Palestinian Resistance Research Articles

Iranian foreign policy towards Syria (a study in pillars and means)

The development of the Syrian crisis and its transformation into a war has imposed new challenges on Iran. This development may lead to the fall of one of its allies in the Arab Levant, and this in turn will negatively affect its communication with Hezbollah and the Palestinian resistance factions loyal to it. It also creates obstacles to Iranian influence in the region and affects Syria’s relationship with Hezbollah in the event of the collapse of the Syrian regime, of which Lebanon is a natural geographical extension. Iran’s relationship with Hezbollah is of great importance, as it facilitates the transit of weapons and armed groups, whether from Iran or even from the Syrian people themselves. For these reasons, Iran moved towards Syria through several means and mechanisms, whether economic, military, or even cultural, in order to maintain its presence in the Middle East and its extensions to support the Palestinian resistance factions.

Hamas in Cyberspace: Social Media and Forms of Political Expression

This study examines the digital practices and online discourses of Hamas on Twitter, with a specific focus on the Palinfoen account linked to the Palestinian Information Centre (PIC). The study examines 3,500 tweets related to events in Palestine, which were either tweeted or retweeted by the Palinfoen account. To explore these practices, the researcher employs digital ethnography and a discourse-historical approach to analyze the collected tweets and retweets. The findings of the analysis show that the tweets revolve around key figures such as journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and Israel. Abu Akleh is portrayed as a courageous and esteemed senior journalist who became a victim of Israeli brutality. Israel, on the other hand, is depicted as a criminal entity, held responsible for the cold-blooded killing of Abu Akleh and the desecration of her coffin. The killing is presented as an inhumane and irrational act committed by Israel against a respected journalist. Additionally, the tweets from Palinfoen focus on the events at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Israeli figures are described using terms like "genocidal Jews," "Israeli occupation forces," "enemy occupier gangs," and an "illegitimate regime," while Palestinian figures are referred to as "worshippers," "families," and "Muslims." The discourses promoted by Hamas on Twitter place agency and accountability on the Israeli side. In conclusion, this analysis unsurprisingly highlights how the Palinfoen Twitter account portrays Palestinian resistance as a legitimate reaction.

Political Performances of Surviving Oppression

Abstract In light of the societal and structural changes that have occurred in Palestine since the signing of the Oslo Agreements in the 1990s, the present work aims to analyse the enhanced role of individuals and individual actions as opposed to actions led by collective and/or top-down organisations in the unarmed resistance of Palestinian people to the State of Israel, both in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and in 1948 Palestine/Israel. To understand the main tracts, limits, and potential of this contemporary trend I resort to the work and ideas developed by Bayat on social nonmovements. A further aim is to highlight how the resistance of the individuals intersects with individual-right movements, to understand the changing relation between the fight for individual rights and the fight against occupation. Hence, an in-depth analysis of the village realities of al-Walaja and al-Laqiya will be provided, by examining land defense in reaction to illegal acquisition of Palestinian property. Moreover, the results will be confronted with the broad events of May 2021, to better understand how new resistance dynamics have unfolded in different local realities as well as nationwide. Nowadays Palestine is marked by geographical, social, political, and religious fragmentation, together with economic difficulties. In such an environment I suggest that individuals adapted to the new reality of NGOs’ aid and relief and, with the boost of social media and the discourse brought forward by Palestinian women, have taken the lead of the leaderless Palestinian resistance, as proved by the events of the Habba of May 2021. As for the claims over individual rights, I believe this new resistance paradigm has the potential to prompt social and political reform, while the capabilities of individuals to practice such resistance in a sustained manner have to be carefully thought out.

The Military Performance of the Palestinian Resistance during the Battle of Saif al-Quds (May 2021)

هدفت هذه الورقة إلى التعرف على الأداء العسكري للمقاومة الفلسطينية خلال معركة سيف القدس (مايو 2021)، وذلك من خلال دراسة بيانات فصائل المقاومة الفلسطينية، وقد ركّز الباحث على دراسة بلاغات وبيانات كتائب الشهيد عز الدين القسام الجناح العسكري لحركة المقاومة الإسلامية (حماس)، وسرايا القدس الجناح العسكري لحركة الجهاد الإسلامي؛ كونهما الفاعلان الرئيسيان في المعركة، وقد اعتمد الباحث على تحليل أثر الفعل المقاوم من خلال دراسة العديد من الأبحاث والأخبار التي نشرتها مواقع ومراكز دراسات تابعة للاحتلال. تنتمي هذه الورقة إلى البحوث الوصفية التحليلية، فقد عمد الباحث إلى استقراء الأداء العسكري للمقاومة الفلسطينية خلال المعركة؛ بتحليل البلاغات العسكرية للمقاومة الفلسطينية، في مسعى لتحديد الخطوط الأساسية التي ميّزت أداء المقاومة العسكري خلال المعركة. وقد خلُصت الورقة إلى أنّ المقاومة أخذت زمام المبادرة، ووجهت ضربة البداية، واستطاعت أن تحافظ على زخم ناري هو الأعلى في تاريخ المواجهة مع الاحتلال، وأفشلت مخططاته من خلال استخبارات فعّالة، وامتازت بقدرة عالية على القيادة والسيطرة، رغم كثافة نيران الاحتلال وإجرامه.

İsrail Medyasının Seyfu’l-Kudüs Savaşındaki Performansı

أدرك الصهاينة منذ بداية مشروعهم، أهمية امتلاك آلة إعلامية تناسب حجم المشروع. فأسسوا الصحف التي وجّهت رسائلها للتجمعات اليهودية في العالم وبشتى اللغات؛ لتجميعهم حول الفكرة الصهيونية، كما عملوا على إنشاء صحافة قادرة على اختراق الرأي العام العالمي لتأييد مشروعهم، وفي ذلك السياق، أنشأوا صحافة باللغة العربية، كتب فيها يهود عرب، وعرب متصهينون. وبعد إنشاء "دولة إسرائيل" على أنقاض الشعب العربي الفلسطيني، كان الإعلام الصهيوني جزءاً لا يتجزأ من أسلحة الدولة الصهيونية في حربها لتثبيت أركانها، وتحجيم أو تصفية أعدائها، مادياً ومعنوياً، بتبرير الجرائم التي يرتكبها الجيش "الإسرائيلي" ضد العرب، بل بتحريض المؤسسة الأمنية لمزيد من "الضربات" لردع المقاومة العربية والفلسطينية (نظرية الجدار الحديدي). وخلال معركة سيف القدس "حارس الأسوار" لعب الإعلام "الإسرائيلي" دوراً بارزاً في توجيه رسائل الدولة الصهيونية تجاه "مواطني إسرائيل" اليهود، وتجاه فلسطينيي الداخل المحتل عام 1948، وتجاه المواطنين الفلسطينيين في القدس والضفة الغربية وقطاع غزة، وكذلك تجاه الشعوب العربية والمجتمع الدولي. فإلى أي مدى نجح أو أخفق في إيصال رسائله، وما أبرز التحديات التي واجهته؟

Israeli Colonial Governance vs. Palestinian Resistance: An Institutional Genealogy

This article examines the institutional genealogy of Israeli colonial governance (ICG) and the accompanying patterns of Palestinian resistance in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. It argues that ICG has experienced three phases, each marked by a particular form of direct or indirect colonial rule. Each of these colonial rule forms has been resisted through a distinct pattern of centralized or decentralized collective political agency. I argue that both the form and governing logic of ICG are determined not only by colonialist aims, but also by their interplay with the Palestinian resistance.

Reclaiming Palestinian Indigenous Sovereignty

The 2021 Unity Intifada represented a vital moment in the history of Palestinian resistance. The unification of Palestinian struggle inherent to the uprising can be read as an expression of Palestinian Indigenous sovereignty. Drawing on the critical thought of Palestinians and other Indigenous peoples struggling against settler colonialism, I argue for a theorization of Palestinian indigeneity. Following from this indigeneity, I show that Palestinian Indigenous sovereignty is the embodied political claim to the land of Palestine. This theorization of sovereignty offers uniquely productive ways to account for and challenge Zionist/Israeli settler-colonial violence and, ultimately, to forge paths toward decolonial Palestinian futures.

The permanently minority people: Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon , (Attempted) social death and desire to return

Seventy-three years, seven million people in exile; it has been this long since the Palestinian diaspora set foot. By expanding the Social Death theory to include “territory bounded culture,” this paper argues that Israeli regime is inflicting an (attempted) social death upon Palestinian refugees by dispossessing them of their lands and denying their existence. This article attempts to unlatch another portal by exhibiting the possibility of creating an anti-thesis to the Social Death theory by the Palestinian resistance. Thus, showing the very act of Israel’s attempted social death becomes the very fuel for the Palestinian resistance to social death. We also illustrate the interconnection between social death and hope to return, allowing another room for analysis of refugee’s desirability to return and the problems of universalisation of solutions to the refugee crisis, in particular the cases of Palestinian refugees in Lebanese and Jordanian refugee camps.

Deepening apartheid: The political geography of colonizing Israel/Palestine

The paper analyzes the regime in Israel/Palestine using a political geographical perspective. It demonstrates how a combination of colonial, national, capitalist and liberal forces have put in train a process of “deepening apartheid” in the entire territory controlled by Israel—between River and Sea. This undeclared regime has been established to guard the 'achievements' of settler colonial Judaization of the land and the domination of the Jewish minority. As described by the Rome Statute, it has become an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one group over others, with the intention of maintaining that regime. Hence the political geographical analysis shows clearly that the wide description in academic and international circles of Israel as “Jewish and democratic,” is based on a denial of the clear racialized hierarchy of civil statuses. This setting enhances Jewish supremacy (using different methods) it in all regions, while Palestinians are fragmented into lower rungs on the ethnic hierarchy—de facto and de jure—thereby contradicting the tenets of democratic civil equality. Theoretically, the paper draws on the links between settler colonial expansion, the rise of ethnocracy, partial liberalization under global capitalism, and the making of apartheid. It shows that historically Jewish colonization of Palestine—the underlying logic of the regime—has advanced in six main historical-geographical stages, encountering persistent, and at times violent, Palestinian resistance. The paper then analyzes in more detail the emergence of one regime between River and Sea, in which the state uses military, spatial, economic, and legal powers, as well as geopolitical maneuvering (particularly US support) to oppress Palestinians, while promoting democratic rights and economic development among Jews. This has enabled Israel to integrate and “whiten” Mizrahi and other Jewish groups into mainstream Zionism. Rivaling Palestinian political projects have been fragmented, ghettoized, attacked violently, and severely weakened. The paper shows how Jewish colonization, on both sides of the Green Line (which has also included some tactical withdrawals), has led to the establishment of four hierarchical types of citizenship, governed as “separate and unequal”. The relations between the groups resemble the racialized categories used in Apartheid South Africa and include (a) “White”—Jewish Israelis—with full citizenship rights; (b) “Colored”—Palestinian Arabs with Israeli citizenship with partial rights; (c) “Black”—Palestinians under occupation lacking citizenship or political rights; (d) “Gray”—an emerging group, consisting of non-citizen migrants and asylum seekers.

Out of place, out of time: Gaddafi and the Palestinian resistance in the 1970s

ABSTRACT In this article, I look at the nature and significance of Mu’ammar al-Gaddafi’s support to the Palestinian Resistance in his early years of power (roughly 1969–1980) and connect it to the broader anti-colonial, anti-imperial message that was an important part of his early years. My intention is neither to portray Gaddafi as a great hero nor emphasize his eccentricities to the point of obscuring all other aspects of his political persona. Rather, it is to provide balance to a discussion of a figure whose political ideas are often portrayed as being rooted merely in impulse and egoism. This latter portrayal was pushed by Western powers, providing them with justification for their at-times reckless approach towards Libya and its leader who posed a threat to the West’s interests. Ironically, the cartoon-like portrayals of Gaddafi that Western governments perpetuated demonstrate a point that Gaddafi tried to make, that representative rather than direct democracy was a problematic form of governance, causing those in charge to impose their will on the people. Arab leaders also disliked Gaddafi, in part due to their shift from Arab unity towards economic privatization; with such a shift came a certain complacency towards imperialism, colonialism, and Palestinian resistance.

OCCUPATION VS. RESISTANCE

The indiscriminate killing of Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip by the Israeli war machine, during July–August 2014, marked yet another phase in the long-drawn-out Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation. The large-scale death, destruction, and displacement on the Palestinian side underlined a particular pattern of Israeli State behavior vis-à-vis the Palestinians in Gaza. This article argues that the 2014 operation, code named “Operation Protective Edge,” was but a part of Israel’s long-term, well-thought-out, and consistently pursued policy of crushing Palestinian resistance and eliminating Palestinian identity and nationalism.

Playful Activism: Memetic Performances of Palestinian Resistance in TikTok #Challenges

Palestinians have long been using social media as a tool for activism. Each platform provides unique socio-technological affordances that shape users’ communicative practices as networked publics. Focusing on the video-sharing platform TikTok, which has taken a “serious turn” in recent years, this article examines how Palestinian users performed playful acts of resistance during the escalation of violence between Palestinians and Israelis in May 2021. Applying a multimodal analysis to 500 TikTok videos posted during the conflict under #gazaunderattack, we identify three memetic templates (#challenge)—(1) lip-syncing, (2) duets, and (3) point-of-view—that unfold the ways TikTok’s design and its play-based affordances ignite affective streams of audiovisual content that render playful activism in times of conflict. Driven by TikTok’s culture of imitation and competition, playful activism enables the participation of ordinary users in political emerging events with the help of looping meme videos composed of collaborative, dialogic, and communal socio-technical functions. Playful activism transforms users’ ritualized performances into powerful political instruments on TikTok and makes democratic participation more relatable, tangible, and accessible to various audiences.

IMPACTS OF THE PALESTINE RESISTANCE MOVEMENT DURING THE MAY 2021 WAR WITH THE ISRAELI FORCES ON PALESTINIAN POPULAR DISCOURSE

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on for a long time and has garnered both local and international interest. Despite several efforts to find a solution by global leaders, the United Nations (UN), and other international organizations, it continues to continue unabated. This research, however, seeks to explore the impacts of the Palestinian resistance movement during the May 2021 Gaza War with the Israeli forces on Palestinian popular discourse. The research analyses a number of effects, including those on political dynamics, health, and the Middle Eastern security. This approach calls for the collection of data from both primary and secondary sources. In order to gather fresh information on the subject, semi-structured interviews are conducted with political analysts and reporters in person. The quest for a permanent peace in the area is still ongoing, but the study also suggests a two-state solution as potential peace-making option.

İran: ulusal direniş bağlamında nükleer eşik devleti olmak

For almost four decades, Iran's foreign policy rhetoric and actions have drawn the attention of the international community. Iran acquired a leadership role in the advocacy of oppressed people against oppressors after the 1979 Revolution. In this direction, it has exhibited two-pronged foreign policy behaviour over the years. One is the axis of resistance politics, and the second is the advancement of a nuclear program. The Iranian-led coalition network known as the ‘Axis of Resistance’ includes Shiite paramilitary groups in Iraq, the Syrian Ba'ath regime, Palestinian resistance organizations, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Since the USA adopted the 'Axis of Evil’ rhetoric against Iran in 2002, Iran has simultaneously deepened its relations with the axis of resistance in the face of this pressure and has advanced its nuclear activities, which has transformed it into a nuclear threshold state. In this article, we argue that these two main foreign policy activities are inseparable and they are ultimately the consequence of Iran's adopted national role, i.e., the leader of the oppressed. Therefore, we discuss that with its resistance to the pressures relevant to the nuclear program, Iran intends to give a clear message to the proxies on the axis of resistance. We applied role theory on the relationship between the axis of resistance concept and nuclear policy to contribute to the prominent foreign policy debates over Iran's two inseparable foreign policy behaviours.

DYNAMICS OF SETTLER COLONIALISM

This essay explores the factors influencing the Israeli government’s treatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip between 2009 and 2019. The essay argues that the Israeli approach towards the Palestinians can be examined in the broader context of settler colonialism and is not exclusively shaped on a security basis. Sem-structured interviews, documents, and other secondary data sources were employed to determine factors defining Israel’s approach in confronting Palestinians. Multiple internal and external factors have shaped the Israeli treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Internal elements include power structure, ideology, public opinion, and the colonized people’s response. The external factors include the regional (dis-)order and the US-Israel alliance. This analysis finds that most of these factors have fuelled a violent Israeli treatment towards Palestinians. The Palestinian resistance was found to compel Israel to lessen its violent treatment on various occasions. These results indicate that the Israeli treatment of Palestinians is not exclusively shaped on a security basis.

Occupied by non-violence: Exploring male Palestinian resistance activists’ use of strategic silences in (re)narrating the Palestinian struggle

Liberal peacebuilding has had its fair share of critiques. Along with highlighting its neo-liberal and Western-centric foundations, scholars have also drawn attention to its disregard for Indigenous peace frameworks. Peacebuilding in Palestine is no exception. Based on ethnographic research in the West Bank, this paper examines Orientalist narratives of Palestinian men embedded within the liberal peacebuilding framework and highlights the way that men engaged in unarmed resistance have navigated this terrain through the adoption of public transcripts which (re)narrate the Palestinian story/experience. I argue that this adoption can be interpreted as an act of critical agency where the silencing of their own beliefs is turned on its head to empower and further their agenda and goals. In this way, representation, knowledge, and silence can be understood as not only tools of colonial control, but also tools for Indigenous resistance to Western discourses, narratives, and representations.

The Sparkling Flower of Poetry on the Realism of Cruelty: A Chinese Reading in the Pluralism of Palestinian Identity in the Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish

Abstract Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) is regarded as the Palestinian national poet, and the leader of Palestinian resistance poetry. The Chinese version of his poetry collection A Lover From Palestine was published in 2016, then republished in 2020. In the eyes of Chinese researchers and admirers of poetry and Arabic literature in China, Mahmoud Darwish has long been aware of the Palestinian identity crisis under the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and endeavored, through his abundant works, to implement a dynamic poetic construction of the Palestinian national cultural identity, in order to unite, to maintain, and to expand Palestinian national identity on one hand, and to document and inherit Palestinian cultural legacy on the other hand. This paper, based on Darwish’s work, tries to explore the poet’s considerations of Palestinian national identity crisis, and his faith of the poetry’s indispensable role to build up the national cultural identity from three aspects: his awareness of the identity crisis, his poetic construction of a multiidentity, and his strategy of defending it. Thus the poet made a great effort to document, defend and expand the Palestinian authentic, multidimensional identity in his immortal work.

دور الحكومة الإسرائيلية في الاستيطان في القدس وتأثيراته على الفلسطينيين 2021-2022م

The Zionist settlement in Jerusalem formed a cornerstone in the agreements of forming the successive Israeli governments, especially those governments that include a right-wing majority. In the summer of 2021 AD, a government was formed in Israel headed by the extreme right-wing party and included in its members parties from the right to the left.
 But this did not hinder the role of this government in building settlements and their infrastructure. Rather, it outperformed its predecessors by the sixteen-month period, which is the age of this government, whose presidency was exchanged by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, as it completed the settlement projects in Jerusalem that it inherited from the Benjamin Netanyahu government. It also approved new settlement projects in all their forms, from housing units to building public facilities and streets, and confiscating lands in and around Jerusalem. The role of this government was characterized by moving settlement projects that were frozen or not completed for political reasons.
 The American and European political discourse towards opposing settlements developed, but this did not prevent the continuation of these settlement activities. This settlement has contributed to affecting the lives of the Palestinian people, the least of which is preventing their population expansion towards the center of the city of Jerusalem, as well as reducing the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state due to its severance through. Despite this, the Palestinian resistance continued in various forms to this settlement.

Women in Conflict and Post-conflict Situations: An Anthology of Cases from Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Other Countries

Women in Conflict and Post-conflict Situations: An Anthology of Cases from Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Other Countries

On Indigenous Refusal against Externally-Imposed Frameworks in Historic Palestine

The article attempts to empirically identify how the concept of Indigenous refusal helps us understand growing Palestinian political discourse and practices. It aims to develop Critical Indigenous Studies’ potentialities vis à vis the study of historic Palestine. The article puts a particular emphasis on new visions of Palestinian resistance that take aim at the different ways the Global North has tried to impose specific models and narratives on the Palestinian cause through liberal politics of recognition. Those spatio-political arrangements are enmeshed in the so-called ‘Oslo paradigm’ but also concern the portrayal of Israel as a liberal multicultural society, as well as the neoliberal dynamics that continuously shape the different fragments of the Palestinian people. In this regard, Indigenous Palestinian refusal also presents an international dimension that has progressively led to the articulation of anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist imaginaries that would contribute to shaping radical Palestinian – and transnational – futures.