Suchergebnisse

Since 2000, the attacks of 9/11, the death of Arafat and the elections of Hamas and Kadima make the Israel/Palestine 'two-state solution' seem illusory. This work maps the effects of local and global political changes on both Palestinian people and politics. It is for those who want to understand a conflict entrenched in global politics

The Palestinian Authority was formed at the height of the neo-liberalism under the supremacy of a settler colonial repressive regime to dominated internally by Palestinian financial, and estate capital. The split between Fatah and Hamas heightened the vulnerability of the wide majority of Palestinians who have to face not only high rates of unemployment and poverty, but also an ongoing military repressive occupation and aggressive Jewish settlers. In the Gaza Strip Palestinians live under a suffocating siege and a ghetto situation. Both Fatah and Hamas endorsed neo-liberal policies, and both fostered a relatively large salaried middle class. The fragmentation of a weakened Left deprived Palestinians in the two territories of an alternative political vision and a strategy of struggle to that presented by the major two political parties in these areas. However, statelessness, neo-liberalism, fragmentation and settler-colonialism pose an existential threat to all Palestinians. With no political future on the horizon under continued settler colonial occupation, the situation is increasingly getting explosive as Palestinians have nothing to lose. ; L'Autorità palestinese è stata formata al culmine del neoliberalismo sotto la supremazia di un regime repressivo coloniale per dominare internamente il capitale finanziario e immobiliare palestinese. La scissione tra Fatah e Hamas ha aumentato la vulnerabilità della grande maggioranza dei palestinesi che devono affrontare non solo alti tassi di disoccupazione e povertà, ma anche un'occupazione militare repressiva in corso e coloni ebrei aggressivi. Nella Striscia di Gaza i palestinesi vivono sotto un assedio soffocante e una situazione da ghetto. Sia Fatah che Hamas hanno approvato politiche neo-liberali, ed entrambi hanno favorito una classe media salariata relativamente ampia. La frammentazione di una sinistra indebolita ha privato i palestinesi dei due territori di una visione politica alternativa e di una strategia di lotta a quella presentata dai due principali partiti politici di queste zone. Tuttavia, l'apolidia, il neoliberismo, la frammentazione e il colonialismo rappresentano una minaccia esistenziale per tutti i palestinesi. Senza alcun futuro politico all'orizzonte sotto la continua occupazione coloniale dei coloni, la situazione diventa sempre più esplosiva poiché i palestinesi non hanno nulla da perdere.

This study aims to examine the attitudes and opinions of Palestinian youth in the context of the debate about intergenerational conflict and the specificity of youth in the Palestinian condition. A high percentage of young people in the various Palestinian communities are exposed to unemployment, and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, they have become targets of the Israeli occupation and its policies. Most Palestinian youth also face a dead-end in the political and living horizons and the scarcity of normal life opportunities (including, work, education, family, freedom of movement, planning for the future, etc.). Young people, as the case with women and other social groups, are also subject to restrictions that limit their access to political, economic, social and cultural decision-making positions. Drawing on studies and surveys that dealt with the situation of Palestinian youth, after discussing the rationale for interest in youth in the past two decades, this study shows the need to deal with youth as an essential component of society and not as an external segment or as outsiders. It also indicates that there are relatively limited differences between the positions and opinions of Palestinian youth and the older age groups. The study concludes that differences in the opinions of youth (and non-youth) can be attributed to the variations in the political situations and life opportunities among Palestinian communities, gender, place of residence, and political affiliation. The study did not find evidence to support the argument that intergenerational conflict exists. The determining factor in this condition is the Israeli occupation, Zionist settler-colonialism, apartheid regime, and the denial of basic rights. This study confirms the vitality of national culture among the various Palestinian communities.

The mid-1960s saw the beginnings of the construction of a Palestinian political field after it collapsed in 1948, when, with the British government's support of the Zionist movement, which succeeded in establishing the state of Israel, the Palestinian national movement was crushed. This article focuses mainly on the Palestinian political field as it developed in the 1960s and 1970s, the beginnings of its fragmentation in the 1990s, and its almost complete collapse in the first decade of this century. It was developed on a structure characterized by the dominance of a center where the political leadership functioned. The center, however, was established outside historic Palestine. This paper examines the components and dynamics of the relationship between the center and the peripheries, and the causes of the decline of this center and its eventual disappearance, leaving the constituents of the Palestinian people under local political leadership following the collapse of the national representation institutions, that is, the political, organizational, military, cultural institutions and sectorial organizations (women, workers, students, etc.) that made up the PLO and its frameworks. The paper suggests that the decline of the political field as a national field does not mean the disintegration of the cultural field. There are, in fact, indications that the cultural field has a new vitality that deserves much more attention than it is currently assigned.

The 1967 occupied Palestinian territories have undergone three major types of development since the Oslo agreement between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Israel was signed in 1993 and the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994. These developments have brought far-reaching structural changes in Palestinian politics and society. They have rendered Palestinian communities – inside historic Palestine and outside - very vulnerable, and made collective action against collective colonial repression (including a third intifada) more difficult. The three developments are identified as: the emergence of a political discourse that evicts Palestinians from history and geography and denies them a national identity; the escalation of collective repression, and settler-colonization; and the localization of Palestinian politics and the atomization of Palestinian society (in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and probably elsewhere) under the impact of settler-colonialism and neo-liberalism.

Arguing that the polarization of the Palestinian political field did not start with Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, the author analyzes the factors that have eroded the cohesiveness and vitality of the Palestinian polity, namely, the paralysis of Palestinian political institutions, territorial and social fragmentation, and egregious outside interference. In this context, and in the absence of an internal Palestinian debate about the objectives of holding elections under occupation, the author shows that the timing and circumstances of the 2006 legislative elections were bound to precipitate the current state of disarray. Finally, he considers the way forward, highlighting the potential of public pressure in promoting national reconciliation.