Hania A. M. Nashef, Palestinian Culture and the Nakba: Bearing Witness (New Texts Out Now)

Hania A. M. Nashef, Palestinian Culture and the Nakba: Bearing Witness (New Texts Out Now)

Hania A. M. Nashef, Palestinian Culture and the Nakba: Bearing Witness (New Texts Out Now)

By : Hania A. M. Nashef

Hania A. M. Nashef, Palestinian Culture and the Nakba: Bearing Witness (Routledge, 2019).

Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book?

Hania Nashef (HN): I wrote Palestinian Culture and the Nakba to coincide with the seventieth anniversary of the Nakba. Although much has been written about the Nakba, I felt there remained a need to study the cultural manifestation of the catastrophe on Palestinians—whether those living in exile within historic Palestine, or those in the diaspora. Although accounts of the Palestinians’ experience of the expulsion from the land are similar, the emblems that provoke these particular memories differ. In some ways, the homeland and the event are linked to certain mementos, particular memories or objects that assume significance when used to commemorate the homeland. These objects evolve as relics of agency and defiance in the hands of individuals, especially when memory is threatened. My book approaches the subject of the Nakba through a novel perspective. In this book, I look at the icons, narratives, and symbols that have become synonymous with Palestinian identity and culture, emblems that in the absence of the homeland have temporarily replaced the homeland as a source of memory. My approach is interdisciplinary, as I look at different cultural productions, which have become part of the collective memory of the diasporic Palestinian population.

Palestinian exile and loss have also evolved into cultural symbols...

J:  What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address?

HN: As my approach is interdisciplinary, the topics that the book addresses are wide-ranging. In it, I chose examples (by no means exhaustive) from Palestinian caricature, film, literature (prose and poetry), and painting. I wanted to understand how these works ignite memories of the homeland and help reinforce the diasporic Palestinian identity. I also argued in the work how the creators of these narratives or emblems have themselves become cultural icons within the collective Palestinian recollection.

I chose examples from Palestinian caricature, film, literature (prose and poetry) and painting, to see how these works provoke memories of the homeland and help reinforce the diasporic Palestinian identity. I also argue how the creators of these narratives or emblems have themselves become cultural icons within the collective Palestinian recollection.

In addition, the year 1948 has symptomatically become part of Palestinian identity, and the element that demarcates who the Palestinian is. Palestinian exile and loss have also evolved into cultural symbols that at once help define the person and allow the person to remember the loss. Pierre Nora argues that over time concrete objects, images or even gestures aid memory in taking root. Against marginalization and an overbearing historical discourse of erasure, these “lieux de mémoire” acquire significance beyond the symbolic.

The work also introduces the Nakba as a lived experience, within its magnitude and aftermath, to those who are not familiar with it. Furthermore, the style in which the book is written, and the fact that it narrates the Nakba through cultural productions, makes it accessible to a growing international readership seeking knowledge of the region. 

J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

HN: My first book was on the novels of South African/Australian writer, J.M. Coetzee. The Politics of Humiliation in the Novels of J. M. Coetzee addresses issues of universal suffering and inevitable humiliation of the human being and manifestations of them in his work. As one can find parallels between apartheid South Africa and Israel, I would not say that my second book is a complete departure from previous work.

J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

HN: The book is primarily aimed at scholars and researchers in Cultural Studies, Literature, and Media Studies, interested in the Arab region in general and Palestine in particular. It is also of relevance to scholars in Memory and Trauma studies, the significance of both in the formation of the post-trauma individual and in shaping the identity in exile. My book is accessible to readers who are interested in events that have shaped the Arab world in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and their specific consequences on the Palestinian people. After reading the book, I hope readers will be more empathetic and understanding towards Palestinians, seeing them as a people on par with others, with a culture and a history that spans generations.

J: What other projects are you working on now?

HN: Book wise, I have just begun researching Arab cinema in emerging markets, which I hope will result in a book publication. I have also been researching the influence of Samuel Beckett plays, particularly Waiting for Godot, on Arab theater, literature, and other media productions, especially in times of war, uncertainty, or political upheaval.

J: What were the chapters you most enjoyed writing?

HN: I enjoyed researching and writing all the chapters, but the two chapters in which I felt I learnt the most about the works were chapter one on Naji al-Ali and his creation Hanthala, and the final chapter, which was on Ismail Shammout and his wife Tamam al-Akhal. I have previously written on literature and cinema, so writing about caricature and art was new to me. 

During the process of researching and writing the chapter on painting, I was fortunate to meet Ms Tamam al-Akhal who was not only very generous with her time but also eager to talk about her work and share her passion for her art with me. She was an inspiration for me to work on the chapter and understand the importance of her own work along with the work of her late husband, Ismail Shammout, in presenting the Nakba from a Palestinian perspective. Their paintings humanized the Palestinian Nakba and its effect on the people; in their individual works, we saw faces of a people wronged. 

My book began with a question of how Palestinians in the diaspora related to the Nakba, given their individual experience of exile. I wanted to understand how they connected to the homeland and whether there were cultural products that they had in common in spite of their experience of exile and method of expulsion. I then began searching for literary icons or cultural products that are shared in spite of the distance that separates the exiles, the internal, and external refugees. Through the writing process, I began to see the connections and how a virtual homeland was being formed in exile.  


Excerpt from the Book 

From the introduction:

In my work, I rely on a close analysis and reading of the cultural pro­ductions of six prominent Palestinians, a cartoonist, a film director, a poet, a novelist and two artists, whose works are internationally acclaimed and who are considered major figures in Arabic and Palestinian culture and lit­erature. I discuss the roles these artists and authors have played in forging the Palestinian identity in exile. My choice is by no means exhaustive; many others of the same stature exist. The book is divided into five main chapters, focusing on each artist or author individually. 

In my first chapter, “Hanthala: the immortal child,” I examine in detail the work of the late artist Naji al-Ali and his creation, Hanthala. The little boy is now synonymous with Palestine, and stands as a symbol of unyielding defi­ance and a silent observer and chronicler of the struggle of his people and the trodden. The young child, Hanthala, not only refuses to grow up but has also become eternal, surviving his creator through unceasing reproductions of him in popular culture. Hanthala remains as popular and as relevant today as the day he was created by Naji al-Ali. 

In the second chapter, “Nazareth: icon of a lost homeland in Elia Suleiman’s film trilogy,” I argue how, through the medium of film, Palestinians have found a space to address the paradox of being an invisible people or present absentees. Elia Suleiman’s films provide them with a space in which they resist marginalization, non-presence, and address the concept of humiliation due to the loss of their homeland. The family of Palestinian director Suleiman, who were able to remain in their hometown, provides an example of an overbear­ing sense of alienation. Suleiman has chosen to contest the marginalization of his people through his silent presence. In the films, the character E.S. (the director who plays himself) observes from the sideline, as he chronicles the events that are unfolding around him. His mute presence develops into an icon for those who wait. In addition, through his portrayal of Nazareth, he renders his hometown the same iconic status, being the Palestinian city that resists negation as it holds on to the remnants of its Arab culture. 

My third chapter, “Mahmoud Darwish: the storyteller of Palestine,” looks at the memory triggers of the night of expulsion in 1948 in the works of the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. I discuss various accounts of that arduous and painful experience along with the sites of memory that prompt this recollection of loss and exile in his poetic anthology Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone?, while drawing on his prose narratives In the Presence of Absence, and Journal of an Ordinary Grief. The night that is remembered is the night the young child along with his family was exiled, a banishment that disrupted their lives forever. Darwish’s work not only conjures up the experience of loss by repeatedly returning to it in his oeuvre but also the poet metaphorically invokes the memory of his village and a symbolic return to it through his words. His work fills the gap between the various diasporic experiences of Palestinians, elevating the writer to an iconic status, that of the storyteller of his people. 

As with Darwish, the Nakba and its consequences pervade the writings of the late Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani. His novels and short stories have played a significant role in defining how the Palestinian experience was understood after the Nakba. In the fourth chapter, “Ghassan Kanafani: the clock, the orange and what remains of the homeland,” I discuss how the homeland and memories of its loss have been morphed into objects, such as a clock, an orange and a can of lentils, in a number of his short stories. These objects evolve to become triggers of the memory of loss. As with al-Ali and Darwish, Kanafani was born in mandate Palestine and vividly remembers the night of expulsion.  

My final chapter, “Ismael Shammout and Tamam al-Akhal: The Exodus and The Odyssey,” argues how the late Palestinian painter Ismail Shammout and his wife Tamam al-Akhal have for years told the Palestinian story through their paintings, which are considered for the most part visual ren­ditions of the trials of their people. Through their art, they have vividly depicted the suffering, struggle and hope of the Palestinians. Their paint­ings provide a visual interpretation of objects and themes that stem from their own memories and have evolved to become part of the collective cul­tural memory of Palestinians of their hometowns. As with al-Ali, Darwish and Kanafani, symbols of Palestine emerge in their work to tell the story of exile, loss and humiliation. In this chapter, I specifically examine their shared project, PalestineThe Exodus and The Odyssey, a collection of murals that narrate the Palestinian saga. In their work, we see how the icons that were portrayed in caricature (Naji al-Ali), and text (Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani), emerge visually through their canvases, construct­ing the Palestinian collective memory. In conclusion, as the year 2018 com­memorates seventy years of the Nakba, I discuss whether these cultural icons remain as powerful as they once were even though the hope for the homeland is diminishing by the day.

New Texts Out Now: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein, guest eds. "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis." Special Issue of Conflict, Security & Development

Conflict, Security and Development, Volume 15, No. 5 (December 2015) Special issue: "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis," Guest Editors: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you compile this volume?

Mandy Turner (MT): Both the peace process and the two-state solution are dead. Despite more than twenty years of negotiations, Israel’s occupation, colonization and repression continue–and the political and geographical fragmentation of the Palestinian people is proceeding apace.

This is not news, nor is it surprising to any keen observer of the situation. But what is surprising–and thus requires explanation – is the resilience of the Oslo framework and paradigm: both objectively and subjectively. It operates objectively as a straitjacket by trapping Palestinians in economic and security arrangements that are designed to ensure stabilization and will not to lead to sovereignty or a just and sustainable solution. And it operates subjectively as a straitjacket by shutting out discussion of alternative ways of understanding the situation and ways out of the impasse. The persistence of this framework that is focused on conflict management and stabilization, is good for Israel but bad for Palestinians.

The Oslo peace paradigm–of a track-one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution–is therefore in crisis. And yet it is entirely possible that the current situation could continue for a while longer–particularly given the endorsement and support it enjoys from the major Western donors and the “international community,” as well as the fact that there has been no attempt to develop an alternative. The immediate short-term future is therefore bleak.

Guided by these observations, this special issue sought to undertake two tasks. The first task was to analyze the perceptions underpinning the Oslo framework and paradigm as well as some of the transformations instituted by its implementation: why is it so resilient, what has it created? The second task, which follows on from the first, was then to ask: how can we reframe our understanding of what is happening, what are some potential alternatives, and who is arguing and mobilizing for them?

These questions and themes grew out of a number of conversations with early-career scholars – some based at the Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem, and some based in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere. These conversations led to two interlinked panels at the International Studies Association annual convention in Toronto, Canada, in March 2014. To have two panels accepted on “conflict transformation and resistance in Palestine” at such a conventional international relations conference with (at the time unknown) early-career scholars is no mean feat. The large and engaged audience we received at these panels – with some very established names coming along (one of whom contributed to this special issue) – convinced us that this new stream of scholars and scholarship should have an outlet.  

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures do the articles address?

MT: The first half of the special issue analyzes how certain problematic assumptions shaped the Oslo framework, and how the Oslo framework in turn shaped the political, economic and territorial landscape.

Virginia Tilley’s article focuses on the paradigm of conflict resolution upon which the Oslo Accords were based, and calls for a re-evaluation of what she argues are the two interlinked central principles underpinning its worldview: internationally accepted notions of Israeli sovereignty; and the internationally accepted idea that the “conflict” is essentially one between two peoples–the “Palestinian people” and the “Jewish people”. Through her critical interrogation of these two “common sense” principles, Tilley proposes that the “conflict” be reinterpreted as an example of settler colonialism, and, as a result of this, recommends an alternative conflict resolution model based on a paradigm shift away from an ethno-nationalist division of the polity towards a civic model of the nation.

Tariq Dana unpacks another central plank of the Oslo paradigm–that of promoting economic relations between Israel and the OPT. He analyses this through the prism of “economic peace” (particularly the recent revival of theories of “capitalist peace”), whose underlying assumptions are predicated on the perceived superiority of economic approaches over political approaches to resolving conflict. Dana argues that there is a symbiosis between Israeli strategies of “economic peace” and recent Palestinian “statebuilding strategies” (referred to as Fayyadism), and that both operate as a form of pacification and control because economic cooperation leaves the colonial relationship unchallenged.

The political landscape in the OPT has been transformed by the Oslo paradigm, particularly by the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Alaa Tartir therefore analyses the basis, agenda and trajectory of the PA, particularly its post-2007 state building strategy. By focusing on the issue of local legitimacy and accountability, and based on fieldwork in two sites in the occupied West Bank (Balata and Jenin refugee camps), Tartir concludes that the main impact of the creation of the PA on ordinary people’s lives has been the strengthening of authoritarian control and the hijacking of any meaningful visions of Palestinian liberation.

The origin of the administrative division between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the focus of Tareq Baconi’s article. He charts how Hamas’s initial opposition to the Oslo Accords and the PA was transformed over time, leading to its participation (and success) in the 2006 legislative elections. Baconi argues that it was the perceived demise of the peace process following the collapse of the Camp David discussions that facilitated this change. But this set Hamas on a collision course with Israel and the international community, which ultimately led to the conflict between Hamas and Fateh, and the administrative division, which continues to exist.

The special issue thereafter focuses, in the second section, on alternatives and resistance to Oslo’s transformations.

Cherine Hussein’s article charts the re-emergence of the single-state idea in opposition to the processes of separation unleashed ideologically and practically that were codified in the Oslo Accords. Analysing it as both a movement of resistance and as a political alternative to Oslo, while recognizing that it is currently largely a movement of intellectuals (particularly of diaspora Palestinians and Israelis), Hussein takes seriously its claim to be a more just and liberating alternative to the two-state solution.

My article highlights the work of a small but dedicated group of anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli activists involved in two groups: Zochrot and Boycott from Within. Both groups emerged in the post-Second Intifada period, which was marked by deep disillusionment with the Oslo paradigm. This article unpacks the alternative – albeit marginalized – analysis, solution and route to peace proposed by these groups through the application of three concepts: hegemony, counter-hegemony and praxis. The solution, argue the activists, lies in Israel-Palestine going through a process of de-Zionization and decolonization, and the process of achieving this lies in actions in solidarity with Palestinians.

This type of solidarity action is the focus of the final article by Suzanne Morrison, who analyses the “We Divest” campaign, which is the largest divestment campaign in the US and forms part of the wider Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Through attention to their activities and language, Morrison shows how “We Divest”, with its networked, decentralized, grassroots and horizontal structure, represents a new way of challenging Israel’s occupation and the suppression of Palestinian rights.

The two parts of the special issue are symbiotic: the critique and alternative perspectives analyzed in part two are responses to the issues and problems identified in part one.

J: How does this volume connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

MT: My work focuses on the political economy of donor intervention (which falls under the rubric of “peacebuilding”) in the OPT, particularly a critique of the Oslo peace paradigm and framework. This is a product of my broader conceptual and historical interest in the sociology of intervention as a method of capitalist expansion and imperial control (as explored in “The Politics of International Intervention: the Tyranny of Peace”, co-edited with Florian Kuhn, Routledge, 2016), and how post-conflict peacebuilding and development agendas are part of this (as explored in “Whose Peace: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding”, co-edited with Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper (PalgraveMacmillan, 2008).  

My first book on Palestine (co-edited with Omar Shweiki), Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-development and Beyond (PalgraveMacmillan, 2014), was a collection of essays by experts in their field, of the political-economic experience of different sections of the Palestinian community. The book, however, aimed to reunite these individual experiences into one historical political-economy narrative of a people experiencing a common theme of dispossession, disenfranchisement and disarticulation. It was guided by the desire to critically assess the utility of the concept of de-development to different sectors and issues–and had a foreword by Sara Roy, the scholar who coined the term, and who was involved in the workshop from which the book emerged.

This co-edited special issue (with Cherine Hussein, who, at the time of the issue construction, was the deputy director of the Kenyon Institute) was therefore the next logical step in my research on Palestine, although my article on Jewish-Israeli anti-Zionists did constitute a slight departure from my usual focus.

J: Who do you hope will read this volume, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MT: I would imagine the main audience will be those whose research and political interests lie in Palestine Studies. It is difficult, given the structure of academic publishing – which has become ever more corporate and money grabbing – for research outputs such as this to be accessed by the general public. Only those with access to academic libraries are sure to be able to read it – and this is a travesty, in my opinion. To counteract this commodification of knowledge, we should all provide free access to our outputs through online open source websites such as academia.edu, etc. If academic research is going to have an impact beyond merely providing more material for teaching and background reading for yet more research (which is inaccessible to the general public) then this is essential. Websites such as Jadaliyya are therefore incredibly important.

Having said all that, I am under no illusions about the potential for ANY research on Israel-Palestine to contribute to changing the dynamics of the situation. However, as a collection of excellent analyses conducted by mostly early-career scholars in the field of Palestine studies, I am hopeful that their interesting and new perspectives will be read and digested. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MT: I am currently working on an edited volume provisionally entitled From the River to the Sea: Disintegration, Reintegration and Domination in Israel and Palestine. This book is the culmination of a two-year research project funded by the British Academy, which analyzed the impacts of the past twenty years of the Oslo peace framework and paradigm as processes of disintegration, reintegration and domination – and how they have created a new socio-economic and political landscape, which requires new agendas and frameworks. I am also working on a new research project with Tariq Dana at Birzeit University on capital and class in the occupied West Bank.

Excerpt from the Editor’s Note 

[Note: This issue was published in Dec. 2015]

Initially perceived to have inaugurated a new era of hope in the search for peace and justice in Palestine-Israel, the Oslo peace paradigm of a track one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution is in crisis today, if not completely at an end.

While the major Western donors and the ‘international community’ continue to publicly endorse the Oslo peace paradigm, Israeli and Palestinian political elites have both stepped away from it. The Israeli government has adopted what appears to be an outright rejection of the internationally-accepted end-goal of negotiations, i.e. the emergence of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. In March 2015, in the final days of his re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the Jewish settlement of Har Homa in Palestinian East Jerusalem, which is regarded as illegal under international law. Reminding its inhabitants that it was him and his Likud government that had established the settlement in 1997 as part of the Israeli state’s vision of a unified indivisible Jerusalem, he promised to expand the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem if re-elected. And in an interview with Israeli news site, NRG, Netanyahu vowed that the prospects of a Palestinian state were non-existent as long as he remained in office. Holding on to the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), he argued, was necessary to ensure Israel’s security in the context of regional instability and Islamic extremism. It is widely acknowledged that Netanyahu’s emphasis on Israel’s security—against both external and internal enemies—gave him a surprise win in an election he was widely expected to lose.

Despite attempts to backtrack under recognition that the US and European states are critical of this turn in official Israeli state policy, Netanyahu’s promise to bury the two-state solution in favour of a policy of further annexation has become the Israeli government’s official intent, and has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading ministers and key advisers.

[…]

The Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank also appears to have rejected a key principle of the Oslo peace paradigm—that of bilateral negotiations under the supervision of the US. Despite a herculean effort by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, to bring the two parties to the negotiating table, in response to the lack of movement towards final status issues and continued settlement expansion (amongst other issues), the Palestinian political elite have withdrawn from negotiations and resumed attempts to ‘internationalise the struggle’ by seeking membership of international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), and signing international treaties such as the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court. This change of direction is part of a rethink in the PA and PLO’s strategy rooted in wider discussions and debates. The publication of a document by the Palestine Strategy Study Group (PSSG) in August 2008, the production of which involved many members of the Palestinian political elite (and whose recommendations were studiously discussed at the highest levels of the PA and PLO), showed widespread discontent with the bilateral negotiations framework and suggested ways in which Palestinians could ‘regain the initiative’.

[…]

And yet despite these changes in official Palestinian and Israeli political strategies that signal a deepening of the crisis, donors and the ‘international community’ are reluctant to accept the failure of the Oslo peace paradigm. This political myopia has meant the persistence of a framework that is increasingly divorced from the possibility of a just and sustainable peace. It is also acting as an ideological straitjacket by shutting out alternative interpretations. This special issue seeks a way out of this political and intellectual dead end. In pursuit of this, our various contributions undertake what we regard to be two key tasks: first, to critically analyse the perceptions underpinning the Oslo paradigm and the transformations instituted by its implementation; and second, to assess some alternative ways of understanding the situation rooted in new strategies of resistance that have emerged in the context of these transformations in the post-Oslo landscape.

[…]

Taken as a whole, the articles in this special issue aim to ignite conversations on the conflict that are not based within abstracted debates that centre upon the peace process itself—but that begin from within the realities and geographies of both the continually transforming land of Palestine-Israel and the voices, struggles, worldviews and imaginings of the future of the people who presently inhabit it. For it is by highlighting these transformations, and from within these points of beginning, that we believe more hopeful pathways for alternative ways forward can be collectively imagined, articulated, debated and built.