This paper examines the construction of citizenship vis-à-vis Palestinian national identity amongst second and third generation naturalized Palestinians in Lebanon. The research is carried out in Lebanon, and is derived from empirical findings of my doctoral research. The aim is to conceptualize the embodiment of the space within citizenship, or what is referred to as citizenship space: the capacity for citizenship to embody a multiplicity of belongings, identifications and national identities. The salience of such notions is investigated amongst naturalized Palestinians who have acquired Lebanese citizenship, and in doing so, the dimensions of citizenship space are defined. The interest is to investigate the complex relationship between the acquisition of Lebanese citizenship and Palestinian national identity amongst naturalized citizens. Literature concerned with naturalized Palestinians, or post-refugees, is very scarce. The literary gap may be attributed to the presumption of assimilation upon naturalization, a speculation which is challenged by the findings of the research. The underlying impediments to assimilation are examined, and in doing so, the Lebanese kinship myth and the desire to maintain Palestinian identity emerge. This paper engages with archival data and primary sources of the naturalization process, of which little has been documented. The intention is to discursively engage with the concept citizenship as relevant to the case study, and in addressing the multitude of theories which it has been adopted by, such legal studies, cultural and social theory, international relations, political theory, transitional and migration theory to name a few, it becomes clear that the concept does not solely belong to any. The process of unpacking and re-conceptualizing citizenship amongst Palestinian naturalized citizens has shown that, very little is understood about the complexity of this dynamic and complex construct. Addressing the spatial element within citizenship entails understanding the subjective dimensions of the concept. This paper concludes in stating that the process of naturalization of Palestinians in Lebanon necessitates a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the relationship between citizenship and national identity.

In Lebanon, the fear of tawteen, or ‘settlement,’ makes naturalization of Palestinian refugees an anathema. Yet, several groups of Palestinian refugees have received Lebanese citizenship since 1948, most (in)famously those from the ‘seven villages,’ a chain of Shia villages on the Palestinian-Lebanese border incorporated in Palestine in the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement. The trajectory of their naturalization is largely unaddressed by academics and, where it is discussed, is presented as a straightforward consequence of top-down Lebanese electoral politics. Based on a qualitative analysis of documents and in-depth interviews conducted during a five month fieldwork period in Spring 2013, this paper presents the case of one such community: the inhabitants hailing from the village of Salha, now in occupied Palestine, currently living in Shabriha, a small town near the city of Tyre/Sour in South Lebanon. There, they live next to an informal settlement inhabited by Palestinian refugees that have not acquired citizenship. Adopting the ‘negotiated state’ framework, the paper offers an inductive, bottom-up perspective on the community’s gaining of citizenship. It is argued that rather than merely following from the electoral interests of Lebanon’s political leaders, naturalization resulted from the community’s purposeful instrumentalization of existing resources (the financial and social capital of the community’s clan leader) and active reinterpretation of available repertoires (alternating nationalist and sectarian identities). The paper further contends that the object of negotiation central to the naturalization was not only votes in exchange for state resources, but, more importantly, party-loyalty in exchange for a degree of local self-governance. Contrasting the situation of the naturalized Palestinians in Shabriha with that of their non-naturalized Palestinian neighbors, finally, shows that in the quest for such relative autonomy citizenship was a key resource as it provided the naturalized Palestinians with access to formal negotiation tables, whereas the non-naturalized Palestinians are consigned to bargaining in informal negotiation arenas. Presenting and explaining the story of a community that was once stateless but is now referred to by their Palestinian fellows as ‘the children of the state’ makes a twofold academic contribution. Empirically, it offers a detailed historical case analysis of a structurally under-analyzed phenomenon. Analytically, it conceptualizes the nature and consequences of this naturalization process in a way that goes beyond the default instrumentalist electoral approach and presents a more nuanced account of the process as a negotiated exchange about not just access to, but also independence from, state and party.

This paper addresses Palestinian education in the West Bank as a source of resistance against the Israeli occupation. The residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territories have been among the world's highest per-capita recipients of foreign aid. Recent studies contend that the influx of foreign aid to the West Bank after the 1993 Oslo Accords has depoliticized Palestinian civil society by diverting grassroots activism into development work. I argue, however, that key segments of Palestinian educators and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), explicitly use their work as educators to raise political consciousness. This is a source of resistance, and is essential to maintaining social cohesion and historical memory despite territorial and cultural fragmentation. In the West Bank, NGOs and educators must walk the line between their political beliefs and donors’ depoliticized development agendas. This paper uses primary source data on major donor aid to Palestinian education from the Oslo period to present, and original interviews with Palestinian educational NGOs, Ministry of Education officials, and teachers, to demonstrate that even aid-reliant NGOs support resistance against the occupation by raising Palestinians' political awareness through informal or extracurricular activities led alongside the depoliticized and donor-scrutinized official educational curriculum. This study contributes to the debates on the agency of foreign aid recipients, and aid's ability to depoliticize civil society. Theoretically, it fills a gap in the literature on foreign aid by showing that education is a uniquely productive space for cultivating values and knowledge that support resistance. Empirically, this paper moves beyond aid-funded NGOs and secondary schools to include privately-funded schools and a non-aid-reliant Islamic educational NGO. Finally, the study challenges the prevailing understanding of protest in the social movements literature by showing what resistance can look like in an oppressive rather than pluralist setting.

Ever since the end of the civil war in 1989, educational reform has been a key-concern in Lebanese efforts of dealing with the trauma of recent history and the strengthening of social cohesion. But reform is slow and fraught with controversy. The school subjects of history and civics remain particularly contested, as illustrated by the failure of creating a standardized textbook on Lebanese history. Conflicting historical narratives make public Lebanese memory a national taboo (Nehme 2006). This public “historical amnesia” accentuates the need for new and alternative social spaces and public discourses, challenging the politicized memory discourses of particular groups (Haugbolle 2012). Lasting reconciliation and reconstruction requires “the recovery of public spheres and common spaces that encourages new forms of engagement and encounter” (Larking 2009). Not least, apart from the content of curricula and textbooks, educational reform highlights the question of access. Currently, significant populations remain disconnected from quality education. Consequently, for children and youth growing up in Palestinian refugee camps, school becomes de-centralized as a site of construction of civics and identity (Finchham 2012). This underscores the importance of alternative, informal efforts and the coordination of stakeholders involved in education and upbringing (National Conference on Special Needs Education, 2009). It also requires child- and youth centered research. Most literature addresses education systems, but not the actual experiences of the young. This shortage opens for universalizing and generalizing statements about young persons in refugee camps as inherently subject to “traumatization”, “victimization” or “vulnerability”. It calls for further research “that seeks to understand how vulnerability – as a condition – is produced and mitigated” (Hart 2006). This paper presents preliminary results from a research project on Palestinian youth from refugee camps, currently taking part in NGO programs financing university education. What are the experiences, expectations and concerns of the youth benefitting from such programs? How does university education relate to other sites of learning and development, and how do students relate education to upbringing and background? How do students handle class mobility vis-à-vis community peers and family? Based on interviews with students, NGO representatives and university teachers, this paper discusses the ability of such initiatives to create new social arenas and opportunities for individual development. To what extent may informal educational projects be instrumental in circumventing and counteracting the barriers upholding Lebanese historical amnesia in general, and the victimization of Palestinian youth in particular?

The prevailing discourse on Palestinian society during the British Mandate period argues it experienced profound disintegration, especially during the traumatic years of the Arab Revolt (1936-1939). Prominent studies cite this process as one of the main reasons for Palestinian weakness in their fateful confrontation with the Jewish community in the war of 1948. The proposed paper takes issue with this argument. I will claim that while Palestinian society did experience disintegration, mostly in local arenas, this process was an essential phase in the sociopolitical integration that began in the mid-1920s. That being said, this integration had a salient regional character to it and was both a necessary stage in the path towards national integration as well as an obstacle on its course. Through examining case studies from the Mount Hebron and Jerusalem regions, I will illustrate how small, longstanding social networks based on local arenas collapsed as their roles and founding ethos became irrelevant. These local networks included old alliances established in keeping with qays and yaman identities, inter-familial coalitions based on Sufi ceremonial ties, and village clusters sharing a dense social, cultural, and economic web of ties. Since the 1920s, small networks of this kind were gradually replaced by new, large-scale and often regional networks. These emerging networks reflected improved rural-urban connections, and the rise of sociopolitical alliances based on new regional frames of identity. Other emerging networks reflected the rise of reformist Islamic movements, and additional raison d’etre firmly planted in contemporary regional, national and Islamic developments. The emergence of these larger networks mirrors the increasing sociopolitical integration of Palestinian society. Sources for this study include a wide range of documents, newspapers and oral testimonies. Methodologically, this historical study combines tools and concepts from the field of network analysis, a field gaining increasing traction in Humanities studies and research.

The 1968 Battle of Karameh resulted in an Israeli defeat and an Arab victory. Both Palestinian fighters and Jordanian soldiers fought the Israeli army during the battle. This essay revisits Karameh in light of the unpublished memoir of General Mashhur Haditha and other original material. Haditha’s memoir addresses a number of issues related to Karameh and Jordanian-Palestinian relations. Haditha’s dual loyalties suggest that Jordanian and Palestinian identities and loyalties were not necessarily mutually exclusive. His work allows us to better understand the Jordanian-Palestinian relationship, particularly in the period leading up to the conflict of 1970-1971 between Palestinian fedayeen groups and the Jordanian government.