The three faces/phases of Palestinian nationalism, 1948-2005

Journal of Palestine Studies

Volumn 34, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 25-48

  Baumgarten, Helga ^a  

^a BIRZEIT UNIVERSITY   (Palestine)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ETHNOPOLITICS; HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE; NATIONALISM; SOCIAL MOVEMENT; TWENTIETH CENTURY;

ASIA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; EURASIA; MIDDLE EAST; PALESTINE; WORLD;

EID: 26444459783     PISSN: 0377919X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/jps.2005.34.4.25     Document Type: Article

References (97)

1. Baruch Kimmerling, Politicide: Ariel Sharon's War against the Palestinians (London: Verso, 2003), pp. 3-4.
2. The approach used in this comparison is based on Maxime Rodinson's concept of mobilizatory (mobilization) movements and ideologies (mouvements idéologiques, idéologies mobilisatrices). See "Nation et Ideologie" in Encyclopédie Universalis, vol. 2 (Paris: Encyclopédie Universalis, 1975), pp. 571-574;
3. and Maxime Rodison, Marxisme et Monde Musulman [Marxism and the Muslim World] (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1972), especially p. 137. This will be complemented by, among other approaches, Alain Touraine's use of the concepts of "identity," "opposition," and the "global legitimacy of acting" to analyze popular movements.
4. See Alain Touraine, Soziologie als Handlungswissenschaft [Sociology as Action Science] (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1974), especially pp. 175, 199.
5. The founding members were AUB graduates with the exception of Muhsin Ibrahim.
6. The following analysis draws heavily from my work on MAN: Helga Baumgarten, Palästina: Befreiung in den Staat: Die palästinensische Nationalbewegung seit 1948 [Palestine: Liberation into the State: The Palestinian National Movement since 1948] (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991).
7. MAN continued for a time after Habash founded the PFLP in 1967, but went underground and eventually ceased to exist. Other top leaders of MAN were Wadih Haddad, Ahmad al-Khatib, and Hani al-Hindi, respectively Palestinian, Kuwaiti, and Syrian.
8. Hisham. Sharabi, "Looking Back at AUB," Jerusalem Quarterly 30 (Winter 1984), pp. 43-49.
9. According to Hanna Batatu's The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978, pp. 1029 ff), six of MAN's eleven original leaders came from the coastal (Palestinian) trade bourgeoisie and the remaining five came from civil servant, professional, or religious middle- and lower-middle-class backgrounds. It is also true that a number of MAN's founders and leaders were Christian, though the perception that the movement was Christian-dominated cannot be substantiated.
10. After a number of Arabic editions, an English translation was published: Constantine Zurayk, The Meaning of the Disaster (Beirut: Khayat's College Book Cooperative, 1956).
11. For this and the following analysis, see Baumgarten, Palästina, pp. 81-88.
12. Interestingly, MAN's successors - the PFLP and the Democratic Front - still include cultural activities as an important part of their political mobilization.
13. Zurayk, The Meaning of the Disaster, p. 38.
14. Zurayk, The Meaning of the Disaster, pp. 43 f.
15. Interview with George Habash, Beirut, 2 February 1979.
16. From MAN'S program, as approved by its first conference in Beirut, reproduced in full in the 6 May 1956 issue of al-Tha'r.
17. Al-Tha'r, 15 May 1956.
18. Al-Urwa 18, no. 4 (March 1953), pp. 16-19.
19. See al-Tha'r, 6 October 1955. For more on this issue, see Walid Kazziha, Revolutionary Transformation in the Arab World: Habash and His Comrades from Nationalism to Marxism (London: Charles Knight, 1975), p. 75.
20. Baumgarten, Palästina, pp. 120-26.
21. Baumgarten, Palästina, pp. 127-32.
22. The first full formulation of these slogans in sequence can be found in the 12 January 1956 issue of al-Tha'r.
23. Muhammad Muslih, "Moderates and Rejectionists within the Palestinian Liberation Organization," Middle East Journal 30, no. 2 (Spring 1976), p. 138.
24. This slogan was used in interviews by, among others Bassam Abu Sharif, Abu 'Adnan and Thysir Quba'.
25. Based on interviews with George Habash, 26 February 1979;
26. Abu Mahir, 26 July 1978;
27. Abu 'Adnan, 25 August 1978;
28. Thysir Quba' on 28 August 1978.
29. See also Kazziha, Revolutionary Transformation, p. 83.
30. For MAN's role in the Arab world, see Gerhard Hoepp, From Nationalism to Socialism: History and Ideology of the Movement of Arab Nationalists and Its Successor Organizations [in German] (Ph.D. diss., Humbold University, 1985).
31. Fatah later changed its name to the National Movement for the Liberation of Palestine (barakat al-tahrir al-watani al-filastini).
32. Interviews with Sakhr Habash, Beirut, 28 September 1978, and Abu Hatim, Beirut, 5 July 1978.
33. See also Alan Hart, Arafat: Terrorist or Peacemaker? (London: Sidgwick Jackson, 1984), pp. 77, 88.
34. Nels Johnson, Islam and the Politics of Meaning in Palestinian Nationalism (London: Kegan Paul International, 1982).
35. See the memoirs of Abu Iyad (Salah Khalaf) with Eric Rouleau, My Home, My Land (New York: Times Books, 1979), pp. 38-39.
36. Filastinuna 2 (November 1959), p. 10.
37. Filastinuna 9 (July 1960).
38. Interview with a Fatah member (requesting anonymity) who had joined Fatah before 1967, Beirut, 5 July 1978.
39. See Baumgarten, Palästina, pp. 168-176, for an analysis of Fatah's kiyan debate, which took place in the pages of Filastinuna, especially 1960-1961.
40. See note 2.
41. Filastinuna 11 (November 1960), p. 3.
42. See Filastinuna 36 (April 1964) on China and Filastinuna 39 (September 1964) on Cuba. See also special pamphlets in the series Dirasat wa tajarub thauriya [Revolutionary Studies and Experiences] on China, Vietnam, and Cuba. On Algeria, see the Abu Jihad interview in Hart, Arafat, p. 123.
43. See also the interview with Yasir Arafat in Shu'un Filastiniya 76 (1979) and with Abu Jihad in al-Liwa', 4 January 1979.
44. Fatah's first military operation was in January 1965 as a response both to the establishment of the PLO and the completion of Israel's National Water Carrier. ee Baumgarten, Palästina, pp. 188-94.
45. See also Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian Movement, 1949-1993 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), especially pp. 106-8 on 1965, as well as pp. 157-64.
46. On Karameh, see Baumgarten, Palästina, pp. 212-15.
47. Saleh Atta (Saleh Abdel Jawad), Genèse et évolution d'un movement de libération nationale: Le Fath [Genesis and Evolution of a National Liberation Movement: Fatah] (Ph.D. diss., University of Paris X-Nanterre, 1986), pp. 151-67, presents a critical case study of the battle.
48. See also Sayigh, Armed Struggle, pp. 174-79.
49. Filastinuna 11 (November 1960).
50. Filastinuna 9 (July 1960).
51. See for example Filastinuna 13 (January 1961), p. 5
52. and Filastinuna 18 (July 1961).
53. Quoted in Helena Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organization: People, Power and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 33.
54. For an analysis of this experience see Sayigh, Armed Struggle.
55. Among the outstanding critiques of Fatah's concept of armed struggle, see Naji 'Alush, Masira ila Filastin [The Road to Palestine] (Beirut: Dar al-Tali'a, 1964), and the debate between Fatah and MAN in Filastin, between 1965 and 1966.
56. See the analysis of these sources in Baumgarten, Palästina, pp. 194-202.
57. Baumgarten, Palästina, pp. 305-10. This is treated only in passing by Sayigh, Armed Struggle, p. 624, with no importance attached to it.
58. In a sense, the combination of neopatrimonial rule and rentier politics enabled Arafat to bring Fatah and the PLO along with him on the path of diplomacy. At the same time, the one-man leadership and top-down domination of society made possible by patronage, essentially financed by Arab government donations through the late 1980s, led to ever-increasing inflexibility, not to say rigidity, within the movement, and stifled the kind of political openness and dynamism necessary for confronting the Israeli occupation internally and internationally. Helga Baumgarten, "Neopatrimonial Leaders Facing Uncertain Traditions," in Roger Heacock, ed., Political Transitions in the Arab World (Birzeit: Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute, 2002), part 2, pp. 45-86. My analysis draws on Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft [Economics and Society] (Tuebingen: Mohr, 1972), and S. N. Eisenstadt including Traditional Patrimonialism and Modern Neopatrimonialism (Beverly Hills and London: Sage Publications, 1973).
59. My analysis draws on Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft [Economics and Society] (Tuebingen: Mohr, 1972)
60. and S. N. Eisenstadt including Traditional Patrimonialism and Modern Neopatrimonialism (Beverly Hills and London: Sage Publications, 1973).
61. The best work so far on Hamas is by Khaled Hroub, Hamas: Political Thought and Practice (Washington: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2000).
62. See also Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence, and Coexistence (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000),
63. and earlier Ziad Abu-Amr, Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994). For my work on Hamas since 2003,
64. see Hamas: Between Terrorism, Radical Nationalism, and Democratic Opposition (Vienna: Austrian Institute for International Affairs, forthcoming 2005).
65. See also the April 2003 and January 2004 reports by the International Crisis Group (ICG), "Islamic Social Welfare Activism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: A Legitimate Target?" (Amman and Brussels: ICG, 2 April 2003).
66. and "Dealing with Hamas" (Amman and Brussels: ICG, 26 January 2004).
67. For the general context see François Burgat, Face to Face with Political Islam (London: I. B. Tauris, 2003).
68. Hroub, Hamas, p. 265.
69. For this period, see Hroub, Hamas, pp. 32-36.
70. Interview with Ismail Abu Shanab, Gaza, 5 August 2003.
71. See also the analysis in Mishal and Sela, Palestinian Hamas, pp. 16-20, and in Hroub, Hamas, pp. 32-36.
72. See Mishal and Sela, Palestinian Hamas, pp. 16-26,
73. and Abu-Amr, Islamic Fundamentalism, pp. 10-22. Also my own interviews with Hamas leaders in Gaza in summer 2003.
74. See note 48.
75. Richard P. Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 260-63, 272-94.
76. Quoted from Hroub, Hamas, p. 265.
77. In an interview in Gaza on 5 August 2003, Mahmud Zahar pointedly stressed the Islamic nature of the state. By contrast, Shaykh Ahmad Yasin, in an interview on the same day, focused more on the need to find a political solution that would allow Muslims, Christians, and Jews to live together without discrimination and with full respect for each other.
78. Quoted from the Hamas Charter, as reprinted in Hroub, Hamas, p. 275.
79. Hamas charter, Hroub, Hamas, p. 270.
80. Hamas charter, Hroub, Hamas, p. 273.
81. Hamas charter, Hroub, Hamas, p. 268.
82. Hamas charter, Hroub, Hamas, p. 275.
83. Hamas charter, Hroub, Hamas, p. 274.
84. Hamas charter, Hroub, Hamas, p. 283.
85. Hamas charter, Hroub, Hamas, p. 284-85.
86. Hamas charter, Hroub, Hamas, p. 285.
87. Khalid Mishal, interview by Giselle Khoury, Bil'arabi, al-Arabiya Satellite Television, 15 June 2003.
88. Hamas charter, Hroub, Hamas, p. 285.
89. Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) Introductory Memorandum, as reprinted in Hroub, Hamas, p. 296.
90. See ICG, "Islamic Social Welfare Activism."
91. Hamas charter, Hroub, Hamas, p. 276.
92. Hamas charter, Hroub, Hamas, p. 286.
93. Hamas charter, Hroub, Hamas, p. 297.
94. Hamas Introductory Memorandum, Hroub, Hamas, p. 297.
95. Mahmud Zahar, al-Quds, 12 October 1995, quoted in Mishal and Sela, Palestinian Hamas, p. 71. This point was also made in all of my interviews with Hamas leaders, above all by Shaykh Ahmad Yasin and Ismail Abu Shanab.
96. Interview of Hasan Yusuf on al-Jazeera, quoted here from Arnon Regular, "Senior Hamas Man: We Accept Israel Living in Peace, Security," Ha'Aretz, 3 December 2004.
97. The presidential elections were intensively debated within Hamas. Those favoring participation argued that, in contrast to Hamas's boycott of the January 1996 presidential elections as part of its boycott of everything related to the Oslo process, what was at stake now was no longer the Oslo process but rather gaining a place in Palestinian politics. Nonetheless, the decision was made against participation, first because Hamas had no strong candidate to field against Abbas, and second because it wanted more time to prepare for its political "coming out" through strong showings in the municipal elections.