Palestinian Oral Tradtions and the ‘Sanctity’ of Damascus: A Critical Analysis of a Palestinian Seventeenth-Century Manuscript

This article explores the concept of the ‘Holy Land’ as reflected in a Palestinian seventeenth-century manuscript: A String of Pearls in Praise of al-Sham, by Muhammad Habib, and in light of the considerable output of works on the ‘virtues of the Holy Land’ by Muslim writers in Palestine and Syria. Although these writers composed their works using materials from traditional sources (religious, historical, geographical), the key issue explored here is the use of Palestinian oral and local traditions which were not always consistent with official or orthodox Islamic thought and thus local traditions which remained outside the bounds of official hadith compilations. This study explore the role played by local or oral traditions in highlighting the sanctity of a city or a site in Palestine and Syria.

Zionist-Nazi Collaboration and the Holocaust-A Historical Aberration? Lenni Brenner Revisited

Over thirty years ago Lenni Brenner's Zionism in the Age of the Dictators awakened the ghosts of Nazi-Zionist collaboration. This collaboration was an extension of Zionism's historical attitude to anti-Semitism in Europe, which saw anti-Semitism as the natural reaction of non-Jews to the abnormal presence of Jews. The Zionist movement was outraged by these public revelations of collaboration and sought to censor them. Brenner brought together some of the most damning evidence of Zionism's collaboration with the Nazis and their obstruction of the rescue of European Jews to anywhere but Palestine. This essay critiques Brenner's thesis, especially its failure to analyse the Holocaust in depth. Brenner rightly denounced this collaboration, but, as in the case of the Israeli Holocaust Memorial Museum Yad Vashem, he produced no analysis of this official Israeli memorial project. This essay furthermore explores the implications of Zionist collaboration as in the case of Argentina under the Junta and for a future resurgence of anti-Semitism.

Resistance, Martyrdom and Death in Mahmoud Darwish's Poetry

Struggle, personal sacrifice and death play significant roles in Palestinian poetry – a poetry of national struggle whose poets are driven to defend the existence of people and land by way of a fighting poetry which serves as a resistance to occupation. This article traces the evolution of the motifs of resistance and death in the poetry of Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish. It distinguishes between two main types of death in Darwish's poetry; these are collective death, which the author expresses by way of his people's experiences with death, and individual death, as reflected in the poet's own experience with death. The articleexplores each of these types and analyses their conceptual evolution. It shows how the changes which occurred in this motif are reflected in the poetic forms used by Darwish. In this paper we aim to show that Darwish's view of death is multi-faceted and takes into account chronological and geographical, as well as personal aspects. His attitude towards death is complex and is not limited to the ideological aspect. The paper provides a comprehensive investigation into this multiplicity in Darwish's poetry

Between Myth and Reality: The Palestinian Political Elite and the Two-State Solution

Although the two-state solution originated as a concession to preponderant political realities (specifically Israeli military superiority and international political pressures), it has subsequently become detached from any semblance of reality. While the two-state framework remains an article of faith for the Palestinian leadership, the day-to-day existence of West Bank Palestinians approximates more closely with an apartheid (one-state) reality. In interrogating this Janus-faced construction, the subsequent article seeks to establish whether the peace process should be re-interpreted as a manifestation of deeper divides and splits within the Palestinian body politic