The Violent Rise of Palestine’s Lost Generation

Abstract

The ‘Oslo generation,’ the youth of Palestine born after the 1993 Oslo Agreement, is Palestine’s lost generation. They have experienced a near complete exclusion from ordinary political participation, dominated by the elders of the Palestinian national movement. Their trust in the parent generation and the Palestinian National Authority has been undermined equally. The vacuum created by the weakened parental and national authority has been filled with youths who first and foremost follow their age peers. The protests and knife attacks seen in the West Bank during the autumn 2015 were obviously a protest against the Israeli occupation. However, they were also an expression of a clash of generations and the rise of a lost generation.

Key words:

• Authority
• Gerontocracy
• Intifada
• Israel
• Palestine
• PLO
• Youth

Notes

¹ Author Interview with Bir Zeit Professor Ahmad Hamad, Ramallah, March 2015.

² Author Interview with M. Subuh, Balata Refugee Camp, Nablus, West Bank, April, 2012.

³ Ibid.

⁴ A. Haas (2015) Abbas Can’t Control the Lost Generation of Oslo, in Haaretz, October 15. Available at http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.679758, accessed December 12, 2015; and K. Reddan (2015) The Anger of Palestine’s ‘Lost’ Generation, Ma’an News Agency, October 16, 2015. Available at https://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=768277, accessed October 16, 2015.

⁵ J. Høigilt (2016) Fatah from Below: The Clash of Generations in Palestine, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 43(4), pp. 456–471.

⁶ This article is about the political situation in the West Bank and the background for its ‘knife intifada.’ Therefore, the focus is on the internal crisis of the secular national movement of Fatah and the PLO, which controls the Palestinian autonomous areas of the West Bank, rather than on Gaza and Hamas.

⁷ Palestine Center for Policy and Survey (2015) Palestine Public Opinion Poll, pp. 56–58. http://www.pcpsr.org/, accessed February 12, 2016.

⁸ A. Hass (2015) Internal Rift Rattles Abbas’ Fatah (yet again), Haaretz, March 17. Available at: http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/.premium-1.580153, accessed October 15, 2015.

⁹ I. Pappé (2004) A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, p. 192 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

¹⁰ Y. Sayigh (1997) Armed Struggle and the Search for State, p. 679 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

¹¹ J. Hilal (1993) PLO Institutions: The Challenge Ahead, Journal of Palestine Studies, 23(1), p. 55.

¹² Sayigh, Armed Struggle, p. 634.

¹³ Sayigh, Armed Struggle, p. 236.

¹⁴ Author Interview, Gaza, May 2015.

¹⁵ Author Interview, Jerusalem, August 2011.

¹⁶ D. Peretz (1990) Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising, p. 116 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press).

¹⁷ H. Urdal (2006) A Clash of Generations? Youth Bulges and Political Violence, International

Studies Quarterly 50(3), pp. 607–629.

¹⁸ Y. Courbage (2012) The Demographic Youth Bulge and Social Rupture, in: S. Khalaf & R. Khalaf (eds) Arab Youth: Social Mobilisation in Times of Risk, p. 86 (London: Saqi).

¹⁹ PCBS: Palestinian Population ‘Youth Bulge’ (2011) Ma’an News Agency, July 11. Available at http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=404099, accessed January 21, 2016.

²⁰ A. Bayat (2013) Life as Politics, pp. 107–110 (Stanford: Stanford University Press).

²¹ S. Hanafi (2009) Palestinian Refugee Camps in the Palestinian Territory: Territory of Exception and Locus of Resistance, in: A. Ophir, M. Givoni & S. Hanafi (eds) The Power of Inclusive Exclusion: Anatomy of Israeli Rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, p. 503 (New York: Zone Books).

²² Author Interview, Ramallah, 2012. Interviews and participant observation for the article were carried out in Balata /Nablus in April 2012 and March 2015. Interviews were also conducted in the Jenin camp in April 2012, in the Aqbat al Jabr camp in April 2012 and April 2013, and in Ramallah in April 2012, April 2013 and March 2015.

²³ Author Interview, Ramallah, April 2012. Name withheld because of the sensitive character of the information.

²⁴ A. Sombol, head of PLO’s Camp Committee, Aqbat al Jaber camp, West Bank. Author Interview, Aqbat Al Jaber camp, April 2012.

²⁵ Author Interview, Balata, April 2012.

²⁶ Author Interview with the head of the camp committee, Jenin camp, April 2012.

²⁷ Author Interview with the head of the camp committee, Aqbat al Jabr camp, April 2012.

²⁸ Author Conversation with Balata resident, Balata, April 2012.

²⁹ Author Interview, Balata, March 2015.

³⁰ Author Interview, Balata, March 2015.

³¹ A. Nofal (2015) PA isolates West Bank camps, Al Monitor, May 4. Available at http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/05/west-bank-refugee-camps-pa-israel-security-coordination.html, accessed January 21, 2016.

³² S. Eldar (2014) Jenin and Nablus Refugee Camps: Enclaves of Fear, Al Monitor, March 25. Available at http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/03/refugee-camps-jenin-nablus-west-bank-violence-armed-youths.html, accessed January 21, 2016.

³³ Author Interview, Balata, March 2015.

³⁴ A. Abu Amer (2015) Security chaos in Nablus haunts PA, Al Monitor, September 17. Available at: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/09/west-bank-security-chaos-camps-palestinian-authority.html

³⁵ S. Eldar (2015) Who’s Afraid of the ‘Intifada’? Al Monitor, November 30. Available at http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/11/terror-wave-third-intifada-hamas-idf-netanyahu-yaalon.html#ixzz3tFwhAnOM, accessed November 30, 2015.

³⁶ S. Eldar (2015) Is Palestinian Public Leaving its Leadership Behind?, Al Monitor, October 23. Available at http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/10/israel-palestine-intifada-young-generation-fatah-hamas.html#ixzz3tFxUgGcl, accessed November 30, 2015.

³⁷ Wave of Terror 2015/16, (2016) Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, March. Available at http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Terrorism/Palestinian/Pages/Wave-of-terror-October-2015.aspx, accessed March 30, 2016.

³⁸ Deaths and the Jerusalem Intifada (2016) Memo. Middle East Monitor. Available at https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/specials/intifada/, accessed March 30, 2016.

³⁹ G. Cohen (2016) After Six Months of Terror Wave, Attacks Decreasing, Says Israeli Army, Haaretz, April 1, 2016. Available at http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.712123, accessed April 2, 2016.

⁴⁰ Palestinians from the OPT Killed in the OPT and Israel since 1 October 2015, (2016), Al-Haq. Available at http://www.alhaq.org/publications/list.of.palestinians.killed.pdf, accessed December 28, 2016.

⁴¹ Palestinian Shot Dead After Alleged Attack Attempt near Hebron (2016) January 14. Available at http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769795, accessed January 21, 2016.

⁴² Bayat, Life as Politics, p.109.

⁴³ A. Harel (2016) Jerusalem Terror Attack Stands Out from the Others, in Haaretz, February 4. Available at. http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.701246, accessed February 4, 2016.

⁴⁴ Bayat, Life as Politics, p. 50.

⁴⁵ D. Siegel (2014) Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain (New York: Penguin).

⁴⁶ Courbage, The Demographic.

⁴⁷ Bayat, Life as Politics, p. 15.

⁴⁸ H. Moller (1968) Youth as a Force in the Modern World, Comparative Studies in Society and History 10(3), pp. 259–260.

⁴⁹ Ibid.