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This text explores the different narrative frameworks that have emerged in Israeli society and Jewish history to understand the conflict between Israel and Hamas. One narrative compares the conflict to the Yom Kippur War and suggests that negotiation and resolution are possible. Another narrative frames the conflict as a continuation of historical anti-Jewish violence and emphasizes the role of antisemitism. These narratives shape the understanding of the conflict and reinforce existing ideas about Jewish history and Israeli society. Alternative narratives that focus on the experiences of Palestinian civilians are often marginalized, and these narratives are used to define who belongs and who is excluded. [Extracted from the article]

This research explores the development of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) over the last decade as a proxy organization of the Iranian regime, or as a group that finds its way between Palestinian nationalism and support for the religious Islamic revolution of Iran. Most studies of Islamic organizations in Palestine focus on Hamas, the "Big Brother" of the PIJ. Hamas, which grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, began violent operations in 1987 during the First Intifada partially due to its competition with the PIJ. Although the role of the PIJ in Palestinian society has grown in its influence, disappointingly there are very few research studies that analyze this organization. Moreover, most of these works focus on the period before the al-Aqṣā Intifada and especially examine suicide operations and the group's motives. The main questions to be answered by this study are: What is the nature of the PIJ? Is it a religious movement with religious aims or Palestinian national one? This article analyzes these questions through an examination of the PIJ's activity vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic of Iran. This study's central argument is that the PIJ is a Palestinian religious national organization that sees Iran as a partner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Araucaria is the property of Araucaria-Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofia, Politica y Humanidades and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of the article is to analyse the relations between the discursive Islamic tradition and the national policy implemented in various forms by the Palestinians. I will use in this analysis the notion of the Islamic discursive tradition of Talal Asad, which emphasizes the importance of the relationship between power and knowledge. I will show how the Palestinian nationalist movement influenced the perception of the role and significance of religious tradition, and how it is experienced and practiced in different ways. Works by John O. Voll, Daniel M. Varisco, Dale F. Eickelman, James P. Piscatori and Armand Salvatore show how the current understanding of the relationship between Islam and politics is dependent on Western, top-down assumptions and political projects, and how these have distorted understanding of the processes taking place in the so-called Muslim world. My aim is to go beyond these erroneous assumptions and to reinterpret the Palestinian experience of shaping the relationship between religion and politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The blood libel is usually known as the Medieval European legend about Jews killing Christians to consume their blood or otherwise use it in rituals. However, in this paper I explore more recent instances of the blood libel that have emerged in nationalist contexts. What I call the nationalist blood libel is more overtly politicized than its predecessors, as there is a relationship between the accusatory portrayals of groups signified as alien and what Arjun Appadurai in Fear of Small Numbers (2006) called an anxiety of incompletion inherent in the modern nation-state as a result of the political discourses of majority and minority. In this article I discuss specific instances of the nationalist blood libel in a Nazi publication and in a cartoon aired in 2010 by Hamas wherein the Jew is signified as an agent of abjection; of transgression and dismemberment. I also examine an example from contemporary Britain in which the Islamist has replaced the Jew in the narrative, as this subject is imagined as an existential threat to the British people and the nation. In reading these examples through Julia Kristevas theorization of abjection, I contend that the telling of the nationalist blood libel relates personal and communal fears about pollution and dissolution, and that this fear, though fundamentally threatening to subjectivity, nevertheless works to establish it. I therefore argue that this reveals the nationalist blood libel as a folk reification mechanism that allows the segmentation of friend/enemy camps and rationalizes anxieties along lines of protectionism, and thereby mobilizes affects into political and often violent action.

This article examines Palestinian refugee articulations of the Palestinian homeland and struggle in relation to religion and nationalism. My contention is that the impact of Hamas's electoral victory in Palestine is visible within the discourse of Palestinians in Jordan. This discourse suggests a transformation of the meaning of Palestinian nationalism in which religion is taking an important albeit complex role in nationalism. Using the concept of intertwining, this article considers how Islam has been intertwined with Palestinian nationalism in ways that have privileged particular ideas about the national homeland and fight for liberation. While many suggest that Islamist politics is incompatible with nationalism, this article takes the local discourse of refugees and argues that Hamas and its supporters have yet to abandon the framework of nationalism, although certain tensions exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the opinions of Palestinian Arab political leaders regarding the creation of a Palestinian state. Topics include the history of pan-Arab ideology in relation to Arab-Israeli conflict, the notion of Arab nationalism among Palestinian Arabs, and the history of nationalism in relation to the political party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the government body Palestinian Authority (PA). Also addressed are the Islamist views of the militant group Hamas, alleged corruption among PLO and PA leaders, and purported financial corruption involving PLO leader Yassir Arafat and PA president Mahmud Abbas.

AbüQatad a "The Palestinian" is among the most influential ideologues of the salafi-jihadi movement. Born in Palestine, Abü Qatäda grew up in the Jordanian capital Amman, spent time among jihadi guerrillas in Pakistan, and ended up a militant preacher in London. Over the last decade, while going in and out of prison accused of aiding international terrorism, Abü Qatada has worked to define the theological basis of al-Qaida and likeminded movements. This article explores the Palestinian preacher's background, activism and ideological communication, focusing on the relationship with his land of origin. It finds that the jihadi thinker seems largely to have ignored his country of origin in both word and deed. This is counter-intuitive given that Abü Qatäda represents a movement presenting the liberation of Palestine as the heart of a worldwide armed holy struggle. However, jihadi ideologues tread a fine line between nationalism and worldliness on one hand, and transnational religious purism on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work focuses on Hamas's use of religion and ideology to legitimise its use of political violence within the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In particular, I focus upon how Hamas, like other groups before it, has appropriated and (re)interpreted a core component of Palestinian national identity, i.e. the culturally entrenched and socially resonant norm of Palestinian heroic warfare that manifests itself as active and passive heroic resistance under conditions of occupation. This has effectively enabled the group to establish political legitimacy, garner civilian support and justify its use of political violence. This work also underscores the interplay between the active and passive faces of heroic resistance by illustrating how Palestinian active (i.e. armed) resistance is founded upon the elements of sumud (steadfastness) and sabr (patience), which are in fact the key signifiers of passive Palestinian identity and resistance. Hence, passive and active signifiers of resistance are located as an enduring feature of the Palestinian national struggle, used and re-used in the politico-ideological tracks of successive political organisations. However, Hamas's particular practice and discourse of territorial struggle has not only propelled and reinterpreted this norm but in doing so, has blurred traditional boundaries between civilians and combatants while also continuing to foster the notion of ‘heroic warfare’ in Palestinian society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The educational curriculum produced by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) is said to be situated on the intellectual basis of faith in Allah. The curriculum presents Islam as one of three essential components of the Palestinian identity. The place given to Islam in the educational philosophy and curriculum of the PA signifies a departure from the place given to Islam in the PLO's earlier documents and Fatah's earlier discourse; in fact, owing to the elevated position of Islam, the discourse in the curriculum more closely resembles that of the PLO's Islamist opposition, namely Hamas. This article compares the Palestinian identity discourse as it is presented in the PA educational philosophy (1998) and school curriculum (2000–2006) with the identity discourse in the PLO's earlier philosophy of education as well as Hamas' philosophy of education. The explanation for this change in the discourse of the Palestinian nationalist movement takes into account Fatah's bid to maintain legitimacy in a deeply divided society and Hamas' challenge to Fatah in the Palestinian arena as well as the background of the Islamic revival across the greater Muslim world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Nationalism is a notoriously complex, slippery notion that has been the subject of much scholarly debate and scrutiny. The last two decades, however, had seen a proliferation of methodological orientations which emphasized the socially constructed nature of national phenomena. The conception of nation as an ‘imagined community’ highlights the active role of discourse through which notions of national homogeneity, historic continuity and shared present and destiny are constituted, re-constituted and inculcated in and through discourse, often by a nationalist and engaged intelligentsia. Informed by the work of Wodak and colleagues [(1999). The discursive construction of national identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press; (2007). Commemorating the past: The discursive construction of official narratives about the rebirth of the second Austrian republic. Discourse & Communication, 1(3), 337–363], the present study examines the construction of the ‘homeland’ in Palestinian nationalist discourses. Drawing on a corpus of Palestinian constitutive documents, including political speeches and national tracts, this article probes into the constituent themes of Palestinian national identity as expressed and consistently presented in Palestinian official secularist and Islamist discourses. In particular, the study draws attention to the discursive processes through which a common Palestinian identity is forged and the similarities and ideological tensions between secularists and Islamists in the construction of the ‘nation’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The blood libel is usually known as the Medieval European legend about Jews killing Christians to consume their blood or otherwise use it in rituals. However, in this paper I explore more recent instances of the blood libel that have emerged in nationalist contexts. What I call the nationalist blood libel is more overtly politicized than its predecessors, as there is a relationship between the accusatory portrayals of groups signified as alien and what Arjun Appadurai in Fear of Small Numbers (2006) called an "anxiety of incompletion" inherent in the modern nation-state as a result of the political discourses of majority and minority. In this article I discuss specific instances of the nationalist blood libel in a Nazi publication and in a cartoon aired in 2010 by Hamas wherein "the Jew" is signified as an agent of abjection; of transgression and dismemberment. I also examine an example from contemporary Britain in which "the Islamist" has replaced "the Jew" in the narrative, as this subject is imagined as an existential threat to the British people and the nation. In reading these examples through Julia Kristeva's theorization of abjection, I contend that the telling of the nationalist blood libel relates personal and communal fears about pollution and dissolution, and that this fear, though fundamentally threatening to subjectivity, nevertheless works to establish it. I therefore argue that this reveals the nationalist blood libel as a folk reification mechanism that allows the segmentation of friend/enemy camps and rationalizes anxieties along lines of protectionism, and thereby mobilizes affects into political and often violent action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research on Hamas's women's movement explains the contemporary political and social involvement of women with a multilayered perspective of different theories based on a textual analysis of the movement's publications (the Hamas Charta 1988 and the Electoral Program 2006, as well as women's testimonies to popular media outlets). Subsequently, it is claimed that only a comprehensive combination of post-colonial studies, gender and nationalism studies can fully grasp women's roles within the Hamas movement. Uniting these three approaches, there are three main hypotheses for women's activism and role within Hamas. First, Hamas propagates gendered worldviews and roles within the nationalist project as well as within the movement. Those outlooks intersect with historized notions of Arab-Muslim identity as well as with notions of liberation against foreign (Western) occupation and colonialism. Second, the 'women of Hamas' use such gendered roles in order to pave the way for a pious, yet determined, women's participation within the nationalist venture as well as the movement's overall project of national liberation. Third, the gendered defence calculus springing from those views allows a restructuring of society in general, vis-a-vis the Palestinian population as well as vis-a-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article follows the representation of Palestinian nationalism as a history of terrorism. This representation was produced in the Israeli media and academia, and broadcast by the state's political elite in international arenas. In the West, this image was accepted in many circles and affected the chances of the Palestinians having a fair hearing in the peace negotiations which began after the 1967 war. The article follows the construction of the equation of Palestinian nationalism with terrorism, assesses its impact on the peace process, and suggests the deconstruction of this narrative as the best way forward in future negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]