such, their administrations were expected (and often compelled) to allow full freedom of political activity and to align their institutions with the national movement. While political activity was largely conceived of as national, anti-occupation resistance, there was at the same time an increased student focus on internal university politics, embodied in activities such as the campaign for “Arabization” of the curriculum and the struggle for student representation in university bodies. Elected student councils succeeded in wresting a considerable degree of authority (and recognition of the legitimacy of that authority) from university administrations and became a powerful force in university life.

ABSTRACTWhile the failure of the Palestinian National Movement (PNM) in achieving its stated objectives is widely acknowledged, the causes of this failure are subject to interpretation. The central argument of this article is that the priority accorded by the PNM’s leadership to the statehood ambition over the liberation precondition is a principal factor as it led to transformation of the PNM through the Oslo process. As a consequence, the PNM was stripped of structures, functions, and characteristics typically associated with national liberation movements and therefore categorizing the PNM in its current state as an anti-colonial liberation movement is specious and flawed.

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

State-building in Palestine went through several stages and took many years until the current situation, with a clear pattern of duality processes. Two parallel processes of state-building have taken place in the Palestinian national movement. On the one hand, Arafat tightened his control of the military, political, economic, social, and cultural organs of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). On the other hand, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were characterized by an advanced process of pluralism and acceptance of the rules of democratic decision-making. This duality is in the essence of any developments in the future that are related to the political institutionalization of the Palestinian entity.

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.

Palestine: Children Laboring

The signing of the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Govemment Arrangements (DOP) and the Letters of Mutual Recognition exchanged between Israel and the PLO in September 1993 marked a new era in the history of the Middle East. The PLO accepted United Nation Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, recognized the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security, committed itself to a peaceful resolution of the conflict, and renounced the use of terrorism and other acts of violence. Its leader, Yasser Arafat, called for an end to the Intifada and affirmed that the articles of the Palestinian Covenant that are inconsistent with his commitments are inoperative and invalid. These developments turned a new page in the PLO-Israeli relationship and in the PLO's own political status as well. For the first time in its history, the Palestinian national movement, recognized by Israel, would administer Palestinian people and land. Moreover, Israel would withdraw from Palestinian territories, beginning with Gaza and the Jericho area, and continuing with the eventual redeployment of its military forces outside the populated areas throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority (PA) is initially limited in its authorities to spheres such as education and culture, health, social welfare, direct taxation, tourism and the public order, including the ability to establish a strong police force. However, since the transitional period is limited to five years, beginning with the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and Jericho area but not conditional upon reaching any further agreements, the way has been opened for the Palestinians to lay the foundations of their own state. In the DOP both sides agreed to 'view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit', and the document stipulated that direct, free and general political elections will be held for the Council of the PA. According to the DOP these elections will 'constitute a significant interim preparatory step toward the realization of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and their just requirements'. I Other indications of emerging statehood can be seen in the following facts: The PA has an international dialling code of its own and its own checkpoints, adjacent to those of Israel, on the Gaza Strip border with Egypt

When the first Israelis came to settle in the West Bank in the summer of 1967, the Israeli public was still under the influence of the euphoria which pervaded the country after its victory in the Six Day War. Settlement on land that had been conquered from the Kingdom of Jordan was then viewed as the natural consequence of the recently waged defensive war. However, as years passed and the scope of settlement in the new territories increased, the waves of euphoria subsided and were replaced by a serious public controversy concerning the necessity for these settlements. Fifteen years after the Six Day War, the West Bank and Gaza Strip remained administered territories, whereas the Golan Heights were annexed to the State of Israel and the Sinai peninsula restored to Egyptian sovereignty as part of the Israel-Egyptian peace treaty. In 1982 there were 25,000 Jewish settlers living in some 100 settlements in the West Bank less than one per cent of the Jewish population of Israel. However, the interest which the public displays in this issue far exceeds its quantitative size. Until the emergence of the religious social movement Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful) after the October war of 1973, the settlement issue did not head the public agenda. Gush Emunim's involvement in settlement increased public interest in the issue and accorded it a clearly political dimension. But the significant turning-point occurred in the summer of 1977, when the Labor government was replaced by the Likud. The pace of settlement in the West Bank was significantly accelerated: in contrast to an annual average of 300 settlers from the 1967 war until the political changeover in 1977, the annual average during the five years since the establishment of the Likud government has been 4,400. The marked increase in the scope of settlement was one of the factors that accorded settlement a permanent place at the tip of the public agenda as a political issue of paramount importance. Among the other factors contributing to the new political character of the settlement issue, we can cite the awakening of the national Palestinian movement and the Camp David Accords, which included administrative autonomy for the Arab residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the evacuation of the Jewish settlers from Sinai. With the broadening of Jewish settlement in the territories, the problem of relations between the Jewish settlers and the Arab population in these regions became acute. The public debate on the new settlements was accorded a profound ideological dimension. The key questions regarding the essence of Zionism, its aims and the means of their achievement, began to be debated in light of the settlements in the administered territories. Even the question of the democratic nature of Israeli society and government, which had previously been on the fringes of the public and political debate, began to occupy an important place because of the illegal methods adopted by Gush Emunim the spearhead of Jewish settlement in the West Bank.