Michelle Pace and Somdeep Sen, The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank: The Theatrics of Woeful Statecraft (New Texts Out Now)

Michelle Pace and Somdeep Sen, The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank: The Theatrics of Woeful Statecraft (New Texts Out Now)

Michelle Pace and Somdeep Sen, The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank: The Theatrics of Woeful Statecraft (New Texts Out Now)

By : Michelle Pace and Somdeep Sen

Michelle Pace and Somdeep Sen, The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank: The Theatrics of Woeful Statecraft (Oxon: Routledge, 2019).

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

Michelle Pace and Somdeep Sen (MP & SS): This book spans a significant part of our working life—both of us have carried extensive ethnographic work in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), covering Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem over a number of years. During the course of our work we have made friends, met with people in high positions of power (both in the territories and globally), and encountered many activists—all of whom have shaped in one way or another the making of this book. The work here is therefore deeply personal for the two of us. For Somdeep, Palestine remains at the core of a global struggle for indigenous rights and against a continuing colonial international order. For Michelle, it is a continuation of her commitment to the Palestinian cause that she first learned about as a child, listening to her grandfather narrating the tragedy that befell Palestinians as a consequence of the Nakba of 1948. We have also been encouraged by and received substantial support from dear colleagues, as well as the Carlsberg Foundation (Denmark), which generously funded our fieldtrips over the course of two years. 

...the nature of Palestinians’ statelessness has to contend with the rituals of statecraft...

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

MP & SS: The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank integrates performance studies and politics to suggest an understanding of the theatrics of woeful statecraft in Palestine. In this book we challenge the existing literature on state-building and the apparent fixity on the state; instead, we shed light on how the discursively produced and constantly alluded to notion of “a Palestinian state” relies on endless acts of performance to call it into being. Our focus is therefore on how the nature of Palestinians’ statelessness has to contend with the rituals of statecraft that the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its civil servants/fonctionnaires engage in. We further shed light on how these rituals are economically maintained by an international donor industry, while being vehemently challenged by Palestinian activists antagonistic to the prevalence of the statist agenda in the oPt. Our primary concern is therefore the manner in which these stakeholders—whether invested in or antagonistic to the PA—make sense of its statecraft while cognizant of the reality that the PA is in fact performing a state that does not exist.

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

MP & SS: Michelle’s previous work has been located in the area of discursive constructions of the Mediterranean/Middle East and North Africa in the making of EU policies towards its southern neighborhood. In this book, she zooms in on the specific case of the discursive construction of the notion of a Palestinian state—not only in the policy agenda of the European Union, but also that of other international actors invested in the imperative of state-building and the impact of this discursive machinery on the everyday lives of ordinary Palestinians in the oPt. 

Somdeep’s doctoral research took a postcolonial perspective on the politics of Hamas as an armed resistance movement and government in the Gaza Strip. His dissertation argued that Hamas’s armed operations were anticolonial in nature, while its governance is not unlike that of a postcolonial state. In his follow-up book, Somdeep further explores his interest in the dynamics of statecraft in a non-state context, and brings together perspectives of both international stakeholders who are invested in the upkeeping of the PA, and stateless Palestinians who are still struggling for sovereign statehood.

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

MP & SS: From a pedagogical point of view, the book is an essential resource for students and scholars interested in the study of the state, international relations and politics, Palestine studies, and the Middle East. In particular we hope that students of these disciplines who have not yet seen the reality of Palestinians in the occupied territories with their own eyes, can get some clear ideas of what it is like to live under settler colonial rule in our age. Many of our Roskilde University students who visit the oPt for the first time–for an internship or fieldwork–usually come back in a total state of shock after having witnessed what Palestinians have to endure on a daily basis in terms of violations to their basic human lives. We therefore hope that this book will serve as a wake-up call for young activists wherever they are in the world to continue the work of many well-meaning and decent citizens worldwide and ensure that the Palestinian cause is kept well alive and that the global struggle for Palestinian rights will continue unabated. 

We also hope that external policy makers, the international NGO community and—importantly—Palestinians themselves read this book, so that a global political imagination develops, which stops the façade of state-building projects in the oPt and instead invests its energies and efforts into establishing pathways that lead to the securement of Palestinian rights and aspirations.

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MP & SS: Together with Dr. Ziad Abu Mustafa (PhD from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom), Michelle is at an advanced stage of negotiations for another co-authored monograph with Routledge on “Understanding the causes of Palestinian Disunity, 1993-2019.” 

Moreover, together with Professor Haim Yacobi of UCL (University College London) she is working on a one-year Welcome Trust project on how power, violence, and health are entangled in conflict zones in general and in Gaza in particular. The project is documenting and critically analyzing the effect of infrastructure demolition on (ill-)health in Gaza, especially in relation to (in)access to health services, (in)access to nutrition, (in)access to clean water, especially drinking water. It aims at nuancing humanitarian interventions and their effects on (ill-)health in Gaza, and at examining the emerging alternative forms of resilience in relation to health among Gaza inhabitants.

What is important for us working on this project are the liminal conditions between life and death in Gaza. Our contention is that there is a necessity to conceptualize the everyday non-life, namely the “not yet arrived” death as a central reality (lived experience) that dictates the daily lives of Gazan people, resulting in the “economy of life and death embedded in (the) Israeli biopolitical and necropolitical regimes of control. We suggest that the spatio-politics of everyday non-life goes beyond necropolitics; it is not simply about the use of social and political power, and the “right to kill”—that dictate how some people may live and how some must die. It is very much about the spatial dimension encompassing non-life: the intentional production of a controlled space, as well as the destruction of it. The conditions in Gaza are not the result of any natural disaster, neither the outcome of the last few months’ events along the border. Rather, we see the Gaza condition within the context of settler-colonial political history, ideology, and geography which prioritize territorial and demographic control over basic rights, “the will of erasure”, or at a minimal the “systematic containment” of Gaza inhabitants.

Somdeep is currently working on a project funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark that explores the spatial design and planning of Israeli settlements and the way they attempt to erase the Palestinian communities in their vicinity. For the project, he conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Palestinian towns and villages, as well as Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Additionally, Somdeep is working on an edited volume with Professor John Collins of St. Lawrence University, that is scheduled to be published on the twentieth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Contributions to the volume will explore the manner in which the discourses that were once used to justify the US response to September 11 have now proliferated across national borders in the long aftermath of the attacks and the launch of the “global war on terrorism.” 

 

Excerpt from the Book

The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank explores the manner in which the Palestinian Authority’s performative acts affect and shape the lives and subjective identities of those in its vicinity in the occupied West Bank. The nature of Palestinians’ statelessness has to contend with the rituals of statecraft that the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its Palestinian fonctionnaires engage in. These rituals are also economically maintained by an international donor community and are vehemently challenged by Palestinian activists, antagonistic to the prevalence of the statist agenda in Palestine.

Conceptually, the understanding of the PA’s ‘theater of statecraft’ is inspired by Judith Butler’s conception of performativity as one that encompasses several repetitive and ritual performative acts. The authors explore what they refer to as the ‘fuzzy state' (personified in the form and conduct of the PA) looks like for those living it, from the vantage point of PA institutions, NGOs, international representative offices, and activists. Methodologically, the book adopts an ethnographic approach, by way of interviews and observations in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

 

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.