After nearly three decades of their existence, neither the Palestinian Authority (PA) nor the internationally-adopted and sponsored Oslo framework, brought the Palestinian people any closer to realizing their inalienable right to self-determination. In fact, these decades of peace and state … Continue reading Assessing the Oslo Accords through a Security Lens
Reimagining Palestine Public Lecture Series | Resisting Domination in Palestine: International Aid, Security, and State/Peace Building as Sites of Settler Colonial Control The ongoing social, political, and conceptual struggles of Palestine against a settler-colonial regime reveal a dynamic interplay between … Continue reading Resisting Domination in Palestine
Alaa Tartir joins host Yara Hawari to discuss the internationally-funded Palestinian security forces. Together, they assess the forces’ authoritarian role in sustaining Israel’s settler-colonial project and criminalizing Palestinian resistance, shedding light on the recent killing of critic and activist Nizar … Continue reading Podcast –Palestinian Securitization vs Liberation with Alaa Tartir
Following what appears to have been the politically driven assassination of Palestinian activist and critic of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Nizar Banat, on Thursday, international actors hurried to issue statements of condemnation. It was an ultimate exercise in hypocrisy and insincerity, as … Continue reading Nizar Banat killing: The world must stop enabling PA crimes
The Palestinian political leadership’s obsession with the idea of statehood as a means to realise self-determination and freedom has proved to be detrimental to the struggle of decolonising Palestine. By prioritising “statehood under colonialism” instead of focusing on decolonising Palestine … Continue reading “What is a State without the People?”: Statehood Obsession and Denial of Rights in Palestine
What are some of the key observations that can be taken from the cycle of confrontation and violence taking place in Palestine/Israel since October 2015? Six main conclusions can be drawn from this period. Published at The Middle East Eye, … Continue reading The Palestinian Intifada: Six Months, Six Observations
After a discussion of the historical background that led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority, this chapter describes the broader social and political transformations that took place in the oPt. The question of political economy is also very important … Continue reading Palestine
This article analyses perceptions of the Palestinian Authority’s post-2007 state-building project—popularly known as ‘Fayyadism’—by assessing academic and practitioner literatures on the topic, and by drawing on the findings of ethnographic fieldwork conducted at two sites in the West Bank: Balata … Continue reading Securitised development and Palestinian authoritarianism under Fayyadism
This article provides a contextual analysis of the evolution and reform processes of Palestinian security forces over the last two decades. It categorises the evolution of security reform processes into three phases: the Oslo Accords phase; the Second Intifada phase; … Continue reading The Evolution and Reform of Palestinian Security Forces 1993-2013
This paper-based thesis consists of five interlinked chapters/articles that explore dimensions of both the style of governance and the state-building endeavour in the West Bank in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, primarily between 2007 and 2013. This governance and state-building project … Continue reading Criminalising Resistance, Entrenching Neoliberalism: The Fayyadist Paradigm in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank
Instead of viewing the potential collapse or dismantling of the PA and its security forces as factors that put the whole region in chaos, the international community must seize the moment to abandon the “peace process party” and the “state-building … Continue reading Surviving Without the Palestinian Authority
The Palestinian Authority’s security sector has grown faster than any other part of the government, potentially putting Palestine on track to a police state. With the unity government moving into Gaza after Israel’s terrible 51-day assault, Al-Shabaka Policy Member Sabrien … Continue reading After Gaza, What Price Palestine’s Security Sector?
Dimitris Bouris’ The European Union and Occupied Palestinian Territories: State-Building without a State aims to tackle one central question: How effective has the EU been in its state-building policies towards the oPt? The effectiveness of the EU as a state-builder … Continue reading Book Review – The European Union and Occupied Palestinian Territories: State-Building without a State
In the post-Arafat era, dramatic changes took place in the Palestinian polity and system of governance. These transformations have created a new style of governance and state-building in the West Bank which can be called, Fayyadism. This home-grown even though it is externally … Continue reading Failing Aid: Towards a Viable Resistance Economy Model
In the post-Arafat era, dramatic changes took place in the Palestinian polity and systems of governance, and in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict dynamics. Alternative routes were pursued as a result of various multilevel interactions between inward and outward international, regional and … Continue reading Understanding The Fayyadism Paradigm: The ‘New’ West Bank After 2006
Development is a cumulative, complementary, economic, social and political process that fundamentally seeks to liberate human beings from dependency and humiliation. This process emancipates human beings by freeing them from poverty, inequality, fear and oppression, empowering them to cultivate their … Continue reading Cheap Occupation, Wasted Money, Political Guilt and Wrong Policies
Advancing few Major Arguments: Fayyadism entrenched the occupation and Palestinians are no nearer to self-determination and sovereignty; The ‘governance without a state’ framework is peculiar in the Palestinian case; State and non-state actors co-govern, but sovereignty remains with the occupation … Continue reading ‘Good Governance’ for State-Building in the West Bank, Palestine: Fayyadism, Hybridity and Sovereignty
In post-Arafat era, the Palestinian polity, governance systems, and the socio-economic conditions witnessed dramatic changes. ‘Fayyadism’ and ‘state-building program’ became the two ‘magical’ paradigms and the only game in town. They acquired unprecedented levels of international aid and western ‘political’ … Continue reading Neo-liberalism for Development and Statehood in Palestine:Fayyadism, Aid Dependency and State Building
Aid can contribute to the development in Palestine, but few preconditions and prerequisites need to exist: Understanding the development process as resistance, rights and freedom; Adopt a politicized version of Senian development model; Respect the self-determination and dignity in aid … Continue reading Can Aid Contribute to Development?
In the post-Arafat era, dramatic changes took place in the Palestinian polity and system of governance. Fayyadism became the magical paradigm. It acquired unprecedented levels of international aid as an investment in building a Palestinian state. This paper aims to … Continue reading Neo-liberalism for Development and Statehood in Palestine:Fayyadism, Aid Dependency and State Building
Alaa Tartir, Program Director of Al-Shabaka, Engaged Scholar, Global Citizen 