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Abstract
With Palestine gaining increasing international recognition for its sovereignty aspirations, this paper investigates the ongoing Palestinian state-formation process. It examines how far grassroots movements, domestic political leaderships and international actors have promoted or undermined intra-Palestinian unity and societal consensus around the rules, design and extent of a future Palestinian state. The paper introduces the novel concept of everyday state formation as a crucial form of grassroots agency in this process. Moreover, it illustrates the internal tensions of contemporary statebuilding: without reconciliation across multiple scales – local to global – the complex interactions of structural, governmental and subaltern power tend to build societal fragility into emerging state structures.
Notes
1. See PCPSR surveys, online at http://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/154.
2. The notion of a two-state solution has lost appeal with the fragmentation of the territory by Israeli settlements. However, this scenario remains supported by a slim majority of Palestinians, according to the latest surveys. See PCPSR index, http://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/154.
3. Arendt, “The Perplexities.”
4. Pogodda, “Everyday State Formation.”
5. Between 2011 and 2012 the authors conducted semi-structured interviews in different parts of the West Bank. Interviewees were selected by their occupation or party affiliation, with the aim of covering a wide range of grassroots organisations, as well as individuals working for ministries, refugee camps, NGOs, electoral bodies and Palestine’s aid industry. Among the 18 interviews used for this article four were conducted in Arabic, the others in English.
6. For a framework on the relationship between peace and power, see Richmond, Failed Statebuilding.
7. See, for example, Strange, States and Markets; and Barnett and Duvall, “Power in International Politics.”
8. On the divergence of the state formation debate in History and Politics from sociological and anthropological approaches, see Richmond, “The Legacy of State Formation.”
9. Donald Kurtz identifies the ‘voluntaristic’ approaches of early hydraulic societies as an exception to the coercive character of state-formation processes. Kurtz, Political Anthropology, 170–171. In a more detailed analysis of hydraulic societies in the Arab region, Ayubi concludes that these societies were governed by systems of total (despotic) power, however. Ayubi, Over-stating the Arab State, 42–85.
10. Nye, Soft Power; and Manners, “Normative Power Europe.”
11. Foucault, “Governmentality.”
12. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”; Scott, Weapons of the Weak; and Richmond, “Critical Agency.”
13. Scott, Weapons of the Weak.
14. By deliberately ignoring the resistance of Palestinian society against the reconstitution of a homeland for the Jews on Palestinian territory, the British government violated the principle of self-determination as the cornerstone of the mandate-giving League of Nations. Gilmour, “The Unregarded Prophet.”
15. On different aspects of Israel’s coercive, structural and bio-power, see Weizman, Hollow Land; Gordon, Israel’s Occupation; and Parsons and Salter, “Israeli Biopolitics.”
16. Richmond, Failed Statebuilding.
17. Richmond and Franks, Liberal Peace Transitions, 149–180.
18. Pogodda, “Inconsistent Interventionism.”
19. Halper, “The 94 Percent Solution.”
20. Turner, “Completing the Circle.”
21. On the all-pervasive nature of resistance in Palestine, see Qumsiyeh, Popular Resistance in Palestine.
22. Krohn-Hansen and Nustad, State Formation.
23. Das and Poole, Anthropology.
24. Krohn-Hansen and Nustad, State Formation, 12–13.
25. Esposito, “Quarterly Update,” 145.
26. Torture of Palestinians in Fatah-administered prisons was already rife under President Arafat. Rubenberg, The Palestinians. After Hamas’ take-over of the Gaza Strip, Hamas mirrored those practices in its prisons. See consecutive reports of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights since 2007.
27. PCHR, Annual Report 2013, 63–94.
28. On the effects of structural violence, see Boege et al., States Emerging; and Richmond, A Post-liberal Peace, 44–65.
29. This agreement comes in the wake of the Mecca Accords of 2007, and the Cairo Agreements of 2009 and 2013. For more details, see International Crisis Group, “Palestinian Reconciliation.”
30. Miller, “Abbas.”
31. Tilly, “War Making and State Making.”
32. PCHR, Annual Report 2010, 74–76. The director of a human rights monitoring agency in the West Bank reported that his organisation’s report on the inter-factional killings of 2007 was politically exploited by both parties. Interview, July 7, 2011.
33. PCHR, Annual Report 2010, 79–87.
34. Ibid., 91–92.
35. Ibid., 95–98.
36. On the tunnel economy and its demise, see Pelham, “Gaza’s Tunnel Phenomenon.”
37. Horovitz, “Netanyahu finally speaks his Mind.”
38. Beaumont, “Israeli Intelligence Veterans.”
39. Tawil-Souri, “Digital Occupation.”
40. For an insider account of these practices, see “Any Palestinian is exposed to Monitoring.”
41. For an illustration of the geographical fragmentation of Palestine since 1946, see Littlewood, “Richard Falk Interview.”
42. See PCPSR, “Palestinian Public Opinion Poll No. 52.”
43. According to a Palestinian economist, over the past 15 years 50% of the PA budget has been financed by foreign aid. Donnison, “Fragile Stability of Aid-dependent Palestinian Economy.”
44. Cronin, Europe’s Alliance with Israel; and Khalidi, Brokers of Deceit.
45. de Vasconcelos, A Strategy, 8; and Smith, “Hamas, Fatah,” 6. The EU’s blacklisting of Hamas is currently under appeal.
46. The three conditions imposed by the Middle East Quartet oblige Hamas to adhere to standards which the government of Israel continues to violate without facing financial sanctions from the USA or the EU, ie non-violence and honouring their obligations under previous agreements.
47. Baroud, “Defining Palestinian Unity.”
48. The NGO sector in Palestine stands accused of being co-opted by donor agendas, dominated by local elites and removed from its social basis. See Hammami, “Palestinian NGOs since Oslo”; and Dana, “Palestinian Civil Society.”
49. This typology could be expanded to other roles traditionally assumed by the state, such as providing protection and shelter or promoting communities’ food independence.
50. Butler, “Subjection, Resistance, Resignification.”
51. Foucault, The History of Sexuality; Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, 374–375; Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life, 170; Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed; Sharp, Politics of Non-violent Action; Walker, One World, Many Worlds; Randle, Civil Resistance; and Scott, Domination.
52. Klein, “A New Palestinian Movement.”
53. Vick, “On the Run.”
54. When asked about Fatah’s two-year statebuilding plan, one activist responded: ‘It is hard to talk about something that doesn’t exist’. Interview, Birzeit, July 6, 2011.
55. Interview, youth activist, Birzeit, July 6, 2011. This argument is in line with Edward Said’s early observations on the terms of the Oslo accords. Said, “The Morning After,” 3–5.
56. Indeed, accusations of growing authoritarianism within the PA are as old as the PA itself. See Robinson, “The Growing Authoritarianism.”
57. Interview, youth activist, Birzeit, July 6, 2011. On Palestine’s economic dependency on Israel after the Paris Protocol, see Gross, “Mending Walls.”
58. Currently Israel’s military occupation operates mainly through the control of checkpoints, policing the expanding settlements and surveillance.
59. Interview, Budrus, July 6, 2011.
60. For an account on the interplay between US interests and the interests of PA politicians in overthrowing Hamas after the 2006 election, see Rose, “The Gaza Bombshell.”
61. See Sayigh, Policing the People.
62. On anti-Hamas campaigns under Fayyad, see Harel, “Farewell to Palestinian PM Fayyad.”
63. On how conditional aid affects not only Palestinian politics but even politics in the humanitarian sector, see Qarmout and Beland, “The Politics of International Aid.”
64. Currently the movement is caught up in its internal struggles and has achieved very little coherence between its different branches. Interview, youth activist, Birzeit, July 6, 2011.
65. Interview, coordinator of unarmed resistance for the Northern West Bank, July 6, 2011.
66. Ibid.
67. For a more detailed account of those campaigns, see Qumsiyeh, Popular Resistance in Palestine.
68. Cheslow, “Palestinian Nonviolence.”
69. A coordinator of unarmed resistance in the Ramallah area complained that non-violent resistance was suppressed by the IDF, but also undermined by the PA: in contrast to the PA’s rhetoric of supporting unarmed resistance, Palestinian politicians were ‘so concerned about images of stone-throwing kids that they tend to prohibit resistance initiatives’. Interview, July 6, 2011.
70. Interview, coordinator of unarmed resistance for the Northern West Bank, July 6, 2011.
71. The EU has, for instance, been sponsoring a €3.3 million project to improve sustainable livelihoods of livestock holders in 30 communities in Area C. See PARC, “List of Ongoing Projects.”
72. World Bank, “Palestinians’ Access to Area C.
73. Sansour and Tartir, “Palestinian Farmers.”
74. Social conflicts can range from landownership to sexual or verbal harassment, employment issues, family feuds, inheritance matters, tenancy issues, etc. Interview with employee of a local conflict-resolution initiative, West Bank, March 15, 2012.
75. According to the director of one such organisation, most conflicts that play out in Palestinian society are a side-effect of the oppressive conditions created by the occupation. Interview, West Bank, March 15, 2012.
76. Rogan and Shlaim, The War for Palestine, 2.
77. Hazkani and Gratien, “The Politics of 1948.”
78. Doumani and Gratien, “Writing the History.”
79. Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”
80. Daniel, “US Media Coverage,” 62–72.
81. Moughrabi, American Public Opinion; and Richman, “American Attitudes.”
82. Pickett, “Foucault,” 457–458.
83. Foucault, “The Thought from Outside,” 38.
84. Foucault, “The Ethics.”
85. Ibid, 463.