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This article delves into the intricacies of memory, resistance, and identity within the context of Palestinian experiences, as portrayed in Hala Alyan's novel, Salt Houses. This study examines the profound impact of rememory on the collective consciousness of a Palestinian family haunted by forced expulsions, upheavals, and the enduring cycle of occupation and forced migrations. The essay underscores that residual elements of past are not a passive recollection but active agents that shape the present and future. It highlights how traumatic pasts, passed down through generations, become an enduring legacy, connecting history with contemporary realities. Drawing on the characters' experiences, it showcases how the struggle for identity and resistance against displacement is interwoven with the memory of ancestral trauma. Furthermore, the research explores the role of elder Palestinians, especially grandmothers, in preserving cultural heritage and transmitting stories that bridge generations. These narratives serve not only to understand history but also as a means of challenging occupation and advocating for the right of return. The article investigates the dissonance between imagined homelands and present-day realities, shedding light on the challenges faced by subsequent generations attempting to reclaim their heritage. Keywords: Palestinian Experiences, Intergenerational Analysis, Identity, Residual Elements, Resistance, Here is Palestine, he would think. Here are the streets we'd walk in Nablus, the neighborhood we grew up in. Here is everything we loved. (Alyan, 2017: 244) Sajjad Gheytasi [...]

The main thesis in this article is that the Axis of Resistance, at the center of which is the Palestinian struggle for liberation against the settler-colonial entity (Zionist entity) in Palestine, leads the fight against imperialism in West Asia. This struggle must be situated in its regional and global context. West Asia (and North Africa) is a region in which rivalry and animosity among regional and global state and non-state actors have accelerated since the beginning of the twenty-first century. The US, in collaboration with NATO, has sought to dominate the region, beginning with the demise of the USSR in 1990, but increasingly so since 2000. A critical point in the discussion is the organic relationship between the US and the Zionist entity in Palestine, which was created to keep the Arab East and West Asia, in general, within the Western imperialist fold. Multiple wars, uprisings and instability have transpired that can best be explained in the context of global capitalism dominated by the US as a singular player leading a pliable Europe and more often than not succeeding in arranging the political map of the world in its own image. Challenges to a unilateral globalizing world soon followed complicating the international scene militarily, politically, and economically. A consequence of this development has been an increasingly unstable international situation. This confluence of events compelled state and non-state actors in West Asia that belong to the Axis of Resistance to tread gingerly and weigh their moves so as not to come, at least prematurely, into direct conflict with US hegemony. In this milieu, the Zionist entity in Palestine stepped up the oppression of the Palestinian people and ramped up their ethnic cleansing and confiscation of Palestinian lands. While the Palestinian liberation movement had benefited from the relationship between it and the regional front against US global hegemony, considerations and calculations of this front often compelled it to readjust its tactical (and sometimes strategic) considerations to maintain the global alliance opposing US hegemony. Taking advantage of this reality the Zionist entity continues to increase the pressure on the Palestinians while attempting to degrade the capabilities of the Resistance front in clear support of US regional strategy. In May 2021 the Palestinian Resistance forced the settler-colonial entity to temporarily retreat from effecting its settler-colonial machinations in Palestine. In May 2022 the Palestinians, building on the successes of their confrontation with the existential enemy have thwarted imperialist, Zionist, and reactionary Arab calculations to defeat them. A plethora of recent examples demonstrated this point. Currently, facts on the ground show that the Palestinian Resistance has opposed regional compromise and capitulation to Western imperialism by some state actors. This opposition to US imperial strategy is the sine qua non for a dynamic confrontation by the Axis of Resistance in West Asia to defeat the US hegemon. Keywords: Palestinian struggle for liberation, Ethnic cleansing, West Asia, global capitalism, Zionist settler-colonial entity, US hegemon, Introduction In May 2021 the Palestinian liberation struggle took center stage in the fight against the Zionist settler-colonial entity (Zionist entity) in Palestine, which is backed by US imperialism and [...]

This paper asks whether--and if so, how--Islamic groups such as Hamas that clearly define themselves outside a feminist framework can be studied in terms of women's empowerment. The material discussed is based on fieldwork conducted with Hamas-affiliated female Islamists, as well as women's rights activists in general, in the occupied Palestinian territories in 2007. Centrally, this work debates whether it is possible to think of women's empowerment in non-feminist terms. The significance of this study lies in two critical contributions to questions of women's empowerment in Muslim societies: Firstly, the case of Islamism exposes the hegemony of feminism--religious and secular--as a theoretical framework when we study conservative religious groups. The discourse of the Palestinian women's movement functions as the 'invisible' framework that we often use to evaluate non-feminist groups. Secondly, this paper shows the importance of giving more attention to Islamist practice. While Muslim feminists' reinterpretations of Islamic texts have made important contributions in terms of women' s empowerment, an exclusive focus on discursive analysis can result in overlooking significant developments in Muslim women's activism. Conversely, a discoursecentric analysis can lead to romanticizing organizations and movements which, despite espousing, even foregrounding, gender-egalitarianism in their discourse, are quite hierarchal and patriarchal in their practice. Key Words: Women's Empowerment, Feminism, Palestinian Women's Movement, Hamas, Islamism, Qualitative Research, Interviews, Self-Reflection, Silences, Introduction In late spring of 2007, I travelled to the occupied Palestinian West Bank to conduct my Ph.D. fieldwork on female Islamists affiliated with Hamas. I took the opportunity also [...]

The operative Netanyahu-Arafat 'Note for the Record' of 15 January 1997 lists the following among the outstanding interim agreement issues still pending on the Arab-Israel peace agenda: safe passage; Gaza [...]

The peace accord signed in 1993 by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is unlikely to lead directly to peace but may establish a willingness to work toward coexistence. Peace will depend on recognizing the Palestinian right to a viable, independent state. The accord is a poor framework for this as it consists largely of Palestinian concessions and is vague, with important omissions.

Key words: improvised poetry -- poetic debate -- line dance -- folk poet -- singer -- cataba -- hida -- mcanna -- qarradi -- qasidih INTRODUCTION THE improvised-sung poetry of [...]