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Abstract
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the dormant figure of the “Palestinian terrorist” was revived for American public discourse. The Palestinian novelist Sahar Khalifeh responded critically to this development in her 2004 novel Rabi’ Harr [Hot Spring], a Bildungsroman about a “terrorist” whose turn to violence is motivated by the bleak conditions of life under occupation after the Oslo Accords and by the 2002 attacks on civilians in Jenin. Khalifeh’s novel suggests that the human rights narrative takes on a particular urgency in Palestinian writing after 9/11, as a means of countering the renewed currency of invidious stereotypes of Palestinians.
Notes
1. There are many copies of the video on YouTube: I am referring to the clips “Palestinians Celebrating 9/11 Attack”, from MSNBC (⟨http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMOZvbYJMvU⟩) and “Palestinians celebrating the fall of the twin towers on 911”, from Fox (⟨http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrM0dAFsZ8k⟩), both accessed 15 Feb. 2010.
2. The name “Black September” refers both to the September 1970 Jordanian war against the PLO, which resulted in the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians from Jordan, and to the Palestinian militant group formed in the wake of that conflict. The group is most famous for the killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.
3. For an account of similar language used in UK television coverage, see Berry and Philo.
4. Peters claimed that Arab immigration to historical Palestine only began after Jewish settlement boosted the region’s economy. The book initially received an enthusiastic reception in the US press; it has since been thoroughly discredited by Norman Finkelstein, among others (Chomksy 244–48; Finkelstein 21–50).
5. Christison attributes the Bush administration’s support for Sharon’s policies to a combination of Bush’s ignorance about the conflict; Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice’s indifference; and the neoconservatives’ hawkish pro‐Israel stance (41–45).
6. All translations from the Arabic are taken from the published English translation unless otherwise noted.
7. This claim is made on Khalifeh’s English‐language page on the Khalil Sakakini Culture Centre website, and repeated elsewhere. At the time of writing, four of her eight novels are available in English translation, and her work has also been translated into Hebrew, French, Dutch, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Swedish, and Malay (⟨http://www.sakakini.org/literature/saharwriting.htm⟩, accessed 21 Sept. 2009).
8. Literally, “journeys of patience and the prickly pear cactus” (my translation). Sabr and subbar come from the same root, which indicates steadfastness and survival, but subbar (like the Hebrew sabra) carries the additional connotation of “native”, in its reference to the native Palestinian plant.
9. For an example of the “automaton” in film, see, for instance, the representation of the Black September operatives in William A. Graham’s 1976 dramatization of the Munich hostage crisis, 21 Hours at Munich. Shaheen (Reel and Guilty) gives a comprehensive list of metropolitan filmic representations of Palestinians.
10. While Khalifeh does not develop the theme of repressed sexual desire, Ahmad does think of Mira’s beauty immediately before the attack (Khalifeh, End of Spring 275). For a typical (and unconvincing) formulation of the argument that “sexual deprivation” in Arab societies is a cause of suicide attacks, see Buruma, who refers to Palestinian violence directly.
11. Hajjar traces the origins of the local human rights movement to the founding of Law in the Service of Man, later al‐Haq, by Raja Shehadeh and Jonathan Kuttab in 1979 (“Human Rights” 25). Although the local standing of the human rights organizations became more precarious after Oslo, when many HROs came into frequent conflict with the Palestinian Authority, the aims of the two institutions reconverged during the second intifada, when the need to document Israeli violations became urgent (36).
12. On the post‐1968 turn from the politics of belief to the politics of being, see Brennan.