Palestinian civilians engaged in numerous acts of unarmed resistance during the second intifada. However, these attempts in using non-violent strategies were frequently overshadowed by the armed tactics of militant groups. Drawing from extensive interviews, surveys, and observations in the West Bank, this book provides an in-depth study of the often-overlooked aspects of popular resistance in Palestine. The book demonstrates how such unarmed tactics have considerable support amongst the local population particularly when they are framed as a strategy rather than just as a moral preference. However, whilst recognizing the successes of many civil-based initiatives, the author examines why a unified popular movement never fully emerged. She argues that obstacles extended beyond occupation policies to include political constraints from the Palestinian Authority, and agenda-setting efforts from sectors of the international community. Nevertheless, many activists continue to work creatively through diverse channels and networks to broaden the space for civil resistance. Combining critical analysis with activist narratives and community case studies, the book provides a comprehensive and compelling look at non-violent activism in the second intifada, offering a fresh perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and illustrating both the challenges and opportunities in mobilizing for popular struggle.

Palestinian and Israeli Public Opinion is based on a unique project: the Joint Israeli-Palestinian Poll (JIPP). Since 2000, Jacob Shamir and Khalil Shikaki have directed joint surveys among Israelis and Palestinians, providing a rare opportunity to examine public opinion on two sides of an intractable conflict. Adopting a two-level game theory approach, Shamir and Shikaki argue that public opinion is a multifaceted phenomenon and a critical player in international politics. They examine how the Israeli and Palestinian publics' assessments, expectations, mutual perceptions and misperceptions, and overt political action fed into domestic policy formation and international negotiations -- from the failure of the 2000 Camp David summit through the second Intifada and the elections of 2006. A discussion of the study's implications for policymaking and strategic framing of future peace agreements concludes this timely and informative book.

Late Modern Palestine looks at the ways in which the relationship between the subject and representation and the political problematic of postcolonial late modernity is articulated in the context of the Palestinians’ struggle for liberation. Junko-Aikio provides a rich, theoretically and empirically, and in part also visually grounded study of the complex ways in which ordinary Palestinians face, negotiate and resist multiple regimes of power and desire in the context of everyday life in the West Bank and Gaza. The volume examines the early years of the second Palestinian uprising, an intifada, whose political status remains highly disputed. The book examines the ways in which Palestinian politics during the second intifada has been entangled with the broader social and political changes that are associated with postcolonial late modernity. It is argued that the dislocation between modern colonial and late modern/postcolonial regimes of power and subjectivity greatly complicates the map of power and resistance in contemporary Palestine, and also renders articulation of national unity and hegemonic political strategy increasingly unlikely. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of Middle East Studies, Postcolonial Studies, International Relations, Political Sociology, Critical Security Studies, and Political Theory.

In this nuanced and detailed study of newspaper reporting during the escalation of the second Intifada in the fall of 2000, Daniel Dor shows how real events are subject to distortion and manipulation by the media. In an analysis of the heart of Israel's media establishment -- the newspapers Yediot Ahronot, Ma'ariv, and Ha'aretz -- he finds a wide gap between the reality reported by field reporters and the eventual newspaper accounts framed by editors. Led by beliefs, opinions, and emotional responses rather than the facts provided by their reporters, these editors created a platform on which a new and fearful narrative for Israeli--Palestinian relations was built. Yet while Dor demonstrates that the media construct the news rather than simply report it, his sophisticated analysis also shows that no one entity or person is responsible. Rather than a supreme authority, Dor argues, it is the influence of fear, anger, ignorance, and a desire to please and sell newspapers that threatens the freedom of the press in a liberal democracy.

A guide to womens' rights the world over -- part of our new Small Guides to Big Issues series published in asssocation with Oxfam

What incites an entire national group to violence? In The Path to Mass Rebellion Ruth Margolies Beitler investigates the form and structure of insurgent violence, taking the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as her case. Using historical, sociological, military, and policy data the author assembles a study of Israeli government action during the Six Day War and the First, and Second Intifadas that is unparalleled in its detail. Writing within the framework of carefully organized disciplinary knowledges Beitler produces a work that radically recontextualizes contemporary accounts of the conflict raging in the Middle East.

"This remarkable book tells the inside story of three young men caught up in the Palestinian Intifada. Through their stories, the tangled and tragic web of the past twenty years of the most enduring conflict in the Middle East unfolds before us. For over a decade, Laetitia Bucaille lived in the Occupied Territories for months at a time, gaining rare access to the three militants she calls Sami, Najy, and Bassam and many other Palestinians they cross paths with-those who grew up during the first Intifada and whose lives became bound up with the second, which erupted in 2000. The result is an intimate yet unsentimental portrait of daily life in the West Bank and Gaza from the mid-1980s to the present. In a new afterword, the author examines the social and political developments in the Occupied Territories since the book's publication in 2004, including the implications of Yasser Arafat's death and the challenges and opportunities presented to his elected successor, Mahmood Abbas."--Book jacket.