JPS “Hidden Gems” and “Greatest Hits”: Repression and Dissent; Contentious Politics in Palestine

Abstract

In this essay, Yousef Munayyer reflects on the politics of contentiousness through the lens of dissent and repression. He singles out Naseer Aruri’s “Resistance and Repression: Political Prisoners in Israeli Occupied Territories” (1979) as a JPS “hidden gem” and Gene Sharp’s “Intifadah and Nonviolent Struggle” (1989) as a “greatest hit.” Aruri’s piece, which has not garnered as much visibility as Sharp’s, pinpoints the ways in which political imprisonment, torture, and the weaponization of the law, as well as extraterritorial jurisdiction, are wielded by Israel as instruments of political repression. The “greatest hit,” by the late contemporary theorist of nonviolence Gene Sharp examines the Palestinian national movement’s resistance strategy eighteen months into the First Intifada.

Keywords:

• dissent
• repression
• resistance
• nonviolence
• politics of contentiousness

Notes

1 Naseer H. Aruri, “Resistance and Repression: Political Prisoners in Israeli Occupied Territories,” JPS 7, no. 4 (Summer 1978): pp. 48–66, https://doi.org/10.2307/2536296.

2 Gene Sharp, “The Intifadah and Nonviolent Struggle,” JPS 19, no. 1 (Autumn 1989): pp. 3–13, https://doi.org/10.2307/2537242.

3 Charles W. Anderson, “State Formation from Below and the Great Revolt in Palestine,” JPS 47, no. 1 (Autumn 2017), pp. 39–55, https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2017.47.1.39.

4 Matthew Hughes, “From Law and Order to Pacification: Britain’s Suppression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine,” JPS 39, no. 2 (Winter 2010): pp. 6–22, https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2010.XXXIX.2.17.

5 Kenneth W. Stein, “The Intifada and the 1936–39 Uprising: A Comparison,” JPS 19, no. 4 (Summer 1990): pp. 64–85, https://doi.org/10.2307/2537389.

6 Ann Lesch, “Prelude to the Uprising in the Gaza Strip,” JPS 20, no. 1, (Autumn 1990): pp. 1–23, https://doi.org/10.2307/2537319.

7 Elaine Hagopian, “Minority Rights in a Nation-State: The Nixon Administration’s Campaign against Arab-Americans,” JPS 5, nos. 1–2 (Winter–Spring 1975): pp. 97–114, https://doi.org/10.2307/2535685.

8 Tawfiq Zayyad, “The Fate of the Arabs in Israel,” JPS 6, no. 1 (Winter 1976): pp. 92–103, https://doi.org/10.2307/2535721.

9 Aruri, “Resistance and Repression,” p. 50.

10 Aruri, “Resistance and Repression,” p. 66.

11 Aruri, “Resistance and Repression,” p. 63.

12 Sharp, “The Intifadah and Nonviolent Struggle,” p. 10.

13 Sharp, “The Intifadah and Nonviolent Struggle,” p. 12.

14 Wikileaks Public Library of U.S. Diplomacy, “IDF Plans Harsher Methods with West Bank Demonstrations,” 16 February 2010, para. 5, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10TELAVIV344_a.html. Then director of policy and political-military affairs at the Israel Ministry of Defense, Maj. Gen. (reserves) Amos Gilad was speaking in reference to unarmed demonstrations taking place throughout the West Bank and specifically in Nabi Salih in early 2010.

15 Sharp, “The Intifadah and Nonviolent Struggle,” p. 5.

16 Sharp, “The Intifadah and Nonviolent Struggle,” p. 5, italics in original.

17 Sharp, “The Intifadah and Nonviolent Struggle,” p. 6

18 Sharp, “The Intifadah and Nonviolent Struggle,” p. 7.

19 Sharp, “The Intifadah and Nonviolent Struggle,” p. 7.

20 Sharp, “The Intifadah and Nonviolent Struggle,” p. 10.

21 Sharp, “The Intifadah and Nonviolent Struggle,” p. 13.

22 Sharp, “The Intifadah and Nonviolent Struggle,” p. 10.

23 Edward Said, “The One-State Solution,” New York Times, 10 January 1999, p. 36, https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/10/magazine/the-one-state-solution.html.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yousef Munayyer

Yousef Munayyer is an independent scholar and nonresident fellow at the Arab Center Washington, DC.