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The Palestinian Spring That Was Not: The Youth and Political Activism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Abstract
This article explains the current political role of the Palestinian youth by comparing the period shortly before the First and Second Intifadas with the current situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). It critically interrogates the oft-repeated assertion that the Palestinian youth are characterized by political anomie, showing that the political role of the youth in the OPT is constrained by three factors: Israeli occupation, oppression by Fatah and Hamas, and the political paralysis resulting from the split between these two dominant political organizations. However, the present youth activism challenges the policies of both Fatah and Hamas, and draws strength from its utilization of international cooperation and its popular practices. While it is still small, this youthful activism displays a determination, clearheadedness and independence that contrast with the political culture in the dominant factions of Palestinian politics.
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Notes
“Chronology,” Journal of Palestine Studies 40:4 (July 2011), 245, doi:10.1525/jps.2011.XL.4.221.
“15 March Yet Again—the Voice Has Died, but the Songs Remain,” Ma'an News Agency (Bethlehem, March 15, 2012), http://www.maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=468396.
I have used the unpublished tabulation reports made by Åge A. Tiltnes at Fafo. Some results of the survey are available in Mona Christophersen, Jacob Høigilt, and Åge A. Tiltnes, Palestinian Youth and the Arab Spring (Oslo: Fafo/NOREF, 2012), http://www.peacebuilding.no/eng/Regions/Middle-East-and-North-Africa/Israel-Palestine/Publications/Palestinian-youth-and-the-Arab-Spring.
Ruth Margolies Beitler, The Path to Mass Rebellion: An Analysis of Two Intifadas (Oxford: Lexington Books, 2004), 96.
Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 607.
Eitan Alimi, Israeli Politics and the First Palestinian Intifada: Political Opportunities, Framing Processes and Contentious Politics, Reissue (Routledge, 2006), 44.
Joost R. Hiltermann, Behind the Intifada: Labor and Women's Movements in the Occupied Territories (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, c1991), 20; Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal, The Palestinian People: A History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003), 293–296.
Hiltermann, Behind the Intifada , 37.
Kimmerling and Migdal, The Palestinian People , 289–291.
Joe Stork, “The Significance of Stones: Notes from the Seventh Month,” in Zachary Lockman and Joel Beinin, eds., Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Occupation (I. B. Tauris, 1990), 68.
Alimi, Israeli Politics and the First Palestinian Intifada , 66, 75; Hiltermann, Behind the Intifada , 15.
United Nations, Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories. Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict , 2009, 90, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf.
Foundation for Middle East Peace, Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories, July-August 2012 (Foundation for Middle East Peace, 2012), 7, http://www.fmep.org/reports/archive/vol.-22/no.-4/PDF.
Beshara Doumani, “Family and Politics in Salfit,” in Zachary Lockman and Joel Beinin, eds., Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Occupation (I. B. Tauris, 1990), 143–155.
Meron Benvenisti (1986), “Demographic, Economic, Legal, Social, and Political Developments in the West Bank. Jerusalem: West Bank Data Base Project,” p. 7. Cited in Hiltermann, Behind the Intifada , 20.
Ibid., 30.
International Labour Office, The Situation of Workers of the Occupied Arab Territories (Geneva: International Labour Organization, 2008), 25, http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—ed_norm/—relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_092729.pdf.
Edward Sayre and Samia al-Botmeh, Youth Exclusion in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: The Impact of Social, Economic and Political Forces . Middle East Youth Initiative Working Paper (Wolfensohn Center for Development and Dubai School of Government, 2010), 9, http://www.shababinclusion.org/content/document/detail/1525/.
“Workers from the Occupied Territories,” B'Tselem , January 2011, http://www.btselem.org/workers.
Fiscal Crisis, Economic Prospects: The Imperative for Economic Cohesion in the Palestinian Territories (The World Bank, 2012), 7, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWESTBANKGAZA/Resources/AHLCReportFinal.pdf.
See, for example, “Popular Protests Continue on the Streets of the West Bank Condemning Rising Prices,” Ma'an News Agency , September 5, 2012, http://www.maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=517585.
Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State , 608.
Non-violent incidents include stone-throwing by civilian youths against Israeli soldiers raiding West Bank towns and against armed Israeli settlers. Violent attacks were almost exclusively in the form of rocket or mortar attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip, carried out in most cases by unidentified Palestinians who in most cases belonged to one or other of the numerous militant resistance groups, including Hamas's 'Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigades.
Interview with Jamil Rabbah, Near East Consulting, Ramallah, November 27, 2010.
See Sayre and al-Botmeh, Youth Exclusion in the West Bank and Gaza Strip , 8.
Christophersen, Høigilt, and Tiltnes, Palestinian Youth and the Arab Spring , 11.
Marwan Khawaja, “Repression and Popular Collective Action: Evidence from the West Bank,” Sociological Forum 8:1 (March 1, 1993), 47–71; Marwan Khawaja, “Resource Mobilization, Hardship, and Popular Collective Action in the West Bank,” Social Forces 73:1 (1994), 191–220.
There were significant differences between the West Bank and Gaza on the last question. In the West Bank, 24 percent thought that youth had a lot of influence on political leaders, while 42 percent thought that their influence was moderate. The corresponding figures from Gaza were 8 percent and 38 percent. This perhaps indicates the greater degree of authoritarianism currently experienced by Gaza youth.
E.g. Doumani, “Family and Politics in Salfit.”.
Omar Rahman, “Young Palestinian Activists Seek Traction,” Bitterlemons-international, April 26, 2012, http://www.bitterlemons-international.org/inside.php?id=1532.
Jeremy Pressman, “The Second Intifada: Background and Causes of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” Journal of Conflict Studies 23:2 (February 21, 2006), http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/JCS/article/viewArticle/220/378.
Ibid.
Julie M. Norman, The Second Palestinian Intifada: Civil Resistance (London: Routledge, 2010).
Sayre and al-Botmeh, Youth Exclusion in the West Bank and Gaza Strip , 44.
Michael Bröning, The Politics of Change in Palestine: State-Building and Non-Violent Resistance (London & New York: Pluto Press, 2011), 73.
Christophersen, Høigilt, and Tiltnes, Palestinian Youth and the Arab Spring , 10–11. 422 youth aged 15–25 were interviewed. 54 percent thought the degree of democracy in the West Bank “satisfactory,” while the corresponding figure for Gaza was 26 percent.
Eoin O'Ceallaigh, “Palestinians Reclaim Streets Despite PA Police Repression,” The Electronic Intifada , July 8, 2012, http://electronicintifada.net/content/palestinians-reclaim-streets-despitepa-police-repression/11474.
Khawaja, “Repression and Popular Collective Action,” 66.
Interview with Mazen al-Jaabari, Bayt Hanina, December 12, 2011.
Interview with the author in Jerusalem, December 12, 2011.
Interview with Mazen al-Jaabari, director of Youth Development Department, Bayt Hanina, December 12, 2011.
Steffi Unsleuber, “Destroying Belief in the Resistance?—the USAID Funded Palestinian Youth Summit” Blog, The Palestine Monitor , September 14, 2011, http://www.palestinemonitor.org/?p=1884.
The front page of the organization's Facebook page features a picture of youths burning a piece of paper on which is written “The Oslo I Accords.”
“Palestinian Hunger Strike Deal Reached,” Al Jazeera English , May 15, 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/05/2012514153120630951.html.
Asa Winstanley, “Interview with Addameer's Mourad Jadallah: Hunger Strikes Reignite Prisoner Movement,” The Electronic Intifada , March 1, 2012, http://electronicintifada.net/content/interview-addameers-mourad-jadallah-hunger-strikes-reignite-prisoner-movement/11013.
“PA Police Crush New Ramallah Demo,” Ma'an News Agency , July 2, 2012, http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=500441.
Noura Erakat, “Palestinian Youth: New Movement, New Borders,” Al Jazeera English , May 4, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/05/201153101231834961.html.
“al-Hirak al-Shababi al-Mustaqill,” Facebook , April 19, 2011, http://www.facebook.com/Herak.Shababi/info.
Dov Waxman, “A Dangerous Divide: The Deterioration of Jewish-Palestinian Relations in Israel,” The Middle East Journal 66:1 (2012), 29, doi:10.3751/66.1.11.
Promise or Peril? The Status of Youth in Palestine (Ramallah and Gaza City: Sharek Youth Forum), 10–11, accessed April 25, 2012, http://www.sharek.ps/new/userfiles/file/publications/Research%20and%20Studies/SharekYouthForum-Promise-or-Peril-The-Status-of-Youth-in-Palestine.pdf.