Abstract
A New Generation of Palestinian Revolutionaries?
The Arab uprisings that began in the winter of 2010 highlighted social movements’ use of demonstrations, general strikes, and civil disobedience to achieve political and economic objectives. These tactics, what some scholars have called “innovative contentious politics,” have been deemed as either too weak or altogether absent in the Arab world. The conventional narrative has long held that Arab dissidents and activists were too fragmented to establish influential new institutions and develop modes of political advocacy that could shake, much less topple, authoritarian regimes. Yet, in Tunisia and Egypt, the agents of contentious politics, such as labor unions and youth movements, are now difficult for anyone to dismiss. Similar actors are innovating new strategies and visions are on the rise in Palestine as well. Yet their social backgrounds, characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses are much less obvious.
Today, advances in communication technologies, the rise of a new Arab revolutionary language and practice, and the erosion of the traditional Palestinian liberation struggle, as represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) have all powerfully intersected to reshape Palestinian politics. These factors, together with the relentless Israeli occupation and an overall regional economic recession, have inspired Palestinians across various regional and class divides to forge new political strategies.
By drawing on fieldwork, theoretical research on the innovation of “contentious politics,” and a historical analysis of Palestinian social movements, this paper identifies the social and political backgrounds of a new generation of Palestinian activists. It explores how these activists have interacted with, learned from, and contributed to broader Arab revolutionary movements and politics. Furthermore, it reveals the intricate networks that Palestinians have used to exchange information, experience, and visions with their counterparts in the Middle East and North Africa.
This paper pays particular attention to the specificity of the Palestinian experience and the multiple ways in which Israeli occupation as well as political and geographic fragmentation in a post-Oslo reality have influenced the structure, power, and tactics of these new actors. At the same time, the paper contextualizes the Palestinian struggle within a broader regional revolutionary context. In doing so, it sheds light on both the influence of Arab revolutionaries as well as the resurgence of civil disobedience, strikes, and demonstrations in Palestine.
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