Dana M. Moss, The Arab Spring Abroad: Diaspora Activism Against Authoritarian Regimes (New Texts Out Now)

Dana M. Moss, The Arab Spring Abroad: Diaspora Activism Against Authoritarian Regimes (New Texts Out Now)

Dana M. Moss, The Arab Spring Abroad: Diaspora Activism Against Authoritarian Regimes (New Texts Out Now)

By : Dana M. Moss

Dana M. Moss, The Arab Spring Abroad: Diaspora Activism Against Authoritarian Regimes (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

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

Dana M. Moss (DM): When I began researching social movements and protest events in the Middle East and North Africa, I was absolutely awed to learn about the extraordinary risks that activists were taking to advocate for democracy, human rights, and basic social provisions. In an effort to pursue this subject as a sociologist, I went to Yemen in 2009 to study Arabic, and I fell in love with the country. It was only later the following year that I watched the “Arab Spring” revolutions unfold in real time, including in Yemen. These movements not only reshaped the social and political terrain of the region—they also went global by mobilizing diasporas for change in their homelands. I could not return to Yemen for long-term fieldwork after the uprisings because of the insecurity that followed, so I decided to turn the question of how anti-regime diaspora communities mobilized to support democratic change in Yemen, as well as in Syria and Libya. The book that came out of this research, The Arab Spring Abroad: Diaspora Activism Against Authoritarian Regimes (Cambridge University Press, 2022), explains when these diaspora activists mobilized to support anti-authoritarian causes in their home countries and why their interventions varied by diaspora and host country.

... diaspora activists can—in certain times and places—provide life-saving support to social movements battling dictatorships.

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

DM: By investigating when, how, and to what extent diaspora activists from Yemen, Syria, and Libya mobilized for the Arab Spring, the book speaks to three main literatures. The first stems from studies of of globalization and transnational advocacy, which largely show that globalization is good for activists because it helps privileged people in the Global North channel resources to disadvantaged movements in the Global South. The second literature investigates diaspora politics and “ethnic lobbies” to show how they influence foreign policy in the places they live. This literature shows that diaspora actors can be powerful meddlers in home country affairs by lobbying and advocating for peace, war, or reconstruction—and we have seen this play out in the United States vis-à-vis Cuban and Iraqi advocacy groups, to name just two examples. The third literature concerns studies of the Arab Spring, which focus on the uprisings as country-specific or regional phenomena. My work takes up the transnational dimension, showing how the revolutions went global.

My book speaks to these studies by demonstrating that globalization and diaspora mobilization may help activists achieve their goals in certain times and places, but that the emergence and successful mobilization of diaspora groups from the Global North are actually quite fleeting and fragile. This is because up to four major impediments can get in the way: (1) the repression of diaspora groups by home country regimes, which seek to deter them from speaking out and causing trouble for regimes from abroad; (2) the transmission of home country conflicts to diaspora groups through their home country ties, which keep diaspora members divided and mistrustful; (3) a shortage of resources to channel homeward to home country allies; and (4) a lack of geopolitical support from outside powerholders, like the United States and Great Britain, who sometimes act to block diaspora activism when they associate it with the so-called “War on Terror.” Accordingly, diaspora activists can—in certain times and places—provide life-saving support to social movements battling dictatorships. However, not all anti-regime diaspora communities are equally well-advantaged to influence and stoke mobilization in their homelands.

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

DM: This book is the culmination of many years of research on diaspora activism, as well as previous work I have written on the subject of transnational repression. Transnational repression refers to the ways in which home country regimes seek to deter, suppress, and punish criticism from diaspora communities and exiles. They do so in a number of ways, including through surveillance, issuing threats, cancelling passports and student scholarships, issuing ‘Red Notices’ through Interpol, and even through assassinations. The latter occurred just a few years ago in Istanbul by the Saudi regime, which sent a hit squad to murder Saudi exile and journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Regimes also engage in what I call “proxy punishment,” which refers to the punishment of non-activist family and friends in their home country. Imagine having your mother or father interrogated and imprisoned simply because you spoke out at a rally, or condemned a regime on social media! These tactics are widely used by authoritarian governments across the world today, and not just by the Gaddafi and Assad regimes.

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

DM: I did my best to write the book for activists, academics, and anyone interested in the Arab Spring. It is currently available as an open access book here, courtesy of Cambridge’s new “Flip It Open” program. It was truly an honor to have so many activists tell me their stories, and it is my greatest hope that activists recognize themselves and their experiences in the work. I also hope that we can use the book as a foundation to think about the transnational dimensions of revolutions and social change. Of course, it was the activists and civilians working on the ground who made the biggest gains and sacrifices for the revolutions in 2011 and beyond. At the same time, they also often depended on their friends, relatives, and contacts in the diaspora to send life-saving support to communities and places under siege. It was my intention to increase our understanding of how and when these cross-border connections and relationships matter, particularly during moments of contention and crisis in authoritarian states, when the stakes are extraordinarily high.

J: What other projects are you working on now? 

DM: To follow up on research on transnational repression, I am currently co-editing and writing for a volume on this topic with political scientist Saipira Furstenburg, PhD. The book, which is tentatively titled Transnational Repression in the Age of Globalization, will bring more comparative attention to this topic, which impacts communities both inside and outside of the Middle Eastern region. It is under contract with Edinburgh University Press’ Studies on Diasporas and Transnationalism series, and we hope it will hit the shelves late next year. It brings together a number of key experts on the subject, and we hope that the volume will be useful to a range of academic researchers, legal professionals, students, and policymakers as well.

J: What did diaspora activists actually do to help the Arab Spring revolutions? 

DM: During the political and humanitarian crises that unfolded during the Arab Spring, I found that diaspora activists in the United States and Britain did important and even life-saving work to help their compatriots at home. For instance, they “broadcasted” information from areas in their homelands that were isolated from independent media and Internet access. Teams of youths, for instance, worked around the clock to update the world about the Libyan revolutionary uprising in Benghazi before outside journalists were on-site to report from the ground. Second, they “represented” revolutionary groups, either formally or informally, to policymakers and the media abroad. Some Syrian Americans and Syrian Britons, for instance, were deputized by Local Coordination Council resistance groups inside of Syria to speak on their behalf and lobby for support. Third, they “brokered” between their home country compatriots and external supporters as interpreters, translators, and bridges between people fighting for their lives on the ground and outsiders who wanted to help, but who lacked the language skills and connections. Fourth, diaspora members “remitted,” i.e., donated millions of dollars’ worth of humanitarian supplies and other resources to the conflict—often funding initiatives that international donors would not or could not fund themselves. This was critical for keeping field hospitals running, vehicles fueled, and babies in diapers, literally. Fifth, they volunteered on the ground in many cases, staffing hospitals and trauma centers, working as journalists or as interpreters, volunteering to help internally displaced and outside refugees, writing grant proposals for donor aid, and more. Some even fought in these conflicts, and particularly in Libya, where the anti-Gaddafi war had external support.

 

Excerpt from the book (from the Introduction, pp. 1-6) 

See here to view the text in open access.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has long fascinated Western observers, more often than not out of a sense of misguided curiosity. Owing to imperialism, Orientalism, and enduring stereotypes, commentary has revolved around a central query: Why is the region and its people so “backward”? The social sciences have remained focused on this question, albeit in a modified form, since the fall of the Soviet Union […]. As researchers looked optimistically to a post-1989 future that appeared to be liberalizing, they asked why the wave of democracy sweeping the formerly colonized world had bypassed the MENA region. The answer provided, in one form or another, was that regimes led by autocrats, kings, and presidents-for-life were too powerful and the people too weak – too loyal, apathetic, divided, and tribal – to mount a credible challenge to authoritarian rule. 

Such a view errs, of course, by overlooking how countries across the MENA region have given rise to social movements for liberation, equality, and human rights throughout modern history. Whether emerging from the gilded elite or the grassroots, its people have always fought against foreign rule and domestic tyranny. Even so, mass mobilization against enduring dictatorships seemed unlikely after the “Global War on Terror,” launched by the United States and its allies after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, made friends out of former enemies. Foreign powers fed dictatorships in places such as Egypt, Libya, and Yemen billions of dollars’ worth of aid and weapons. They also cooperated with so-called enemies, such as the Assad regime in Syria, to render and torture suspects of terrorism. By 2010, autocrats augmented by oil wealth had Western nations so cozily in their pockets that their confidence in perpetual rule was sky high.

With so much attention focused on authoritarian durability, it is little wonder that the revolutions to follow caught scholars and governments by surprise. This new era of revolt began in Tunisia in December 2010; within weeks, demonstrations against corruption and repression had spread to Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Syria, and Bahrain. These uprisings, which have become known as the “Arab Spring,” spanned from the sapphire blue waters of the Mediterranean coast to the green highlands of the Arabian Peninsula. As tens of thousands of ordinary people demanded their dignity by marching in the streets against corruption and abuse, popular movements and insurgencies destabilized regimes thought to be unshakable. The conflicts that ensued produced both improbable triumphs through selfless heroism and devastating losses through abject slaughter. But well before this wave gave rise to resurgent dictatorships and civil wars, the masses shook the earth with rage and made dictators quake with fear.

Revolutions are rarely neatly confined to their places of origin, however. They also galvanize anti-regime activists in the diaspora around the globe, and the Arab Spring was no exception. Diaspora mobilization for the Arab Spring was no trivial matter. Long before foreign governments and international organizations jumped in to support revolutionaries, ordinary emigrants, refugees, and their children protested in Washington, DC, London, and New York City against their home-country regimes; channeled millions of dollars’ worth of aid to poorly equipped insurgencies and beleaguered refugees; and traveled homeward to join the revolutions as rescue workers, interpreters, and fighters. Diaspora activists’ efforts to help their compatriots under siege not only heralded a new wave of transnational activism, but exposed regimes’ crimes against humanity and saved lives on the ground. Their mobilization against authoritarianism also signified a new phase in community empowerment and collective action, particularly among those who had grown up in places where speaking out against ruling dictatorships could get a person imprisoned, tortured, or killed.

Although the Arab Spring uprisings are well-known, the role that diaspora movements played in this revolutionary wave is not. This is not surprising, given the guiding assumption among social scientists that protesters must be present – proximate, in person, and ready to storm the gates – to challenge authoritarians. […] 

Yet, as the case of the Arab Spring abroad demonstrates, dissidents who travel abroad have the potential to induce change from without. In fact, those who remain loyal to the people and places left behind can use voice after exit to demand change at home. Members of diasporas – a term used here to refer to the exiles, émigrés, expatriates, refugees, and emigrants of different generations who attribute their origins to a common place – do so for many reasons. Memories of their lives before displacement, connections to grandparents and friends from home, summertime visits to their hometowns, annual picnics and flag-flying parades, religious gatherings and diaspora associations, grief and nostalgia over childhoods spent in the homeland, and foreign business dealings all serve to bind members of national and ethnic groups to a home-country. So too do experiences of marginalization in the host-country make them feel more at home in their places of origin. Consequently, diaspora members’ “ways of being and ways of belonging” can bind them to the homeland and become transnational in character (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004: 1002), rather than bound within their place of settlement. 

History shows that exile has long served as an incubator for diaspora voice. While traumatic for its victims, banishment enables dissidents to survive abroad during periods of repressive crackdown at home. Many nation-states have been founded by exiles, including China’s Sun Yat-sen, Poland’s Tadeusz Kościuszko, and Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh. Others have captured revolutions already underway, as when Vladimir Lenin returned by German train to lead the Bolshevik coup d’état in Russia and Ruhollah Khomeini arrived by plane from France to forge the Islamic Republic of Iran. Diaspora members from the Balkans, Ireland, Sri Lanka, and Eritrea have bankrolled wars and funded nation-building projects from afar by channeling cash and matériel to their homelands. In a world where having a nation-state grants ethnic groups protection, minority movements […] have demanded sovereignty and ethno-religious rights in their homelands. Expatriates with axes to grind, such as anti-communist Cubans and Iraqis opposing Saddam Hussein, have also forged powerful lobbies to challenge home-country governments and shape host-country foreign policy. In these cases and many others, exiles and diaspora movements have become what Yossi Shain (2005[1989]: xv) describes as “some of the most prominent harbingers of regime change” in the world.

As authoritarianism resurges across the globe today and in the foreseeable future (Repucci 2020), diaspora movements will undoubtedly continue to play a central role in an increasingly urgent fight against dictatorships. But although they have played a notable role in fomenting change in their homelands for centuries, surprisingly little attention has been paid to explaining their interventions. To fill this gap, I address two central questions: When do diaspora movements emerge to contest authoritarianism in their places of origin? How, and under what conditions, do activists fuel rebellions therein? By systematically investigating how revolutions ricocheted from Libya, Syria, and Yemen to the United States and Great Britain, this book provides interesting new answers. 

The central contribution of The Arab Spring Abroad is the provision of a set of conditions explaining when, how, and the extent to which diasporas wield voice after exit against authoritarian regimes. In so doing, the book demonstrates that exit neither undermines voice, as Hirschman (1970) suggests, nor does it necessarily foster voice, as historical examples of exile mobilization illustrate. Instead, I argue that while some exiles use exit as an opportunity for voice, diaspora members’ ties to an authoritarian home-country are more likely to suppress voice after exit within the wider anti-regime community for at least one of two reasons. The first is that home-country regimes may actively repress voice in the diaspora using violence and threats. When they do, non-exiles are likely to remain silent in order to protect themselves and their relatives in the homecountry. The second reason is that home-country ties can entangle diaspora members in divisive, partisan conflicts rooted in the home-country. When these home-country rifts travel abroad through members’ transnational ties, they can factionalize regime opponents and make anti-regime solidarity practically impossible. I find that these two transnational forces – what I term transnational repression and conflict transmission, respectively – largely deterred anti-regime diaspora members from Libya, Syria, and Yemen from coming out and coming together against authoritarianism before the revolutions in 2011. 

This book then demonstrates how and why this situation can change. Specifically, I show how major disruptions to politics-as-usual in the homecountry can give rise to voice abroad. As regimes massacred demonstrators, prompted the formation of revolutionary coalitions, and led to major humanitarian crises during the Arab Spring, they induced what sociologist David Snow et al. (1998) call quotidian disruptions to everyday life and regime control. The revolutions therefore not only produced civil insurgencies and wars at home, but also traveled through diaspora members’ ties to produce quotidian disruptions abroad. As I detail further below, as the Arab Spring undermined the efficacy of regimes’ long-distance threats and united previously fragmented groups, outspoken exiles and silent regime opponents decided to come out and come together to wield voice to an unprecedented degree. 

At the same time, the final chapters of the book argue that even after diaspora members take up voice in unprecedented ways, they only come to make impactful interventions in anti-authoritarian rebellions if two additive factors come into play. Drawing from the comparative analysis, I show that they must (1) gain the capacity to convert resources to a shared cause, and (2) gain geopolitical support from states and other powerholders in order to become auxiliary forces for anti-authoritarianism. When they do, they can channel cash to their allies, mobilize policymakers, and facilitate humanitarian aid delivery on the front lines. Otherwise, activists may voice their demands on the street, but they will not become empowered to fuel rebellion and relief when their help is needed most. Taken together, by bringing attention to the important, but dynamic and highly contingent, roles that diaspora movements play in contentious politics, this study demonstrates when voice after exit emerges, how it matters, and the conditions giving rise to diaspora movement interventions for rebellion and relief.

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.