Beyond Fragmentation: The ties that bind Palestinians in the 1967 and 1948 territories
CRITICAL READINGS OF DEVELOPMENT UNDER COLONIALISM: TOWARDS A POLITICAL ECONOMY FOR LIBERATION IN THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES
The Centre for Development Studies (CDS) at Birzeit University is undertaking research on alternatives to current models of development, aid and neoliberalism. This paper seeks to contribute to that process by focusing on a relatively understudied dimension of the Palestinian experience, namely connections, ties and interactions between Palestinians based on either side of the Green Line. The subject has been largely understudied by both scholars and practitioners. In part this may reflect the influence of the Oslo ‘peace’ process (1993 onwards) which has framed analysis of the Palestinian question, whereby the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) is conceived as the site of a future Palestinian national self-determination and state on the one hand, and the extent to which Palestinians living in Israel have been integrated into that state (see Stav 2001, Rouhana and Sabbagh-Khoury 2011), on the other.
Given this context, this paper therefore aims to do two things. One is to bring the relationships between Palestinian citizens of Israel and the OPT into the foreground. Another is to survey the current configuration of those connections and examine the extent to which they present an alternative model for Palestinian development. To answer this, it is necessary to understand the mainstream form of development which is being currently pursued in relation to Palestinians on either side of the Green Line. Essentially, the latter can be summarised along two lines which are intertwined: on the one hand, politically development policies predicate the establishment of two states as set out in the Oslo process; on the other hand, economically the prevailing paradigm seeks the construction of neoliberalism in both states.
