Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Middle East, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa))--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2008. / Thesis Advisor(s): Baylouny, Anne M. "December 2008." AD-A493 513. Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-85). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Duke University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Political Science, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

abstract: Protracted Refugee Situations (PRS) are of serious concern due to their adverse impacts on human rights and stability in host countries. This thesis profiles three, so-called, durable solutions for refugees: local integration, third country resettlement, and voluntary repatriation. However, refugees living in PRS are not given any durable solutions, and they remain confined to refugee camps while the conflicts that forced them from their homelands continue. Refugees usually find themselves in PRS as a result of the restrictive policies of the country in which they have sought refuge. These conditions not only deprive refugees of basic human rights, but act as catalysts for political violence, insurgency, and radicalization. This thesis examines, in detail, one such case: Nahr al-Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon where refugees have been living in PRS for decades due to stringent refugee policies that contributed to violent clashes that took place in May 2007. The denial of human rights for Palestinians in Lebanon has effectively marginalized already disempowered refugee populations, thereby increasing the likelihood of instability and radicalization. The denial of rights, a lack of opportunities, and confinement to the poor conditions of the refugee camp, are driving forces of political violence and militant rhetoric. This situation can endanger the refugee host country as well as the refugees, who are civilians in need of international protection. Therefore, there is a strong connection between the inclusion of rights for refugee populations in a host country, and peace and security. The case of Palestinians in Lebanon is examined as a microcosm of the notion that human rights and state security are interdependent. Recognition of this interdependence necessitates a paradigm shift in perspectives and policies of international refugee protection and state security, from regarding PRS as an indefinite state of emergency to be contained, to acknowledgment that the indefinite duty to protect refugees in protracted situations simultaneously serves the host country's security concerns. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Social Justice and Human Rights 2010

This thesis examines the work of two of the twentieth century’s foremost cultural figures, the Palestinian-American literary critic Edward Said (1935-2003) and the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), and focuses specifically on the formulation and representation in their respective work of the theme of identity. It explores the depictions of this concept in their writing; comparing and contrasting their personal viewpoints on the various facets of their own identity as Palestinian Arabs and cosmopolitan global citizens expressed through their chosen literary medium, prose for Said and poetry for Darwish. At the same time, this analysis of the creative writing of these two authors will serve to shed light on the complex and ongoing process which is involved in identity formation and maintenance, and conceptualization of the self. Said and Darwish’s multi-conceptualisations of self-identity take place in Chapter Three, which is divided into seven zones of self-identity. Their understanding of self-identity is observed through the spaces of their names, language, family relationships, friendships, ethnicities, nationalism, hybrid identities, and cosmopolitanism. The concept of post-Nakba and Naksa literature maps the critical developments in evaluations of Arabic literature and, more particularly, Palestinian literature. The understanding of Palestinian cultural context requires an adequate assimilation regarding the impact of Nakba and Naksa in Palestinian literature, linked strongly with the general impact of Nakba in all Arab literature. The thesis begins by establishing the major socio-political, cultural and historical contexts which shaped the lives and work of Said and Darwish. Then using an innovative theoretical framework which draws on elements of post-colonial theory Said’s own contrapuntal technique and close textual analysis, the thesis explores a number of key facets pertaining to identity construction which it can be argued are of particular relevance to the Palestinian case. These include trauma, collective cultural memories, displacement, the Diasporic experience and the dream of return. At the same time, the thesis reveals how whilst both Said and Darwish remained dedicated to the Palestinian cause they adopted a cosmopolitan identity which was reflected in their respective work and its identification with diverse groups of oppressed peoples.

This submission for PhD by Publication includes two studies I conducted during 8 years of dedicated field research examining the US role in mediating the Arab-Israeli conflict. These studies developed from my collection of in-depth oral testimonies and were buttressed by my recovery and examination of troves of original documents that had been previously denied any public, much less academic, scrutiny. The scope of this qualitative research and my political and historical analysis of it resulted in two published books that chronicle the unsuccessful American efforts to negotiate Arab-Israeli peace agreements during the presidencies of William Clinton, George W. Bush, and the first term of Barack Obama. In order of publication, they are The Truth About Camp David (New York: Nation Books, 2004) and The Palestine Papers: The End of the Road? (London: Hesperus Press, 2011). The original academic contribution of both works was the presentation of new empirical evidence to advance understanding of how heavily biased American mediation severely damaged this diplomatic undertaking. Despite being a solidly pro-Israel country, the United States had previously been able to achieve some notable mediation successes when it made efforts to adopt an “even-handed” approach. Yet in the period covered by both my books, I demonstrated how top American mediators—comprised of mostly pro-Israel partisans—dismissed any pretext of impartiality, and in most instances even escalated their mediation bias. This behavior has exacerbated the Arab-Israeli conflict and made the stated aim of a comprehensive peace a very distant prospect. The Truth About Camp David was intended as a first rough draft of history. The title references the famous summit convened by President Clinton in July 2000 that failed to forge peace between Israelis and Palestinians and the overarching US-led “peace process” around it which contributed to the outbreak of the Second Intifada. The book also details the effort to conclude an Israeli-Syrian peace agreement at Geneva just months before, which also failed. My research advanced the thesis that both the Geneva and Camp David summits were historic miscarriages of diplomacy by my presentation of granular insider accounts revealing the intensity of American mediation bias. I also exposed the general disorganization of its negotiating team, a dysfunction that was largely unknown to the public prior to my book’s release. My primary purpose in writing The Truth About Camp David was thus to enable its reinterpretation by making public new evidence about this watershed moment and the period surrounding it. Relying primarily on oral history, I interviewed US, Arab, Israeli and European officials who were first-hand participants to collect their personal narratives. I sought to identify discrepancies in their accounts, and attempted to reconcile them through further interviews, document interrogation, and my own analysis. A key challenge of The Truth About Camp David was thus to weave a thread through the various testimonies and present, as best as I could, a coherent historical narrative. Following that, my aim was to have it reviewed and discussed among credible scholars and the foreign policy community. The testimonies within The Truth About Camp David directly challenged the official narrative and prevailing media orthodoxy at the time of Palestinian blame and Syrian intransigence. As a result, it helped reframe both political debate and academic scholarship concerning this crucial period of American diplomatic intervention. In 2006, The Truth About Camp David was translated into Arabic, giving its contents even greater reach. My 2011 book “The Palestine Papers: The End of the Road?” continued my earlier line of inquiry and was largely based on documents given to me the year prior, referred to as “The Palestine Papers,” the largest leak of confidential negotiating records in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Published in full by Al Jazeera Media Network, and in limited partnership with the UK’s Guardian newspaper, the content of the files generated headlines around the world from January 24-27, 2011. My additional research for The Palestine Papers was released in May 2011 as an anthology of select papers with my accompanying qualitative analysis and interpretation rather than a stylistic mediation critique. My aim in writing “The Palestine Papers: The End of the Road?” publication was to reach beyond Al Jazeera and Guardian audiences and equip interested scholars, practitioners, and skeptics with essential highlights from the papers as well as an analytical framework to put them into context. My research for The Palestine Papers sought to help reconcile the intervening gap of negotiating history from Truth About Camp David, following the trajectory of how Israelis and Palestinians alike had grown even more conditioned to expect if not rely upon biased American mediation that excessively tilts toward Israel. The Palestine Papers also catalogues for the first time the dynamics that enabled US negotiators to escalate its role from being the self-appointed judge of Palestinian negotiating behavior during the talks (in the Camp David 2000 era) to the unilateral “juror” of its final-status positions (evidenced by the presidencies of George W Bush and Barack Obama). A supplemental essay included in this submission analyzes an earlier diplomatic era to advance my thesis of how far US mediation bias has traveled since America assumed the principal negotiator role of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the early 1970’s. Indeed, based on the overarching narrative that evolve from both those publications and this essay, it is entirely predictable to see how America’s mediation posture has matured into the era of extreme pro-Israel bias that now characterizes the approach of the Trump Administration. I will interpret this collective diplomatic history using a range of multidisciplinary academic theories addressing biased mediation in international conflict resolution. Then, by drawing on the scholarship from my previous books, I will assess and critique the theoretical benefits of employing biased mediators in conflict resolution—as some prominent scholars have advocated for. By taking a fresh look at earlier Arab-Israeli negotiations led by Henry Kissinger under President’s Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, I am able to make even greater contrast to that very limited era when biased American mediation in the Arab-Israeli conflict appeared to yield limited success. The process of applying the scholarship of others against the knowledge created from my own published works enable me to demonstrate in this essay that the present day American negotiating bias toward Israel largely exceeds what the normative scholarship on mediation bias envisaged.

This thesis examines the biographies and intellectual and cultural works of Elias Haddad, Stephan Stephan and Tawfiq Canaan, Arab writers who lived in Jerusalem in the late Ottoman and British Mandate periods, a time when Palestinian identity was in a state of flux and when Ottoman, British and Zionist interests impacted upon Palestinian Arab society, economy and politics. Informed by ideas about colonial and postcolonial relations, the impacts of context and power on the development of texts, and theories of networks and entanglements, it argues that even in the absence of comprehensive biographical knowledge about individual actors, we can locate them in their intellectual and political environments. It also argues for the importance of using non-elite genres – including language manuals, travel guides and translations – in researching intellectual history, and for understanding debates and discourses within colonial societies. Drawing on my historical research into the lives of Haddad, Stephan and Canaan, and combining it with textual analysis, this thesis makes the argument for more diverse ideas of Palestinian identity than are often discussed for the Mandate period, and for the need to include a wider range of contributors than prominent intellectuals and politicians in our assessment of the discourses in play in this key period of Palestinian history.

Cette thèse en arts plastiques s'appuie sur les œuvres d'artistes palestiniens contemporains (Mona Hatoum, Taysir Batnijl, Ruia Halawani, Emily Jacir, Laila Shawa), ainsi que sur une pratique personnelle, pour interroger le concept de frontière. Une telle lecture se fait à travers un événement historique majeur : la Nakba. Elle démontre l'hypothèse selon laquelle l'expulsion des Palestiniens de leurs terres a fait émerger, dans les travaux des artistes, une nouvelle forme de frontière. La première partie présente les différents dispositifs de la frontière (vidéosurveillance. miradors, mur, checkpoints) qui imprègnent la création contemporaine et témoignent d'une souffrance qui laisse sa trace dans le paysage, par l'intermédiaire de la mémoire conçue comme un point d'ancrage dans le passé pour mieux comprendre le présent. La deuxième partie, axée sur la mémoire de la Nakba, que nous appelons « mémoire collective expulsée », permet une relecture de cette frontière du point de vue de l'art - grâce auquel la douleur de l'exilé se transforme en force créatrice. Nous aboutissons ainsi, dans un troisième temps, à l'« identité-résilience» qui traduit, chez les artistes palestiniens, leur survie par l'art à l'issue d'une prise de conscience du déracinement originel lié à la e; noyade» de leur patrie et de ses frontières. La frontière devient une blessure inscrite dans le passé sous laquelle l'histoire, la mémoire et l'identité se stratifient, dessinant les contours de nos propres travaux et des œuvres étudiées. Notre thèse, c'est que la Nakba est une fissure qui s'enracine viscéralement dans l'artiste et évolue avec son œuvre pour donner naissance à la « frontière-diaclase », / This PhD dissertation in the field of visual arts builds on the artworks of contemporary Palestinian artists (Mona Hatoum, Taysir Batniji, Ruia Halawani, Emily Jacir, Laila Shawa) as well as on a personal practice, in order to question the border as a concept. The approach chosen draws upon a major historical event: the Nakba. It alms to demonstrate the hypothesis according to which the eviction of Palestinians from their land has allowed their different arts to express a new form of border. Part l exposes the multiple dimensions of the border (video monitoring, watchtowers, wall, checkpoints) which nurture the contemporary creation, while unveiling the trace of a suffering left in the landscape through memory. Memory is conceived as an anchor in the past, for a better understanding of the present. Part II of the dissertation centers on the Nakba as an "expelled collective memory" and provides a retrospective reading of borders, seen through art. By the medium of art, the pain of the exiled becomes his creative power. Hence part III focuses on the "resilience-identity" which expresses the survival of Palestinian artists after a realization of the original uprooting due to the "drowning" of their homeland and its borders. Borders become a wound in the past under which can be found memory, history and identity, which serve the understanding of both my personal work and the pieces studied. The thesis purports to show that the Nakba appears as a fissure deeply rooted in the artist's being and evolving with his work, eventually giving birth to "joint border".

Este trabalho pretende investigar a diáspora palestina no Brasil, através do olhar dos integrantes\\simpatizantes da Federação Árabe Palestina do Brasil (FEPAL). A entidade, fundada em novembro de 1980, uniu e politizou a comunidade palestina do Brasil, no mesmo momento em que o Brasil acompanhava o esgotamento do regime militar. A presença de manifestações políticas pelas Diretas Já! foi a oportunidade encontrada pelos imigrantes palestinos e descendentes de difundirem a causa palestina para o público brasileiro. Mais adiante, o aumento da violência contra os refugiados palestinos no Líbano na década de 1980 foi fundamental para a formação de uma segunda entidade, a Associação Cultural Sanaúd, em 1982, criada pelos jovens da comunidade síria, libanesa e palestina a fim de se manifestarem pela causa palestina em muitos eventos promovidos em São Paulo. A efervescência política em apoio à questão da Palestina durou até meados da década de 1990, o desânimo gerado pelos Acordos de Paz de Oslo interrompeu a militância política palestina até a sua retomada em 2000, quando estourou a segunda Intifada. Foi nessa ocasião em que foram formadas novas organizações nacionalistas: o Shalom, Salam, Paz (2000), uma associação entre a comunidade judaica e palestina; o GT Árabe (2010) e o comitê Estado da Palestina Já! (2011). Foi através da observação participante nas reuniões do GT Árabe e do comitê Estado da Palestina Já! e através das entrevistas realizadas com 13 colaboradores que foi possível compreender as relações entre a FEPAL e o Hamas; o aumento da oposição às diretrizes da FEPAL em São Paulo e sobre as impressões da política externa entre o Brasil e a Palestina durante o governo Lula (2003-2010) e o início do governo Dilma Rousseff (2011-2012). O recorte para esta pesquisa começa desde o ano 2000, início da segunda Intifada e vai até a votação pelo reconhecimento do Estado da Palestina na Assembleia da ONU, em 2012. No mesmo ano que acontecia o Fórum Social Mundial Palestina Livre, na cidade de Porto Alegre-RS. / This work intends to investigate the Palestinian diaspora in Brazil, through the eyes of the members\\ sympathizers of the Palestinian Arab Federation of Brazil (FEPAL). The entity, founded in November 1980, united and politicized the Palestinian community of Brazil, at the same time that Brazil was following the exhaustion of the military regime. The presence of political demonstrations for the Diretas Já! was the opportunity found by Palestinian immigrants and descendants to spread the Palestinian cause to the Brazilian public. Further, the increase of the violence against Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in the 1980s was the key to the formation of a second entity, the Sanaúd Cultural Association, in 1982, created by the youngers from the Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian communities to demonstrate the Palestinian cause in many events promoted in São Paulo. The political effervescence in support of the Palestine question lasted until the mid-1990s, the dismay generated by the Oslo Peace Accords interrupted the Palestinian political militancy until its resumption in 2000, when the second Intifada broke out. It was at this time that new nationalist organizations were formed: Shalom, Salam, Paz (2000), an association between the Jewish and Palestinian community; the GT Árabe (2010) and the committee \"Estado da Palestina Já! (2011). It was through participant observation at the meetings of the GT Árabe and at the committee Estado da Palestina Já! and through the interviews with 13 collaborators that it was possible to understand the relations between FEPAL and Hamas; the increasing opposition to the directives of FEPAL in São Paulo and on the impressions of the foreign policy between Brazil and Palestine during the Lula government (2003-2010) and at the beginning of the Dilma Rousseff government (2011-2012). The clipping for this research starts from the year 2000, at the beginning of the second Intifada and goes until the vote for the recognition of the State of Palestine in the Assembly of the UN, in 2012. In the same year that the Free Palestine World Social Forum took place, in the city of Porto Alegre-RS.

The central question this thesis poses is how and why the modes of Palestinian political activism have changed from the first to the second intifada. The thesis will explore the underlying major political, territorial and social developments that created a new environment for the second uprising that was no longer conducive to the mass protests and acts of civil disobedience, which had dominated the first intifada in the late 1980s. The decline of civil society, the reassertion of Palestinian political factionalism and the unique geographical dislocation of the Palestinian territories, which created new physical obstacles to resistance but also caused division within society, were the key factors in reshaping the context of the second intifada. In addition, rising support for violent resistance among the population was rooted in the sense of hopelessness and frustration that re-emerged over the Oslo period. Much of the population’s frustration was directed at Israel’s colonial regime but in part it was also a response to the rule of the Palestinian Authority, which had failed to fulfil its commitments to its own population in view of its obligations under Oslo toward Israel. In the absence of alternative non-violent outlets within either politics or civil society, what took root instead was individual activism via militant organisations. As such, this thesis offers an account of the development of Palestinian political action (and in particular political violence) that is indebted to an effort to employ historical and contextual analysis in ways that deepen the insights available from explanations of behaviour drawn from political science.