National identity in the context of ethnic cleansing and settler-colonialism. The case of Palestine
10.13125/americacritica/5072
L'Autorità palestinese è stata formata al culmine del neoliberalismo sotto la supremazia di un regime repressivo coloniale per dominare internamente il capitale finanziario e immobiliare palestinese. La scissione tra Fatah e Hamas ha aumentato la vulnerabilità della grande maggioranza dei palestinesi che devono affrontare non solo alti tassi di disoccupazione e povertà, ma anche un'occupazione militare repressiva in corso e coloni ebrei aggressivi. Nella Striscia di Gaza i palestinesi vivono sotto un assedio soffocante e una situazione da ghetto. Sia Fatah che Hamas hanno approvato politiche neo-liberali, ed entrambi hanno favorito una classe media salariata relativamente ampia. La frammentazione di una sinistra indebolita ha privato i palestinesi dei due territori di una visione politica alternativa e di una strategia di lotta a quella presentata dai due principali partiti politici di queste zone. Tuttavia, l'apolidia, il neoliberismo, la frammentazione e il colonialismo rappresentano una minaccia esistenziale per tutti i palestinesi. Senza alcun futuro politico all'orizzonte sotto la continua occupazione coloniale dei coloni, la situazione diventa sempre più esplosiva poiché i palestinesi non hanno nulla da perdere.
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América Crítica
Colonialismo di insediamento, Autorità palestinese, mito della costruzione dello stato, collasso del campo politico, identità nazionale
National identity in the context of ethnic cleansing and settler-colonialism. The case of Palestine
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2022-01-14
2022-02-16
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Jamil Hilal
2021/12/31
10.13125/americacritica/5072
137
2532-6724
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Colonialismo di insediamento, Autorità palestinese, mito della costruzione dello stato, collasso del campo politico, identità nazionale
147
National identity in the context of ethnic cleansing and settler-colonialism. The case of Palestine
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                                                                             doi: https://doi.org/10.13125/americacritica/5072




National identity in the context of ethnic cleansing and
settler-colonialism. The case of Palestine
Jamil Hilal1
1 Independent   Senior Research Fellow, Palestine
E-mail: jamil.hilal@gmail.com

Recibido: 08/09/2020. Aceptado: 13/03/2021.

How to cite: Hilal, Jamil. 2021. «National identity in the context of ethnic cleansing andsettler-colonialism.           The
case of Palestine». América Crítica 5 (2): 137-147. https://doi.org/10.13125/americacritica/5072


Abstract—The Palestinian Authority was formed at the height of the neo-liberalism under the supremacy
of a settler colonial repressive regime to dominated internally by Palestinian financial, and estate capital.
The split between Fatah and Hamas heightened the vulnerability of the wide majority of Palestinians who
have to face not only high rates of unemployment and poverty, but also an ongoing military repressive
occupation and aggressive Jewish settlers. In the Gaza Strip Palestinians live under a suffocating siege and a
ghetto situation. Both Fatah and Hamas endorsed neo-liberal policies, and both fostered a relatively large
salaried middle class. The fragmentation of a weakened Left deprived Palestinians in the two territories of an
alternative political vision and a strategy of struggle to that presented by the major two political parties in
these areas. However, statelessness, neo-liberalism, fragmentation and settler-colonialism pose an existential
threat to all Palestinians. With no political future on the horizon under continued settler colonial occupation,
the situation is increasingly getting explosive as Palestinians have nothing to lose. — Settler-colonialism,
Palestinian Authority, the myth of state building, the collapse of the political field, national identity.

Abstract—L’Autorità palestinese è stata formata al culmine del neoliberalismo sotto la supremazia di un
regime repressivo coloniale per dominare internamente il capitale finanziario e immobiliare palestinese.
La scissione tra Fatah e Hamas ha aumentato la vulnerabilità della grande maggioranza dei palestinesi
che devono affrontare non solo alti tassi di disoccupazione e povertà, ma anche un’occupazione militare
repressiva in corso e coloni ebrei aggressivi. Nella Striscia di Gaza i palestinesi vivono sotto un assedio
soffocante e una situazione da ghetto. Sia Fatah che Hamas hanno approvato politiche neo-liberali, ed
entrambi hanno favorito una classe media salariata relativamente ampia. La frammentazione di una sinistra
indebolita ha privato i palestinesi dei due territori di una visione politica alternativa e di una strategia di lotta
a quella presentata dai due principali partiti politici di queste zone. Tuttavia, l’apolidia, il neoliberismo, la
frammentazione e il colonialismo rappresentano una minaccia esistenziale per tutti i palestinesi. Senza alcun
futuro politico all’orizzonte sotto la continua occupazione coloniale dei coloni, la situazione diventa sempre
più esplosiva poiché i palestinesi non hanno nulla da perdere. — Colonialismo di insediamento, Autorità
palestinese, mito della costruzione dello stato, collasso del campo politico, identità nazionale.

     ne needs to be critically alert as to who narrates      Israelis celebrate the day Israel’s establishment as the day
O      history, to what is narrated, and to what is left
untold. This is illustrated clearly by the fact that while
                                                             of their independence, Palestinians recall it as the day of
                                                             their Nakba. (i.e., national catastrophe) For Palestinian
138                                                                       América Crítica 5(1): 137–147, 2021. ISSN: 2532-6724

the 15th of May of each year is remembered since 1948                     Strip are under a very strict and suffocating system of
as the day when their homeland was plundered subjected                    siege. (Pappé 2014) A recent study concluded:
to ethnic cleansing, dispossessed by settler-colonialists
                                                                                Prominent human rights advocates and scholars
assisted by British Imperialism, and they as a people                           have argued that the killings of Palestinians and
scattered. Now in the seventy years that have passed since                      their forceful expulsion from mandate Palestine in
the Nakba Palestinians continue to be stateless, displaced,                     1948, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East
oppressed, occupied, colonized, discriminated against,                          Jerusalem, and Gaza, and the violence and discrimi-
and denied basic rights. However, Palestinians have not                         nation directed at Palestinians by the Israeli regime
stopped fighting for their historic right and continue to                       have violated a number of human rights protections
                                                                                contained in international human rights law, geno-
fight for their freedom and independence since the time
                                                                                cide being among them. (Center for Constitutional
when British Imperialism, in the Balfour Declaration                            Rights 2016)
of 1917, promised Palestine as a Jewish homeland and
opened the country to the Zionist project to colonize it. A               Palestinian communities in shatat (diasporas) are either
project that was successfully implemented in May 1948                     stateless communities existing with no or with restricted
with the establishment of Israel over 78% of the land                     social and political rights in refugee camps and/or indi-
of Palestine. In June 1967, Israel occupied by military                   viduals denied the right of return to their native homeland
force the remaining 22% of Palestine and subjected it to                  (as required by the United Nations resolution 194) or as
a process of settler colonialism.                                         immigrants or migrant workers that lack the necessary
                                                                          protection afforded by citizens of sovereign states.
O UTLINING OF THE CURRENT                        FEATURES OF                  Since the early 1990s a number of processes and
THE PALESTINIAN QUESTION                                                  events have, at various levels accentuated the coloniza-
                                                                          tion, dispossession, discrimination and “bantustanization”
The first thing to remark is that the historical reality of               of the Palestinian communities. There was, first, the dras-
the forceful settler-colonization of Palestine has been                   tic changes in the international system that followed the
intentionally veiled by the promotion of a specific dis-                  collapse of the Soviet Union that acted as the main in-
course on the “Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” A discourse                 ternational ally of the PLO. This collapse promoted and
that obscures or denies the fact of the double process of                 accelerated the neo-liberal globalization of capitalism.
imperialism and settler colonialism (British and Zionist)                 The collapse of socialism and ascendance of neoliber-
that Palestine was subjected to between the First World                   alism on a world scale facilitated an international polit-
War and 1948. A process that included systematic ethnic                   ical discourse that altered the standing and perception
cleansing. (Pappé 2007; Peters and Newman 2013) A                         of the Palestinian question substantively. They included
process that was resumed in 1967 to engulf the whole                      secondly, the Middle East undergoing major political
of Palestine. This process is the defining feature of the                 changes following the signing of the Camp David peace
Palestinian question.                                                     agreement between Egypt and Israel (in 1978), the Is-
    Palestinian communities inside historic Palestine                     lamist revolution in Iran (1979), the Gulf Wars in the
and in the shatat (diasporas) face political and socio-                   early 1990s, and the rise of the financial power of the
economic conditions that vary in terms of their severity                  Gulf states with the impetus that gave to radical Islamic
of control, exclusion, discrimination and marginaliza-                    movements.
tion. Those who remained in their original homeland (i.e.                     The enforced exit of the PLO from Lebanon and the
historic Palestine), and who form roughly half the total                  fragmentation of its forces, the eruption of the first Pales-
estimated number of Palestinians (6.5 million in 2017)
remain subject to varying degrees of discrimination, con-                 on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination”. A study
trol and ethnic cleansing. Palestinians who possess Israeli               coordinated by the Middle East Project of the Democracy and Gov-
                                                                          ernance Programme, Human Sciences Research Council of South
nationality are treated as third class citizens by the Israeli
                                                                          Africa concluded that Israel’s practices in the 1967 Palestinian occu-
state, (Hawari 2017) Palestinians in the West Bank are                    pied territories amount to apartheid and colonialism (HSRC, Occupa-
subject to an apartheid system,1 while those in the Gaza                  tion, Colonialism, Apartheid? A re-assessment of Israel’s practices
                                                                          in the occupied Palestinian territories under international law, Cape
1 In the Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human       Town, May 2009). There are some features of a “reserve” system
rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, John Dugard,   similar to what the indigenous peoples in America and Australia were
2007 reached the conclusion that Israel’s policies “resemble those        subjected to, that do not alter the main thrust of the argument. On
of apartheid” and added that it “is difficult to resist the conclusion    some of the specific features of the Zionist colonization of Palestine,
that many of Israel’s laws and practices violate the 1966 Convention      see Machover (2005).
Hilal, National identity                                                                                                                139

tinian intifada at the end of 1987, and the political and                      PLO as the emphasis came to rest on the state-building
financial isolation of the PLO in the early 1990, isolation                    institutions of the PA. This translated into a neglect of the
paved the way to the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993.                      national political field and its fragmentation into separate
This signing and the establishment of the Palestinian                          local fields or political spaces, reflecting the geo-political
Authority (PA) in 1994, under an ongoing military oc-                          distribution of the Palestinians. This was reflected by
cupation and settler-colonialism was a dynamic that had                        the gradual emergence of a new political discourse that
its own special ramifications. Most of all the establish-                      gained overwhelming dominance after the death of Arafat
ment of the PA in the specific political context (national,                    in 2004. A ‘state-centered’ jargon attained a formal sta-
regional, and international) have major outcomes on the                        tus in the official discourse of the PA, the discourse of
Palestinian political field, the grammar of the Palestinian                    Palestinian and international NGOs, and the discourse
question, and on national identity or sentiment.                               of international organizations as the “two-state” solution
                                                                               attained a kind of a undisputed status.
T HEDISMANTLEMENT OF THE                            PALESTINIAN                    The new discourse (embodying political plans and per-
NATIONAL POLITICAL FIELD                                                       ceptions) promoted a diffused legitimacy to the fragmen-
                                                                               tation of Palestine as a geography, history, demography,
The Palestinian national political field2 emerged as a na-                     a cause, and rights. The terminology for Palestine was
tional liberation movement following the 1948 monumen-                         replaced bythe ‘Palestinian occupied territories.’ This
tal destruction of the old field in the late 1960s. It took the                language invaded the discourse of the leadership of the
form of the PLO with a leading center located outside his-                     PA and Arab diplomatic language (as in the Peace Ini-
toric Palestine. This field remained effectively under the                     tiative proposed by the Arab Summit I, held in Beirut in
hegemony of the PLO until it was maneuvered to trans-                          2002), and the official Arab (and international) media.
fer itself into a self-governing authority (on parts of the                    Palestinians who remained on their homeland in 1948
West Bank [WB] and Gaza Strip [GS] in the form of the                          were referred to as Israeli Arabs and were not classified
Palestinian Authority [PA]) in 1994 following the signing                      by Israel mainly by their religion and ethnicity (Muslims,
with Israel of the Oslo accords. This transformation was                       Christians, Druze, and Bedouins).
managed under the rubric of Palestinian state building                             Refugees were rarely featured as Palestinians who
within the confines of a regime of settler-colonialism.                        were ethnically cleansed and forcibly evicted from Pales-
Twenty-five years of negotiations have shown clearly that                      tine, and their future was no longer determined by their
no state building was possible under the rubrics of an                         right of return to their homeland as an indigenous people,
encroaching settler-colonialism.                                               and by compensation for dispossession, and prolonged
    One major outcome of Oslo accords and the pursuit of                       suffering and deprivation. At best they were defined as a
Palestinian statehood was the stripping of the PLO of its                      humanitarian problem to be dealt with through UNRWA
historic function as the all-embracing national institution                    which has come increasingly under pressure in recent
representing the components of all the Palestinian people.                     years in a clear attempt to drive it out of existence and
By acknowledging the right of Israel to exist, the PLO                         with it the Palestinian refugee cause. Palestinian refugees
accepted the Zionist narrative. Israel, on the other hand,                     appeared also often as a security problem by states where
accepted the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian                      their camps are located and were/are treated as third class
people (that is as a negotiating (minor) partner) without                      citizens subject to overt or covert (or both) discriminatory
acknowledging their right to independent statehood on                          laws and regulation.
their homeland, or part of their homeland nor the right of                         The stance taken by the President Trump Adminis-
return for Palestinians forced out of their homeland.                          tration at the end of 2017 and first months of 2018 is
    The transformation from a national liberation move-                        indicative of attempts by Western dominant powers (i.e.,
ment to a self-governing authority seeking statehood led,                      US) to continually down-size the Palestinian question. It
inevitably, to the marginalization of the institutions of the                  was reduced from the whole of Palestine (as the home
                                                                               of Palestinians) to the area occupied in 1967 by Israel
2 A political field (as a field of political forces) refers to space cre-
ated by a nation-state or national liberation movement and as such,
                                                                               (i.e., to WB and GS). Then it continued to move towards
they manage spaces that are open for political contestation between            the Israeli position where The President of the United
political groups and parties for power and influence. It is national           States, removed East Jerusalem from the “negotiation”
institutions (judicial, executive, legislative, educational, etc.,) that de-   table, and then the refugee question has to be excluded
fine the boundaries of the field. On the concept of “field” in sociology.
(Bourdieu 1993)
                                                                               and the saga continues (borders, colonial settlements. . . ).
140                                                                     América Crítica 5(1): 137–147, 2021. ISSN: 2532-6724

Once the Palestinian question is taken out of its histori-              authorities continued to be under the overall control (eco-
cal context, it becomes easy to fragment it into discreet               nomic, security and military) of Israel. The political split
issues up (separately) for bilateral negotiations between               between the GS and WB concluded the fragmentation of
two parties of vastly unequal power.                                    the Palestinian national political field according to geo-
    Many of the changes in viewing the Palestinian ques-                political criteria.
tion are anchored in the conceptualization of its roots                     The Palestinian political field lost its national char-
and the mechanisms of its reproduction. If we disregard                 acter leaving behind local crippled (in their lack of au-
the mythical and biblical idiom of the Zionist narrative,               tonomy) fields formed on geo-political basis. The PLO
which depicts Palestine as a divine promised land for                   retained, in name, the attribute of the representative of
Jews, Zionism amounts to nothing more than a European                   all Palestinians, but in reality, it lost its representative,
settler-colonial ideology that emerged at the end of the                legitimate, and functional institutions. The waning of
19th century in response to pogroms, discrimination, and                regular organizational and political links between Pales-
repression of Jews in Europe. It adopted the main ele-                  tinian communities exposed Palestinian communities to
ments of the European settler-colonialist ideology but                  new dangers and vulnerabilities. The West Bank became
relied strongly, and still does, on the major Western colo-             subject to “Bantustanization” and to being turned into a
nial powers and empires for the realization of its project;             number of “ghettoes,” as it was converted into separated
first the British Empire and then the Unites States. Zion-              enclaves or “reservations” encircled by Israeli Jewish
ism is a European phenomenon that was prompted by                       settlements that are located on higher ground than Pales-
anti-Semitism, which is another European phenomenon.                    tinian towns and refugee camps. The latter are further
It does not have any of the attributes of national liber-               encircled by by-pass roads, by the Segregation Wall, and
ation movements that it claims, as its main target was,                 by area “C” (forms 62% of the total area of the West
and remains, the ethnic cleansing of indigenous people                  Bank) which remains under total Israeli civil, military
of Palestine.3 (Hilal 1976; Wolfe 2006; Achcar 2017)                    and security control.
                                                                            The Palestinian national political field that was con-
F ROM THE “ NATIONAL ” TO THE “ LOCAL ”                                 structed in the sixties faced a synergy of processes and
                                                                        forces (international, regional, and national), that inter-
The focus of the Palestinian political elite moved towards
                                                                        acted in the eighties and early nineties of the last century
state building on parts of historic Palestine (i.e., the WB
                                                                        to expedite its break up into local “fields”. I will not
and GS) and on the strengthening of the institutions of
                                                                        dwell on these processes and forces here, as I discussed
the PA before the end of the Israeli military occupation
                                                                        these in detail somewhere else (Hilal 2017b).The break
was bound to result in the neglect of the institutions of the
                                                                        up appears in many forms; as a crisis of representation; a
PLO and their national representative functions. Pales-
                                                                        crisis of leadership; a crisis engendered by the inability
tinian communities outside the WB and GS were left
                                                                        to formulate a clear national strategy, and as a reflection
to their own resources and devices in the hope that an
                                                                        of the predominance of a high level of political poverty
independent Palestinian state is in the making. Not only
                                                                        among Palestinian political parties.4
that proved illusionary, after a quarter of a century of “ne-
                                                                            The demise of national institutions was not confined
gotiations,” but also in reality the settler-colonial project
                                                                        to the legislative and political spheres such as the Pales-
intensified after The Oslo accords.
                                                                        tinian National Council (PNC),but included the civil do-
    Both the external pressures of the occupying settler-
                                                                        main, such as popular organizations (women, workers,
colonial power and the internal pressures that were
                                                                        students), trade unions (teachers, writers, lawyers, en-
mounted by the political opposition (mainly Islamic) and
                                                                        gineers, doctors, etc.), voluntary organizations that pro-
the supervision of neo-liberal international financial insti-
                                                                        vided the Palestinian communities with channels of in-
tutions and donors, resulted in June 2007, in the split of
                                                                        teraction and participation. The process of political frag-
the PA into two distinct (territorially, institutionally and
                                                                        mentation and individuation (as a result of neo-liberal
politically), self-governing authorities; one in the WB,
                                                                        commercialization of life) widened inequality in income,
led by Fatah and the other in GS led by Hamas. Both
                                                                        wealth and life chances at the regional, community, fam-
3 In his “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native”,
Wolfe notes: “As Palestinians become more and more dispensable,
Gaza and the West Bank become less and less like Bantustans and         4 The concept of political poverty was brought to my attention by
more and more like reservations (or, for that matter, like the Warsaw   Yassin al-Hajj Saleh (2004), in his article “Concept of the Political
Ghetto). Porous borders do not offer a way out” (Wolfe 2006: 404).      Poverty Line”.
Hilal, National identity                                                                                                                    141

ily and gender levels.5                                                   demise of the PLO and the emergence, in its place, of self-
    Political fragmentation was an outcome of the demise                  governing authorities in the WB and GS, has been the
of national institutions and the transformation of the                    intensification of settler-colonialism and the barbarism
Palestinian liberation movement into a state building en-                 of the Zionist regime. Colonial settlements, land confis-
terprise before of the lifting of the settler-colonial occupa-            cation, the construction of a segregation wall, military
tion. Fragmentation can mean, eventually, a disregarding                  checkpoints, bypass roads (for Israelis only), house demo-
of the right of Palestinian communities to take part in the               lition,7 and imprisonment without trial, continued with-
struggle for collective and historic rights and to be rep-                out any deterrent.8 These include Palestinian political
resented in the national institutions. The fact that some                 leaders, elected legislative council members, ministers,
political parties or factions are still active in more than               and activists, etc.). This is not to mention daily violence
one Palestinian community (particularly Fatah, Hamas)                     and the destruction administered by Israeli extreme right-
does not mean more than that they, operate autonomously                   wing settlers.
in each community without an effective unifying national                      By the end of 2015some Israeli sources estimate no
political strategy or framework, given the restrictions and               less than 800 thousand Jewish colonial settlers were liv-
limitations imposed by geopolitics on their activities and                ing on the occupied area of the West Bank on land ex-
modes of organizations. Since the Oslo accords, the main                  propriated by force.9 These form about 13% of Israel’s
contest for power has been between Fatah and Hamas                        Jewish population and about a fifth of the Palestinians
and entirely focused within the WB and GS where each                      residing in the West Bank. It is part of the process of
retains a significant presence.6 . The somewhat high rate                 colonization that has been active in the part of Palestine
of “support” (electoral rather than political) for Fatah and              that was conquered in 1948.10 The Zionist colonialists
Hamas in the WB and GS relates to the resources each                      in the WB had gained influence in the army, government
had access to in these two areas, particularly in terms of                and political society to a much higher extent than their
employment and career promotion where each formed                         size.11
self-governing authorities.
    However, the most noticeable fact following the                       E VICTING PALESTINIANS FROM HISTORY AND
                                                                          GEOGRAPHY AND DENYING THEM THE RIGHT
5 See also reports of the Independent Commission on Human Rights          TO SELF - DETERMINATION
- the monthly Diwan of Grievances (Ramallah and The Gaza) on
the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied     ethnic cleansing of a large number of Palestinians from
in 1967. Azmi Al-Shaabi, Advisor to the Board of Directors of             their homeland and its total occupation by Israel in June
the AMAN (Coalition for Integrity and Accountability), confirmed
                                                                          1967 sanctioned a Zionist discourse that denies the right
that the salaries of some managers in some public institutions were
more than USD 10,000, whereas in similar institutions for the same        of Palestinians to be a people, have their own history, ge-
tasks and responsibilities, the salary did not exceed USD 2,000. The      ography and demand self-determination. The process of
civil service staff of the Civil Service Law shall be subject to the      neo-liberal capitalist globalization and the rise in the last
salary scale established in this law, in which the Minister’s salary      two decades of the right-wing governments worldwide,
shall not exceed USD 3,000. See, Sama News Agency, July 16,
2015. (https://bit.ly/3n0KvsZ) For differences in rates of poverty,       and in Israel, enhanced the discourse that evicts Palestini-
unemployment, and income, see the regular surveys carried out by          ans from history, and geography and criminalizes their
the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. (https://bit.ly/3eYplXS).
6 The percentage of members (the percentage of supporters is higher)      7 Since the occupation of the Palestinian territories following the Six
in political organizations in the WB and the GS in 2012 was about         Day War in 1967 down to 2015, it has been estimated by the Israeli
21%. It is likely to be less among Palestinians in the shatat and Jor-    Committee Against House Demolitions that Israel has razed 48,488
dan. See, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies; Arab Public        Palestinian structures (https://icahd.org/). This does not include the
Opinion Measurement Project, Arab Indicator 2012, June 2013, Doha,        large number of houses destroyed or seriously damaged by the Israeli
Qatar (Figure 92). Recent public opinion polls by PSR (September          army during its three wars on GS in 2008, 2012, and 2014.
2017; public opinion poll N. 65) in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip      8 See, for example Nashif (2008). It is estimated that a quarter of
indicate that Fatah and Hamas are supported by less than 50% (25%         Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has been imprisoned by
for Fatah and 21% for Hamas) and the Left by about 5%; the Islamic        the colonial occupying power since 1967.
Jihad by about 4%; those who viewed themselves as independent             9 See https://bit.ly/3pXp3a8.
nationalists came to 6%, and those as Independent Islamists to 3%;        10 On the relationship between Zionism and colonization and control
Some 36% said they do not support any of the existing parties. and        over land and the creation of “ghettos”, see Razi Nabulsi (2017).
between a quarter and a third of the respondents do not support any       11 On the growth of the influence of right-wing Jewish settlers in
of the known political organizations in the West Bank and the Gaza        the WB on Israeli politics and society, see Israeli Scene 2016, The
Strip. See regular published polls by the Palestinian Center for Policy   Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies (MADAR) presents the MADAR
and Survey (PSR).                                                         Strategic Report 2017. (https://bit.ly/3n0shrL).
142                                                                        América Crítica 5(1): 137–147, 2021. ISSN: 2532-6724

struggle for freedom and self-determination. This dis-                        the record of the long history of Palestinian resistance
course was (and still is) used to defend and vindicate                        to settler colonialism, and its long and ongoing bloody
the use of excessive repression and collective despotism                      Palestinian struggle forself-determination and freedom
against Palestinians and justify land theft and settler-                      from the colonial yoke.
colonization.
    A quick glance at the discourse that has come to dom-                  T HE COLLAPSE OF THE MYTH OF STATE BUILD -
inate the Palestinian question, not only within the Israeli                ING UNDER SETTLER - COLONIALISM
narrative but as part of the wider narrative current in the
                                                                           The right to construct an independent Palestinian state
language of international organizations and international
                                                                           on the WB and GS was not clearly stated in the Oslo
mass media as well as in the language of regional bodies
                                                                           accords, and was assumed by the Palestinian leadership
(such as the Arab League), reveals the following:12
                                                                           to be the unstated result of negotiations with Israel. After
• Firstly, Palestine has been undersized to the confines                   nearly a quarter of a century of negotiations, it became
  of the WB and GS (i.e. to 22% of the size of historic                    clear that it was not on the Israeli (or American) political
  Palestine). As far as the Israeli political class is con-                agenda. What is on the agenda is creeping land annexa-
  cerned, and this is shared by the political class in U.S.                tion and raising the number of colonial settlers in the WB,
  and Europe and in other places, the area of the WB                       while avoiding annexing territory with dense Palestinian
  (including Jerusalem) remains a contested area. This is                  populations to avoid undermining the “Jewish” character
  while Israel continues to implement an annexationist                     of the Israeli state or promoting the prospect of a unified
  policy of the maximum area of WB, with the mini-                         democratic state in historic Palestine.
  mum of the native Palestinian population, in order to                        With “Bantustanization” of the WB the prospects of
  protect and maintain the “Jewish” character of Israel.                   Palestinian independent statehood can be averted, and
  The populated areas in the West Bank (and Gaza Strip)                    the population kept under Israeli military, administrative,
  form disconnected “ghettos” over which Palestinians                      and economic control and manipulation. The United
  can form a “state” as long as it remains under Israeli                   Nations warned a few years ago, and has repeated the
  military and security control.                                           same warning since, that the GS cannot sustain itself
• Secondly, Israel used Security Council resolutions 242                   given its extremely high population density, its limited re-
  and 338 (since they do not mention Palestinians) to                      sources and the severe restrictions imposed on it.14 The
  promote the idea that there is no such thing as a Pales-                 idea of state building under Israeli settler-colonialism
  tinian people, and the Palestinian areas it occupied in                  was disseminated with the idea that sustainable develop-
  June 1967 were negotiable, and for Jerusalem (both                       ment can take place under colonial conditions. This idea
  East and West) to remained “united” and the eternal                      was endorsed by the Palestinian Authority soon after its
  capital of Israel.                                                       establishment in 1994, partly because it hoped that the
• Thirdly, to promote the idea implanted in the Oslo                       transition from limited self-rule in the West Bank and
  accords that the Palestinian question revolves round                     Gaza Strip to independent statehood was a likely process.
  the fate of the Palestinians in the WB and GS Strip                      The idea of sustainable economic development under
  who are represented by the PA. Other Palestinians do                     settler-colonialism is still alive despite the fact the PA has
  not figure as part of the question. Palestinian history is
                                                                           right of return, the colonial-military occupation of Palestinian ter-
  dated from June war of 1967 (i.e., with the occupation
                                                                           ritories, and discriminatory practices against Palestinian citizens of
  of the WB and GS). This is very convenient for Israel                    Israel (WCAR NGO Forum Declaration and Programme of Action,”
  as it absolves it from the crime of ethnic cleansing,                    (Durban, South Africa, 28 August – 3 September 2001).
  and from the responsibility of rectifying the historic                   14 The report states that the “substantial population growth rate will
                                                                           thus add some 500,000 people to a living area which is restricted and
  injustice it, with assistance from imperialist powers,
                                                                           already heavily urbanized. Fundamental infrastructure in electricity,
  committed against Palestinians.13 It also obliterates                    water and sanitation, municipal and social services, is struggling
                                                                           to keep pace with the needs of the growing population.” It adds:
12 For more on this, see Hilal (2015).                                     “By 2020, electricity provision will need to double to meet demand,
13 In 2001, the UN held the World Conference against Racism,               damage to the coastal aquifer will be irreversible without immediate
Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR)           remedial action, and hundreds of new schools and expanded health
in Durban, South Africa. In addition to the diplomatic forum, an NGO       services will be needed for an overwhelmingly young population.”
Forum was held and resulted in a document that proclaimed, among           The report adds, “Tens of thousands of housing units are needed
other things, Israel a racist, apartheid state that committed systematic   today.” (See United Nations News Centre, 27 August 2012: http:
human rights violations, including the denial of Palestinian refugees’     //www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=42751).
Hilal, National identity                                                                                                         143

no control over natural resources (or in fact over much       • Thirdly, a vibrant cultural field that not only keeps the
of the territory of West Bank), over border crossings           Palestinian historic narrative live but also enriches it
(and trade), over movements inside the WB and between           with experiences spurred by the different Palestinian
this region and the GS and between both these and the           communities that exist in historic Palestine and outside
Jerusalem area. The building of the Separation Wall and         it.
bypass roads, the permit system, the presence of perma-
                                                              In short, a historic narrative that is articulated by condi-
nent check points, the continuous expansion of colonies,
                                                              tions of statelessness, dispossession and discrimination
and Israeli total control of area C and easy access to the
                                                              is what propels Palestinian patriotism.
rest have ensured Israel of control of the major aspects
                                                                   It is important to note that a political field is domi-
of Palestinian life.
                                                              nated and defined by inclusive national institutions (ex-
    The Palestinian Authority was created and remains to
                                                              ecutive, legislative, judicial, etc.). The institutions of a
this day a precarious political construction (an “authority
                                                              nation-state or a national liberation movement (at least at
without authority” as the President of that Authority de-
                                                              the ideal-typical level) define the contours of the political
clared many time in recent years) dependent on foreign
                                                              national field. The PA tried to jump from the one field to
aid and Israeli assessments and choices. Assessments
                                                              the other, but succeeded in losing the one (i.e., national
and choices that made the continued colonial occupation
                                                              liberation movement) without gaining the other (i.e., the
not only the “cheapest in the history of occupations”, but
                                                              nation-state). The political field needs to be distinguished
also a very profitable one.
                                                              from the cultural field, where culture is defined in the
    The idea was propagated by the European Union and
                                                              inclusive sense that includes literature, art, music, theatre,
adopted by the PA after the second intifada, that build-
                                                              songs, architecture, customs, etc. It is within the cultural
ing efficient and transparent state-like institutions would
                                                              field that the debate on the structure, values, history, and
prompt international support for an independent Pales-
                                                              future of the society takes place. National identity is
tinian state. The PA succeeded building institutions that
                                                              constructed, reconstructed, and debated within the cul-
were certified, by World Bank and the IMF, as worthy of
                                                              tural field, with interventions from the political field. It
statehood. However, statehood was not granted nor was it
                                                              is worth noting that the Palestinian cultural field was till
created. The naivety of the whole idea was exposed when
                                                              early 1990s dominated by “secular” and “democratic”
the USA threatened to use its full power and influence to
                                                              values (of freedom and equality and justice) as a quick
defeat the Palestinian application in the Security Council,
                                                              glance at the list of influential intellectuals (artists, novel-
which it did in December 2014).
                                                              ist, poets, film-makers, journalists, historians, etc.) would
                                                              show and the constituent factions of the PLO clearly in-
T HEDYNAMICS OF            PALESTINIAN       NATIONAL
                                                              dicate. (Hilal 2002; Hilal 2017a)
IDENTITY
                                                                   The fragmentation of the Palestinian people, society
What propels and keeps Palestinian patriotism at a high       and political field did abate for specific periods the ef-
pitch is a question that deserves consideration. Pales-       fectiveness of resistance against the colonial state, but
tinians continue to be a stateless people, without a          has not dampened the vitality of Palestinian identity or
functioning national liberation movement, and with-           patriotism.15 Recently this ongoing vitality has shown it-
out any prospects in the near future of achieving self-       self in the brave acts of resistance of youth against Israeli
determination. Nevertheless, Palestinian patriotism con-      soldiers and settlers that started in October 2015 and con-
tinues to be very much alive in Palestinian communities.      tinued for months. These acts expressed the strength and
    Three main dynamics keep Palestinian patriotism           endurance of Palestinian patriotism and the deep hatred to
alive, as it defines itself in terms of the desire for lib-   Israel’s colonial occupation and oppression.16 Patriotism
eration and freedom from oppression, occupation, and
                                                              15 “Identity”, I suggest, has no significance unless it is the expression
discrimination. These are:                                    of belonging or unless it contains claims or assertions over certain
                                                              rights (consequently the relationship to another or others). It has no
• Firstly, the existing Palestinian condition as created      meaning unless it bears a political, social or historical content or all
  and maintained by a racist settler-colonialism, by          of that. National identity is constructed, reconstructed, and debated
  regimes of discrimination;                                  through the cultural field, which narrates a people’s history and its
                                                              interpretations of that history.
• Secondly, the rich, varied, and ongoing forms of re-        16 Between October 2015 and March 2016, individual Palestinians
  sistance (individual and collective) against Palestinian    conducted spontaneous, mostly individual attacks on Israeli soldiers
  dispossession and repression;                               and settlers. There were 211 stabbings, 83 shootings, and 42 car-
144                                                                       América Crítica 5(1): 137–147, 2021. ISSN: 2532-6724

expresses itself in the mass funerals of the young men and                and 1980s as the PLO institutions were marginalized and
women felled by Israeli bullets, by popular demonstra-                    national professional, and grassroots organizations were
tions demanding the handover of their bodies seized by                    dismantled. The Palestinian people have lost their ac-
the Israeli military. It is also manifested in the resolve of             tive national institutions and were actively prevented for
the fight of the inhabitants of the village of al-’Araqeeb                building their nation-state. It is surprising therefore that
in the Negev, which has been destroyed by the Israeli                     the survey, mentioned above, showed only a small mi-
authorities 128 times (up to January 2018) and rebuilt by                 nority in the four Palestinian communities studied (WB,
the Palestinian villagers as many. It was expressed by                    GS, Palestinians in Lebanon and Palestinians with Israeli
the 16-years-old Ahed Tamimi from the village of Nabi                     passports) who considered both the PA and the PLO or
Salih who was held prisoner because she challenged with                   any of Islamic movements as their representative.
her bare fists armed Israeli soldiers as they invaded (in                     What we see clearly is a situation where the fractur-
December 2017) her family’s home. Such stories abound                     ing of the political field does not lead to the fracturing of
but do not always appear in the news. It is also expressed                national identity. This occurred in1948 when the Pales-
in the massive peaceful processions towards the fence in                  tinian political field was completely demolished, and
Gaza Strip and elsewhere demanding the right of return.                   Palestinian society devastated, and Palestinians were sub-
    It is pertinent to cite some of the findings of a sur-                jected to ethnic cleansing and chased out of their home-
vey, carried out by the Center for Development Studies                    land; yet Palestinian identity and patriotism succeeded in
at Birzeit University. The survey was supervised and                      rejuvenating itself and laid the ground for the rebirth of a
implemented in the last week of February 2016, on the                     new national political field.
attitudes of Palestinians in four communities (three in                       Palestinian identity presents itself in patriotic combat-
historical Palestine (1948, WB, and GS) and the fourth                    ive terms as it combines the endorsement of Palestinian
in Lebanon) on a large number of issues including that of                 historical narrative with the upholding of Palestinian na-
identity.17 An analysis of the results of the survey on this              tional rights with a commitment to Palestinian identity.
aspect indicate the following: (Hilal 2016c) The political                However, Palestinian identity appears with other identi-
and cultural fields act in relative autonomy in relation                  ties in a plurality that is employed to enhance the national
to each other. While the Palestinian national political                   struggle and reaffirm historic rights. Thus Palestinians in
field (Hilal 2016a) was, particularly following Oslo, dis-                the 1948 occupied area stressed their Arab identity along-
mantled and left behind local fields, the Palestinian cul-                side their Palestinian identity, emphasizing this in their
tural field remained intact to a large extent and continued               ongoing confrontation with the Zionist colonial state and
the task of upholding and protecting the Palestinian na-                  ideology, which endeavored to efface their identity as the
tional narrative. It kept the Palestinian national identity               native and original inhabitants of Palestine – an identity
alive from the impact of the diverse and adverse con-                     that appeared as part of Arab culture with Palestinian
ditions to which various Palestinian communities have                     history. Palestinians in Lebanon strongly stressed their
been subjected. In other words, what was fragmented                       Palestinian identity notwithstanding the ongoing discrim-
and shuttered was not national identity, as claimed by                    ination against them there. Here the stress amounts to an
some,18 but the political field, as it existed in the 1970s               assertion of the historic rights of the Palestinian people to
                                                                          return to the homeland from which they were ethnically
ramming attacks, killing 30 Israelis and two Americans. In the same       cleansed. Palestinian identity did not present itself as an
period, over 200 Palestinians were killed, many were under the age        essentialist configuration but carried a historical, cultural
of 18 and most were considered by human rights organizations as           and political statement, and neighbored other identities.19
extrajudicial executions or murders. They were extrajudicial murders
in the sense that they were murders committed by state agents outside     19 The percentage of those who identified themselves, first, as Pales-
any due process but motivated by a state agenda (i.e., by a settler-      tinians exceeded any other self-identifications in the West Bank
colonial racist state).                                                   and Gaza Strip. Being an Arab in the Palestinian territory occu-
17 See Centre of Development Studies (2017). On the issue of              pied in 1948 came highest as either a first or second choice in self-
Palestinian youth Hilal (2013a), Hilal (2016b).                           identification; some 63% identified themselves first or second as
18 Here is an example: “There is noticeable amputation, fuzziness         Palestinian compared to 68% as Arabs. In Gaza Strip the ratio was
and ambiguity around Palestinians’ perception of themselves and the       87% as Palestinian, and 81% chose a religious identity. In Lebanon
others, which paved its way into the political culture and its impact     94% identified themselves in their first and second choice as Pales-
thereon to the extent that it weakens its ability to enhance democrati-   tinian while 62% chose a religious identity. In the West Bank 92%
zation” (Zubeidi 2002: 50). No evidence appeared to agree within          considered themselves by first and second choice Palestinian com-
the findings of the survey conducted by the Center for Development        pared to 63% who chose a religious identity. In the four communities,
Studies - Birzeit University.                                             the family/clan was considered as the “primary” identity at very high
Hilal, National identity                                                                                                   145

    The above-mentioned research, among other studies,             N EO - LIBERALISM AND “ STATE ”           BUILDING UN -
reveals the workings of a lively national identity, repre-         DER SETTLER - COLONIALISM
sented in the presence of a broad consensus in all four
communities on identifying Palestine as the geography              Palestinian communities underwent profound socio-
and demography of the Palestinian people, and on di-               economic change since the early 1990s. These changes
agnosing the causes of the Palestinian political impasse.          were of three types; those related to social structure;
Consensus also appeared in the consideration of means to           changes related to the organization and ideology of politi-
deal with the national impasse. The highest percentage in          cal parties or movements, and changes related to the inter-
all four communities defined Palestine as it existed prior         nal socio-economic and behavioral dynamics promoted
to 1948. True that the lowest rate of respondents who              by neo-liberalism. These developments as manifested in
identified Palestine with its historical borders and defined       the WB and GS (probably also in other communities) left
Palestinians as those who were born and descendants of             their imprints on the perceptions of the limits of politi-
those born in historical Palestine was among the Pales-            cal action, as they sponsored an individualism (resulting
tinians of the area occupied in 1948. Still, the majority          from the atomization of society) that is not amenable
there (50%) defined Palestine according to its historical          easily to collective action.
border, while 33% of them defined it as the West Bank                  The creation of the PA, as the nub of the sought for
and Gaza Strip with17% approving the definition of the             Palestinian state, stimulated the enlargement of the mid-
UN Partition Plan according to resolution 181. This low            dle class, defined by employment that require possession
score compared to the other three Palestinian communi-             of “cultural” capital (high education and professional
ties can be explained by the impact of two processes on            and special skills). In the WB and GS those employed
Palestinians in Israel; firstly, the “Israelization” process       in middle class jobs made (by the second decade of the
to which they were subjected, and secondly, the “collat-           current century) some 30 percent of the labor force by
eral damage” to which they were subjected as a result of           the middle of the first decade of this century. They pop-
the Oslo accords, which left them out of the negotiation           ulated the structures, institutions, and bodies of the PA
process. Consequently, Palestinians with Israeli pass-             (ministries, outfits, bureaus, and security apparatuses);
ports believed, rightly, that they no longer figure in the         the offices of the newly established private modern eco-
strategies of the PLO or the PA, as both acknowledged              nomic sector (communications, insurance, banks, high
the right of Israel to exist.                                      tech, etc.); and managed the relatively large number of
    The vitality of the popular Palestinian culture ap-            NGOs. The emerging Palestinian middle class was not a
peared in the hierarchy of the choices regarding what              unified class as it remained divided politically (between
unites the Palestinian people. The order came as follows           liberal nationalists, Islamists, and various strands of the
(according to age groups starting from the younger to the          left); by source of income (public sector, modern private
older age group): “land and homeland” scored the highest           sector, NGO sector, self-employed); by education (grad-
rate across the three age groups. “Religion” came second           uates of Palestinian universities, Arab universities, East
with a large gap between it and “land and homeland”,               European universities, Western universities, and other
while the “collective feeling” came third and “history”            universities; and by place of work and residence (West
ranked last. The fact that “land and homeland” scored              Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip). As a class, it is tied
the highest rate regarding what unites the Palestinian             down by office work and became increasingly tied to
people was not arbitrary or uninformed; it reflected the           bank loans undertaken to finance a middle-class style of
spontaneous understanding that the Palestinian struggle            life. The new middle class presents itself as difficult to
against the Zionist movement and Israel has always been            mobilize for collective political action because of diverse
a struggle over Palestine as a homeland, which forms the           interests, outlooks, and political affiliations. It could not
object of national liberation for the Palestinian people.          enroll in a third intifada, particularly as the leadership of
                                                                   the PA was averse to such action and the leadership of
                                                                   Hamas was not in a position to act differently because of
                                                                   the total siege imposed on Gaza, and the restrictions on
                                                                   its activities in the WB.
                                                                       The dominant group of the business class consisted
rates (West Bank 67%, Gaza 78%, land occupied in 1948 around 79%   mainly of importers, and those with large financial and
and in Lebanon 70%).                                               estate capital. This group is inclined to maintain good
146                                                               América Crítica 5(1): 137–147, 2021. ISSN: 2532-6724

connections with the PA bureaucratic and political elite          power), and was soon dominated internally by financial,
and is motivated to keep or smooth relations with the             and estate capital, and under the supremacy of a racist
Israeli authorities to protect their business interests. Any      colonial regime. The society was plagued by high rates
collective acts of resistance to the Israeli occupation are       of unemployment and impoverishment, with a very small,
likely to be perceived as threatening directly their inter-       wealthy Palestinian elite.22 A new reality appeared in
ests.                                                             urban centers of the WB and GS where the rich indulged
     Those who are engaged in manual (unskilled or semi-          inconspicuous consumption and unashamed display of
skilled) work constitute (in WB and GS) roughly half              wealth. Such scenes would have been unthinkable before
the labor force, but remain dispersed among many tens             and during the first intifada. In 2016, the West Bank saw
of thousands of very small enterprises (89 percent em-            large-scale strikes by teachers demanding better salaries,
ploying fewer than five employees.20 Most workers are             and by workers demonstrating against a social security
not unionized, and therefore cannot play the role that            law proposed by the PA that discriminated against work-
trade unions played in Tunisia and Egypt during the mass          ers with low wages and insecure jobs. The situation in
uprising there against the established order or repeat the        GS was appalling as the suffocating siege made deep
role of workers in the first intifada, who were organized         impacts on all aspects of life.
and mobilized by political parties and trade unions. Fur-             Both Fatah and Hamas (as governing political par-
thermore, around15% of the labor force in the West Bank           ties)are committed to neo-liberal policies, and both gave
is employed in the Israeli labor market, and dependent            priority to employing their cadres and supporters in gov-
on that market for their livelihood. 21                           ernment bureaucracies, services and security apparatuses
     The social strata ripest for political organization is the   in the WB and GS. The new bureaucracies presented an
unemployed, a high percentage of which comprises grad-            alien milieu to what dominated in the Palestinian national
uates and women. This sector could lead an intifada, as it        liberation movements in 1970s and 1980s. Individuals
is dissatisfied with the performance of the PA government         who viewed themselves as freedom fighters, revolution-
in the WB and the de facto government in GS. They have            aries and patriotic militants were asked to behave by
little to lose from an uprising against Israel’s occupation       the two governments and by business companies as em-
and have no stake in either government. They, however,            ployees as demanded by their office and position in the
lack the minimum of organization and leadership to act            hierarchy of the bureaucracy. The Palestinian Left was
collectively. The Palestinian left who are the more quali-        too fragmented and emasculated to offer an alternative
fied ideologically and programmatically to organize them          strategy instead of posturing as a mediator between the
in political and social struggle remains fragmented and           two competing political movements. (Hilal 2010)
has lost much of the relatively large social base it once             However, statelessness, neo-liberalism and settler-
had as well as its ideological and moral influence.               colonialism continue to pose an existential threat to the
     The conditions of collective political action for con-       middle class, thwarting its ability to plan its future, and a
fronting the colonial settler state were circumvented not         threat to the livelihood of the workers, university gradu-
only by changes in the Palestinian political economy that         ates and the mass of the unemployed. The middle class
I sketched above, but also by changes in two other areas:         employed by the PA, the modern private sector and civil
in the reorganization of social relations by the implant-         society organizations, has experienced, many times, the
ing neo-liberalism and in changes in the ethos governing          anxieties resulting from dependency of PA on external
political parties and movements.                                  transfer and Israeli sanctions. The unpopularity of calls
     The PA was formed at the height of the neo-liberalism        to dismantle the PA institutions relates to the fact that
era (as an economic and value system exalting the free-           over 160 thousand employees depend for their liveli-
dom of private capital and commitment to excessive in-            hood on the salaries they receive from those institutions,
dividualism and minimum social protection to labor).              although only a small percentage is content with the per-
(Haddad 2016; Turner and Shweiki 2014) Palestinian so-            formance of the two “authorities” the WB, and GS.23
ciety in the WB and GS under the self-governing author-
                                                                  22 West Bank-Gaza Strip unemployment stood at 29% in the second
ity of the PA was made dependent on external transfers            quarter of 2017 (20.5% in West Bank, 44% in Gaza). See State
(on aid and transfer of taxes collected by the colonial           of Palestine, Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), Press
                                                                  Report on the Labor Force Survey Results (April – June, 2017).
20 PCBS, Establishment Census, Main Findings (April 2013).        23 On the make-up, and situation of the new middle class in WBG
21 PCBS, Labour Force Survey (July-Sep. 2017), (https://bit.ly/   see Hilal (2013b). On the structure of employment in the WB and GS
3qRGLLA).                                                         see Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) On the occasion
Hilal, National identity                                                                                                             147

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