SOAS Palestine Studies – serie

Hosting over 30,000 inhabitants and governed by competing militias, 'Ayn al-Hilwe in the south of Lebanon is one of the most contested refugee camps in the Middle East. Known as the 'Capital of the Palestinian Diaspora', the camp has endured a long history of internal power struggles and external influence and intervention.Based on extensive ethnographic research in the camp - focused on the actors who have shaped its modern political trajectory since the rupture caused by the 1993 Oslo Accords - The Palestinian National Movement in Lebanon places the attention on the role of exile leaderships, camp-based militia commanders and shape-shifting networks of patronage in the political landscape of the Palestinian movement in Lebanon. Offering original empirical and theoretical findings, this book will be essential reading for students of the Palestinian movement and refugee politics in the Middle East and beyond.

How did the Israeli military learn to cope with the ubiquity of media technologies that routinely document their power abuses? Why did they re-appropriate these to tighten their grip on Palestinian civilians? This book explains why a high-tech nation with advanced military technologies came to rely on the everyday media habits performed by soldiers and civilians.Daniel Mann argues that the intensification of the security regime in Palestine, and the increasingly personal use of media technologies by both soldiers and civilians, are deeply entangled. The book traces how, beginning in the 1990s, the integration of media into the lives of civilians and Israeli soldiers enabled Israel to transfer responsibilities to individual users, who in turn became legally and ethically liable for state abuses of power. Drawing on declassified documents, found footage, and social media, Mann shows how both media and warfare have been remodelled around the figure of the defensive, isolated, and insular ‘individual’. Mann suggests that the focus on representations and their close visual analysis paradoxically hinders our ability to understand media. Instead of zooming into fine details, we must step back to reveal the assemblage of images, users, and infrastructure that together serve to maintain the racial, legal and aesthetic divide between Israel and Palestine.

After more than half a century, the Israel-Palestine conflict continues to dominate headlines. But how has the coverage of Palestinians by foreign media changed? How did foreign correspondents influence the perception of Palestine amongst their audiences? And why is understanding this so important?Based on extensive original research in the archives of Australia's oldest newspaper, Peter Manning shows how the Sydney Morning Herald portrayed Palestine during three key periods - the end of World War I (1917-8); the Nakba and the creation of Israel (1947-8); and 9/11 and its aftermath (2000-2). In the process, he takes the reader on a unique journey from the moment information was gathered on the ground in Palestine, through to its final processing and publication. Crucially, when correspondents neglected to write about Palestinians, their perspective never made it to readers and a space emerged for stereotyping and misunderstanding. Manning reveals how the newspaper reported on key events such as Australian troops in Palestine and the Holocaust, but also how the newspaper failed to cover massacres and forced migrations. Combining close textual analysis of more than 10,000 articles with cutting-edge quantitative research methods, this book is important reading for anyone with an interest in how the print media has portrayed the conflict in Palestine - both in Australia and beyond.

Hosting over 30,000 inhabitants and governed by competing militias, 'Ayn al-Hilwe in the south of Lebanon is one of the most contested refugee camps in the Middle East. Known as the 'Capital of the Palestinian Diaspora', the camp has endured a long history of internal power struggles and external influence and intervention.Based on extensive ethnographic research in the camp - focused on the actors who have shaped its modern political trajectory since the rupture caused by the 1993 Oslo Accords - The Palestinian National Movement in Lebanon places the attention on the role of exile leaderships, camp-based militia commanders and shape-shifting networks of patronage in the political landscape of the Palestinian movement in Lebanon. Offering original empirical and theoretical findings, this book will be essential reading for students of the Palestinian movement and refugee politics in the Middle East and beyond.

Since the Arab uprisings of 2011, Palestinian youth movements have formed unofficial and leaderless networks of political activism, using the internet to mobilise and bring together three generations of Palestinian activists. This book focuses on three key case studies that have marked a turning point in the development of youth-organised and grassroots Palestinian politics: the 15 March movement in Gaza, the Palestinians for Dignity movement in the West Bank, and the Prawer movement of young Palestinians in Israel. Drawing on extensive fieldwork composed of interviews with leading Palestinian activists in the West Bank and Gaza and detailed analysis of social media patterns, this book offers a fresh reading of Palestinian youth and their central online and offline role in popular protests against both Israeli and Palestinian power structures.

Since 1993, various international donors have poured money into a People-to-People (P2P) diplomacy programme in Palestine. This grassroots initiative – still funded by prominent external donors today - seeks to foster public engagement through contact and therefore remove deeply embedded barriers.This book examines the limited nature of this ‘contact’ and explains why the P2P framework, which was ostensibly concerned with the promotion of peace, ultimately served to reinforce conflict and power relations. The book is based on the author’s own experience of the solidarity activities during the First Intifada and her first-hand involvement as a coordinator of the P2P projects implemented during the 1990s. It provides a much-needed critical account of the internationally-sponsored peace process and develops new theoretical analyses of settler colonialism.

How did the Israeli military learn to cope with the ubiquity of media technologies that routinely document their power abuses? Why did they re-appropriate these to tighten their grip on Palestinian civilians? This book explains why a high-tech nation with advanced military technologies came to rely on the everyday media habits performed by soldiers and civilians.Daniel Mann argues that the intensification of the security regime in Palestine, and the increasingly personal use of media technologies by both soldiers and civilians, are deeply entangled. The book traces how, beginning in the 1990s, the integration of media into the lives of civilians and Israeli soldiers enabled Israel to transfer responsibilities to individual users, who in turn became legally and ethically liable for state abuses of power. Drawing on declassified documents, found footage, and social media, Mann shows how both media and warfare have been remodelled around the figure of the defensive, isolated, and insular ‘individual’. Mann suggests that the focus on representations and their close visual analysis paradoxically hinders our ability to understand media. Instead of zooming into fine details, we must step back to reveal the assemblage of images, users, and infrastructure that together serve to maintain the racial, legal and aesthetic divide between Israel and Palestine.

The Palestinian national liberation movement – or the Palestinian revolution as it is known in Arabic – emerged during the 1960s as an iconic cause of the global Left. This volume highlights the different practices of international solidarity that characterised this period, and how they shaped and were shaped by the global trajectory of the Palestinian movement. Bringing together scholars with versatile linguistic and interdisciplinary skills, Palestine in the World puts the Palestinian movement into conversation with the models of transnational politics that emerged through the revolutionary period. From participation in a vibrant sphere of intellectual and cultural production, the work of travelling revolutionaries as delegates, volunteers, and militants, and the connected mobilisations that took place in different corners of the world, international solidarity with and from the Palestinian movement was integral to its ascendance on the global stage. By treating the Palestinian revolution as a world phenomenon - with cases from Cuba, France, the US, the GDR, Japan and more - this volume reveals the forms of solidarity that shaped the rise of the movement and their afterlives today. It illuminates the rich connected histories of international solidarity that positioned the Palestinian movement as an iconic anticolonial struggle.

The Palestinian national liberation movement – or the Palestinian revolution as it is known in Arabic – emerged during the 1960s as an iconic cause of the global Left. This volume highlights the different practices of international solidarity that characterised this period, and how they shaped and were shaped by the global trajectory of the Palestinian movement. Bringing together scholars with versatile linguistic and interdisciplinary skills, Palestine in the World puts the Palestinian movement into conversation with the models of transnational politics that emerged through the revolutionary period. From participation in a vibrant sphere of intellectual and cultural production, the work of travelling revolutionaries as delegates, volunteers, and militants, and the connected mobilisations that took place in different corners of the world, international solidarity with and from the Palestinian movement was integral to its ascendance on the global stage. By treating the Palestinian revolution as a world phenomenon - with cases from Cuba, France, the US, the GDR, Japan and more - this volume reveals the forms of solidarity that shaped the rise of the movement and their afterlives today. It illuminates the rich connected histories of international solidarity that positioned the Palestinian movement as an iconic anticolonial struggle.

Founded in 1929, the Jewish Agency played a central role in the founding of the State of Israel. Throughout the 1920s, 30s and 40s, many secret meetings took place between the JA and Arab leaders and elites. The dominant narrative claims that Syrian leaders and elites were not involved in any such meetings. However, this book reveals for the first time that a multitude of secret meetings and negotiations took place including with the Syrian National Block – the official Syrian leadership at the time – and the Shahbandari opposition and leaders of Jabal al-Druze. Based mainly on primary sources from Israeli archives, including documentation of discussions, reports and decisions taken by the JA leadership, the book tells a new story of a critical period of history, the Arab Revolt of 1936–1939 in Palestine. Mahmoud Muhareb argues that the main historic objective of the JA was to reach agreements with Arab leaders and Arab states, behind the back of the Palestinians and at their expense, and to normalize its relations with the Arab states while it continued to deny the national rights of the Palestinians. The book challenges Israeli and Syrian official narratives and substantiates the Palestinian narrative, as well as some Israeli new historians who asserted Israel refusal to recognize the national rights of the Palestinians and affirmed its attempts to reach a comprehensive settlement with the Arab states at the expense of the Palestinians. The book includes Arabic and Hebrew sources translated into English for readers.

Founded in 1929, the Jewish Agency played a central role in the founding of the State of Israel. Throughout the 1920s, 30s and 40s, many secret meetings took place between the JA and Arab leaders and elites. The dominant narrative claims that Syrian leaders and elites were not involved in any such meetings. However, this book reveals for the first time that a multitude of secret meetings and negotiations took place including with the Syrian National Block – the official Syrian leadership at the time – and the Shahbandari opposition and leaders of Jabal al-Druze. Based mainly on primary sources from Israeli archives, including documentation of discussions, reports and decisions taken by the JA leadership, the book tells a new story of a critical period of history, the Arab Revolt of 1936–1939 in Palestine. Mahmoud Muhareb argues that the main historic objective of the JA was to reach agreements with Arab leaders and Arab states, behind the back of the Palestinians and at their expense, and to normalize its relations with the Arab states while it continued to deny the national rights of the Palestinians. The book challenges Israeli and Syrian official narratives and substantiates the Palestinian narrative, as well as some Israeli new historians who asserted Israel refusal to recognize the national rights of the Palestinians and affirmed its attempts to reach a comprehensive settlement with the Arab states at the expense of the Palestinians. The book includes Arabic and Hebrew sources translated into English for readers.

Over the last two decades, the Israeli government has implemented policies for the development of East Jerusalem. These comprise urban revitalization as well as professional training and the promotion of entrepreneurship for the Palestinians. But how do these policies co-exist under Israeli settler colonial power?This book focuses on the contradiction between the rise of neoliberal development in East Jerusalem and the simultaneous continuation of Israeli settler colonialism. It argues that the combination of settler colonialism and neoliberalism allows for the ‘primitive accumulation of capital’ to also occur permanently through deceptive soft forms. More than this, based on theoretical research, interviews, and an analysis of race and class relations in East Jerusalem, the book shows that neoliberal development is used to facilitate the reproduction of racial hierarchies, settler privileges and the pacification of the Palestinian residents, where these outcomes are presented as the ‘natural’ result of market relations. The author calls this environment ‘neoliberal settler colonialism’ and explores Palestinians' new acts of resistance that exist ambivalently within this structure.A significant theoretical contribution, the study highlights a new settler colonial and neoliberal sociability that co-opts the exploited and oppressed.

Over the last two decades, the Israeli government has implemented policies for the development of East Jerusalem. These comprise urban revitalization as well as professional training and the promotion of entrepreneurship for the Palestinians. But how do these policies co-exist under Israeli settler colonial power?This book focuses on the contradiction between the rise of neoliberal development in East Jerusalem and the simultaneous continuation of Israeli settler colonialism. It argues that the combination of settler colonialism and neoliberalism allows for the ‘primitive accumulation of capital’ to also occur permanently through deceptive soft forms. More than this, based on theoretical research, interviews, and an analysis of race and class relations in East Jerusalem, the book shows that neoliberal development is used to facilitate the reproduction of racial hierarchies, settler privileges and the pacification of the Palestinian residents, where these outcomes are presented as the ‘natural’ result of market relations. The author calls this environment ‘neoliberal settler colonialism’ and explores Palestinians' new acts of resistance that exist ambivalently within this structure.A significant theoretical contribution, the study highlights a new settler colonial and neoliberal sociability that co-opts the exploited and oppressed.

The attempts to evict Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah in May 2021 caught the attention of the world. While this small Palestinian neighbourhood in East Jerusalem had long been central to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the planned expulsions pushed the situation back into the spotlight. This book discusses the complexity of the media war that took place at the same time. Across 20 chapters, it compares Israeli, Western, Palestinian and Arab media to understand how different narratives were discussed, supported and challenged. In particular, the book captures how social media became a site of online activism and alternative war narratives. The volume is unique in focusing on a specific event from many different perspectives and with material from different countries and media platforms. Case studies include the Spanish press; the African press; the BBC; Al-Jazeera English; TRT World Television; and digital media such as TikTok and Facebook, as well as the impact of social media activism. In doing so, the book also comments on the extent that citizen journalists challenge the propaganda war.

The attempts to evict Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah in May 2021 caught the attention of the world. While this small Palestinian neighbourhood in East Jerusalem had long been central to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the planned expulsions pushed the situation back into the spotlight. This book discusses the complexity of the media war that took place at the same time. Across 20 chapters, it compares Israeli, Western, Palestinian and Arab media to understand how different narratives were discussed, supported and challenged. In particular, the book captures how social media became a site of online activism and alternative war narratives. The volume is unique in focusing on a specific event from many different perspectives and with material from different countries and media platforms. Case studies include the Spanish press; the African press; the BBC; Al-Jazeera English; TRT World Television; and digital media such as TikTok and Facebook, as well as the impact of social media activism. In doing so, the book also comments on the extent that citizen journalists challenge the propaganda war.

Folktales are instrumental in ensuring the survival of oral traditions and strengthening communal bonds. Both the stories and the process of storytelling itself help to define social, cultural and political identity. For Palestinians, the threat of losing their heritage has engendered a sense of urgency among storytellers and Palestinian folklorists. Yet there has been remarkably little academic scholarship dedicated to the tradition.Farah Aboubakr here analyses a selection of folktales edited, compiled and translated by Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana in Speak, Bird, Speak Again (1989). In addition to the folktales themselves, Muhawi and Kanaana’s collection is renowned for providing readers with extensive folkloric, historical and anthropological annotations. Here, for the first time, the folktales and the compilers’ work on them, are the subject of scholarly analysis. Synthesising various disciplines including memory studies, gender studies and social movement studies, Aboubakr uses the collection to understand the politics of storytelling and its impact on Palestinian identity. In particular, the book draws attention to the female storytellers who play an essential role in transmitting and preserving collective memory and culture. The book is an important step towards analysing a significant genre of Palestinian literature and will be relevant to scholars of Palestinian politics and popular culture, gender studies and memory studies, and those interested in folklore and oral literature.

As the first cultural history of Palestinian aviation, Palestine in the Air reveals civil aviation’s role in the ‘question of Palestine’ over the past century.How do Palestinians—as individuals, communities, and as a nascent state—engage with the air? How does their systemic exclusion from aerial agency inform dominant and counter-narratives of culture and modernity?International civil aviation is a powerful tool for the disenfranchisement of Palestinian statehood, connectivity, and mobility. Yet, Palestinians have constantly sought to harness aviation as a legitimate component of modern state-building. They have also creatively appropriated aviation technologies including balloons, kites, and drones as instruments of resistance, exploiting flight’s symbolic qualities of escape and liberation to highlight the injustices of occupation.Using an interdisciplinary approach that draws on media studies, cultural studies, critical theory, diplomacy, and history, Palestine in the Air examines civil aviation’s political, social, and cultural impact upon the Palestinian quest for sovereignty. The book makes use of an unprecedented range of aviation-related sources spanning unpublished memoirs, print and image archives, interviews, art, film, literature, poetry, and stand-up comedy.

As the first cultural history of Palestinian aviation, Palestine in the Air reveals civil aviation’s role in the ‘question of Palestine’ over the past century.How do Palestinians—as individuals, communities, and as a nascent state—engage with the air? How does their systemic exclusion from aerial agency inform dominant and counter-narratives of culture and modernity?International civil aviation is a powerful tool for the disenfranchisement of Palestinian statehood, connectivity, and mobility. Yet, Palestinians have constantly sought to harness aviation as a legitimate component of modern state-building. They have also creatively appropriated aviation technologies including balloons, kites, and drones as instruments of resistance, exploiting flight’s symbolic qualities of escape and liberation to highlight the injustices of occupation.Using an interdisciplinary approach that draws on media studies, cultural studies, critical theory, diplomacy, and history, Palestine in the Air examines civil aviation’s political, social, and cultural impact upon the Palestinian quest for sovereignty. The book makes use of an unprecedented range of aviation-related sources spanning unpublished memoirs, print and image archives, interviews, art, film, literature, poetry, and stand-up comedy.

While Palestinians continue to face the threat of expulsion from their homes, identifying legal mechanisms that can be used to assert Palestinian’s property rights is needed more than ever. This book provides a legal analysis of the right to reparation of Palestinian refugees under international law for the destruction and expropriation of their property during the Nakba . Discussing the legal landscape related to property ownership prior to the creation of the State of Israel and the legal basis for the right to reparation under international law, Lena El-Malak advocates for a law-based approach to enforce this right and the form it should take.The book demonstrates how the legal rights of Palestinian refugees, specifically as related to their properties, have been marginalized and excluded from the political discourse of the “peace process”. Here, the legal rights of Palestinian refugees are demonstrated, challenges for invoking these rights in international and domestic courts are determined, and forms of restitution and compensation outlined. This study offers a timely contribution to provide a comprehensive legal, as opposed to a political, economic or historical analysis, of the right to reparation of Palestinian refugees for their property losses. Additionally, the book seeks to demonstrate the importance of adopting a legal framework in any future negotiation for a peaceful resolution to this long standing struggles for liberation.

While Palestinians continue to face the threat of expulsion from their homes, identifying legal mechanisms that can be used to assert Palestinian’s property rights is needed more than ever. This book provides a legal analysis of the right to reparation of Palestinian refugees under international law for the destruction and expropriation of their property during the Nakba . Discussing the legal landscape related to property ownership prior to the creation of the State of Israel and the legal basis for the right to reparation under international law, Lena El-Malak advocates for a law-based approach to enforce this right and the form it should take.The book demonstrates how the legal rights of Palestinian refugees, specifically as related to their properties, have been marginalized and excluded from the political discourse of the “peace process”. Here, the legal rights of Palestinian refugees are demonstrated, challenges for invoking these rights in international and domestic courts are determined, and forms of restitution and compensation outlined. This study offers a timely contribution to provide a comprehensive legal, as opposed to a political, economic or historical analysis, of the right to reparation of Palestinian refugees for their property losses. Additionally, the book seeks to demonstrate the importance of adopting a legal framework in any future negotiation for a peaceful resolution to this long standing struggles for liberation.

This book investigates representations of Palestinian refugees in Gaza in colonial, humanitarian and Palestinian documentary films, spanning until the 1993 Oslo Agreement. Chapters examine various film sources throughout this period including British Pathé, newsreels, Quaker and UNRWA documentaries, and Palestinian opposition cinema.British Pathé is considered as a window into the wider colonial depiction of indigenous Palestinians in the British Mandate period; newsreels are examined as representations of the plight of Palestinian refugees in Gaza after Israel’s proclamation and Gaza-focused humanitarian documentaries shot by the Quakers and UNRWA are compared. The final chapters trace the evolution of oppositional documentary filmmaking, from the cinema of revolution (1968-1982) to the peace deal of 1993. Through a close audio-visual and textual analysis, rooted in a historical-contextual approach, Shahd Abusalama explores the techniques used to project emancipatory representations while highlighting shifts and variations in the imagery around Gaza refugees. In exploring the historical, ideologically fuelled, representations of Gaza and its refugees in colonial and humanitarian films, and the opposition to it, this book reaffirms the continuity of Palestinian resistance, refugees’ call for return, and the importance of Gaza itself to the Palestinian struggle.

This book investigates representations of Palestinian refugees in Gaza in colonial, humanitarian and Palestinian documentary films, spanning until the 1993 Oslo Agreement. Chapters examine various film sources throughout this period including British Pathé, newsreels, Quaker and UNRWA documentaries, and Palestinian opposition cinema.British Pathé is considered as a window into the wider colonial depiction of indigenous Palestinians in the British Mandate period; newsreels are examined as representations of the plight of Palestinian refugees in Gaza after Israel’s proclamation and Gaza-focused humanitarian documentaries shot by the Quakers and UNRWA are compared. The final chapters trace the evolution of oppositional documentary filmmaking, from the cinema of revolution (1968-1982) to the peace deal of 1993. Through a close audio-visual and textual analysis, rooted in a historical-contextual approach, Shahd Abusalama explores the techniques used to project emancipatory representations while highlighting shifts and variations in the imagery around Gaza refugees. In exploring the historical, ideologically fuelled, representations of Gaza and its refugees in colonial and humanitarian films, and the opposition to it, this book reaffirms the continuity of Palestinian resistance, refugees’ call for return, and the importance of Gaza itself to the Palestinian struggle.

How do Palestinians and their global allies use online platforms to reshape narratives about Palestinian self-determination amid systemic erasure and contested representation? This book examines how Palestinian voices navigate the digital public sphere across websites and social media platforms including Facebook, X, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, tracing the long arc of Palestinian media practice from pre-digital forms shaped by censorship and external gatekeeping to contemporary counter-narratives, networked witnessing, and transnational solidarity. It analyses the effects of algorithmic moderation, shadow banning, and content takedowns on Palestinian visibility, while documenting the ingenuity through which Palestinians assert cultural identity online through digital archives, language, and everyday practice. Situating these dynamics through the lenses of Orientalism, hegemony, the politics of representation, narrative sovereignty, and digital decolonization, the book contributes to wider debates on platform governance, algorithmic justice, and decolonial futures, arguing that Palestinian digital resistance is a globally significant case for understanding representation in an AI-mediated world.

Palestine has often been defined and constructed in the global imaginary through conflict, resistance, oppression and violence. Its representation is so overridden with conflicting claims and associations that it remains inaccessible, even to Palestinians. Producing Palestine addresses the creative labour of producing Palestine, particularly in technological and media spaces that are defined by their porousness and by their intermediality – crossing genres of popular culture and disciplinary boundaries.It offers sixteen ‘cases’ which collectively conceptualize, engage in, and invite readers to participate in the production of Palestine and its theorization. These cases cover a wide array of spaces of production such as poster art, TikTok, virtual technologies, digital mapping, drone footage, online cooking shows, documentaries, music videos and many more. Producing Palestine contends that representations of Palestine carry a multitude of meanings, that Palestine is continually produced and reproduced, dynamically generating new knowledge production across media, languages, temporalities, geographies and disciplines.

Palestine has often been defined and constructed in the global imaginary through conflict, resistance, oppression and violence. Its representation is so overridden with conflicting claims and associations that it remains inaccessible, even to Palestinians. Producing Palestine addresses the creative labour of producing Palestine, particularly in technological and media spaces that are defined by their porousness and by their intermediality – crossing genres of popular culture and disciplinary boundaries.It offers sixteen ‘cases’ which collectively conceptualize, engage in, and invite readers to participate in the production of Palestine and its theorization. These cases cover a wide array of spaces of production such as poster art, TikTok, virtual technologies, digital mapping, drone footage, online cooking shows, documentaries, music videos and many more. Producing Palestine contends that representations of Palestine carry a multitude of meanings, that Palestine is continually produced and reproduced, dynamically generating new knowledge production across media, languages, temporalities, geographies and disciplines.

The Arab Spring initially ignited excitement for Arab society in Israel. But following the outbreak of the uprising in Syria, Israeli-Arab attitudes shifted. This book demonstrates why the Arab Spring, and especially the war in Syria, provoked such deep fragmentation for Palestinians in Israel. Based on governmental and public surveys, the book shows that many more Arab-Palestinian citizens became supportive of instrumental integration with Israeli politics following the Arab Spring. But the momentous events convinced other Arab citizens to abandon the connection between finding a solution for the Palestinian problem if it involved integration with the state. At the same time, this book reveals that the younger generations wanted to search for alternatives to replace the existing political frameworks completely and were inspired to form a new model of political activism. This is the first study to explore how the Arab Spring affected Arab society in Israel in terms of identity, political discourse and behaviour. In doing so it covers the new policy adopted by the central government in Israel, formed after 2011 to strengthen civic discourse amongst Arab citizens. It has been neither Israelization nor Zionization; but Instrumental integration which meets the conditional citizenship offered by the state.

The Arab Spring initially ignited excitement for Arab society in Israel. But following the outbreak of the uprising in Syria, Israeli-Arab attitudes shifted. This book demonstrates why the Arab Spring, and especially the war in Syria, provoked such deep fragmentation for Palestinians in Israel. Based on governmental and public surveys, the book shows that many more Arab-Palestinian citizens became supportive of instrumental integration with Israeli politics following the Arab Spring. But the momentous events convinced other Arab citizens to abandon the connection between finding a solution for the Palestinian problem if it involved integration with the state. At the same time, this book reveals that the younger generations wanted to search for alternatives to replace the existing political frameworks completely and were inspired to form a new model of political activism. This is the first study to explore how the Arab Spring affected Arab society in Israel in terms of identity, political discourse and behaviour. In doing so it covers the new policy adopted by the central government in Israel, formed after 2011 to strengthen civic discourse amongst Arab citizens. It has been neither Israelization nor Zionization; but Instrumental integration which meets the conditional citizenship offered by the state.

This book investigates the manifestations and functions of magical realism in Palestinian literature, and folktales, as a tool that reflects and challenges the ongoing ramifications of the Nakba.Since the 1948 Nakba Palestinians have learned to live in two spaces simultaneously: the physical space of their lived reality and one of collective imaginaryin which Palestine before the Nakba, and after liberation, exists. Here, Sanabel Abdel Rahman argues that magical realism, as a narrative literary mode, is used to reflect and challenge the distorted spaces of Palestinian existence.The book analyzes mainly three works of literature: Saraya Bint al-Ghul(Saraya, the Ogre’s Daughter); Bab al-Shams (Gate of the Sun); and al-Talabiyya C345 (Delivery C345) while also consulting the folktales from Qul ya ?ayr (Speak Bird, Speak Again). Through these texts (and others) magical-realistic figures such as ghosts and mythical creatures that revive Palestinian histories of resilience and connection to the land are investigated within the context of distorted spaces. Magical-realistic tropes, such as dreams that reflect the nightmarish character of the current Palestinian reality, as well as dreams of liberation and reifying future returns, are analyzed alongside modes such as surrealism and absurdism while highlighting Palestinian agency and unity.This study is the first of its kind to interrogate magical-realist and folkloric modes in the context of Palestinian literature in order to examine the distorted realities of the Palestinian experience since the Nakba. Drawing on Arabic language works of fiction, the book offers a unique approach to examining contemporary Arabic literary spaces and how these reflect and challenge lived realities.

In the last two decades the rates of crime and violence among the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel have increased dramatically. This book is the first to describe, analyze and understand this phenomenon.The authors identify the Israeli state policies that have dismantled Palestinian society and show how these have undermined or eliminated the authoritative figures and social structures that once supported and controlled this community. The rising violence in Arab society is depicted as a clear example of the success of Israeli efforts to weaken Arab society from within, where the community has lost its social, legal and political structures and its ability to organize itself or act as a collective. But in making this argument, the book also shows how the Palestinian minority can combat and overcome crime and violence in society, namely by resisting the superstructure of ethnic supremacy and finding new or lost points of reference that can deal with societal challenges.The book is based on the testimonies of activists who have attempted to combat violence worldwide and opinion polls from Palestinians in Israel to determine how they think the violence should be confronted.