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491. INTERVIEW (PART I): Khalid Mishal: The Making of a Palestinian Islamic Leader

Author:
Mouin Rabbani
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Khalid Mishal (Abu Walid), a founder of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the head of its politbureau since 1996, has been the recognized head of the movement since the assassination of Shaykh Ahmad Yasin in spring 2004. Despite his considerable influence within the organization, at least dating back to the early 1990s, Mishal did not attract attention in the West until he survived Israel's botched assassination attempt in Amman in September 1997, which made headlines when King Hussein (with possible help from U.S. President Bill Clinton) compelled Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to provide the antidote to the poison with which he had been injected in broad daylight by Mossad agents disguised as Canadian tourists. Mishal's prominence has only increased following the Hamas victory in the January 2006 legislative elections in the occupied territories. Despite the U.S.-led campaign to isolate the Islamist movement internationally, Mishal has functioned as the main interlocutor with regional and international actors seeking direct or informal contact with the organization, as well as with the international media.
Political Geography:
United States and Israel

492. Enclave Micropolis: The Paradoxical Case of Ramallah/al-Bireh

Author:
Lisa Taraki
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Among the consequences of the consolidation of the Israeli closure regime have been the contraction of Palestinians' social worlds and the emergence of new forms of localism. Unlike the more parochial West Bank towns of Nablus, Hebron, and Jenin, Ramallah/al-Bireh has taken on many of the cosmopolitan aspects of larger metropoles-Beirut, Cairo, Tunis-because of a combination of historical influences, present-day migration patterns, and political realities. The result is a paradoxical "enclave city" whose sights are oftentimes more fixed on the global rather than the national level.
Topic:
Migration
Political Geography:
Cairo

493. Palestinian Weddings: Inventing Palestine in New Jersey

Author:
Randa Serhan
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
As the political situation of the Palestinians has changed, so too have the customs and practices of Palestinians in the Diaspora. Using Eric Hobsbawm's concept of "invented tradition" as a point of departure, this article explores the origins, functions, and implications of some of the elements-including dance, song, and costume-of Palestinian-American wedding celebrations in the New York/New Jersey/ Pennsylvania area, which since the first intifada have evolved into occasions for celebrating nationalist as well as communal identity.
Political Geography:
New York, America, Palestine, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey

494. Secrets and Lies: The Persecution of Muhammad Salah (Part I)

Author:
Michael E. Deutsch and Erica Thompson
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The case of Muhammad Salah, a Palestinian-American grocer and Chicago resident, is the longest-running terrorism case in the United States. He was brought to trial on terrorism-funding charges in October 2006 after a thirteen-year saga that began with his January 1993 arrest in Israel as the "world commander of Hamas" and that continued in the United States following his release from Israeli prison in late 1997. Though acquitted of all terrorism-related charges by a U.S. federal jury in Chicago in February 2007, Salah was convicted on a single count of obstruction of justice. In this exclusive report for JPS, Salah's lawyers recount the unfolding of this landmark and labyrinthine case, analyzing its legal underpinnings and implications. His prosecution served to advance new standards governing the admissibility of coerced confessions at trial and the use of secret evidence, while at the same time establishing new procedures for preventing the cross-examination of key witnesses and closing the courtroom to the press and public during crucial testimony. Even before his U.S. trial, his taped confession extracted under Shin Bet torture served as the linchpin of the U.S. government's investigation and prosecution of persons it suspected of providing material support for Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation. More broadly, the years covered by the case show the erosion of the rule of law in the United States, as well as the melding of the discourses, strategies, tactics, and aims of U.S. and Israeli law enforcement and intelligence bodies long before the post-9/11 launch of the "global war on terror." Part I of this two-part account lays the ground for the 2006-7 Chicago trial, covering the period of Salah's arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment in Israel and the investigations and legal proceedings against him upon his return. Part II will focus on the crafting of the case by the Justice Department under Pres. George W. Bush and the trial itself.
Topic:
Terrorism and War
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, and Chicago

495. A Hamas Perspective on the Movement's Evolving Role: An Interview with Khalid Mishal, Part II

Author:
Mouin Rabbani
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
In this second installment of his interview for JPS, Khalid Mishal, Hamas politburo chief since 1996 and head of the movement since the assassination of Shaykh Ahmad Yasin in 2004, continues his discussion of Hamas's evolution and strategy. Whereas the focus of part I was Mishal's personal background, political formation, and the founding of the movement, here Hamas's more recent history is foregrounded. From the unfolding conflict and troubled relations with Fatah since the mid-1990s, Mishal recounts the thinking behind the decision formally to integrate into the Palestinian political system born of Oslo by participating the 2006 legislative elections and joining the Palestinian Authority government. He also delves into the ongoing repercussions of these decisions, including the splits within the Palestinian movement culminating in Hamas's seizure of power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007. In the course of the more than three-hour interview, Mishal's straightforward manner is on display, as well as his willingness to be challenged on matters as sensitive as Hamas's suicide bombings and the targeting of Israeli civilians, the utility of armed resistance, and the morality of the struggle. Two themes underlying the interview were Mishal's preoccupation with the need to repair the intra-Palestinian split ("our greatest priority") and the devastating impact of the ongoing siege of the Gaza. Since our interview in early March 2008, two potentially significant developments with relevance to these concerns have taken place. On the internal Palestinian front, Mishal repeatedly emphasized the need for intra-Palestinian dialogue without preconditions, with all subjects on the table including controversial topics like early elections. A first step toward reconciliation was made on 24 March 2008, when Hamas and Fatah representatives signed the "Sana'a Declaration," negotiated in the Yemeni capital, which outlined points of consensus on various domestic issues including security and political institutions. Though the declaration quickly ran aground, with Fatah demanding that Hamas immediately cede control of Gaza before implementation of other aspects would be discussed, by June 2008, Hamas and Fatah were once again considering national unity talks on the basis of the Yemeni initiative. As for alleviating the extreme external pressures on the Hamas-led Gaza Strip, indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel mediated by Egypt produced a bilateral cease-fire that went into effect on 18 June. Though initially confined to Gaza, the understandings also call for a gradual reversal of the siege as well as renewed negotiations on a prisoner exchange, including the release of captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Hovering over both Hamas-Israel and Hamas-Fatah relations is Washington, which remains opposed to any deals through which the Palestinian Islamists can emerge from their enforced isolation. Yet whatever the ultimate success of either development, the reality is that Mishal and Hamas are increasingly central players in the intra-Palestinian, Israeli-Palestinian, and broader regional equations. Indeed, itwas Mishal, not Abbas, whose movement reached an agreement with Israel before the expiration of the Bush administration.
Topic:
Security and Government
Political Geography:
Israel, Palestine, Gaza, and Egypt

496. Review: Sa'di and Abu-Lughod: Nakba, 1948, and the Claims of Memory

Author:
Saleh Abdel Jawad
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The work of memory in all its forms-historical essays, personal reminiscences, legal testimonies, imaginative recreation-is not only difficult but inherently contradictory. On the one hand, memory posits "something real outside the person's subjectivities to be . . . re-called." Simultaneously, memory work requires a narrator equipped with the interpretive filters of gender, age, generation, political intentions, and so on, through whom the objective, exogenous "facticity" (as Lena Jayyusi calls it) is to be known. The work of memory, then, must address itself not only to questions of what happened, but to questions of how we know things, whose voices we have heard, and where the silences are located.
Political Geography:
Palestine

497. Review: Falk and Friel: Israel Palestine on Record and Dunsky: Pens and Swords

Author:
Cheryl Rubenberg
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Israel-Palestine on Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East and Pens and Swords: How the American Mainstream Media Report the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict are two tour-de-force works devoted to an analysis of the U.S. media as it reports on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both present devastating critiques of the media in its pro-Israel bias, and both are extensively documented, reflecting analytical scholarship in the finest tradition.
Topic:
Human Rights and International Law
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

498. Review: Khalifeh: The Image, the Icon, and the Covenant

Author:
Hala Halim
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
In awarding Sahar Khalifeh's Sura wa ayquna wa 'ahdun qadim (2002) the American University in Cairo's 2006 Naguib Mahfouz Medal, the jury aptly lauded this "narrative of loss par excellence . . . [as] simultaneously historiciz[ing] for the current Palestinian struggle while summoning a whole array of the symbolic." From its very title, The Image, the Icon, and the Covenant divulges its biblical symbolism, which will be made to bear here further layers of political allusion. Ostensibly the story of a doomed love and the desperate pursuit of its traces decades later, this is a novel of "national allegory," as in Fredric Jameson's formulation.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Brazil, Palestine, and Jerusalem

499. Review: Masalha: The Bible and Zionism

Author:
Marc Chmiel
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The Bible and Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology and Post-Colonialism in Israel-Palestine, by Nur Masalha. New York and London: Zed Books, 2007. 321 pages. Notes to p. 335. Bibliography to p. 354. Index to p. 366. $126.00 cloth; $36.00 paper.
Political Geography:
New York, Israel, London, and Palestine

500. Review: Parsons: The Politics of the Palestinian Authority

Author:
Jamil Hilal
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The Politics of the Palestinian Authority: From Oslo to al-Aqsa, by Nigel Parsons. New York and London: Routledge, 2005. xxx + 319 pages. Appendices to p. 341. Notes to p. 394. Bibliography to p. 411. Index to p. 429. $95.00 cloth.
Political Geography:
Palestine