Late Modern Palestine


Book Description

Late Modern Palestine looks at the ways in which the relationship between the subject and representation and the political problematic of postcolonial late modernity is articulated in the context of the Palestinians’ struggle for liberation. Junko-Aikio provides a rich, theoretically and empirically, and in part also visually grounded study of the complex ways in which ordinary Palestinians face, negotiate and resist multiple regimes of power and desire in the context of everyday life in the West Bank and Gaza. The volume examines the early years of the second Palestinian uprising, an intifada, whose political status remains highly disputed. The book examines the ways in which Palestinian politics during the second intifada has been entangled with the broader social and political changes that are associated with postcolonial late modernity. It is argued that the dislocation between modern colonial and late modern/postcolonial regimes of power and subjectivity greatly complicates the map of power and resistance in contemporary Palestine, and also renders articulation of national unity and hegemonic political strategy increasingly unlikely. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of Middle East Studies, Postcolonial Studies, International Relations, Political Sociology, Critical Security Studies, and Political Theory.




Representing Palestine


Book Description

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.




Thinking Palestine


Book Description

This book brings together an inter-disciplinary group of Palestinian, Israeli, American, British and Irish scholars who theorise 'the question of Palestine'. Critically committed to supporting the Palestinian quest for self determination, they present new theoretical ways of thinking about Palestine. These include the 'Palestinization' of ethnic and racial conflicts, the theorization of Palestine as camp, ghetto and prison, the tourist/activist gaze, the role of gendered resistance, the centrality of the memory of the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) to the contemporary understanding of the conflict, and the historic roots of the contemporary discourse on Palestine. The book offers a novel examination of how the Palestinian experience of being governed under what Giorgio Agamben names a 'state of exception' may be theorised as paradigmatic for new forms of global governance. An indispensable read for any serious scholar.




Palestinians in Israel


Book Description

Palestinians in Israel considers a key issue ignored by the official "peace process" and most mainstream commentators: that of the growing Palestinian minority within Israel itself. What the Israeli right-wing calls "the demographic problem," Ben White identifies as "the democratic problem," which goes to the heart of the conflict. Israel defines itself not as a state of its citizens, but as a Jewish state, despite the substantial and increasing Palestinian population. White demonstrates how the consistent emphasis on privileging one ethno-religious group over another cannot be seen as compatible with democratic values and that, unless addressed, will undermine any attempts to find a lasting peace. Individual case studies are used to complement this deeply informed study into the great, unspoken contradiction of Israeli democracy. It is a pioneering contribution which will spark debate among all those concerned with a resolution to the Israel/Palestine conflict.




Israel-Palestine


Book Description

The conflict between Israel and Palestine has raised a plethora of unanswered questions, generated seemingly irreconcilable narratives, and profoundly transformed the land’s physical and political geography. This volume seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the links between the region that is now known as Israel and Palestine and its peoples—both those that live there as well as those who relate to it as a mental, mythical, or religious landscape. Engaging the perspectives of a multidisciplinary, international group of scholars, it is an urgent collective reflection on the bonds between people and a place, whether real or imagined, tangible as its stones or ephemeral as the hopes and longings it evokes.







Palestine Peace Not Apartheid


Book Description

PRESIDENT CARTER'S COURAGEOUS ASSESSMENT OF WHAT MUST BE DONE TO BRING PERMANENT PEACE TO ISRAEL WITH DIGNITY AND JUSTICE TO PALESTINE




Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation


Book Description

“A compelling account . . . and a reminder that a true peace can be built only on justice.”—Desmond M. Tutu Tending one’s fields, visiting a relative, going to the hospital: for ordinary Palestinians, such activities require negotiating permits and passes, curfews and closures, “sterile roads” and “seam zones”—bureaucratic hurdles ultimately as deadly as outright military incursion. In Palestine Inside Out, Saree Makdisi draws on eye-opening statistics, academic histories, UN reports, and contemporary journalism to reveal how the “peace process” institutionalized Palestinians’ loss of control over their inner and outer lives—and argues powerfully and convincingly for a one-state solution.




Trans-Colonial Urban Space in Palestine


Book Description

Taking a multidisciplinary approach to examine the dynamics of ethno-national contestation and colonialism in Israel/Palestine, this book investigates the approaches for dealing with the colonial and post-colonial urban space, resituating them within the various theoretical frameworks in colonial urban studies. The book uses Henry Lefebvre’s three constituents of space – perceived, conceived and lived – to analyse past and present colonial cases interactively with time. It mixes the non-temporal conceptual framework of analysis of colonialism using literature of previous colonial cases with the inter-temporal abstract Lefebvrian concepts of space to produce an inter-temporal re-reading of them. Israeli colonialism in the occupied areas of 1967, its contractions from Sinai and Gaza, and the implications on the West Bank are analysed in detail. By illustrating the transformations in colonial urban space at different temporal stages, a new phase is proposed - the trans-colonial. This provides a conceptual means to avoid the pitfalls of neo-colonial and post-colonial influences experienced in previous cases, and the book goes on to highlight the implications of such a phase on the Palestinians. It is an important contribution to studies on Middle East Politics and Urban Geography.




The Wall and the Gate


Book Description

"A farmer from a village in the occupied West Bank, cut off from his olive groves by the construction of Israel’s controversial separation wall, asked Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard to petition the courts to allow a gate to be built in the wall. While the gate would provide immediate relief for the farmer, would it not also confer legitimacy on the wall and on the court that deems it legal? The defense of human rights is often marked by such ethical dilemmas, which are especially acute in Israel, where lawyers have for decades sought redress for the abuse of Palestinian rights in the country’s High Court―that is, in the court of the abuser. [This book] chronicles this struggle―a story that has never before been fully told― and in the process engages the core principles of human rights legal ethics. [The author] recounts the unfolding of key cases and issues, ranging from confiscation of land, deportations, the creation of settlements, punitive home demolitions, torture, and targeted killings―all actions considered violations of international law. In the process, he lays bare the reality of the occupation and the lives of the people who must contend with that reality. He also exposes the surreal legal structures that have been erected to put a stamp of lawfulness on an extensive program of dispossession. Finally, he weighs the success of the legal effort, reaching conclusions that are no less paradoxical than the fight itself."--