Palestine and the Palestinians in the 21st Century

The multidisciplinary essays in this volume portray a nation contemplating the possibility of stalemate, hemmed in, and searching for outlets to express its self-determination. Academics from Palestine, the U.S., and other nations each explore one facet of modern Palestinian society, from the ways that the economy has been engineered to be completely dependent on Israel to women’s rights. Georgetown University anthropologist Davis (Palestinian Village Histories) and Kirk (co-editor of Uncovering Iraq), an editor at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute, divide the book thematically into three sections, focusing broadly on colonialism and its effects, politics and law in the Palestinian territories, and the future of the Palestinian state and its place in the international system. Throughout, the contributors reiterate that Israel imposes its will on the territories through its system of checkpoints and walls, while in the political sphere, “the recognition of the colonial definition of the colonized self [is] the condition for that self’s independence. As in other Arab countries, independence involved the internalization of colonialism.” Many of the contributors, including Saree Makdisi and Ali Abunimah, argue for the establishment of one binational state—a seemingly unlikely prospect, but there are few alternatives for the Palestinians, who are “involuntarily subject to a regime that claim[s] moral and cultural superiority and democratic legitimacy.” (Oct.)