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17231. From the Editor

Author:
Rashid I. Khalidi
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
THIS ISSUE OF the Journal of Palestine Studies goes to press between May 15 and June 7 2012, the sixty-fourth anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba and the forty-fifth anniversary of the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights. The lives of every Palestinian, and of many others, have been indelibly marked by these two seminal sets of events, which changed the course of the history of Palestine and the entire Middle East. These two markers of loss have defined many of the concerns of the Journal over its more than forty years of publication. During this time, it has been part of a broad effort to redefine the understanding of the meaning and valence of these two milestones.
Political Geography:
Middle East, Palestine, and Sinai Peninsula

17232. Western Interests, Israeli Unilateralism, and the Two-State Solution

Author:
Neve Gordon and Yinon Cohen
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This essay analyzes the impact of Israeli unilateralism-specifically that of its settlement project-on the two-state solution. After exploring the relationship between unilateralism and power, the authors show, inter alia, that in-migration has accounted for about half the settlement growth since the international embrace of the land-for- peace formula in 1991, that the level of in-migration does not fluctuate according to government composition (right or left), and that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have spurred rather than inhibited settlement expansion. The essay is framed by a contrast with the Palestinian bid for full UN membership, rejected as unilateralism by the Western powers but in fact aimed at undercutting Israeli unilateralism and creating the conditions for meaningful negotiations.
Political Geography:
Israel, Palestine, and United Nations

17233. Liminal Loyalties: Ottomanism and Palestinian Responses to the Turkish War of Independence, 1919 -22

Author:
Awad Halabi
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The imposition of British rule in Palestine following World War I did not immediately supplant one imperial system with another or Ottoman identities with national ones. Examining Palestinian responses to the Turkish war of independence, this article argues that the 1917-22 period should be seen as a "liminal" era suspended between imperial systems. Both Kemalists and Palestinians employed a discourse of loyalty to the Ottoman dynasty, Muslim identity, and resistance to European rule to frame their goals. It was only after the creation of the Turkish Republic and the promulgation of the British Mandate, the author argues, that nationalist identities displaced Ottoman ones for both Turks and Palestinians.
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Palestine

17234. Compounding Vulnerability: Impacts of Climate Change on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank

Author:
Michael Mason, Mark Zeitoun, and Ziad Mimi
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Coping with (and adapting to) climatological hazards is commonly understood in intergovernmental and aid agency for a as a purely technical matter. This article examines the UN Development Programme's stakeholder consultations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in order to challenge the donor-driven technical-managerial framing of Palestinian climate vulnerability by showing how Israeli occupation practices exacerbate environmental stresses. While emphasizing the importance of social, economic, and political contexts in shaping populations' responses to climate change in general, the authors demonstrate the multiple ways in which the occupation specifically compounds hazards reveals it as constitutive of Palestinian climate vulnerability.
Political Geography:
Israel and United Nations

17235. The Origins of Hamas: Militant Legacy or Israeli Tool?

Author:
Jean-Pierre Filiu
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Since its creation in 1987, Hamas has been at the forefront of armed resistance in the occupied Palestinian territories. While the movement itself claims an unbroken militancy in Palestine dating back to 1935, others credit post-1967 maneuvers of Israeli Intelligence for its establishment. This article, in assessing these opposing narratives and offering its own interpretation, delves into the historical foundations of Hamas starting with the establishment in 1946 of the Gaza branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (the mother organization) and ending with its emergence as a distinct entity at the outbreak of the first intifada. Particular emphasis is given to the Brotherhood's pre-1987 record of militancy in the Strip, and on the complicated and intertwining relationship between the Brotherhood and Fatah.
Political Geography:
Israel and Palestine

17236. Reconceptualizing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Key Paradigm Shifts

Author:
Sara Roy
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
In the near 20 years since the Oslo peace process began, Palestinians have suffered losses-socially, economically and politically-arguably not seen since 1948. This altered reality has, in recent years, been shaped by critical paradigm shifts in the way the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is understood and addressed. These shifts, particularly with regard to international acceptance of Palestine's territorial fragmentation, the imperative of ending Israel's occupation, the de facto annexation of West Bank lands to Israel, and the transformation of Palestinians into a humanitarian issue-have redefined the way the world views the conflict, diminishing the possibility of a political resolution.
Political Geography:
Israel and Palestine

17237. Nationalism, History, and the 1948 War

Author:
Weldon C. Matthews
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Efrat Ben-Ze'ev has produced a brief but thought-provoking response to the literature on the 1948 Palestine war that is bound by the parameters of official and academic nationalist narratives. Implicit in her book is a critique of the historical method that synthesizes textual and oral evidence to understand 1948 as the culmination of the Zionist project or the failure of the Palestinian Arab nationalist enterprise and seeks to assign culpability for the creation of the conflict to either of the nationalist movements. The production of these narratives deploys individuals' memories of 1948 as evidence, and those individuals' identities are consequently defined in terms of the nationalist narratives. Such a methodology obscures the instability of memory and the processes of reproducing it.
Political Geography:
Palestine and Arabia

17238. Unearthing Ottoman Palestine

Author:
Dana Sajdi
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This collection brings together thirteen essays by established senior Ottomanists such as Butrus Abu-Manneh and younger scholars of Palestine such as Johann Büssow and Michelle Campos. The chapters cover various aspects of late Ottoman Palestine in the years between the Young Turk Revolt of 1908 and the final dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War.
Political Geography:
Palestine

17239. Colonialism and Christianity in the Mandate Period

Author:
Anthony O'Mahony
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The period of the British Mandate rule in Palestine is of great significance for the modern history of Christianity in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, because it represents an important transition point between the end of four centuries of Ottoman rule and the formation of the modern states of Israel and Jordan. It is surprising, however, that while the importance of the Mandate for the Christian churches is often noted, it has to date been an understudied area. Hence Laura Robson's book Colonialism and Christianity in Mandate Palestine is especially welcome.
Political Geography:
Israel, Palestine, and Jordan

17240. Memory Narratives and Palestinian Women

Author:
Anaheed Al-Hardan
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Yitzhak Rabin was better known for his early role in the so-called peace process rather than for his role in the aerial bombardment, massacre, and expulsion of the people of al-Lydd and al-Ramlah in July 1948. The few families that survived and remained came under Israeli military rule. Fatima Kassam's book is an exploration of the life narratives of twenty of those women who remained in their natal towns of al-Lydd and al-Ramlah or sought refuge in towns from other destroyed localities.
Political Geography:
Israel and Palestine