Asian American 175B Midterm

Rana Barakat’s "Writing/righting Palestine studies," central argument

Barakat argues that while settler-colonialism is a vital framework for understanding Zionism (the settler's history and ideology), it often centers the settler’s "triumph" and relegates the native to a symbolic, past-tense role. She contends that Palestinian history must be anchored in Indigenous studies and the pursuit of "intellectual sovereignty". This shift allows Palestinians to be viewed not just as victims of a settler narrative, but as active makers of their own history and resistance whose story is ongoing and incomplete

According to Barakat, while is the settler colonial studies analytic in Palestine bad?

Regardless of intentions, employing the analytic can and has led to a Zionist centered reading of the narrative

What does Barakat say about Veracini?

Historian Lorenzo Veracini claims the "classic" model of settler colonialism applies to 1948 (where the native is reduced) but has "failed" in the 1967 territories (binary), a distinction Barakat rejects as ignoring ongoing resistance

Settlercolonialism

Settlercolonialism: the logic of elimination, destroying to replace, not necessarily using the labor of the natives, also known as structural genocide(ongoing ethnic cleansing process, not one thing in time you can point to; structure that requires invasion, territorial control)

Veracini (The Triad)

Indigenous - Exogenous other(enslaved blacks/chattel slavery; can be other context) - Settler

Lorenzo Veracini: The Three-Step Dance(Triad)

• The Goal of the Waltz: For Veracini, the ultimate aim of a settler-colonial project is to supersede itself. This means the project is "successful" only when the settlers cease to be defined as settlers and instead become "natives," normalizing their presence on the land.

• Example in Palestine: Veracini applies this by creating a division in Zionist history. He argues that the 1948 boundary represents a "classic" model of settler colonialism because the indigenous population was reduced to a "manageable remnant". Conversely, he views the territories occupied in 1967 as a "failure" of the project, characterizing them as a "relational system" of standard colonial control rather than settler-colonial elimination.

• Background: Veracini’s focus on "triumph" or "success" is often criticized by indigenous scholars for mirroring the settler's own narrative and treating the native's story as if it has reached a definitive end.

Patrick Wolfe: The Binary Salsa (Settler and Native/Indigenous)

• The Logic of the Salsa(Barakat supports more): Wolfe’s model is built on "recuperating binarism," arguing that the relationship between native and settler is a structural one not just an event. He operates on a "zero-sum logic" where settler societies fundamentally require the total elimination of native alternatives to feel completness.

• Example in Palestine: Unlike Veracini, Wolfe rejects the idea of a 1948/1967 split. He famously argued that "invasion is a structure not an event," meaning the settler-colonial process does not stop once the initial "frontier homicide" is over. He views Israel/Palestine as locked in a "frontier situation" where various settler-colonial methods coexist simultaneously, rather than a completed story of success or failure.

• Background: Wolfe’s "salsa" is rooted in the politics of positionality. He believed that maintaining this binary was essential for indigenous resistance because it signals that the settler project is "permanently incomplete" as long as the native remains.

What does Barakat conclude?

Emphasizes that Indigeneity is a political category. Warrior’s Intellectual Sovereignty: It is a "decision" made in the "minds, hearts, and bodies" of Palestinians to produce their own theories and criticisms rather than just reacting to Zionist frameworks(sovereignty over their own discourse). Salaita shared the struggle for liberation and self-determination to create global solidarity (Native Americans and Palestinians)

What are two examples to support this from the readings?

1. Rosemary Sayigh’s: Reclaiming the Narrative in Education: Sayigh provides a clear example of intellectual sovereignty when she describes students demonstrating against the UNRWA-provided textbook The History of My Country. The students rejected the book for its inaccuracies and demanded "correct books" that reflected their own history of popular resistance, forcing the administration to withdraw the text after writing 25 reasons to reject

2. Qutami: Student Movements After Nakba GUPS took part in “non-state” people’s diplomacy with political representation and revolutionary leadership(International Union of Students) allowed

3. Karameh: The Palestinian Birthday (Figure 1): Arafat emphasizing the creation of new people, with new hope of organized courage for self determination(faces wrapped in the keffiyeh)

How doe the Barakat reading of intellectual sovereignty relate to another reading?

Relates to Sa’di and Abu-Lughod:

The importance of collective memory over individual memory of trauma; the ability to tell stories and make them public

The Example: "Whistling Without Lips"

• The Context: An elderly Palestinian woman in the Galilee, who was a survivor of the 1948 Nakba, was asked why she had never shared her traumatic memories in public—specifically her stories of hiding in a haystack from armored vehicles and witnessing the murder of her neighbors.

• The Retort: She replied, “How can those without lips whistle?”.

• The Meaning: In a literal sense, she was expressing that the trauma was so deep it had stripped her of the capacity to speak; however, in a political sense, it signifies the lack of a receptive audience and political apparatus to hear the Palestinian narrative

Give me wo examples of the importance of place?

Towteen + students in Lebanon camp 25 reasons (History of my country textbook)

What is the central argument of The Claims of Memory Introduction? Provide one example from the reading used to support the point and outside.

The central argument of Sa’di and Abu-Lughod’s introduction is that Palestinian memory is a "dissident memory" or "counter-memory" that functions as a political weapon against the "thundering story of Zionism". It must slip through the holes in the wall of the dominant memory.

Rema Hammami’s "Remapping" of Jaffa Liwan: Rema Hammami describes visiting her grandfather’s former house in Jaffa, which had been converted into a medical center. While she attempted to "remap the liwan’s (sitting room) former reality" by mentally excluding the current settlers, she was confronted by a manager who gave her a "didactic lecture on Jewish redemption". This encounter highlights the collision between a "dreamy past" preserved in family memory and a "harsh present" dominated by a narrative that seeks to erase the native’s history.

Loubna Qutami’s example of Palestinian poster art represents the creation of "political lips" by utilizing "non-state people’s diplomacy". By producing their own visual iconography (the Fida’i), Palestinians practiced intellectual sovereignty, moving away from the "hapless refugee" stereotype to define themselves as part of a global Indigenous and anti-colonial struggle for self-determination

What is the central argument of the Amara and Hawari Reading? + Two examples

•  The comprehensive central argument of Amara and Hawari is that Palestinian indigeneity is a political reality created by the Zionist colonial encounter. The authors contend that reclaiming this indigenous identity is essential because it collectivizes the Palestinian experience, connecting all geographic fragments (those in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and exile) to a single experience of the "continuous Nakba" (al-Nakba al-mustimirrah). By shifting the discourse from a narrow legal struggle for "rights" to a broader indigenous struggle for decolonization, Palestinians can articulate a vision for the future that includes sovereignty, liberation, and the right of return for all

The central argument of the reading by Ahmad Amara and Yara Hawari is that indigeneity must be reclaimed as a central political paradigm to unify the geographically fragmented Palestinian people and move their struggle beyond the limitations of international law toward a comprehensive goal of decolonization and liberation

1. Araftat refused to compare Palestinians to Native American situation as it shows defeat (Darwish says otherwie)

2. "legal indigeneity" can be a mechanism of fragmentation (like Bedouin)

3. UNDRIP failed is giving indigenous sovereignty as it focused more territorial

What is the central argument in Toloyan’s reading? And what are two examples?

For the Tololyan reading, he is arguing against the broadening of the term diaspora as it went from a restrictive label for the specific groups like the Jews and Armenians to the 1960s where diaspora led to more of a hybrid identity (he argues that while the term has given new groups voices without a specifically defintion it will make it hard for disapora to challenge the nation-state)

Tölölyan highlights how the term has been stripped of its historical weight—originally rooted in traumatic uprooting and collective memory—to describe almost any form of scattering.

• The Textual Evidence: He points to "wholly inappropriate" uses in the media, such as describing unemployed executives as a "great corporate diaspora"

• Diasporan communities actively maintain a collective memory that is a foundational element of their distinct identity(can be emodided in text like the Old Testament for Jews)

Toloyan difference between ethnic groups and disapora with example

• Ethnic Group: While they maintain a collective identity distinct from the dominant hostland culture, their connection to a homeland is generally absent, weak, or intermittent. Their identity is often manifested through individual practices—such as culinary or linguistic traditions—rather than the community as a whole acting in a consistently organized political or cultural manner.

• Diaspora: A diaspora is characterized by a multi-tiered minority of activists and elites who actively work to maintain connections between their community, the homeland, and kinfolk in other nation-states. They perform "ideological work" to view their community as part of a single, continuous nation and use organized institutions to lobby host governments or raise funds to influence the homeland's economy and politics.

Example: Italian-Americans vs. Jewish/Armenian Communities

Tölölyan uses Italian-Americans as a clear example of an ethnic group. Their self-identification is largely expressed through fragmentary cultural rituals, like parades or food, but they rarely act in organized ways to develop a political agenda across national boundaries.

By contrast, he identifies Jewish and Armenian communities as paradigmatic diasporas. These groups have established organizations that lobby the United States government on behalf of their respective homelands and consistently "re-turn" toward those homelands by devoting significant human and financial resources to support them

With the evolution of the term Diaspora give a before and after understanding of the term

The "Before" Understanding: The Restrictive Paradigm

Before the late 1960s, the term was used in a restrictive sense and was saturated with meanings of exile, loss, dislocation, and pain. This classical definition was built on the "Jewish paradigm," which required specific constitutive elements:

• Coercion: The community must be formed through traumatic uprooting and forced resettlement outside the homeland.

• Pre-existing Identity: The group must have a clearly delimited identity in the homeland before departure.

• Collective Memory and Return: The community must maintain a collective memory (often through a sacred text) and a literal desire to eventually return to the homeland.

Example: The Jewish and Armenian dispersions were considered the "typical" examples of this restrictive definition. For instance, the Jewish Diaspora after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem was defined by the loss of redemptive proximity to the center and a literature of lamentation that equated statelessness with total powerlessness.

Modern now: Immigrant minorities like The Dominican Diaspora: In the modern "transnational moment," nearly one million Dominicans in New York act as a decisive political force, sending over a billion dollars home annually and electing deputies to the homeland's parliament. This illustrates a "transnation" that wields "stateless power"

How did Palestinians stick together, communicate, and have a connection to their homeland during the Hijra when they were forced to leave after the Nakba? 2 examples

• Diwans and Secret Meetings: To oppose UNRWA projects aimed at towteen (implantation or permanent resettlement), activists held secret meetings and night visits in communal spaces called diwans. They used these gatherings to argue that living in poverty was a necessary political choice to remain "attached to the land" and reject any loan or ticket that required surrendering their ration cards and right of return.

• The "Sixty Villages" Stand: When the Lebanese police attempted to move refugees from Bourj al-Shemali (near the border) to the interior Beka' Valley, the refugees from sixty different villages insisted they be moved as a single unit. Despite being beaten with rifle butts and forced onto trucks, they maintained their demand for collective relocation to preserve their social fabric

Qutami central argument

Qutami argues that the Fida’i is a malleable signifier that has been remade, appropriated, and contested at every phase of the Palestinian struggle. While it initially symbolized a "new Palestinian" born from organized courage and grassroots agency, the icon was later used by the political establishment to obscure internal discord and legitimize a shift toward diplomacy and state-building that contradicted its original revolutionary principles. However, for everyday people the fida’i contined to serve a symbol of liberation.

 Revolutionary icons are not "born overnight."

• Argument: The Fida’i emerged from decades of student-led organizing that linked theory to practice long before Karameh(dignity).

• Evidence: Student groups in Beirut (pre-PFLP) and Cairo (pre-Fateh) formed GUPS(General Union of Palestine Students) in 1959, which served as a representative force for national aspirations before the PLO existed.

• Pedagogical Praxis: Student newsletters like al-Ittihad helped "induct" the Fida’i icon into the Palestinian psyche across borders.

. The icon "de-pathologized" the refugee condition.

• Argument: Karameh transformed the image of the homeless refugee into the "agent of resistance".

Evidence: A 1980 PLO poster captions Karameh as the "Palestinian Birthday," signaling the rebirth of a people from "refugees" to "freedom fighters"

Second, icons are contested from the moment they appear.

3. The icon had the power to "obscure discord."

• Argument: As a symbol of "national unity," the Fida’i obscured fierce internal quarrels over ideology, strategy, and power struggles. Figure 4 shows Fatah Arafat using fida’i for power.

• Evidence: Fateh used its "spectacular performance of bravado" at Karameh to outbid the PLO for legitimacy, calling it a "pseudo-liberation organization" artificially imposed from above.

• Factionalism: The PFLP (George Habash) criticized Fateh for "mindless militarism" and a lack of clear revolutionary theory.

Third, icons are always vulnerable to colonial appropriation and nationalist recuperation. 

4. The Fida’i as an Icon of Social Transformation

• Argument: The Fida’i movement fundamentally altered the psychological and social fabric of Palestinian society by creating active revolutionary roles for "everyday people"—specifically women and children—thereby transforming a "generation of despair" into a "generation of liberation".

• Evidence:

  • Normalization of Women in Resistance: The environment of resistance "relaxed social control," allowing women to join guerrilla groups in increasing numbers. A 1968 PFLP poster by Ghassan Kanafani (Figure 5) visually codified this by depicting a woman in a hijab holding a gun. + children went from wanting to attend university with 84% in Sirhan study wanting to join fida’i

How is Sabra and Shatila an example of Wolfe’s Salsa Dance and binary? Specifically showing settler anxiety and the constant want to supersede the settler-native binary.

In Barakat's framework, Sabra and Shatila is an attempt to close the "permanent frontier" by turning the Palestinian "Native" into a vanquished and disappeared subject. The massacre was a violent response to the "settler anxiety" caused by the native's refusal to vanish, illustrating that even when the native is disarmed or "leaving," the structural logic of the settler state continues to demand their total elimination to resolve the binary

The Workers Kanafani

• The Arab proletariat became the victim of British colonialism and Jewish Capitalism

• British Mandate government awarded 90% of its concessions to the Jewish sector

• September 1937 Jewish wages rose 145% higher than those of their Arab counterparts in that year

• Histadrut membership grew by 41k in 9 months in 1936 while Arab workers were dismissed from wage work

• The Palestine Communist Party promoted ideas of class solidarity among Jewish and Arab workers against the British mandate —> failed Arabization, allowing feudal-religious leaders to dominate

The Peasants/Fellahin Kanafani

• Arab peasants suffered from Zionist colonization of the land, Arab feudal landownership, and the unfair taxation of the British Mandate government

• In many cases, smallholders sold their plots to large Arab landowners to raise money to buy weapons to fight the occupation. These same feudal clerical leaders then turned around and sold that land to Jewish capital.

• Kicked off their land (often coerced British law not enforced), landless peasants headed to the city for cheap unskilled labor (payed half that of Jews)

• With British taking away from feudal-clerical power, they decided to concede progressive strategy to help the frontline peasant masses

The Intellectual Kanafani

• The Intellectual had greater freedom being under the wing of the feudalist religious leaders

• Popular poetry held similar power to mass media today

• They were tasked to alter this culture of subservience they too were part of and move towards creating a progressive popular consciouness by using poetry to reveal Zionist and colonial to reflect the spirit (rise up in revolt)consciousness

• There was not a single Palestinian writer/intellectual in the period under study who did not join in the call to resist the colonial enemy. 

Examples of the harvest of the Nakba was because of the flaws of the revolt

Being a period where the Palestinian cause was used by Arab regimes for their own gain, the Nakba illustrated that with Jordan agreeing to stop to take over the West Bank for itself especially how feudal religious leaders empowered Arab regimes and trusted them (Peel commision).

Jordan (Rosemary Sayigh)

• Jordan(hashemite policy): energetic policy of integration(army/government services), they get passports, get a national number, they do not get a separate Palestinian identity, many were offer citizenship(you could be citizen but not a Palestinian nationalist)

  • From 1948-67, the Jordans copy the British policy of preserving power of West Bank notables

  • Political organizing was done in extreme secrecy with internal intelligence forms everywhere 

  • Ex) Strict surveillance on radio and tanks around camps to stop demonstrations

Syria (Rosemary Sayigh)

• Syria: they were allowed equal rights with Syrians, while keeping their own identity, with the least discrimination in Syria, without work permits, and professional work can operate freely like their counterparts, but citizenship is not offered, could work in both army and government 

  • The Directorate of Refugee Services and the Ministry of the Interior to the Intelligence Services important when they deal with activism and need papers

Lebanon (Rosemary Sayigh)

• Lebanon: not given citizenship except if you were select Christian and very rich,high levels of discrimination; you cannot join the military or public service

  • Why?: Lebanon has a delicate sectarian equilibrium that Sunni Muslims might ruin, as well as a fear of Israeli retaliation against the fedayeen action could enager their Maronite Christian balance 

  •  Lebanon was not in this level of need compared to Jordan, which wanted the masses to support their state 

  • Excluded from all public and many kinds of private employment, especially with the Palestinian workforce clashing with the skilled Lebanese workforce 

  • Had to apply for a work permit, no social security benefits despite paying

What is key example that the revolt was the harvest of the Nakba?

Kanafani shows that while the British were systematically disarming and "crushing the Arab revolution," they were simultaneously building the foundation of the future Israeli army.

• Example: Under the tutelage of British officer Charles Orde Wingate, Zionist units like the Special Night Squads and the Jewish Settlement Police received advanced military training in "murderous terrorist raids".

• Fact: By 1939, the Zionists had over 14,000 armed men in formalized police units, while the Palestinian fighting force had been "smashed and scattered," with 148 executed at Akka prison and roughly 50,000 people detained or imprisoned during the revolt.

2. The Economic "Hebraization" and Infrastructure

While the Palestinian economy was paralyzed by the general strike, the Zionist sector used the revolt to achieve total hegemony over Palestine's economic infrastructure.

• Example: To bypass the Arab strike in Yafa, the Zionists built a new port in Tel Aviv, which Kanafani notes "extinguished the vitality" of the main Arab port