Palestinian leadership and the contemporary significance of the First Intifada

Abstract

On the eve of the highly controversial 2020 plan for Israel to annex parts of the West Bank, the author examines the nature of the Palestinian condition and the many challenges Palestinians confront, including the absence of an effective leadership. In registering this, the article proposes a reassessment of the First Intifada that places it in a contemporary perspective and seeks to ‘excavate’ modes of resistance. It engages with the problematic of leadership and highlights how existing challenges might be addressed. Taking into account the Oslo Accords and subsequent attempts towards neoliberal state-building, it draws on theories of settler colonialism and stresses the neo-colonial continuum in Palestine. Finally, the author interviews key activists from the First Intifada to (respectively) provide insight into the nature of the contemporary situation and suggest an alternative model of leadership and struggle.

Migrant labour, debt and the branding of a ‘multicultural’ Israel

“…33 The 'realignment of colonial power' across various peace processes has only reinforced economic dependence on foreign donors. 34 Debt also operates in a temporal register, tying creditors to debtors in the present and future, and allowing creditors to delimit what a debtor's future looks like. 35 Debt 'captures value through deferral' (emphasis in original) 36 manifest in coercive demands for repayment as future expressions of gratitude and labour.…”

Elite and popular contradictions in security coordination: overcoming the binary distinction of the Israeli coloniser and the colonised Palestinian

“…Clarno presents it and other Israeli policing strategies as part of a 'global web of racial capitalist projects' that seek 'to contain and pacify surplus populations produced by neoliberal restructuring ' Clarno (2017, 165). This 'surplus' is left to fend for itself, as the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated, when PA neglect forced Palestinian workers to take risks and work in Israel (Naser-Najjab 2020).…”