THE CAMP AND THE POLITICAL: PALESTINIAN REFUGEE CAMPS IN LEBANON

Agnieszka Czajka

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Graduate Programme in Sociology York University Toronto, Ontario

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Abstract

The primary concern of this dissertation is to inquire into the possibility of de-structing the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex and its monopoly on the political by means of the camp — the Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, and the camp as constituted by

Giorgio Agamben. The second, but certainly not secondary concern is to inquire into the possibility of imagining an-other political — one not conditioned by, or grounded in the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex. To these ends, Chapter One provides an overview of the Palestinian refugee 'problem' in relation the creation of the state of

Israel, to international refugee law, and to the Lebanese state. Chapter Two builds a more comprehensive narrative of Palestinian refugees and refugee camps in Lebanon, attending to the manner in which refugees are positioned within Lebanese law, to the camps themselves, and to recent struggles over Ain al-Hilweh and Nahr al-Bared refugee camps. With the third chapter, the dissertation shifts from an analysis of the material to an analysis of the conceptual. As Chapters One and Two inquire into the emergence of Palestinian refugees and refugee camps from within the state- sovereignty-citizenship complex, Chapter Three attends to the emergence and development of the complex itself, narrating simultaneously the manner in which the

state, through the history it writes of sovereignty and citizenship, claims to be that which conditions the political. Chapter Four offers an interpretation and conceptualisation of the manner in which camp (which the nation-state itself produces) unhinges the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, the nation-state order, and the V political that it claims to condition and legitimate. Chapter Five offers a glimpse of the possibilities opened when the nation-state and the camp it produces collide; it begins to explore the contours of the possibility of an-other image of the political. VI

Table of Contents

Abstract iv

Introduction 1 Chapter Order and Synopses 20

Chapter One: The Emergence, and Contestation Over Palestinian Refugees — Israel, Lebanon, and International Refugee Law 24 The Emergence of the State of Israel, and of Palestinian Refugees 27 Palestinian Refugees in International Refugee Law 53 Lebanon and the Palestinians Refugee 'Problem' 60 Conclusion 78

Chapter Two: Subverting the State — Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon and the Struggle for Ain al-Hilweh and Nahr al-Bared 80 Palestinian Refugees and Refugee Camps in Lebanese Law 82 Subverting the State: Palestinian Refugee Camps and the Lebanese State 93 Governing City-Camp: Sovereignties, Territories, Citizenships 97 Discursive Constructions of Palestinian Refugees and Refugee Camps 109 Ain al-Hilweh and Taamir 122 Nahr al-Bared 128 Conclusion 136

Chapter Three: The Emergence of, and Contestation Over the State — the State- Sovereignty-Citizenship Complex 138 State Sovereignty 141 Sovereignty and Law 142 Sovereignty and Legitimacy 162 State Citizenship 177 Conclusion 196

Chapter Four: The Camp — De-structing the State-Sovereignty-Citizenship Complex 198 Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon 200 The Camp as a De-structive Element 211 Conclusion 269 Vll

Chapter Five: An-other Political — The Promise of Camp 238 Stretching and Relocating the Political 215 The Contribution of Agamben 246 An-other Political 259 Conclusion 241

Conclusion 271

References 278 There is a well-known parable about the Kingdom of the Messiah that Walter Benjamin (who heard it from Gershom Scholem) recounted one evening to Ernst Bloch, who in turn transcribed it in Spuren.- "A rabbi, a real cabalist, once said that in order to establish the reign of peace it is not necessary to destroy everything nor to begin a completely new world. It is sufficient to displace this cup or this brush or this stone just a little, and thus everything... " (Agamben 1993, 53)

The modern growth ofworldlessness, the withering away of everything between us, can also be described as the spread of the desert (Arendt 2005, 201) 1

Introduction

I initially conceptualised this dissertation as having as its object the interpretation of the relationship between some of the canonical concepts of political sociology — state, sovereignty, and citizenship — and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. However, to interpret the interpretation of experience as the culmination of a project (no matter how novel or radical that interpretation is) would be to cut it off precisely at the moment at which the possibility of an-other way of understanding ourselves and the world around us is opened. An author's interpretation (or re-interpretation, although interpretations are always re-interpretations, so we can more economically, and perhaps more accurately refer to it as interpretation) of a relationship between concepts and experiential reality is the climax of a work. Although the climax, as an apex or pinnacle, is frequently understood to be the culmination of a work, it can also be seen as its midpoint, as merely its climax.

To say that it is merely the climax does not diminish its value, but indicates that beyond it crucial work can be done. To work her way up to it, the author assembles, using various conceptual and material pieces, an interpretation, a distinct conceptualisation of a relationship between these concepts and her experiential reality.

The assemblage is the climax. The work however, need not stop there. Having made her way up to the climax, the author can descend. Although working up to the climax is crucial, as there is no descent without a prior ascent, the descent is critical. During the descent the author can reflect back on what she has seen at, and from the climax, on the 2 distinct perspective that the climax offers, and on the prospects of working her way up to an-other one. Taking this sinusoid movement as its structuring premise, the dissertation not only ascends by constructing an interpretation of the relationship between the conceptual and material, but also descends by deconstructing the said relationship. In the light of the opening that this engenders, it begins to reassemble the fragments anew.

To clarify this structuring premise, it is useful to attend to that which makes possible the assemblage comprised of the aforementioned canonical concepts of political sociology and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. This, of course, cannot take the form of presenting a hypothesis regarding the content or parameters of the interpretation that the dissertation will construct, as that is the climax to which it must ascend, or work towards. It is possible, however, to consider at the outset the elements that comprise this assemblage, and the ground that makes possible its construction. It is possible, therefore, to attend to my encounters with Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, and the conceptual lenses through which I encountered them.

I first encountered Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in the summer of 2004, and then again in the fall of 2006; I spent most of my time in al-Jaleel (also known as

Wavel) refugee camp in the Beqaa Valley, and in Burj al-Barajneh in south Beirut. The former, located near the city of Baalbeck, was opened in 1948 in 12 buildings that served as barracks for the French army. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for

Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) took over the provision of services in the camp in 1952. The camp has since grown to a population of approximately 7,500 registered refugees, and an area of 42,300 square meters (UNRWA 2003a). Burj al- 3

Barajneh is situated in south Beirut, near the Beirut International Airport, and a short walk from Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. It was established in 1948 by the League of

Red Cross Societies to accommodate refugees from northern Palestine. The camp, considered at one point to be the largest in Lebanon, shrunk significantly following the

Lebanese civil war (1975-1990). Presently, approximately 20,000 registered refugees inhabit the camp (UNRWA 2003b).

A more detailed sketch of the camps, as well as the events that precipitated their creation will be provided in subsequent chapters. At this point, of importance is the affect the camps generated, as it is that affect that caused me to concern myself with the relationship between the camps and the conceptual tools I had developed for interpreting them. As even my interpretation of the camps as camps demonstrates, I did not arrive there without conceptual lenses through which to perceive and interpret them, and so it cannot be said that the camps appeared to me as unalloyed empirical entities. I was able to locate the camps in relation to concepts I had acquired through my previous political

science and sociology education, and more fundamentally, through the way in which we

all acquire concepts that enable us to function in, and interpret the world. I perceived the

camps in relation to the concepts of state, nation, sovereignty, and city, and attempted to understand them by fixing them within the parameters provided by previously developed

interpretations of these concepts. I fixed the subject positions of those who inhabited the

camps by positioning them in the space created by the articulation of the aforementioned

concepts, one that also makes possible the emergence of categories such as citizen and

refugee. As is the case with most encounters, however, the fit was not quite right. 4

Neither the concepts, nor the spaces produced through their articulation seemed to adequately account for the camps; the camps seemed equally inadequate as their materialisation. The disconnect was affective; it was discomforting and unsettling as it unhinged what until that moment seemed like conceptual and material certainties.

It might be tempting to interpret this encounter using the conceptual vocabulary of empiricism. Such framing would render the encounter in a more innocuous manner, and restore to it some conceptual stability. It might be tempting to say, therefore, that on encountering the camps I attempted to insert them into the matrix of existing concepts that accounts for all contingencies of empirical reality, and finding a misfit should declare the camps an anomaly. Alternatively, it might be said that I should attempt to alter existing concepts in light of a change in empirical circumstances. Both explanations, however, miss the complexity of the encounter, and of the co-constitutive relationship between conceptual and material realms. Both, moreover, do not adequately capture the generative potential of a particular constellation of concepts and experiential reality.

Fundamentally, they do not account for the creative and generative potential of transgressing the norm-anomaly, and the empirical-metaphysical dyad. They do not account for the event of the world world-ing (de la Durantaye 2003, 4), or opening up for the possibility of an otherwise.

In popularising the notion of the exception becoming the rule Giorgio Agamben at least partially displaces the conventional understanding of the relationship between the norm and the anomaly. The work of Agamben, which serves to theoretically ground this dissertation, will be treated at some length in upcoming chapters. For the purposes of the 5

Introduction, it is only necessary to attend to the relationship he establishes between the rule and the exception, as it can be of help when thinking through the ways in which the aforementioned dyads can be transcended. The state of exception forms, for Agamben, the hidden foundation of what he problematically labels the western understanding of politics and the political. This understanding, which claims the ideas of Aristotle as its origin has, for Agamben, been shaken by the coming to the fore of the exception, or in other words, by the exception becoming the rule (Agamben 1995, 9). "In our age", argues Agamben, "the state of exception comes more and more to the foreground as the fundamental political structure and ultimately begins to become the rule" (20). This exception materialises as camp. "The essence of camp", in fact, "consists in the materialisation of the state of exception" (Agamben 1995, 174). This relationship between the state of exception and the camp enables Agamben to argue that,

we find ourselves virtually in the presence of a camp every time such a structure is created, independent of the kinds of crime that are committed there and whatever its denomination and specific topography. The stadium in Bari into which the Italian police in 1991 provisionally herded all illegal Albanian immigrants before sending them back to their country, the winter cycle-racing track in which the Vichy authorities gathered the Jews before consigning them to the Germans, the Konzentrationslager Jur Auslander in Cottbus-Sielow in which the Weimar government gathered Jewish refugees from the East, or the zones d'attentes in French international airports in which foreigners asking for refugee status are detained will then all equally be camps. In all these cases, an apparently innocuous space...actually delimits a space in which the normal order is de facto suspended and in which whether or not atrocities are committed depends not on law but on the civility and ethical sense of the police who temporarily act as sovereign (Agamben 1995,174).

The relationship Agamben establishes between the rule and exception, enables him to argue that as the exception grounds the rule, camp as materialised exception grounds the norm or paradigm, and in fact begins to take it over. In addition to subverting the 6 common understanding that to be exceptional or anomalous is to lack all ties to the rule or norm, Agamben contends that it is in fact possible to include through exclusion, in the form of exception, as "the exception is what cannot be included in the whole of which it is a member and cannot be a member of the whole in which it is always already included''

(20). For Agamben, therefore, the exception is not only an intractable, but also a fundamental part of the rule.

While Agamben radically moves away from the norm-anomaly distinction, the dissertation suggests that Agamben's most important contribution to social sciences lies not only in the transgressive quality of his concepts, but in the manner in which his work refocuses the attention of social sciences away from explorations of issues of norms and anomalies, rules and exceptions, insides and outsides, and towards explorations of spaces that transcend these dualities. This is not to say that the aforementioned issues are unimportant, or marginal; I do not want to set the dissertation against such issues, merely outside of them. This, in turn, is not to say that the dissertation hopes merely to avoid taking a stand on whether, in simple terms, Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, or any other camps for that matter, are the exception or anomaly, the rule, or the exception that is becoming the rule. The dissertation eschews the subject of the normalcy or anomaly of the camps, their congruence or dissonance with already existing concepts, and whether concepts ought to be adjusted to account for the camps, or the camps be declared an anomaly. Instead, I set the dissertation, and thus the relationship between the conceptual and material realms of the camp on a different plane. As previously mentioned, the dissertation takes as given and grounding the co-constitutive relationship of concepts and 7 experiential reality. On this foundation, it presents an interpretation of the relationship between the camps and the political as framed by the conceptual conglomerate of state- sovereignty-citizenship, and sheds a different light on both the concepts and camps simultaneously. In shedding a different light, in providing an-other perspective, the interpretation offered by this dissertation points to the possibility of an-other, an altogether different conceptual and material world.

Thus far, I have described what I have called the ascent of the dissertation — a working through, or an interpretation of the co-constitutive relationship between canonical concepts of political sociology (state, sovereignty, and citizenship) and the experiential reality of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. No point exists at which one can assert with absolute certainty that one has worked out the relationship, or provided a conclusive interpretation. The point, however, at which an author negotiates an always-provisional conclusion, and finds at least temporary satisfaction with an interpretation signals her arrival at the climax. The climax, in turn, provides an otherwise inaccessible view, a distinct perspective from which it is possible to glimpse an otherwise. The work, however, does not end there. The climax is like a second beginning, in the light and shadow of which one descends. In the open constituted by the light and shadow produced by the climax the work continues, as the author must now take apart that which constitutes the climax, so that the possibility of reassembling it differently, and hence the possibility of refashioning the way we conceptualise the world

(and hence refashioning the world itself) is opened and preserved in openness. 8

Of great use in further clarifying this process is the work of Martin Heidegger.

First, Heidegger's work on being creates the space for thinking through the possibility of being otherwise. It does so by introducing temporality and historicity as essential characteristics of being (Heidegger 1988, 21-24). As being such-and-such — or in the context of this dissertation, as being political — is temporally structured, it contains within it the possibility of being otherwise, of being political in an-other way. As Stuart

Elden aptly points out, Heidegger's work and language help us interrogate different possible ways of being, and disclose that the ways of being we take as given are in fact contingent, and so can be-otherwise (Elden 2003, 196). Second, in altogether eschewing empiricist language and debates, Heidegger's vocabulary of being, being otherwise, clearing, and opening allows us to engage with the experiential reality of Palestinian refugee camps on a plane that is entirely removed from debates over their status in relation to norm and anomaly, as well as over their theoretical and methodological status

(as exemplars, cases, illustrations) within this dissertation.

Heidegger's concept of clearing (Lichtung) — which can be usefully read in light of Agamben's development of the theme of displacement in The Coming Community

(some of which was reproduced in the first epigraph to the dissertation) — is one of the guiding concepts of this dissertation. Interpretations of Heidegger offered by Hubert

Dreyfus in "Being and Power Revisited" (Dreyfus 2003) and Being-in-the World: A commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time, Division I (Dreyfus 1990), and Leland de la

Durantaye in "The Suspended Substantive: On Animals and Men in Giorgio Agamben's

The Open" (de la Durantaye 2003) can help clarify the utility of this concept to the 9 dissertation. According to Dreyfus, being is for Heidegger not a substance or process, but rather the basis on which beings are understood, or the shared practices that make human beings and things count as human beings and things, and show up as something

(Dreyfus 2003, 31). What makes us human, according to de la Durantaye's interpretation of Heidegger, is our ability to experience the Open, or the world world-ing. The moment that the world we live in — and otherwise have no distance from because of our many preoccupations — opens onto "something larger" is the moment at which the "world worlds", and we find ourselves standing in a clearing, a step away from the forest and the trees (de la Durantaye 2003, 4). The clearing (Lichtung) allows things and people to be encountered, and defines the parameters of the encounter. The word Lichtung refers to a clearing in the forest, which according to Dreyfus suggests for Heidegger an open space in which one can encounter objects; Licht itself also means light, and so things and people show up, and show themselves as such in the light of our understanding of being, or in the clearing (Dreyfus 1990, 161). In Heidegger's words,

In the midst of beings as a whole an open place occurs. There is a clearing, a lighting. Thought of in reference to what is, to beings, this clearing is in a greater degree than are beings. This open center is therefore not surrounded by what is; rather, the lightning center itself encircles all that is, like the Nothing which we scarcely know. That which is can only be, as a being, if it stands within and stands out within what is lighted in this clearing. Only this clearing grants and guarantees to us humans a passage to those beings that we ourselves are not, and access to the beings that we ourselves are (Heidegger 1950, 51).

For Heidegger, therefore, beings do not exist independently of the way in which they are lighted by the clearing; the clearing is not surrounded by what is, but rather what is exists in the manner that it exists as a function of the light of the clearing. In the clearing, however, there exists not only light but also shadow; in letting things and people show, 10 the clearing not only illuminates, but also conceals; it governs unobtrusively, simultaneously illuminating and concealing, and in so doing determines that which can be seen (Dreyfus 2003, 31). "Thanks to this clearing", argues Heidegger, "beings are unconcealed in certain changing degrees. And yet a being can be concealed, too, only within the sphere of what is lighted... The clearing in which beings stand is in itself at the same time concealment" (Heidegger 1950, 51-2).

For the purposes of this dissertation, this line of thought is crucial in at least two distinct ways. First, Heidegger's insistence that a clearing lets something show in a particular way introduces into our understanding of ourselves and others a fundamental contingency that cannot not denaturalise all conceptions we may have of ourselves and of

others, and by extension all of the concepts and structures that frame these conceptions.

The denaturalisation that results from the introduction of this fundamental contingency necessitates, in turn, the admission of the possibility of an-other understanding of

ourselves and others, and thus the possibility of being otherwise. There is, however, no

essential and necessary climax, no essential and necessary clearing that will be arrived at

eventually. A different clearing or opening, one arrived at by way of a different path, in

offering a distinct combination of light and shadow and thus a distinct view and perspective can show us ourselves and others differently. This dissertation hopes to

direct us towards an-other clearing.

That a clearing is actually created — cleared — is the second facet of the

aforementioned line of thought that is crucial for the purposes of this dissertation. A

distinction can be made between clearing as an activity (verb), and the clearing that 11 results from this activity (noun). Consequently, it can be said that a clearing does not merely exist or appear, but is cleared or produced through the process of clearing

(Dreyfus 1990, 165). A clearing is always produced, and because of the denaturalising effect of the relationship Heidegger envisages between a clearing and that which it shows, it can destabilise the foundations of that which is, and let the possibility of an otherwise show. For Heidegger, therefore, the "clearing of openness and establishment in the Open belong together" (Heidegger 1950, 59). Once cleared, the clearing opens, but another mechanism is necessary to maintain it. A being must always exist in the Open,

"something that is, in which the openness takes its stand and attains its constancy", something that is brought forth into the Open in such a way that "what is to be brought forth first clears the openness of the Open into which it comes forth" (60).

In the bringing forth into the open, two processes can be discerned — bringing into the open, and maintaining within the open. With respect to the first, language is of foundational importance, as "language alone brings what is, as something that is, into the

Open for the first time.. .Language, by naming beings for the first time.. .nominates being to their being from out of their being. Such saying is a projecting of the clearing, in which announcement is made of what it is that beings come into the Open as" (Heidegger

1950, 71). With respect to the second, Heidegger employs the concept of work of art, which he defines as that which collects scattered practices, unites them into coherent possibilities for action, and in holding them up to the people unifies them and gives meaning to their lives. The Greek temple is thus for Heidegger a work of art, as in its light beings appear as slaves and heroes, which in turn structures for them an 12 understanding of themselves, others, and the world they inhabit (Dreyfus 2003, 33). "A building, a Greek temple, portrays nothing", argues Heidegger. "It simply stands there....It is the temple-work that first fits together and at the same time gathers around itself the unity of those paths and relations in which birth and death, disaster and blessing, victory and disgrace, endurance and decline acquire the shape of destiny for human beings" (Heidegger 1950,41).

It is interesting to pause for a moment to consider the concept of art, as in addition to conveying what it does for Heidegger the concept of art also conveys the notion of artifice, both in the sense of something made or worked on, and hence artificial, and in the sense of illusion and distortion (by essence, not necessarily by design). Both meanings are of importance to this dissertation. Exposing the work of art as something that is worked on and created denaturalises it, and in turn, the way of being that it delineates. The allusion to the illusory and distorting potentialities of the work of art is somewhat trickier to handle, as references to illusion and distortion may lead one to understand that an undistorted, natural way of being underlies the facade that the work of art simultaneously gathers around itself and buttresses. While such may be the most simple and obvious interpretation, it is not the only possible one. One might equally argue — and such is the argument of this dissertation — that illusions and distortions are matters of light and perspective. Everything that is perceived is perceived in a certain light (nothing is visible in absolute darkness), and from a certain perspective (one always views something from somewhere). Thus, the necessity, and even possibility of an independently existing, unadulterated underpinning of the facade is eliminated, and with 13 it, incidentally, the positivist subject-object distinction. Thus, as Heidegger argues with respect to the Greek temple, "Truth happens in the temple's standing where it is. This does not mean that something is correctly represented and rendered here, but that what is as a whole is brought into unconcealedness and held therein" (Heidegger 1950, 54).

As is apparent from the above, displacement is implied in the process of clearing, and in the emergence of the open; it is not, however, explicitly addressed by Heidegger.

Agamben's discussion of displacement in The Coining Community can help us think through the displacing essence of clearing (verb), and of the clearing (noun). The parable to which Agamben refers to was reproduced only partially in the first epigraph to the dissertation. The imperfect reproduction was purposeful. In order to understand the decision to sever Agamben's transcription of the parable in the place that it was severed in the epigraph it is necessary to reproduce it in its entirety. Agamben writes,

There is a well-known parable about the Kingdom of the Messiah that Walter Benjamin (who heard it from Gershom Scholem) recounted one evening to Ernst Bloch, who in turn transcribed it in Spur en: "A rabbi, a real cabalist, once said that in order to establish the reign of peace it is not necessary to destroy everything nor to begin a completely new world. It is sufficient to displace this cup or this brash or this stone just a little, and thus everything. But this small displacement is so difficult to achieve and its measure is so difficult to find that, with regard to the world, humans are incapable of it and it is necessary that the Messiah come" (Agamben 1993, 53).

When Agamben's transcription of the parable is reproduced fully, the messianic character of displacement is revealed. The kind of displacement that the parable alludes to is humanly impossible, and even if it were possible, the impossibility of measuring it would render it effectively inaccessible. As the parable indicates, the coming of the Messiah — or at least the emergence of a messianic figure or element — is the only possible catalyst 14 for such displacement. If, however, the parable is severed and read with Heidegger two things become possible. First, it is possible to see beings such as ourselves as capable of such displacement. For Heidegger, as beings essentially concerned with their being, beings such as ourselves engage in the process of clearing. This clearing and opening displaces by illuminating things differently, and by enabling a stepping back that lets things be viewed from a different angle. If read in this manner, the displacement inherent in the unconcealment that comes through the clearing is in fact an essential characteristic of the kinds of beings that we are.

Second, reading Heidegger's concepts of clearing and unconcealment together with the notion of displacement makes it even more apparent that, as previously mentioned, the clearing does not reveal in the sense of unveiling or unearthing something concealed beneath a facade. Rather, it displaces, as when a change in the lighting of a room makes its furnishings appear differently, and changes their configuration ever so slightly. What is of great importance for Agamben as well as for us here is that the displacement of the parable cannot simply refer to "real circumstances", like a glass on a table being displaced by a centimeter; the displacement cannot refer to the state of things, but to "their sense and limits" (Agamben 1993, 54). Thus, what is crucial is not that in a differently lit room the writing table appears to have shifted slightly to the left, but that the room appears differently, even if we cannot quantify, or even necessarily fully articulate the difference.

For Heidegger, as beings essentially concerned with their being, beings such as ourselves can engage in the process of clearing. The thinker, however, is particularly 15 well placed, as the thinker's ability to bring the marginal into focus can bring about the displacement necessary for a clearing or opening that will disclose the world anew.

Heidegger refers to this disclosure, a disclosure somewhat akin to a Khunian paradigmatic shift, as a founding leap (Dreyfus 2003, 33-4). The role of the thinker in the process of clearing and opening is an important element in the theoretical and methodological foundation of this dissertation. Although the dissertation is not structured around the work of one thinker, and is not an exercise in the application of the concepts of one thinker to an issue or problem, the work of Agamben is of crucial importance to the dissertation, and serves, if not as a foundation on which the dissertation is built, then at least as the founding leap from which other leaps can be taken. This, of course, is not to say that the work of Agamben is used uncritically, as a foundation that is secure, immovable, and ought not be destabilised. It is merely to say that the work of Agamben was, and continues to be the impetus behind my interest in looking at what Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon can be made to show about the canonical concepts of political sociology (state, sovereignty, and citizenship), and about the political itself.

The utility of Agamben's work lies in its displacing character. Agamben's work, however, has the effect of both bringing into focus of that which has otherwise been marginal, and shifting and effacing the center-margin distinction altogether. Agamben moves that which is marginal — the camp — to the center in arguing that it should not be considered a historical fact or anomaly but "the hidden matrix and nomos of the political

space in which we are still living" (Agamben 1995, 166). At the same time, however,

Agamben's work as a whole encourages a displacement that subverts this distinction. It 16 urges not a focus on the marginal, but on what appears as a space in-between the center and the margins. A characterisation of this space as an in-between space, however, cannot be sustained without caution, as reference to an in-between might suggest the existence of unadulterated spaces between which the in-between rests.

This argument, and its implications for the manner in which Agamben's work can be used to underpin re-imaginings of the political will be dealt with in some length later on in the dissertation. At this point, I would merely like to assert that Agamben's work

— whether its content or logic is found to be flawed or not — is useful in encouraging a paradigmatic shift that transcends the center-margin distinction by directing our attention to zones of indistinction (Agamben 1995, 9; 64; 170). Thus, in Heidegger's sense, the work of Agamben dually serves the process of clearing. It engenders, first, a paradigmatic shift, not merely from the centre to the margins, but a shift that attempts to transcend such duality, and in this manner critically undermine the concepts associated with such dualistic thinking. Second, within the clearing Agamben constructs a temple, a work of art around which the openness can attain the constancy of a paradigm — the camp. Again, problems with, or critiques of the particularities of the concept of camp notwithstanding, the camp, I would argue, can serve as that which, in Dreyfus's words, by refocusing current practices discloses the current world anew, and thus opens the possibility of a new world (Dreyfus 2003, 33). Thus far, therefore, I want to engage with the work of Agamben on a level that is removed from its actual content. Even if problematic and inadequate, and even if in the end declared to be entirely useless as the guiding concepts of a new paradigm, as a founding leap the concepts developed by 17

Agamben have the potential of clearing a clearing; by shedding a different light, they enable a different perspective on the present.

Where does all of this bring us, and how do we make use of it? None of the above is directly applicable to the dissertation in the empiricist sense of theoretical constructs attaining relevance as a function of the number of empirical keys that fit into their keyhole. What is at stake here is not applicability. What this Introduction attempted to do thus far is to use the work and concepts of two thinkers, Heidegger and

Agamben, as theoretical and methodological guideposts to the dissertation. The concepts of clearing and opening, the oscillation of concealment and unconcealment, and the work of displacement should be seen as simultaneously grounding and illuminating the methodological and theoretical trajectory along which this dissertation proceeds: an ascent to a climax from which the possibility of being otherwise than we are becomes visible, and a subsequent descent, during which the fragments that comprise our current world can begin to be reassembled into an-other assemblage or an-other world.

All of the above, however, can be translated into the particular area of interest of this dissertation in the following manner. Although much of what follows was articulated at the beginning of this Introduction, it seems useful to reiterate it in light of the preceding engagement with the work and concepts of Heidegger and Agamben. A stock of concepts — how they were acquired is not necessarily relevant to this project — simultaneously constrained my encounter with Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, and made the encounter possible by enabling me to locate the camps in relation to them.

The camps as I experienced them (with all that is at work in such an experience) 18 presented themselves to me as something to be considered, as something that at least in some ways disrupted the conceptual frameworks through which I had thus far understood the world. The concepts did not seem to adequately account for the camps, while at the same time the camps seemed to be inadequate as their materialisation. In this sense, while my experience was framed and underpinned by these concepts, the experience was simultaneously a moment of lighting, where what hitherto seemed like conceptual and material certainties became unhinged as they appeared in a different light.

As a sort of ex post facto interpretation of this experience, the dissertation attempts to point toward a clearing from which the possibility of an otherwise, of an­ other way of being and interpreting the world can be conceived, and can subsequently begin to be constructed. Its first part, or the interpretation of the camps in light of the stock of available concepts, can be conceptualised as the ascent to a climax, or the work of clearing. Although the essence of interpretation precludes the existence of a conclusive one, a point is inevitably arrived at that serves as the climax. From this climax, which provides a possibility of an otherwise inaccessible view and perspective, it is possible to glimpse, if not an otherwise or an alternative way of being and interpreting the world, then at least the possibility of such possibility. In the light and shadow of this climax the work of descent begins; in the clearing comprised of that which is concealed and unconcealed by the view from a particular climax the author descends down a path that would have otherwise remained unseen had she not stood at the climax, in the clearing. All that had lead her to the clearing, all that had aided her ascent must now be re-evaluated; the construction whose climax she stood on, and from which she glimpsed 19 the possibility of an otherwise must now be deconstructed, taken apart and disassembled.

Only then, and from these fragments can an attempt be made to ascend to another climax, to imagine an-other way of being and understanding the world — by no means a definitive or permanent one, but one that will subsequently itself be disassembled.

Keeping all of the above in mind, it is now possible to translate the objectives of the general trajectory along which this dissertation will move into an even more specific and succinct language. The dissertation represents an attempt to disassemble or de-struct

(Heidegger 1927, 67; 1975, 23) the temple whose light and shadow shapes the current way in which we understand ourselves and the world we inhabit —- the state-citizenship- sovereignty complex, around which the political is said to coalesce, and which it limits.

It is this temple that the dissertation de-structs, with the hope that among its embers are the fragments of an-other political, and thereby of an-other world. Before a temple can be de-structed, however, it is necessary to stand far enough from it to glimpse it, to perceive what it is made of, what it enables and limits, what it illuminates, and where it casts its shadow. One must attempt to clear a clearing, to ascend to a climax, as it is only the perspective that these provide that denaturalises that which is, and enables the imagining of an other.

It would, therefore, be inaccurate to conceive of Palestinian refugee camps in

Lebanon as an empirical case, and to employ the vocabulary of case study to describe this dissertation. It would be more accurate to say that my experience of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon inaugurated a process of clearing. As a result, arguments regarding the use of Palestinian refugee camps as opposed to others, or the exemplarity of these 20 particular camps are irrelevant to this dissertation; it would be irrelevant, for the same reason, to compare and contrast Palestinian refugee camps to other camps, or to attempt to situate them as one specific incarnation of an abstract or general notion of camp.

When the clearing or open are taken as theoretical objectives, and the process of clearing and opening as the theoretical and methodological tool, the aforementioned issues must be seen as being of another realm, one to which the methodological and theoretical approach of this dissertation does not address itself.

In sum, the dissertation attempts to arrive at a reconceptualisation of the political.

To do so it examines the manner in which Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, in destabilising and unhinging the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex that underpins the nation-state, disclose the contingencies and fictions that constitute it. While the focus of this dissertation are Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, the destabilising effect of the camp extends beyond their immediate context, and enables a fundamental rethinking of the nation-state, and its claim to the political. The dissertation, therefore, concludes with an exploration of the contours of a different image of the political, the possibility of which is opened when the nation-state and the camp it produces collide.

Chapter Order and Synopses

The dissertation is comprised of five chapters. Chapter One provides an overview of the emergence of Palestinian refugees. To this end, the chapter first provides a selective history of the creation of the state of Israel, and hence a history of the creation of

Palestinian refugees, and the Palestinian refugee 'problem'. Second, it attends to the 21 manner in which, once produced by the emergence of the state of Israel, Palestinian refugees are accounted for by international law. Third, it points to some transformative moments in the course of the existence of both Israel and Lebanon in which Palestinian refugees are implicated, and which affect Palestinians refugees residing within their borders. The history of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon emerges at the intersection of these narratives. On the foundation provided by this intersection, Chapter Two builds a more comprehensive narrative of Palestinian refugees and Palestinian refugee camps in

Lebanon. First, it attends to their position in relation to Lebanese law, and shows that rather than unequivocally fixing and defining Palestinian refugees and refugee camps, the proliferation of laws actually engenders the proliferation of ambiguity and contestation over their position. Second, the chapter narrates a history of Palestinian refugee camps in

Lebanon. It looks inside the camp, at the space itself and the manner in which it function, and at the discourses that locate and construct Palestinian presence in Lebanon. Finally, the chapter attends to two moments at which the relationship between Palestinian refugee camps and the Lebanese state can most clearly be seen, and at which the said discourses have re-emerged and coalesced: the ongoing contestation over Taamir and Ain Al-

Hilweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, and the summer 2007 siege of Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon.

With the third chapter, the dissertation shifts from an analysis of the material to an

analysis of the conceptual. As the dissertation attempts to destabilise, denaturalise, unhinge, and de-struct the present so as to create an opportunity for the imagining of an­

other world, it must inquire not only into the historical and material conditions that have 22

contributed to the emergence of the present, but also into the conceptual lineage through

which those conditions emerge. As Chapters One and Two inquire into the emergence of

the refugee and refugee camp from within the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, this

chapter attends to the emergence and development of the complex itself. It attends to the narrative of emergence and development that the nation-state constructs for itself to

explain and legitimate its position as the source of the primary call to which one ought to

respond, and the principal framework through which to respond to others. In other

words, Chapter Three narrates the manner in which the state, through the history it writes

of sovereignty and citizenship, claims to be that which conditions the political. As the

narrative unfolds, however, the conceptual lacunae, ambiguities, discrepancies, and

glossing(s)-over become increasingly apparent. Increasingly apparent, moreover,

becomes the camp, as that which the nation-state produces in an attempt to, if not

conceal, then at least contain the unsustainability inherent in its narrative and order.

Chapter Four marks the climax. It provides, in other words, an interpretation and

conceptualisation of the manner in which camp (which the nation-state itself produces)

de-structs, or at least creates the potential for the de-struction of the nation-state. In

keeping with the structure maintained thus far, Chapter Four first attends to the manner in

which Palestinian refugee camps destabilise, de-struct, and expose the contingent

foundations and nature of the nation-state, and the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex

in which it is grounded. Second, the chapter attends to the camp itself, and explores the

manner in which it unhinges the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, the nation-state

order, and the political that it claims to condition and legitimate. 23

If the fourth chapter marks the climax, then the fifth and final chapter constitutes the decent. Chapter Five constitutes that part of the work of the dissertation that is at

once most crucial, and yet just beyond its immediate scope: the building of a new temple, the imagining of a new political. It offers a glimpse of the possibilities opened when the nation-state, and the camp it produces collide; it begins to explore the contours

of the possibility of an-other image of political. 24

Chapter One: The Emergence, and Contestation Over Palestinian Refugees — Israel, Lebanon, and International Refugee Law

For reasons outlined in the Introduction it would be a mistake to conceive of this dissertation as a study of the case of Palestinian refugees and refugee camps in Lebanon.

In keeping with the theoretical and methodological framework developed in the

Introduction it would be more accurate to say that my encounter with Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon was the lighting that pointed in the direction of a clearing from which it might be possible to understand ourselves, and the world we inhabit in a different way.

The camps presented themselves to me as spaces to be considered, as spaces that seemed to disrupt the framework I had thus far developed for interpreting the political. As that which presented itself as a problem, as something to be considered, Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon are crucial to this dissertation. By extension, so are the context in which they emerged and in which they are embedded, and the forces that came together to produce them at a particular moment. This, and the subsequent chapter explore this context, and the camps that were produced within it.

Any delineation of history inevitably carries with it an unavoidable baggage. Part and parcel of this baggage are decisions regarding the starting point, the endpoint, and what is omitted and included in an historical narrative. These decisions can be explained in many ways, but three aspects remain constant and fundamental. First, the decision is that of the author alone, for which she must take ultimate responsibility and which, while always partially justifiable by reference to empirical circumstances, events, and structures 25 can never be completely explained by reference to these alone. Two authors looking at the same event might choose alternate starting points, and the best and most complete understanding of the grounds of that difference must still concede that the decision is fundamentally irreducible, and thus at least partially inexplicable. This does not imply that such decisions cannot be interrogated and objected to, nor that the author can claim complete immunity from criticism by hiding behind the 'it is my decision' banner. It does not imply, either, that the work cannot be dismissed based on the choices made by the author, or the political, ethical, or other commitments that those choices betray.

Judgments regarding the decisions authors make with respect to the framing of their work are as valid as judgments regarding the content of their contributions, not in the least because such choices at least partially determine that content.

Second, as is alluded to above, such decisions always construct the parameters of the field in which the author operates. Again, this should not be confused with an attitude of 'anything goes' or 'everything is equally valid'; it is an acknowledgement that the decisions and choices an author makes are determining. Third, in delimiting a field an author's decisions lead to the inevitable incompleteness of all work. Something will always be missing, and accepting and acknowledging such inevitability is more honest and productive than alleging that one's work has somehow managed to escape it; contending the latter is deceitful, and believing that it is possible is dangerous. Thus, decisions are, and must be made that will structure a work and influence its course, yet even if an element of irreducibility exists in all such decisions they should nevertheless be interrogated. Although an element of inexplicability is bound to exist, an author must 26 at least attempt to explain why her field is shaped the way it is — otherwise, holding anyone to account is impossible, and critique becomes an issue of preference. It is on the basis of such interpretation of authorship, narrative, and accountability that I have made the decisions with which the scope of this and the following chapter was constituted, with all of its inevitable inclusions and omissions.

Since by unhinging what hitherto appeared as conceptual and material certainties

Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon pointed me in the direction of a clearing from which an-other way of understanding the world could be imagined, I thought it important to tell a history of the camps. This history, however, cannot be told on its own, as it does not exist apart from the history of the state of Lebanon, and the history of the emergence of the state of Israel. In order to tell the history of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, therefore, it is necessary to tell the history of Israel and Lebanon. However, as it is both impossible and unnecessary to provide exhaustive histories, the narrative in the chapter is particularly attentive to what has been referred to by the discourse of both states as the

'Palestinian problem', and merely highlights what I perceive to be the crucial moments in the relationship between these states and Palestinians (both as inhabitants of Palestine, and as refugees). The narrated events are presented sequentially, even if they were in actuality contemporaneous. While an attempt is made to point to the intersections between events taking place in Lebanon and Palestine, writing inevitably, and ultimately irreparably transforms simultaneity into sequence, and pries apart that which is intertwined. 27

In sum, this chapter first provides a selective history of the creation of the state of

Israel, and hence a history of the creation of Palestinian refugees and the refugee

'problem'. Second, it attends to the manner in which, once produced by the emergence of the state of Israel, Palestinian refugees are accounted for by international law. Third, the chapter points to some transformative moments in the course of the existence of both

Israel and Lebanon in which Palestinian refugees are implicated, and which affect

Palestinians refugees residing within their borders. The history of Palestinian refugees in

Lebanon emerges at the intersection of these narratives. On the foundation provided by this intersection, Chapter Two builds a more comprehensive narrative of Palestinian refugees and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

The Emergence of the State of Israel, and of Palestinian Refugees

The number of refugees created during the formation of the state of Israel has been disputed for decades; generating a precise number is actually irrelevant to this dissertation. Threshold politics, the kind that aim to determine the point at which a critical mass has been reached, are irrelevant here. The relationship between the creation of a nation-state and the production of refugees as its excess does not depend on a threshold. Moreover, establishing or reaching a critical mass threshold has nothing to do with the politics of clearing or opening. The original refugee population figures lie somewhere between 520,000 (official Israeli estimates) and 1,000,000 (the figure cited by most Arab spokespeople), with numerous figures in between — British estimates place the number at between 600,000 and 760,000, the United Nations Relief and Works 28

Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) at 726,000 (Morris 2004,

602). As of 31 March 2005, these refugees and their descendents comprise, according to

UNRWA estimates, a population of 1,780,701, of whom 400,582 reside within the borders of Lebanon (UNRWA 2005).

It would be perilous to assert that a single moment can be unearthed at which the

process that precipitated such catastrophe was set in motion. Even if a moment exists at

which a decision is made, or a step taken that will in retrospect be seen as a turning point,

such moment does not simultaneously construct, and propel us on an unalterable path

towards an end already latent with it. The First Zionist Congress, held in 1897 in Basel,

Switzerland was precisely this kind of moment. The Congress — organised by Theodor

Herzl to discuss the ideas he set out in The Jewish State — marked the first, conceptual

birth of the state of Israel. This does not mean that the second, material birth of the state

was predestined at this moment, that an irreversible process was set in motion, that all

dissent was silenced, or in fact that nothing of consequence existed prior to that moment.

Yet, with the benefit of hindsight, it was a moment like no other, a moment at which a

nation constituted itself as such, as a nation desiring a state, and pointed to a national

homeland around which the state was to be created. The Basel Program inaugurated at

the Congress set as its goal the establishment of a home for the Jewish people in

Palestine. The World Zionist Organisation was also established, with the explicit aim of

working towards that end. Recognising the momentousness of the occasion, or

attempting to imbue it with such meaning, Herzl made the following entry into his diary:

"At Basel I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today I would be greeted by 29 universal laughter. In five years perhaps, and certainly in fifty years everyone will perceive it" (quoted in Shimoni 2006).

For Chaim Weisman, who in time would become the Prime Minister of Israel, the path from conceptual to material birth involved the procurement of an "empty country", or "a land without a people for a people without a land" (quoted in Masalha 2001, 37).

The "empty country" to which Weisman was referring belonged at the time to the

Ottoman Empire. While Jewish migrants had begun arriving there prior to the First

Zionist Congress, migration increased in its aftermath. According to a British census, by

1922 Jews comprised 11% of the 750,000 inhabitants of Palestine. In subsequent years more than 300,000 arrived ("A History of Conflict: Israel and the Palestinians"). As in the case of the number of Palestinian refugees produced by the creation of the state of

Israel, establishing the exact number of Jewish immigrants or native residents of

Palestine is of no great importance here, as in addition to the previously expressed indifference to threshold politics, demographically based normative arguments over land rights are also beyond the scope of this dissertation. The aim of this chapter is to provide a sketch of the moment that produced, and maintains in its aftermath the material effects in which this dissertation is interested in, namely, long-term Palestinian refugee camps in

Lebanon. From this perspective the First Zionist Congress is a decisive moment, as it is the moment of the conceptual birth of the state of Israel, and as such marks the birth — so far also only conceptual — of Palestinian refugees. It is for this reason that it is necessary to include it as part of a narrative that sets the stage for, or takes us on a path towards the clearing that Palestinian refugee camps can point towards. 30

In the aftermath of its conceptual birth the state of Israel was buttressed by what is now know as the Balfour Declaration, but what was then, on 2 November 1917, a letter from Arthur James Balfour, British Foreign Minister, to Lord Chaim Rothschild, prominent Zionist. Of importance is the following passage:

His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non- Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any country ("Balfour Declaration - 1917")

As one of the documents that is perhaps most often cited to validate Palestinian grievances with respect to the manner in which the fate of British Mandate Palestine was addressed, the Balfour Declaration is crucial to the narrative of the creation of Palestinian refugees. Disregarding a promise of post-war independence for the Ottoman Arab provinces created in 1916 by British Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon,

Britain occupied the region at the end of the war, and on 25 April 1920 the League of

Nation assigned to it mandatory power of Palestine. The crux of the aforementioned grievance is that the subsequent British commitment (through the Balfour Declaration) to the creation in Palestine of a home for Jews was made conditional on the safety of the

Arabs already residing on the land. Of course, the use of "national" in "a national home for the Jewish people" foreshadows much of what was to come, but a detailed examination of how the discourse of nation lies at the core of subsequent problems is beyond the scope of this chapter. It will suffice to say that the national dimension of state 31 formation cannot but lead to the cleansing of the national body that is materialised in the territory of the state from that which defiles and adulterates it.

The Balfour Declaration was not the only document that seemed to express a desire for Arab and Jewish co-existence in the territory of British Mandate Palestine. It is noted in the Churchill White Paper, which dates from June 1922, that an official statement made during the Zionist Congress in 1921 expressed a similar sentiment. The

Churchill White Paper attests that an official statement of Zionist aims, passed as a resolution at the said Congress expressed "the determination of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people on terms of unity and mutual respect, and together with them to make the common home into a flourishing community, the upbringing of which may assure to each of its peoples an undisturbed development" {The Churchill White Paper,

1922).

The aforementioned documents are cited here not only to illustrate a crucial moment in the creation of the Palestinian refugee population — the moment of the conceptual birth of the state of Israel — but also to illustrate that even at that moment an unequivocal and exclusive path, which made the creation of the Palestinian refugee population inevitable was not created. Even at the moment of the conceptual birth of the state of Israel tension and contestation was present, and another path could have been taken, one that in fact was at least rhetorically set out on. Both the Balfour Declaration, and the resolution taken at the Zionist Congress in 1921 expressed the need and desire, albeit in principle only, for the sharing of land, and the co-existence and cooperation of natives and newcomers. It was possible from within this moment, therefore, to at least 32 visualise the paths of co-existence that could have been taken. Simultaneously, however, stones for the path that would inevitably lead to what currently seems like an intractable problem were being laid, with the conceptual constitution of the territory of the Israel-to- come in national, religious terms — as a homeland for a Jewish nation, a nation already in existence waiting for its state, and defined in religious, and ultimately also racial terms.

The aforementioned documents, therefore, illustrate also the conceptual birth of a nation, which unlike the conceptual birth of a state, is simultaneously the moment of its material birth. It is this birth of the nation, both Jewish and Palestinian, that provided the first stones for a path of one-nation, one-state. With their laying, other paths leading out from that moment were left to gradually become overgrown. Eventually, they become imperceptible, forming a seamless field around what, glancing back, looks like the only available path.

Yet even as these stones were being laid a struggle was being waged; nothing was yet inevitable, no path was yet secured. General strikes, civil disobedience, violent protests and militia attacks preceded the Palestine Royal Commission of July 1937 (also known as the Peele Commission), headed by Lord Robert Peele. The commission recommended the partition of British Mandate Palestine into two states. One-third of

British Mandate Palestine, including the Coastal Plain and Galilee, was to become the state of Israel. While the recommendation was accepted by Britain, sections of the

Zionist moment, and some of the Jewish migrants who had already settled in British

Mandate Palestine, most Arab inhabitants rejected it, and continued to demand a single unified state with constitutionally safeguarded minority rights. Partition was once again 33 recommended on 8 September 1947 by the United Nations Special Committee on

Palestine (UNSCOP), formed after Britain "handed over responsibility for solving the

Zionist-Arab problem to the UN" ("A History of Conflict: Israel and the Palestinians").

The Committee assigned 56.47% of British Mandate Palestine to a Jewish state, 43.53% to an Arab state, and envisioned an international enclave around Jerusalem. Everyone prepared for war. The Arab League set up a Technical Military Committee to oversee the defence of Palestine, and the Arab Liberation Army was organised. Perhaps more interestingly from the perspective of observing the birth of a nation-state, the Haganah

(the pre-Israel predecessor of the Israeli army) called up all Jews in Palestine, aged 17-25, to register for military service.

It is at this point that an exodus began. According to Benny Morris's (2004) periodisation, the first wave of Palestinian Arabs became refugees between December

1947 and March 1948. In addition to providing what is for the purposes of this dissertation a more than adequate narrative of the manner in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs became refugees, Morris narrates also the second birth of the state of

Israel — the material birth that followed its conceptual birth at the First Zionist Congress.

That he simultaneously narrates both stories is, of course, inevitable, as the birth of the refugees is a direct consequence of the birth of the nation-state. A normative component can also be discerned in Morris's effort to document the birth of the refugees. Through painstakingly detailed research Morris seems to attempt to circumvent the impasse created when an Israeli argument — vast numbers of Arab Palestinians left Palestine on orders from Arab leadership — is met by an Arab argument that the vast majority of Arab 34

Palestinians were directly expelled by Israeli forces. In concluding that most Palestinian

Arabs left neither as a result of direct orders from Arab leadership nor because they were evicted or expelled by Israeli forces (Haganah, IZL or LHI), but rather as a result of fear,

Morris does in a sense sidestep the impasse.

Morris's manoeuvres, however, are in many ways unimportant to this dissertation.

First, that Arab Palestinians left out of fear, on their own accord so to speak, and not as a result of orders from Arab or Israeli leadership is irrelevant, both legally and morally to their status as refugees, and thus to their right of return. Second, it is unimportant as the dissertation takes as its object of analysis the aftermath of the production of Palestinian refugees. In other words, as was detailed in the Introduction, what the dissertation concerns itself with is how an aftermath of the creation of the state of Israel — the emergence of Palestinian refugees and refugee camps in Lebanon — can shed light on matters of the political. I certainly do not want to dismiss as unimportant the empirical work that Morris and others have produced. I emphasise these two points here because I want to distance this dissertation from such concerns, and stress that it utilises such work merely to set the stage for what is to come. As such, the dissertation does not engage in the testing of the historical accuracy of such work, or in the judging of its empirical merits. This does not mean, of course, that all empirical work is taken at face value; judgment can, and must be made, yet is not focus of the dissertation. Thus, as in the case of Morris, while his empirical data is assumed to be credible, especially as the credibility of the author is accepted by others working on similar issues, the dissertation critically engages with the conclusions and normative prescriptions that he draws from that data. 35

In light of this, it is useful to pause and attend briefly to two aspects of Morris's work, the first less important for the purposes of this dissertation than the second, but both worth mentioning. The first is actually more of a caution: Morris's conclusions often do not quite match his empirical findings. Morris concludes that, first, "the

Palestinian refugee problem was born of war, not by design, Jewish or Arab. It was largely a by-product of Arab and Jewish fears and of the protracted, bitter fighting that characterised the first Israeli-Arab war; in smaller part, it was the deliberate creation of

Jewish and Arab military command and politicians" (Morris 1987, 286). While Morris's research does indicate that the flight of many Arabs was conditioned by fear, the same research also indicates that what the Arab population feared were attacks and massacres by the Haganah, IZL or LHI, which more often than not were undertaken with the explicit purpose of clearing towns and villages of their Arab occupants.

Morris's second conclusion, again somewhat contrary to the findings he presents, provides us also with a glimpse of an aspect of his work that is more important for the purposes of this dissertation. Morris concludes that,

The creation of the problem was almost inevitable, given the geographical intermixing of the Arab and Jewish populations, the history of Arab-Jewish hostility over 1917-47, the resistance on both sides to a bi-national state, the outbreak and prolongation the war for Israel's birth and survival, the major structural weaknesses of Palestinian Arab society, the depth of Arab animosity towards the Yishuv and Arab fears of falling under Jewish rule, and the Yishuv's fears of what would happen should the Arabs win and what would be the fate of a Jewish State born with a very large, potentially or actively hostile Arab minority (Morris 1987, 286).

Contrary to Morris's argument, I would argue that it is evident from even the brief narrative provided thus far the "creation of the [refugee] problem" (286) was not as 36 inevitable as Morris claims. Yet, what is perhaps the most poignant, but seemingly unintended contribution of this conclusion is its attention to fear, particularly to the fear underpinned by discourses of nation and nation-state. It is here, and in his third key conclusion that Morris makes perhaps the greatest, yet likely unintended contribution.

Morris concludes that,

On the practical level, from the spring of 1948, a series of developments on the ground growingly precluded any possibility of a future refugee return. The developments were an admixture of incidental, 'natural' processes and steps specifically designed to assure the impossibility of a return, which included the gradual destruction of the abandoned Arab villages, the destruction or cultivation and long-term take-over of Arab fields, the establishment of new settlements on Arab lands and the settlement of Jewish immigrants in abandoned Arab villages and urban neighbourhoods (Morris 1987, 291).

The first and most glaring aspect of this conclusion is its reference to the naturalness of the developments that made a refugee return increasingly less likely. Elsewhere, in a similar vein, Morris argues that these developments "occurred naturally and were integral, major elements in the overall consolidation of the State of Israel in wartime...they began in order to meet certain basic needs of the new State"; that they contributed to "definitively barring a refugee return" was the unfortunate by-product of these "natural" and "integral" processes (341).

Morris's hesitance to blame or forcefully repudiate the state of Israel for what are merely requirements of survival is more frightening and astute than many would care to admit. What is most troubling is that he is essentially correct. Regardless of the precise shape it takes, violence inheres in the enactment of sovereign statehood, and particularly so in the enactment of national statehood; it is not an aberration, and it is precisely its banality that is most disturbing. If taken to its logical conclusion, Morris's argument 37 implies that the production of the refugee is a necessary, if unfortunate by-product of the consolidation of a nation-state. This is not a matter of Morris saying more than he says; his exact words are telling. As will become apparent further on in the dissertation, however, that which is solely responsible for the emergence of the refugee, namely the nation-state, is also that which is most threatened by it. This is because it is the refugee, or the excess abjected by the nation-state that makes possible the imagining of an-other way of being political, one not conditioned by the nation-state.

Returning to the narrative, then: Morris divides the initial Palestinian "exodus" of

December 1947 to November 1948 into four distinct waves, and adds a fifth period between November 1948 and July 1949 during which, he argues, Israel engaged in an official policy of clearing the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border of remaining Arab villages to a depth of between five and fifteen kilometres (Morris 2004, 505-548). While the periodisation, logistics, and mechanisms of the 'exodus' will not be addressed here, the exodus itself, and the manner in which it is framed by Morris gives us a glimpse of the birth of a nation-state, from the perspective, so to speak, of the excess it produces and discards. As previously mentioned, the first wave of Palestinian Arabs became refugees between December 1947 and March 1948. This wave was comprised of Palestinians from "areas earmarked for Jewish statehood" — by the unimplemented UN partition plan, one is left to assume, although Morris does not specify — and "areas adjacent to them" (Morris 1987, 59). According to Morris, spiralling violence precipitated mass flight of the upper and middle classes from large towns and their satellite communities, which in turn prompted a piecemeal, but almost complete "evacuation" of the rural Arab 38 population residing in the "heartland" of the coming "Jewish State" (59). Morris concludes that the main impetus for flight was Haganah, IZL or LHI attacks or fear of such attacks. He continues to argue, however, that direct expulsion orders were few, and comes at least close to justifying those that were given on the grounds that they were dictated by "Haganah strategic considerations" (60), or in other words, the strategic considerations of the emerging nation-state.

Thus, even though the state of Israel was not yet born, the birth pangs were already being felt. On 29 November 1947 the United Nation voted on the previously proposed partition plan: 33 members of the General Assembly voted for partition, 13 against, 10 abstained. Britain estimates the number of people killed between 30

November 1947 and 10 January 1948 to be 1,974 ("A History of Conflict: Israel and the

Palestinians"). Though the partition was not officially implemented, and the state of

Israel had not yet constituted itself as such, the exodus continued, clearing the way for the birth of the nation-state. On 14 May 1948, at 16:00 hours, the state of Israel was proclaimed in Tel Aviv, although the proclamation did not officially come into effect until the next day, the day on which Britain officially terminated its mandate in Palestine.

The Palestinians remember 15 May 1948 as al-Nakba, most often translated as the

Catastrophe. Jordanian, Egyptian, Lebanese, Syrian, and Iraqi army contingents invaded the territory but were repelled, and subsequent armistice agreements established the sovereignty of the state of Israel over most of the territory of British Mandate Palestine, save Gaza, which was retained by Egypt, and some land around east Jerusalem and the

West Bank, which was annexed by Jordan — taken together, this constituted 39 approximately 25% of British Mandate Palestine ("A History of Conflict: Israel and the

Palestinians"). Britain's post-mandate attitude towards the region, and particularly toward the Palestinian refugees, many of whom ended up in Lebanon, is clearly summarised in a letter from the British Foreign Embassy in Beirut to the Foreign Office, dated 13 March 1953: "With regard to Palestinians the first thing we have to decide is whether Israel or the Arab world is more important to British interests. Israel is essentially dependent on the West. The Arabs on the other hand, by reason of their defects of character, are only too likely to play the Russian game. We should try to be liked by both" {Dispatch from the British Embassy in Beirut to Foreign Office. 13 March

1953).

Shortly after the act of founding Israel began to consolidate its sovereignty over its territory. The 1948 Absentees' Property Emergency Regulations, formalised in 1950 into the Absentees' Property Law, defined as an "absentee" any individual who left his principle residence in Palestine before 1 August 1948, or who for any reason moved, between 29 November 1947 and 18 April 1948, to parts of the territory controlled by forces opposing the establishment of the state of Israel. According to the law, the property of such absentees could be confiscated by the fledgling state. In 1949, the

Minister of Defence was empowered to declare any region of Israel a "security zone," and confiscate land and property therein on 10 days notice (Bouqai 2006, 37). During this time, between April and June 1948 according to Morris's periodisation, a second wave of Palestinian Arabs became refugees. This was the main wave of refugees; somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 refugees emerged during the moment of the 40 official, material birth of the state of Israel (Morris 1987, 128). On the 5th of April

Haganah began implementing Plan Dalet (otherwise knows as Plan D), the stated intention of which was to drive out hostile or potentially hostile Arab communities, and destroy the villages they inhabited (128). While many military operations were undertaken under the banner of Plan Dalet, on the 9th of April Irgun and Lehi militias massacred Palestinians in Dier Yassin, an event that remains in the memory of

Palestinians to this day, and one that itself precipitated a large exodus of Palestinians fearing the same fate; Morris calls this causal element of the exodus the "atrocity factor"

(130).

This wave of refugees, argues Morris, were motivated by Haganah or Zionist militia attacks, or fears of impending attacks provoked by attacks on neighbouring areas

(Morris 1987, 131). Despite having previously discussed the rationale of Plan Dalet,

Morris maintains that mass exodus was not, so to speak, a part of the plan. The

"spontaneous, panicky, mass Arab flight may have served to whet the appetite of local

Haganah commanders and, perhaps the General Staff as well...The temptation proved very strong, for obvious military and political reasons" (131). Notwithstanding the incoherence and somewhat puzzling logic of Morris's argument it is important to keep in mind that, in Morris's own terms, both the first and second wave of refugees was produced by the "strategic considerations" of a fledgling nation-state — although ostensibly no one, including the creators of Plan Dalet, whose mere intention was the securing of the territory of the Jewish state, actually planned to achieve this by means of expelling Arab Palestinians. It was only once Arab Palestinians started to flee that those 41

"strategic considerations" were linked to their expulsion or, as Morris sometimes puts is, their "nudging" (131).

According to Morris, the third wave of Arab Palestinians left as refugees between

9 and 18 July 1948, and the fourth between October and November of the same year.

During the final exodus in October 1948, the Israeli Transfer Committee recommended that "resettlement [costs should come out of] the value of the immovable goods [that is, lands, houses, abandoned] in the country after [reparations for] war damages to the

Yishuv are deducted" (Masalha 2001, 54). As the product of the birth of a new nation- state into the order of nation-states, many Palestinians-as-refugees were reabsorbed by that same system. Resettlement was a 'natural' solution, and Palestinians became citizens of Jordan, permanent residents of Syria, or were 'naturalised' by sovereign states further a field. As the repatriation side of the repatriation-assimilation dyad became increasingly unlikely — with Israel pointing "unabashedly to the changed physical realities on the ground" (Morris 2004, 550) — the discourse of nation-state constructed assimilation as the only way in which an otherwise abnormal population could be, as it aptly puts, 'naturalised' or returned to the 'natural' and 'normal' state of affairs. Thus, when barely one month after the birth of the state of Israel David Ben Gurion summed up his position on the refugees' right of return as follows: "I believe we should prevent their return...We must settle Jaffa, Jaffa will become a Jewish city...we must prevent at all costs their return...I will be for them not returning after the war," and Foreign Minister

Moshe Shertok responded: "[That] is our policy. They are not returning," (Morris 1987,

141), the conclusion that a "solution to the refugee problem" would involve their 42 resettlement in other nation-states immediately and inevitably presented itself (Morris

2004, 550).

While Morris identifies these four waves as comprising the bulk of the refugee population created by the coming into existence of the state of Israel, he points also to border clearing operations, which took place between November 1948 and July 1949 as having produced a large number of refugees. Neither quite justifying nor condemning these operations Morris argues that the decision to clear the Lebanese-Israeli border of

Arab villages, as well as expulsions and evictions from villages located near strategic roads were tactically and politically necessary for the survival of a fledgling state (Morris

1987, 237-41). According to Morris, subsequent periodic raids were also conducted to weed out those who were now "illegal returnees and infiltrators" — anyone found within the borders of the state of Israel who was not registered during the November 1948 census, and thus did not possess an identity card or a military pass, or anyone who left for any reason prior to the census being conducted, and was thus an absentee (240).

Elsewhere Morris refers to these operations as "Israel's defensive anti-infiltration measures" (quoted in Masalha 1996, 55).

Like many times before, Morris's narrative speaks to the banality of the enactments of nation-state sovereignty. While at times critical of the manner in which these were enacted, his argument simultaneously speaks to their fundamental inevitability. Although Morris does not use Walter Benjamin's language, his narrative and conclusions seem to suggest the necessity, inevitability, and thus also the banality of a nation-state's founding and preserving violence. As was suggested once before, Morris 43 occasionally criticises the particular means employed by the Israeli state apparatus.

However, his reticence to repudiate their fundamental aims, and hence the state of Israel is of greater importance to this dissertation than the empirical data that Morris so painstakingly collects. Although the nation-state, and the violence involved in its founding and maintenance should always be approached in a critical manner, Morris (as disturbing as it may seem) is hauntingly right in not castigating the state of Israel for anything other than the particular means that it employed. He is right in the sense that, even if the particular character of the violence was problematic, the constitution of the nation-state as such is a violent moment, and one that always produces an excess that needs to be expelled.

As refugees were departing, immigrants were arriving to take their place.

Between 14 May 1948 (the second, material birth of the nation-state) and 9 February

1949 approximately 143,000 Jews penetrated the borders of the state of Israel (Morris

1987, 189). By mid-1949, argues Morris, the return of refugees became "almost inconceivable" due to the previously mentioned altered facts on the ground (155-160).

Incidentally, this phrase still plays a part in discourses deployed by the Israeli state, albeit in slightly different form — Greshom Gorenberg, an Israeli writer argues, for instance, that settlement activities are underpinned by the Israeli imperative "to create facts that would determine the final status of the land, to sculpt the political reality before negotiations ever got under way" (Macintyre 2007). While the right of return for refugees was becoming increasingly unlikely, at least from the perspective of the Israeli state, the settlement of Jewish migrants was formalised by the Law of Return, passed by 44 the Knesset on 5 July 1950, which guaranteed Israeli citizenship to all Jews 'returning' to

Israel.

As was previously discussed, Morris maintains that circumstances were altered

'naturally', and were integral to the consolidation of the state of Israel. To argue, as I did above, that the second part of Morris's claim is accurate does not imply that its first part

— Morris's naturalisation of the process — has equal merit; that something is integral, or necessary to a process does not means that it is natural. This distinction aside, Morris's narrative is also interesting from another perspective. In his narrative Morris often distinguishes between strategic-military and political motivations behind actions taken on behalf of the state of Israel. He argues, for instance, that while strategic considerations provided the initial impetus for the destruction of Arab villages, it eventually became a

"major political enterprise" (Morris 1987, 155). Morris attempts to maintain this distinction throughout his narrative, although as the above sentence indicates, he admits to a slippage, implicitly temporal in nature, between strategic-military (and thus ostensibly apolitical) and political considerations. The temporal nature of this slippage is what is most interesting, at least form the perspective of this dissertation. Although not explicitly, Morris seems to imply that the process of Israel's constitution is apolitical in nature; only once the state is born, and in fact with its birth, is the political realm also born, and hence can be slipped into. Although I will return to this is subsequent chapters, the implicit apoliticalness of all that precedes the existence of a state should be kept in mind in relation to the state's claim over the political. 45

While the scope of Morris's work does not extend beyond 1949, the Six Days

War (5-11 June 1967) and the resultant expansions of Israeli territory displaced another

500,000 Palestinians ("A History of Conflict: Israel and the Palestinians"). The war — during which Israel seized Gaza and Sinai from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and pushed Jordanian forces out of the West Bank and east Jerusalem — doubled the territory under Israeli control, even though the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) issued

Resolution 242 stressing the "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war," and calling for a withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories occupied in the conflict ("A

History of Conflict: Israel and the Palestinians").

Although most refugees had already gone, the 1977 Israeli election was a turning point in the relationship between the refugees and the state of Israel. It was in the aftermath of this election that the previously mentioned "facts on the ground" were even more drastically altered. Until 1977 the Labour Party dominated the Israeli parliament.

In 1977 the Likud Party (heir to Irgun and Lehi militias) won parliamentary elections under the leadership of former Irgun commander Menachem Begin. Ideologically committed to the extension of Israeli sovereignty to the whole of what was formerly

British Mandate Palestine, and to the annexation of Jordanian territory into a Greater

Israel modelled on biblical narratives ("A History of Conflict: Israel and the

Palestinians") the government intensified the construction of settlements, particularly in the West Bank and Gaza, with the stated intention of "creating facts on the ground" that would help to avert a future compromise over areas occupied in 1967 (Macintyre 2007). 46

Incidentally, Ariel Sharon, then chairman of the Ministerial Committee for Settlement, spearheaded the policy of settlement intensification.

The year 1987 marked the beginning of the first Palestinian intifada or uprising, with clashes lasting until 1993, and an estimated death toll of over 1,000 ("A History of

Conflict: Israel and the Palestinians"). Perhaps more significantly from the perspective of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, in November of 1988 the Palestinian National

Council (a government-in-exile, so to speak) convened in Algeria, and voted to accept a two-state solution based on the 1947 UN partition resolution, renounce terrorism, and seek a negotiated settlement based on UNSC Resolution 242 (which, as previously noted, called for Israeli withdrawal from the territories it occupied in 1967). The official admission of the possibility of a two-state solution was a development that concerned many of the refugees in Lebanon. Many feared that the premise of such solution was the persistence of Israeli sovereignty over areas from which they escaped, and hence the impossibility of their return to those particular areas. The right of return, however, had by this time already been detached from the goal of the liberation of Palestine. The 12th session of the Palestinian National Council, held in June 1974, adopted the Provisional

Political Programme (also known as the Ten-Point Programme or the National Authority

Programme), considered a turning point in the Palestinian leadership's political thinking.

Prior to the programme's adoption, the right of return was considered the natural outcome of the total liberation of Palestinian territory, including that occupied in 1948, which was in turn a precondition for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The

Provisional Political Programme called instead for the establishment of an independent 47

Palestinian state on any liberated territory (Suleiman 2001, 93). Although the right of return was affirmed as one of the "foremost and primary" rights, many consider this to be the moment at which its unconditional, non-negotiable, and grounding status was watered-down (94).

Although the history of the struggle over Palestine has thus far been tortuous, following 1988 the labyrinth of negotiations and attempted settlements becomes even more difficult to navigate. The Madrid Summit (1991) and Oslo Peace Process (1993) were organised with the stated intention that a negotiated settlement be reached.

Meanwhile, bombings, assassinations, incursions, partial withdrawals, and impositions of collective punishment by the state of Israel continued unabated. What does stand out, however, is the 1 July 1994 return of Yassir Arafat to what became the Palestinian

Territories. The return was precipitated by an agreement reached in Cairo between the

Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) — formed in 1964, under the contested leadership of Arafat since 1969, and recognised at the 1975 Arab Summit in Riyadh as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people (al-Natour 1997, 363) — and

Israel on the initial implementation of the 1993 Declaration of Principles (the culmination of the Oslo Peace Process). In accordance with the agreement, in return for Palestinian recognition of the state of Israel the latter would withdraw from most of the Gaza Strip

(except settlements and surrounding areas), and from Jericho in the West Bank. Further withdrawals would be phased in over a five-year interim period, during which solutions to what were considered the difficult issues would be negotiated. First and foremost 48 among these was the right of return for the refugee population that now numbered around

3.5 million ("A History of Conflict: Israel and the Palestinian").

Arafat's return marked his ascension to the leadership of the newly created

Palestinian National Authority (PA), of which he became elected president in January

1996, and which had the mandate of administering the soon-to-be autonomous areas. In

1995, after a year of violence in the ostensibly autonomous Territories, Oslo II was signed in Taba, Egypt. The West Bank was divided into three zones: Zone A, which comprised 7% of the territory (the mainly Palestinian towns, except Hebron and east

Jerusalem) was to be administered by the Palestinian Authority; Zone B, comprising 21% of the territory was to be jointly administered by the Palestinian Authority and Israel;

Zone C, or the rest of the territory, was to remain under Israeli administration. The compromise, for that is what it was regarded, did not please many Palestinians, and infuriated the Israeli religious right ("A History of Conflict: Israel and the Palestinians"); then-Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin's assassin came from among the ranks of the latter.

Although discussion on the 'difficult' issue of the right of return for Palestinian refugees was once again deferred, some argue that Israel's interpretation of Oslo was that consideration of an unconditional right of return was permanently abandoned (Pappe

2003, 227).

Violence in the Palestinian Territories was intensifying while successive far-right governments were coming to power in Israel. On 26 May 1996 Binyamin Netanyahu was elected, and his government lifted the previously imposed moratorium on the construction of new settlements in the Occupied Territories. The five-year interim period 49 initiated by Oslo passed in May of 1999 with no resolution in sight, and Arafat had to be persuaded to defer a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood to allow for more negotiations with the new Israeli government of Ehud Barak ("A History of Conflict:

Israel and the Palestinians"). Amid tension and violence, on 28 September 2000 Ariel

Sharon, who in the meantime succeeded Netanyahu as leader of the Likud Party, visited the al-Aqsa/Temple Mount complex in Jerusalem. The provocative gesture sparked the second Palestinian intifada, also known as the al-Aqsa Intifada.

Ehud Barak resigned, and Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister. The latter escalated the frequency of targeted assassinations, air strikes, and other incursions into the Territories. In 2002, a suicide bombing on the eve of Passover sparked a five-week seizure of Arafat's Ramallah compound, and the reoccupation of most of the West Bank.

Israel began the construction of its infamous, and since declared illegal 'security barrier' in the West Bank. In June 2002, US President George W. Bush outlined a new plan for negotiations, subsequently known as the "Roadmap," and called for the removal of

Arafat, who died in any case on 11 November 2004. The chairmanship of the PLO went to Mahmud Abbas, who was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in January

2005. In January 2006 Hamas became the elected government in the Territories, at least in part due to the perceived ineptitude and corruption of the previous (Fatah) government, the continuing violence in the Territories, and the incessantly decreasing quality of life.

Intermittent fighting between Fatah and Hamas supporters, the branding of Hamas as a terrorist organisation and the consequent freezing of most aid to the Palestinian government and bureaucracy, Israel's refusal to yield large portions of the Territories' tax 50 revenues, and many similar measures effectively crippled the government. A plan was hatched to isolate and attempt to delegitimise Hamas, whose core support came from the

Gaza Strip, and champion Fatah as the legitimate government of the Palestinian

Territories. In September 2007 Israel declared the Gaza Strip an "enemy entity" ("Israel

Labels Gaza 'Enemy Entity'", 2007). Thus, while Ariel Sharon lay in a vegetative state in hospital and Ehud Olmert — hugely unpopular since what has been widely perceived as an Israeli defeat in the Hizbullah-Israel war of the summer of 2006 — struggled to maintain power in the Israeli parliament, a new territorial configuration emerged in former British Mandate Palestine: a nation-state, an autonomous territory, and an enemy entity. At the time of writing the seemingly desperate and intractable situation was supposedly rescued from the brink of hopelessness by the November 2007 Annapolis

Conference, from which Hamas was pointedly excluded, and which culminated with an agreement by Olmert and Abbas keep the door to future negotiations open.

For the purpose of this dissertation, the stage need not be set further, at least not with respect to the conflict between the state of Israel and the emerging quasi-state of the

Palestinian Territories. The refugees are long gone, except for those 'internally' displaced who languish in camps in the West Bank and Gaza, whose physical conditions are worse than those in the worst camps of Lebanon. From the perspective of those refugees and their descendents, who mark their 60th year in the camps of Lebanon and elsewhere, two developments are most crucial. First, the PLO's opening to the possibility of a two-state solution was taken by many refugees as a sign of their abandonment by the

PLO, and as one of the first signs that Palestinian refugees who escaped beyond what are 51 now the Palestinian Territories were being sacrificed for a state in which they would not necessarily be welcome. Second, with the Oslo Agreement of 1993 the PLO is widely perceived to have uncoupled the right of return from negotiations over the creation of a

Palestinian state that would border the state of Israel. While according to Morris, "the absolute nature of the return provision was immediately and almost universally qualified by the appreciation that Israel would not allow a mass return" as a matter of "strategic necessity", and as a result of the "changed physical realities on the ground" to which the state "unabashedly pointed to" (Morris 1987, 254), the refugees, supported in their claims by international law, conceived of nothing less than a complete right of return. The perceived sidelining of the right of return in negotiations was taken as the second sign of abandonment.

The acceptance of the discourse of the nation-state (of which the work of Morris is representative), hinges on a circle of legitimation in which state discourse is legitimated solely by its being state discourse. As Massad aptly points out, everything that Israel rejects is not pragmatic, while everything it accepts is pragmatic by fiat, as the state is essentially pragmatic (Massad 2001, 108). For Morris, the qualification of the right of return is the only reasonable, and in fact inevitable position given the strategic considerations of the state of Israel. It is important to again pause and consider this argument. First, we must always and immediately question arguments of inevitability.

Nothing is inevitable, and nothing proceeds directly and without obstacles from one point to the next. Of course, circumstances are created and come into being that constrain the possibilities of things being otherwise than they are. That, however, is not the same as 52 inevitability, for at a particular moment within certain circumstances struggles ensue, and some forces triumph over others so that out from within that circumstance one path is taken and not another.

Second, Morris's conclusion seems to be based on the assumption of the essentiality and intractability of the Jewish nature of the Israeli state. Dominant international collective memory, if such a thing can exist, seems to recall only the possibility and inevitability of a 'two-state solution'; that a single state was once advocated, and that a two-state solution was at times violently resisted seems to have fallen prey to collective amnesia (Pappe 2003, 225). For Morris, however, the character of the state — on which his attitude toward the return of the refugees rests, and on which the ostensible inevitability of the two-state solution hinges — remains beyond interrogation. It is not the aim of this dissertation, however, to propose solutions, or to even examine the merit of solutions that have thus far been proposed. Many others have already done this, and will continue to do it as more potential solutions and configurations are laid out. What can be said with some certainty, and in line with the arguments of Pappe, is that the road to a post-conflictual homeland in Palestine must pass though reconciliation on abstract issues such as fairness, justice, and guilt, and cannot be limited to even successful compromises and settlements on borders, regimes, and other material, state concerns (224). 53

Palestinian Refugees in International Refugee Law

Produced by the emergence of the state of Israel, the Palestinian refugee 'problem' became subsequently a problem of international law. International law, however, itself a product of the nation-state system, constructs the refugee 'problem' as necessarily temporary, and the refugee as a necessarily transitory identity, to be obliterated by repatriation, and barring that, assimilation. As the previous pages indicated, Palestinian refugees are supported in their claim to an unconditional right of return by most interpretations of international law pertaining to refugees. A detailed listing and examination of all pieces of international and regional legislation that speaks to the right of return is not necessary here, and has already been comprehensively undertaken elsewhere (Suleiman 2001). It is enough to mention that the right of return is contained, first, in International Human Rights Law, specifically in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which among other provisions states that, "everyone has the right to leave any country, and to return to his country" (88). It is, second, enshrined in

Humanitarian Law, such as the Hague Regulations of the Law of War, and the 1949

Geneva Civilians Convention, which accord group rights to those living in occupied territories, including the right of return (89). Additionally, the 1948 United Nations

General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 194, which has since been referred to in at least

49 other UN Resolutions, also provides for an unconditional right of return (90-1). As will shortly become apparent, in addition to the Arab League recommendation regarding

Palestinian nationality, the right of return for Palestinian refugees is perhaps the only international provision that the state of Lebanon religiously supports. 54

The status of Palestinian refugees in international law is, however, far from uncontested, and various interpretations exist of precisely what Palestinians are legally entitled to. When combined with Lebanese law, the status of Palestinians becomes, on the one hand, even more complicated, for as will become apparent in Chapter Two

Lebanese laws relating to Palestinian refugees are often in direct contradiction to international law. On the other hand, as state law always supersedes the provisions of international law and custom, the status of Palestinians becomes simultaneously less complicated, as in the last instance Lebanese law or its lacunae govern their existence in

Lebanon. As will be shown in the next chapter, it is only with respect to the provision of citizenship that the Lebanese state maintains a policy in line with the recommendation of an international body (the Arab League), namely, that Palestinian refugees retain their nationality. It does not, however, abide even by the recommendation's second part, which stipulates that the question of nationality notwithstanding, Palestinian refugees should be granted civil and economic rights in the states in which they presently reside.

Palestinian refugees are distinctly and ambiguously positioned by international law, as a large number of protocols, conventions, and regulations can be interpreted to pertain to their case. As Susan Akram (2001) illustrates, the relevant provisions are most frequently interpreted in a restrictive rather than expansive manner, which results in

Palestinian refugees being ineligible for the kind of protection afforded other refugees and stateless persons. As Akram and others (Akram and Rempel 2004, Gabiam 2006,

Suleiman 2001) demonstrate, as refugees, Palestinians should automatically be subsumed under the protection regime established by the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the 55

Status of Refugees (henceforth, the Refugee Convention) and its 1967 Protocol

(henceforth, the Refugee Protocol). Their case should also lie within the purview of a number of international organisations: as refugees, their case falls within the purview of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), and as Palestinian refugees, their case is administered by the United Nations Conciliation Commission on

Palestine (UNCCP), and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine

Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). An argument can also be made that as stateless persons they ought to be included in the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of

Stateless Persons, and the 1967 Convention on the Elimination or Reduction of

Statelessness (Akram 2001).

The Refugee Convention and Refugee Protocol set out, among other things, the fundamental and universally accepted definition of refugee. Article 1A(2) of the Refugee

Convention defines a refugee as anyone who,

owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to return to it (Convention Relating to the Status Of Refugees).

According to the principle of non-refoulement, those determined to be "convention refugees" cannot be repatriated to the place where their lives or freedom would be threatened for the aforementioned reasons (Akram 2001, 166). While the Refugee

Convention and Refugee Protocol do not require that the status of the convention refugee be regularised by her current state of residence — eligibility for permanent status such as 56 residence or citizenship remains within the discretion of the state — the said state is obliged to provide her with identity papers and travel documents; basic housing, education, welfare and social security; freedom of religion; freedom from unnecessary restrictions on movement; and freedom from unnecessary restrictions on employment

(166-7). As regards employment in particular, the state is obliged to accord to refugees

"the most favourable treatment accorded to nationals of a foreign country in the same circumstances" (Said 2001, 131). As will become apparent during the discussion of

Lebanese law, it is in part the equivalence between foreigner and refugee that enables

Lebanon to exclude Palestinian refugees from large sections of the labour market.

With respect to Palestinian refugees, however, there exists a problem more fundamental than the Lebanese state's application of the aforementioned employment provisions. Article ID of the Refugee Convention states that the convention should not apply to those who are receiving assistance from UN institutions or agencies other than the UNHCR (Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees). The 1954 Convention

Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons has a similar clause (Akram 2001, 171). These clauses apply to Palestinian refugees, as their case falls under the purview of UNCCP as well as UNRWA. The UNCCP was created to deal specifically with the case of

Palestinian refugees, under the terms set out by UNGA Resolution 194, issued on 11

November 1948. The resolution states that Palestinian refugees "wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to [said] property", and instructs the 57

Conciliation Commission to facilitate "the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees", and the payment of compensation (Akram 2001,

169; Suleiman 2001, 89). As should be obvious the UNCCP has not been able to fulfil its mandate due to the policies implemented by the state of Israel, some of which were discussed in the previous pages. UNRWA has, and continues to function both in the

Occupied Territories, and in states where large numbers of Palestinian refugees reside. It provides, on a rapidly shrinking budget, assistance to registered refugees in areas of health and education, in addition to providing emergency relief in the form of food rations to those considered Special Hardship Cases.

What is important from the perspective of this dissertation is that the UN's recognition of the unique character of Palestinian refugees has actually enabled the exclusion of Palestinian refugees from the protection regime set up by the Refugee

Convention and Refugee Protocol. This has not only contributed to the ambiguity of the position of Palestinian refugees in international law, but has in fact led to the contraction rather than expansion of the rights and protections afforded them. Akram (2001) argues that the exclusion should, and was in fact intended to expand rather than narrow the rights of Palestinian refugees. Noting that even those drafting the Refugee Convention pointed out that "the obstacle to [Palestinian] repatriation was not dissatisfaction with their homeland, but the fact that a Member of the United Nations was preventing their return",

Akram argues that the uniqueness and legal ambiguity of Palestinian refugees was recognised at the outset (173). On this basis, she argues that Article ID should not be interpreted as an exclusionary clause, but rather a "contingent inclusion clause", (Akram 58

2001, 173) as it is also stipulates that "when such [additional] protection or assistance has ceased for any reason, without the position of such persons being definitively settled...these persons shall ipso facto be entitled to the benefits of this Convention"

(Akram 2001, 167-8; Note on the Applicability of Article ID of the 1951 Convention

Relating to the Status of Refugees to Palestinian Refugees).

The two other international conventions that are of direct relevance to Palestinian refugees are the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (henceforth, the 1954 Convention), and the 1967 Convention on the Elimination or Reduction of

Statelessness (henceforth, the 1967 Convention). As previously noted, the 1954

Convention contains a clause similar to Article ID of the Refugee Convention. Although only a few states have ratified the 1954 and 1967 Conventions, the definition of statelessness they articulate is considered customary, and thus binding on all states

(Akram 2001, 170). Both apply to those who fall outside of the category of convention refugees, and are not considered nationals of any state. The 1967 Convention obliges

states to grant nationality to persons born within their territorial boundaries who would otherwise be stateless (Article 1), categorically prohibits the withholding of nationality on grounds of race, religion, or political opinion (Article 9), and entrusts the UNHCR with the mandate of protecting and assisting stateless persons (171).

It is clear that an amalgamation of the aforementioned conventions and

institutions on the basis of an exclusionary rather than inclusionary interpretation of each

leaves Palestinian refugees in a precarious position, and precludes them from accessing most of the rights accorded other refugees and stateless persons. The Lebanese state, for 59 instance, in addition to restricting Palestinian access to the labour market is also able to claim that the Refugee Convention and Refugee Protocol are not in fact applicable to

Palestinian refugees, and thus release itself from the rights it would otherwise be obliged to grant. Such is also the case in many other states, as the most prevalent interpretation of the Refugee Convention's Article ID makes Palestinians ineligible for the protections and rights accorded to convention refugees (Akram 2001, 172). As Akram notes,

Palestinian refugees are at the same time rarely recognised as being stateless, with many states recognising the state of Palestinian refugees as being merely unsettled or indeterminate, making them ineligible for the rights accorded to stateless persons (171).

Nell Gabiam, whose own argument regarding the status of Palestinians in international law closely follows that of Akram dubs this situation the Palestinian "protection gap"

(Gabiam 2006, 719).

What is important from the perspective of this dissertation, however, and what the aforementioned conventions and mandates indicate, is that international law does not fundamentally disrupt the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex that structures the nation-state. What it problematises is neither the assimilation-repatriation dyad, nor the fact that the refugee is a necessary by-product of the nation-state order. What it problematises, instead, is the permanent existence of that which does not fit into the nation-state order, or the permanence and inevitability of excess. 60

Lebanon and the Palestinian Refugee 'Problem'

It is adequate for the purposes of this dissertation to now pick up the strand of the narrative of Palestinian refugees that continues in Lebanon. The refugees whose exodus ended in Lebanon are living, perhaps, in the greatest limbo of all Palestinian refugees, at least from the perspective of the system of sovereign nation-states that constrains their existence. Although the residence of most Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is legalised

— most have received identity cards that stipulate either permanent or temporary residence — their status remains legally on par with that of a foreigner, and their social, political, and economic rights are truncated accordingly. After 60 years of residence,

Palestinians remain transient foreigners according to Lebanese state discourse, physically and politically segregated from citizenship and its attendant rights. In actuality, they tread a tightrope between refugees and citizens, transients and permanent residents, insides and outsiders, friends and enemies. They are the superfluous, yet they are never utterly useless for they are the immanent other against whose alterity the citizen is constructed and preserved. They are the abject, for they are expelled yet continue to threaten — from frightening proximity — accepted understandings of human rights, citizenship, and residence. Even with, or in fact precisely because of such ambiguous presence, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have managed to disturb the discourse of the nation-state, and particularly the monopoly it claims for the nation-state over territorial sovereignty, citizenship, and the realm of the political.

It is important to provide a brief, and again highly selective history of the state of

Lebanon, with a particular focus on the manner in which Palestinian refugees and refugee 61 camps are implicated in it. When the League of Nations was assigning the mandate over

Palestine to Britain, the mandate over Lebanon and Syria was given to France. Although the Lebanese Republic was declared on 13 May 1926, it continued to be administered by

France, and later the Vichy French government, until June 1941. It is, however, the

March 1943 National Covenant that is for the purpose of this dissertation the most crucial of founding moments. On the basis of a 1932 census, a confessional system of governance was established in Lebanon, in accordance with which the National

Assembly would be comprised of Christians and Muslims in a ratio of six to five, the

Presidency would be reserved for a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister would be a

Sunni Muslim, and the post of Speaker of the House would belong to a Shi'a Muslim

("Timeline: Lebanon")- The census itself found the population of Lebanon to be divided as follows: Christians comprised 52% of the population (30% Maronite, 10% Greek

Orthodox, 6% Greek Catholic, 4% Armenian, 2% other Christian), Muslims comprised

45.5% of the population (21% Sunni, 18% Shi'a, 6.5% Druze), and Jews comprised 1% of the population (Roberts 2004, 94). No census has been conducted since, and the accuracy and legitimacy of even this census has been questioned — among others, accusations have been levied against French Mandate authorities for permitting the registration of 67,000 Christian Lebanese living abroad to shore up the slim Christian majority ("The People of Lebanon: Can They Trust Their Census?", 6). Attempts to ensure that Christians retain majority status have also been rumoured — in 1982 Bashir

Gemayel is said to have commissioned studies on how to encourage some 600,000

Lebanese Christians to return to Lebanon to help maintain the Christian majority, and 62 since 1948 some 100,000 Christian Palestinian refugees have received Lebanese citizenship ("The People of Lebanon: Can They Trust Their Census?", 6).

The history of the Lebanese state since 1948 is almost inextricable from the arrival of the Palestinian refugees produced by the birth and territorial expansion of the state of Israel. Although Lebanese state authorities place most of the blame for

Lebanon's successive wars on the Palestinian refugee population, and public opinion is almost exclusively in favour of their immediate departure {Lebanon: End Discrimination

Against Palestinian Refugees), initial reaction toward the Palestinians was not nearly as hostile. A telegram from Beirut to the British Foreign Office dated 5 March 1949 expresses optimism regarding the prospect of Palestinian residence in Lebanon. It notes that although "the Lebanese government insist that the refugees must return to Palestine and therefore are in principle opposed to the resettlement of refugees in Lebanon," and even though British diplomats are aware that "the balance of Christians and Muslims [in

Lebanon] needed to be maintained", they remain convinced that, "in view of Lebanon's traditional position as a sanctuary, limited absorption of the refugees is unlikely to affect the political stability of Lebanon" {Dispatch from the British Embassy in Beirut to the

Eastern Department, Foreign Office. 9 January 1953). By 1975, but still prior to the

Lebanese civil war, the picture was already bleaker. The British Foreign and

Commonwealth Secretary's report to the Cabinet emphasised that the Muslim population was demanding greater political power (as they outnumbered Christians), the Lebanese government was unable to control its army and maintain order, and the "Palestinian 63 refugees [were] an unsettling influence" in Lebanon {Lebanon Report by the Foreign and

Commonwealth Secretary. October 30th, 1975).

As previously mentioned, UNRWA places the number of registered Palestinian refugees in Lebanon at 400,582. The Lebanese government and the PLO estimate the number of registered and un-registered refugees to be approximately 415,000. To that number other sources add approximately 15,000 refugees who are unacknowledged by both UNRWA and the Lebanese government (the two bodies involved in refugee registration and regularisation) as they possess no documentation or identification whatsoever (2002: Review of the Status of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon). Although refugees are always a contentious population, as previously mentioned the official

Lebanese stance toward the Palestinians, as well as the attitude of a majority of the

Lebanese population was initially welcoming (Suleiman 1999, 67). Tensions heightened, however, in the lead-up to, and aftermath of the Cairo Agreement, which among other provisions officially sanctioned Palestinian resistance activities in southern Lebanon.

Reprisals from Israel in the form of bombardments of south Lebanon led to the progressive disintegration of the Palestinian-Lebanese relationship, and to more rigorous surveillance of the refugees and the camps. A near-total breakdown of the relations occurred during, and in the immediate aftermath of the Lebanese civil war, and despite some concessions and good-will gestures, this state had persisted at least until the beginning of the new millennium (Suleiman 1999). As Simon Haddad points out, "After more than 50 years, Lebanese see themselves as having paid a much higher price for the

Palestinian cause than any other country" (Haddad 2003,46). 64

The signing of the Cairo Agreement in 1969 marks a moment at which the relationship between the Lebanese state and the Palestinian refugees was first formalised.

It is, therefore, simultaneously the moment at which the Palestinian refugee population was officially recognised as a group in need of collective regulation, rights, and some measure of autonomy. By 1969 the initially amicable relationship between Palestinian refugees and the Lebanese state was becoming visibly strained. In retaliation for a PFLP

(Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) attack on an Israeli plane in Greece the state of Israel raided the Beirut Airport, destroying a large number of civilian planes; for seven months Palestinian fighters and the Lebanese army clashed in Beirut and surrounding areas; pro- and anti-Palestinian demonstrations were taking place in west and east Beirut respectively, and the Lebanese population was divided (mostly along religious lines) over the Palestinian presence. With the backing of Egyptian President Gemal

Abdel Nasser, Yassir Arafat and the Lebanese Army Commander-in-Chief Emile Bustani signed the Cairo Agreement in November of that year.

The Agreement was, and remains widely perceived as having redefined the foundations of Palestinian presence in Lebanon (al-Natour 1997, 363). The Agreement itself, as well as the discourses that coalesced around it are crucial from the perspective of this dissertation. It acknowledged the right to residency and employment for all

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. It also sanctioned the formation of committees of

Palestinian refugees to engage with Lebanese authorities on behalf of the Palestinian population. What is more, and what is perhaps most important from the perspective of this dissertation, the state of Lebanon officially "relinquished sovereignty" over parts of 65 the south, and over Palestinian refugee camps in return for control over the activities of the Palestinian resistance in the rest of its territory (Abul-Husn 1998, 44). From the perspective of state discourse, which takes as sacrosanct complete territorial contiguity and sovereignty, the Lebanese state was in peril, as such provisions were "directly contrary to Lebanon's sovereignty and authority" (Dakroub 1987, 10); in allowing

Palestinian resistance fighters to maintain military bases in south Lebanon, the agreement

"made the PLO virtually autonomous" (12). In addition to relinquishing control over the camps, and sanctioning Palestinian resistance activities in south Lebanon the agreement also legitimised what was known as the Arafat Trail, a weapons supply route that extended to the bases in the south from north Lebanon and Syria (11). Effectively, the

Cairo Agreement also nullified the Armistice Agreement signed by Israel and Lebanon in the wake of the first Arab-Israeli War, the stated purpose of which was the prevention of attacks on each of the signatories from the territory of the other.

The signing of the Cairo Agreement was, and remains a contentious moment in the history of the Lebanese state. Many, particularly the Christian leadership at the time, strenuously opposed its signing, subsequently arguing that Palestinians were not even abiding by its already indulgent conditions, and continuing to cite it as one of the main causes of the civil war (Dakroub 1987, 11). Most importantly for the purposes of this dissertation, the signing and implementation of the Agreement marked the consolidation of a Lebanese state discourse that is still deployed with respect to the Palestinian refugee population, namely, the discourse of state-within-a-state. The discourse itself, and its implications for the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex that this dissertation aims to 66 disrupt will be discussed at some length in subsequent chapters. However, it is important to note here that the Cairo Agreement (even though it has since been revoked) continues to influence state action related to Palestinian refugees and refugee camps. Moreover, the discourse that it consolidated — that the Palestinians, under the leadership of the PLO, were creating a state within the state of Lebanon — continues to structure the relationship between the Lebanese state and Palestinian refugee camps.

After the Cairo Agreement, perhaps the most significant moment in the relationship between Palestinian refugees and the Lebanese state was the Lebanese civil war. Although tensions were perceptible long before, 13 April 1975 is considered the date on which the civil war began. The event taken to mark its commencement is an ambush in Ayn al-Rummanah of a bus carrying mostly Palestinians by the Christian

Phalange militia, who claimed to be retaliating for an earlier attack on a church. The war lasted fifteen years, officially ending on 13 October 1990, and claiming over 150,000 lives ("A History of Conflict: Israel and the Palestinians"). Although the civil war was devastating for Palestinians and Lebanese alike, and even though it developed between the Lebanese Christian right and the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) — the latter comprised of left leaning, mainly but not exclusively Muslim parties — particular moments during the war were especially significant in reconfiguring the relationship between Palestinian refugees and the Lebanese state. Despite arguments that the PLO did not involve itself directly in the war until mid-1976 (Peteet 2005, 9), during the civil war and even more so in its aftermath both a large part of the Lebanese population, as well as many analysts of the civil war considered the presence of Palestinians in Lebanon to be 67 its fundamental cause. Even with the blossoming of private armies and sectarian militias, and the weakening of the Lebanese government, contends one observer, "the country might just have pulled through but for the Palestinian factor." The Palestinians, the observer continues, "came often to abuse their presence in Lebanon. The Maronites were frightened to distraction. The Palestinians were becoming a state-within-a-state"

("Lebanon Begins Its Thirteenth Year of War", 5). The fear was summed up at the beginning of the civil war in a statement by Bashir Gamayel, elected president and assassinated in 1982:

Suppose that you are in London, you as a British man, and you see someone coming from abroad putting roadblocks in front of Buckingham Palace or any other place of Great Britain and asking for the ID of any British citizen who passes through a roadblock and you are not allowed even to ask why and to ask who you are. Otherwise you will be shot or you will be taken to a military camp where the Lebanese authority is not allowed to go ("Lebanon Begins Its Thirteenth Year of War", 5).

Even though the share of the blame attributed to Palestinian refugees varied, most at least agreed that their presence in Lebanon was disruptive, and in one way or another contributed to the implosion of the Lebanese state.

With the Palestinian leadership declaring support for the LNM, the aforementioned state-within-a-state discourse was redeployed, albeit through different statements: Maronite militias who controlled the area between Tripoli and Mount

Lebanon referred to the area as "Free Lebanon", to differentiate it from the southern coast and west Beirut, which they considered to be under "Palestinian occupation" (Glass 1976,

4). In June 1976, following the PLO's declaration of support for the LNM, Syrian forces entered Lebanon at the behest of the Lebanese president, a ceasefire was negotiated, and 68 the Syrian Arab Deterrent Force (ADF) was established to monitor it. By 1978, however, violence was not subsiding, and in March of that year Israeli forces occupied Lebanese territory south of the Litani River in retaliation for Palestinian cross-border attacks.

Although the Israeli government was urged (by UNSC Resolution 425) to transfer the occupied territory to the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), it chose to end the occupation by handing it over to the Christian Lebanese Forces (LF) militia, under the control of Major Sa'd Haddad.

Although the 52-day siege of Tel al-Zaatar refugee camp by Christian militias — which began on 22 June 1976 and resulted in the destruction of the camp and the loss of over 1,000 lives — remains etched in the collective memory of Palestinian refugees in

Lebanon, an event of even greater magnitude was yet to come. On 6 June 1982, in response to the attempted assassination of the Israeli Ambassador to Britain, Israel launched a full-scale invasion of Lebanon. The invasion was alternately dubbed

Operation Peace for Galilee and the Sixth Israeli-Arab War. During it, some 70,000

Israeli troops invaded Lebanon under the pretext that 2,500 Palestinians fighters resided, and were organising in refugee camps in Beirut (al-Hout 2004, 3). The stated aim of the invasion was the destruction of the PLO military and political infrastructure in Lebanon

(Dakroub 1987, 11). On 21 August 1982, under the terms of the Habib Agreement

(negotiated by American envoy Philip Habib) Palestinian resistance fighters began leaving Beirut, with the assurance that the civilian population remaining in the camps would be protected in their absence. Almost concurrent with their evacuation was the withdrawal of American, Italian, and French troops from Lebanon. 69

On 15 September 1982 Israeli forces occupied West Beirut, recently vacated by all international forces, and by the Palestinian resistance. Between 16 and 18 September

1982, during a span of 43 hours, more than of 3,500 Palestinian refugees were massacred in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut by Phalange militia (al-Hout 2004, 295-6).

The state of Israel (and Ariel Sharon, as leader of the occupying forces) had since been found indirectly responsible for the massacres; as the occupying power, Israel was obligated to ensure the safety of the civilian population under its occupation. Whether the Israeli forces merely watched, or encouraged and enabled the massacre by lighting the camps with flares and maintaining an armed perimeter around them, remains contested.

What the state of Israel never denied, however, was that it maintained effective control over the camps during the time of the massacre (47). Excellent narratives of the massacres and their immediate aftermath can be found elsewhere (al-Hout 2004; Fisk

2002). What is of relevance to this dissertation is that the event marked another turning point in the relationship between Palestinian refugees and the Lebanese state. Although the relationship was already strained, the massacres had a traumatic effect on the

Palestinian population, who retreated further into the camps, became more suspicious of the Lebanese state and the non-refugee population, and vowed to never disarm the camps again (Sayigh 1994). With the evacuation of Palestinian resistance fighters, the state- within-a-state era seemed to have drawn to a close.

Even in such isolationist climate, however, tensions in Lebanon and surrounding states mounted again. By 1983 Arafat had fallen out of favour with the Syrian government, which accused him of assuming a defeatist position with respect to the 70

Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and declared him persona non grata ("Lebanon Begins Its

Thirteenth Year of War", 7). A fracturing of Arafat's Fatah party led to the establishment of Fatah al-Intifada under the leadership of Abu Musa, and with the backing of the Syria.

Subsequent inter-factional fighting led to the defeat of Arafat in Lebanon, and the formation of the Palestinian National Salvation Front (PNSF) from the triumphant Fatah al-Intifada and other anti-Arafat parties. Although Arafat departed Lebanon in the fall of

1983, his confrontation with Syria, an increasingly negative perception of the Palestinian presence in Lebanon, and brewing resentment from the Lebanese Shi'a community escalated into what is now widely know as the War of the Camps.

A popular, although by no means novel sentiment regarding Palestinian refugees in Lebanon was clearly articulated in a pamphlet distributed near the southern city of

Saida in February 1983, and signed by Revolutionaries of the Cedar:

Honourable sons of Sidon and its environs! Sons of Lebanon in Sidon! Help us expel the intruders from the land of Lebanon, especially from your heroic city, the city of Sidon which has long suffered under Palestinian oppression and destruction./ Our slogan is - let no Palestinian remain on Lebanese soil - and we will realise it soon (Reprinted in Palestinian Human Rights Newsletter, 1983).

Although the War of the Camps had not yet begun, the stage for it was already being set.

Displeased with Arafat and the destabilising PLO presence Syria began backing Amal, a

Lebanese Shi'a political organisation whose core support came from south Lebanon — a region besieged by cross-border bombardments and militia activities. Amal's core constituency saw itself as having borne the brunt of Israel's retaliatory attacks against

Palestinians and their military bases in south Lebanon. Many fled the attacks, and made their way to south Beirut, where they lived in the shantytowns and poor neighbourhoods 71 also populated by Palestinian refugees — areas later known as the Misery Belt (Dakroub

1987, 4). Both Amal and the Syrian government were wary of a PLO resurgence in

Lebanon, and were concerned that the Palestinians would attempt to regain their pre-1982 state-within-a-state status (2). Some argue that the Amal offensive that became the War of the Camps was intended to destroy the refugee camps, and bring about a dispersal of the refugees so that they would never regain their previous status in Lebanon, which would in turn eliminate opposition within Lebanon to increased Syrian control over its internal matters (Peteet 2005, 9). Arafat, in turn, accused Syria of supporting an Amal campaign to create a Shi'a "enclave" in south Lebanon (Dakroub 1987, 1). Such rhetoric led some to describe the War of the Camps as a war-by-proxy between Arafat and Syrian

President Hafez Assad (2).

By the beginning of June 1985 most Israeli troops withdrew from Lebanon, save for those that remained in areas south of the Litani River to support of Major General

Antoine Lahd's Christian South Lebanon Army (SLA), and the security zone that it maintained there. The sieges of refugee camps, which characterised the War of the

Camps, began in mid-1985 and continued sporadically for the following three years. In

1985 Palestinian refugees and Amal engaged in inconclusive, month long battles around the camps (Dakroub 1987, 1). Following the battles, in cooperation with the PLO,

Christian militias — concerned with the rise in Amal's popularity and power, and eager to counteract it by any means possible — are rumoured to have facilitated the re-entry of

Palestinian resistance fighters into Lebanon by smuggling them in through the Christian- controlled port of Jouneih ("Lebanon Begins Its Thirteenth Year of War"; Dakroub 1987, 72

2-3). According to United Nations estimates, by 1987 approximately 3,500 Palestinian fighters were back in the camps of Lebanon; Fatah places the number at 7,000 (Dakroub

1987,2).

Despite the fighting between Amal and Palestinian refugees in 1985, the War of the Camps did not start in earnest until 1986, when Amal held a number of camps under siege for extended periods of time. Detailed chronologies of the War of the Camps can be found in AJME News ("The Camps War and the Resurgence of the PLO"; "A Time

To Rebuild"), while the Palestine Human Rights Special Report (March 1987), and the work of Rosemary Sayigh (1987; 1994) provide both a chronology of the events, and a narrative of them from the perspective of the Palestinians inside the camps.

Consequently, I will merely sketch the parameters of the War here. The first camp that was laid siege to was Rashidiyyeh, on 30 September 1986. The camp, originally established in 1948 about eight miles north of the Israel-Lebanon border, had in 1986 a population of between 18,000 and 20,000 refugees ("Siege and Starvation: The Story of

Three Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon", 7). In November, Palestinians and Amal battled over Maghdousheh, a predominantly Christian village overlooking Mieh Mieh

and Ain al-Hilweh refugee camps; Palestinian fighters won, and Palestinians were

accused by Syria, Amal, and other Shi'a groups of attempting to colonise Lebanon in the

hopes of resettling there ("The Camps War and the Resurgence of the PLO", 3).

Simultaneously, Amal was laying siege to more refugee camps — Burj al-Barajneh on

the 4th of November, Shatila on the 25th of November. This marked the third siege of

Burj al-Barajneh, whose population in the early 1980s was estimated to have reached 73

50,000 refugees, and the first siege of Shatila, whose population after the 1982 massacre was approximately 7,000 ("Siege and Starvation: The Story of Three Palestinian Refugee

Camps in Lebanon", 7). As a result of the sieges and the shelling that accompanied them approximately 80% of Burj al-Barajneh ("Siege and Starvation: The Story of Three

Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon", 7), and 65% of Shatila ("A Time to Rebuild",

2) were destroyed by late February 1987.

As in 1985, Amal's stated aim was the prevention of the re-emergence of the pre-

1982 state-within-a-state arrangement in Lebanon. Initially at least the sieges were supported (both rhetorically and materially) by the Syrian government, and the 1st and 3rd

Brigade of the Lebanese Army. It is argued that for the first time since 1982 a widespread consensus emerged in Lebanon against the expansion of Palestinian influence outside of the camps (Dakroub 1987, 3). That Amal was being backed by Syria, however, complicated the political landscape of the camps, as the Syrian backed Palestine

National Salvation Front not only joined other Palestinian fighters in the battle over

Maghdousheh, but resisted the Amal sieges together with the rest of the political groups in the camps (3). Moreover, Syrian backed Hizbullah did not join Amal, even though its official position on Palestinian influence in Lebanon was now in line with Amal.

Hizbullah, in fact, supported many of the camps during the sieges by providing, and helping to smuggle in food and other supplies.

Until mid-February 1987 the camps were completely sealed, with not even food or medicine convoys allowed in. With the occupation of west Beirut by Syrian troops — who entered on 23 February 1987 to stabilise what was even for the government of Syria 74 becoming an unsustainable situation — the siege was technically lifted, although Amal checkpoints around the camps were merely replaced by Syrian checkpoints, and only women were allowed to enter and exit the camps ("A Time to Rebuild", 1). On 6 April

1987 a ceasefire between Amal and Palestinian refugees officially ended the War of the

Camps. The five month-old sieges of Burj al-Barajneh and Shatila were lifted, although

800 Syrian soldiers remained stationed around the camps, and substantial amounts of supplies did not begin to enter some of the camps until the fall of 1987 (AJME News

Nov-Dec. 1987, 3). It is estimated that more than 800 Palestinians died in Burj al-

Barajneh and Shatila, and more than 3,000 were wounded (Dakroub 1987, 13).

Although many argued that the Cairo Agreement was effectively nullified by the sieges of the camps, it was officially abrogated on 21 May 1987 by then-President Amin

Gemayel, and acting Prime Minister Selim al-Hoss. The Agreement was nullified, it seems, with the hope that its abrogation would serve as the first step in ending the civil war. It was argued that disarmament of militias, and the complete withdrawal of Israel from Lebanese territory would be difficult to demand while a legally armed Palestinian resistance remained (Dakroub 1987, 13). However, as will become apparent in the following chapter, despite its official abrogation certain provisions of the Cairo

Agreement continue to govern the relationship between Palestinian refugee camps and the Lebanese state, and constrain the actions of the latter. For instance, as was recently illustrated by the events that took place at Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Tripoli, even though the current Lebanese government and army will without much compunction 75 indiscriminately shell a refugee camp from its outside, breaching a camp's perimeter is a decision that is not taken lightly.

Whether or not the abrogation of the Cairo Agreement actually hastened the end of the civil war is of no concern here. Regardless, on 22 October 1989 the Lebanese

National Assembly endorsed the Charter of National Reconciliation (also known as the

Document of National Understanding, and commonly referred to as the Ta'if Accord) in

Ta'if, Saudi Arabia. The Ta'if Accord embraced a consensual, sectarian model of governance that reduced the power of the presidency by transferring it to a cabinet, equalised the ratio of Christians and Muslims in the National Assembly, and formalised procedures for the distribution of government posts and offices among various sectarian communities ("Timeline: Lebanon"). It was considered a document of national reconciliation as no one sectarian group could claim majority on the basis of demography, and no one group could claim victory in the war (Haddad 2003, 8). Its endorsement, however, did not end the civil war, and it was not until 24 December 1990 that Umar Karami took office to head a government of national reconciliation. 30 April

1990 was subsequently set as the final date for the disarmament of all militias on

Lebanese soil, save Hizbullah, which was allowed to retain its arms and remain active, and the SLA, which refused to disband ("Timeline: Lebanon").

On 26 August 1991 the process of national reconciliation continued with the provision of amnesty for all civil war crimes, including "crimes against humanity and those which seriously infringe human dignity", and with a number of individuals responsible for such crimes (including militia leaders) gaining various government posts 76

(Haugbolle 2005, 193). It should not come as a surprise that not everyone was in support of such process of 'reconciliation'. In a fascinating and poignant article on the quandaries of collective memory Sune Haugbolle refers to the "magic formula" with which the Lebanese state attempted to cope with the civil war — la ghlib la maghlub; no victor, no vanquished (193). Such discourse was recently redeployed when the Lebanese newspaper an-Nahar interviewed politicians who led militias during the civil war as part of memorial celebrations marking the 32nd anniversary of its commencement. Walid

Jumblatt, leader of the Druze Progressive Socialist Party was willing to admit to mistakes committed during the war and apologise to its victims, and Lebanese Forces leader Samir

Gagena acknowledged that certain events that occurred during the war were shameful and regretful. The latter also argued, however, that "those who launch wars need to apologise and not those who defend themselves and their land against assaults", and that the

Christian right did not want or instigate the war, but "couldn't remain silent while

Palestinians and later on Syrians violated our rights and our land" ("Former Warlords

Reply to Requests for Apology").

The problematic nature of this reconciliation process aside, Palestinian refugees were never included in the state's "magic formula". Lebanese state discourse continues to frame the war as one between 'others' on Lebanese soil, with Lebanese as neither its victors, nor vanquished, but merely its victims. It should be noted here that the state discourse that constructs the civil war as a war between non-Lebanese parties conducted on Lebanese soil is also reproduced and circulated by writers such as Samir Kassir (cited in Haugbolle 2005, 192), who divides the war into the "Palestinian Phase" (1975-82) and 77 the "Syrian Phase" (1982-90). Palestinian refugees, therefore, become not only instigators of the war, but also the 'others' who fought it.

As Dakroub predicted ("The Camps War and the Resurgence of the PLO", 1), relations between the Lebanese and Palestinian never returned to their pre-1982 form;

Palestinian leaders and political parties disengaged from Lebanese state politics, and remain disengaged to this day. Tension between Lebanon and Israel, however, continued to haunt the Palestinian-Lebanese relationship. Israel engaged in bombing campaigns and incursions into Lebanese territory throughout the 1990s, and continued to occupy south Lebanon until a unilateral withdrawal in May 2000. The concurrent collapse of the

SLA, and the deployment of Hizbullah into the region placed it effectively in the hands of

Hizbullah (and hence, as some argue, in the hands of Syria). The assassination of Rafik

Hariri — elected Prime Minister in 1992, during the first post-civil war parliamentary elections — on 14 February 2005 was widely seen as a yet another sign of the Syrian government's influence in Lebanon. This time, however, mass rallies calling for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon were staged. What has since been called the

Cedar Revolution succeeded in compelling Syrian troops to leave Lebanese territory, but assassinations of anti-Syrian politicians and journalists have continued unabated. They have been attributed by some to the general desire of the Syrian government to exert its influence over Lebanon, and to its particular interest in hindering the formation and work of a commission to seek and try those responsible for the assassination of Hariri.

In August 2006 Israeli ground troops entered Lebanon again — in the wake of a bombing campaign that Israel began conducting from sea and air in July — with the 78 stated aim of freeing two Israeli soldiers captured by Hizbullah. This latest war, conducted largely between the state of Israel and Hizbullah, lasted for 34 days and consisted mainly of Israeli bombardment of south Lebanon and south Beirut. It is estimated that more than 1,000 Lebanese (mostly civilians) and 159 Israelis (mostly soldiers) died in the conflict ("Army Chief Says Israel May Have to Confront Hizbullah

Attempts to Re-Arm"). The truce, which came into effect on 14 August 2006 called for a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanese territory, and the deployment of the

Lebanese army and a UNIFIL force into south Lebanon. The south continues to be plagued by tensions, and Israeli fighter jets conduct periodic flyovers over Lebanon. The

Lebanese army became embroiled in a fight over the control of Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Tripoli, and the Lebanese government is crippled by mass protests, the resignation of Amal and Hizbullah cabinet ministers, and most recently the inability to elect a new president, and form a functioning cabinet. At the time of writing, after successive failures to elect a president, outgoing president Emile Lahoud has handed presidential powers to the Lebanese army's Chief of Staff; the Deputy Chief of Staff, who would have inherited the post of Chief of Staff, has since been assassinated.

Conclusion

Palestinian refugees were constituted materially and discursively through the emergence of the state of Israel. On constitution, they were embroidered in, and the cause of a proliferation of international refugee law, which instead of clarifying their position became a technology of their exclusion and exception. Those refugees whose 'exodus' 79 culminated in Lebanon were further constituted by, and implicated in the state in which they have remained refugees for the last 60 years. This chapter attended to these overlying circles that position Palestinian refugees within the order of nation-states. The next chapter will attend to the Palestinian refugee camps themselves, and will being to analyse the discourses that constitute the camps, and the refugees who inhabit them. It is, in other words, time to being the ascent to the apex. 80

Chapter Two: Subverting the State — Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon, and the Struggle for Ain al-Hilweh and Nahr al-Bared

We begin our ascent in the context of a virtual power vacuum in Lebanon. The 'political scene' is marked by assassinations, and a deadlocked Lebanese parliament, unable or unwilling to elect a new president, unable to effectively rebuild the infrastructure and economy shattered by the Israeli-Hizbullah war of the summer of 2006, and seemingly unable to quell the rising tension that accompanies all of the above. It is in this context that the Palestinian refugees re-emerge as a problem. While the 'Palestinian problem' is comprised of an array of fluctuating but recurring concerns, the recent re-emergence of

Palestinians as a problem in Lebanon can be appreciated by examining two events over the course of which the Lebanese state has perceived its territorial sovereignty to be violently and visibly usurped. The first event, which actually lacks fixed temporal parameters, is the ongoing battle for sovereignty over Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp and the surrounding Taamir neighbourhood. Both are located on the outskirts of Saida, in southern Lebanon. The second event, the temporal parameters of which can more easily be fixed, is the battle over Nahr al-Bared refugee camp on the outskirts of Tripoli, in northern Lebanon. Both events consolidated various discourses regarding Palestinians in

Lebanon, some of which, including the state-within-a-state discourse, were alluded to in the previous chapter. The discourses that coalesced around these events communicated an increased urgency; the feeling that this time the 'problem' had to be dealt with swiftly and decisively was palpable. 81

Prior to engaging with these events, however, the chapter locates Palestinian refugees and refugee camps within the Lebanese state by attending to the way in which their status in Lebanon is conceptualised, and delineated by Lebanese law. The complexity and protracted nature of the Palestinian refugee 'problem' have meant that laws positioning Palestinian refugees in relation to the nation-state have been proliferating. Rather than firmly fixing the positions of Palestinian refugees, however, the proliferation of laws has engendered the proliferation of ambiguity and contestation, the partial unravelling of which is the object of this chapter. The chapter, second, narrates a history of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. The previous chapter looked at the emergence of the refugees and the refugee camps in relation to the creation of the state of Israel, as well as at the historical relationship between the refugee camps and the

Lebanese state. In analysing the positioning of the refugees and refugee camps by

Lebanese state law, this chapter attends to the tangent between the machinery of the state and the camp, and from there moves into the space of the camp itself. Third, the chapter highlights some of the discourses that locate and construct Palestinian refugees in

Lebanon, discourses that have re-emerged and coalesced around the two events mentioned at the outset of this section: the battle for control of Ain al-Hilweh and Nahr al-Bared refugee camps.

A narrative of the space of the camps is always, to some degree, a narrative of law, and the machinery of the state, as both constrain and structure the camp, and what takes place within its walls. In this sense, this chapter is not much different from the previous. Yet, although the narrative and vocabulary of the state are still present in this 82 chapter, it simultaneously detaches itself from that narrative, and a turn inward, away from the state and into the camp takes places within it. Recognising the camp as a product of the nation-state, yet at the same time its anathema, the narrative of this chapter at least partially subverts the machinery and discourses deployed by the nation-state. In structure and form, the narrative will become more anecdotal. Penny Johnson (2007), writing about the lives of Palestinian women in Amaari camp in the Occupied Territories, argues that such structure is more appropriate when narrating their stories. She cites

Walter Benjamin, who compares the anecdote to a "street fight or an insurrection", and formal (what could be perhaps called state) history to the military institution (Johnson

2007, 604).

Palestinian Refugees and Refugee Camps in Lebanese Law

Over the course of the sixty years of Palestinian residence in Lebanon laws defining their status and rights vis-a-vis the state have been proliferating, albeit quite slowly. It is possible to explain this sluggish pace, at least initially, by the official Lebanese position that Palestinian presence in Lebanon would be extremely temporary, and hence laws governing this presence were unnecessary, and would likely become superfluous before they were even drafted. As years passed, continued adherence to this position began to at least partially resemble a head-in-the-sand approach: if Palestinian presence is not regularised, if the state does not legislate it in any way, then perhaps the 'Palestinian problem' ceases to exist. In other words, if the state does not recognise them, they do not actually exist. Since any legislative recognition of Palestinian refugees came to be 83 considered a concession to Israel, as it was associated with Palestinian incorporation into, and thus resettlement in Lebanon, successive government had little desire to legislate their presence.

This is not to say, however, that the refusal to regularise Palestinian presence lacks a purpositive, sectarian dimension, or that naturalisation is indeed the desirable and definitive option. With respect to the former, Christian Palestinians have generally had little problem receiving Lebanese citizenship ("The People of Lebanon: Can They Trust

Their Census?", 6). As previously mentioned, that only this group was granted citizenship reinforced the belief that opposition to the integration of non-Christian

Palestinians is at least partially related to the desire of Lebanese Christians to retain an already precarious and disputed demographic majority. With respect to the latter, the contention of this dissertation is that the repatriation-assimilation dyad needs to be transgressed, and that assimilation of everyone everywhere is neither necessarily desirable, nor possible. As will be argued in subsequent chapters, a resolution of the refugee 'problem' along the assimilation-repatriation dyad is, first, not possible. The logic of exclusion and inclusion, or the zero-sum game whereby those who are excluded can be included elsewhere, and a remainder or excess need not exist, is a fiction of the discourse through which the nation-state, and the inter-national state order attempt to sustain and legitimate themselves. Second, even if such resolution were possible, it would likely lead to a strengthening of the nation-state, and the state discourse through which it legitimates itself as the primary, if not exclusive political structure. It is the 84 argument of this dissertation that such discursive formation must in fact be destabilised and de-structed if a fundamental re-imagining of the political is to be possible.

All this being said, the granting of any political, civil, or economic rights to

Palestinian refugees remains conflated with their resettlement. Over the years, fear of resettlement seems to have reached the levels of social panic, whereby anything pertaining to Palestinians (from humanitarian interventions into the camps to the opening of a Palestinian Embassy in Beirut) is immediately objected to on grounds that it constitutes a prelude to Palestinian resettlement in Lebanon. While a principled refusal to resettle Palestinians is supported by Arab League directives, and is adhered to, to various degrees, by other Arab states, discourses deployed by the Lebanese state conflate resettlement and the provision of any kind of rights, be they political, civil, or economic.

Thus, while Jordan has granted citizenship to Palestinian refugees, and Syria accords them some civil and economic rights, the Lebanese implementation of Arab League directives was simultaneously the strictest, in that Palestinian refugees were virtually unrecognised by the state, and most selective, as the second part of the directive — which, as mentioned in Chapter One stipulates that economic and civil rights be accorded to Palestinians in their places of residence — is almost entirely ignored.

While Palestinian presence in Lebanon is now at least partially regularised, the status of Palestinian refugees in Lebanese law remains ambiguous, as they still lack a defined legal identity (al-Natour 1997, 361). The Lebanese state's first official intervention in relation to the Palestinian population in Lebanon did not come until 1950, when the Central Committee for Refugee Affairs was created to collaborate with 85

UNRWA in defining the status of the refugees. The second intervention did not come until 1959, when the Department of Palestine Refugee Affairs in Lebanon was created as part of the Ministry of the Interior. The Department was given the tasks of liaising with aid agencies, and performing various bureaucratic functions: the reception and administration of passport applications, as well as personal documents regarding birth, death, marriage, divorce, change of residency, or religion; the administration of documents relating to refugee camp sites, and the management of documents required for the lease or purchase of the land on which the camps stood; and security-based transfers of refugees from one camp to another (362). The creation of the department, and its extensive administrative mandate marked the first concerted effort by the Lebanese state to codify and manage the Palestinian refugee population. It provided a legal framework for the administration of Palestinian refugees and the spaces they inhabited in Lebanon

(Said 2001, 130).

The following year, the Higher Authority for Palestinian Affairs was created, and was subsumed under the Ministry of Foreign and Repatriate Affairs, which comprised of the Director General of the Ministry of National Defence, officers of the Deuxieme

Bureau, the head of the Israel Boycott Office, the Chief of the Palestine Division of the

Ministry of the Interior, the Director of the Civil Bureau of the Presidency of the

Republic, and the Director of UNRWA in Lebanon (al-Natour 1997, 362). The approach of the Lebanese state to Palestinian refugees can already be gleaned from the designation, location and composition of the agencies designed to administer the refugees. Not only are refugee affairs administered by the ministry responsible for foreign affairs, but the 86 ministry is also responsible for their repatriation; not only are refugees affairs equated with foreign affairs, but it seems that a successful administration of refugees is in fact synonymous with their repatriation. As the composition of the ministry also indicates, prior to this eventual and inevitable repatriation, they should be tracked and scrutinised with great care.

A law passed on 10 July 1962, which governs the Lebanese state's relationship with "any natural or juridical person who is not a Lebanese subject" stipulates that foreigners entering Lebanon must carry legal documents, visas, and travel documents with entry and exist stamps, or otherwise hold a residency permit in Lebanon. Decision

No. 319 issued later that year acknowledged Palestinian refugee presence in Lebanon by adding a third category of foreigners — "foreigners who do not carry documents from the countries of origin and who reside in Lebanon by virtue of residency cards issued by the

Directorate of the Surete Generale or identification cards issued by the General

Directorate of the Department of Refugee Affairs" (al-Natour 1997, 346). This third category of foreigners were obliged to come forward to the Directorate of the Surete

Generale to rectify their undocumented status by receiving temporary or permanent residency cards. Palestinian refugees, therefore, continued to be classified as foreigners;

Decision No. 319 merely made them a special kind of foreigner (364).

At the time of writing, a significant number of Palestinians still lacked any kind of identifying documents from the Lebanese state or otherwise. However, as part of what seems to be, in the aftermath of the struggles over Ain al-Hilweh and Nahr al-Bared, a renewed interest in the regularisation of the Palestinian refugee population, the present 87

Lebanese government has promised, and indeed taken steps towards the provision of identifying documents to non-ID Palestinians ("Non-ID Palestinians in Lebanon

Limbo"). The 2005 Survey Report on the Situation of Non-ID Refugees in Lebanon

(Danish Refugee Council 2005) identified approximately 3,000 Palestinians with no documentation whatsoever, most of whom arrived to take part in the Palestinian resistance in Lebanon, or from Jordan in the 1970s (in the aftermath of Black September).

Following the disbanding of the PLO structure in Lebanon, and the intensification of

Lebanese surveillance of, and military presence in and around the camps their problems increased. First, even though non-ID Palestinians had always lacked the support of

UNRWA (as individuals lacking documentation have difficulties registering), economic support was until then available from the PLO. While many refugees were negatively affected (at least economically) by the disbanding of the PLO, non-ID refugees were hit hardest, and their access to healthcare and education became severely restricted. Second, many non-ID refugees and their descendants (who are also undocumented) stopped leaving the camps for fear of being detained for lacking any identification (Danish

Refugee Council 2005).

As argued in Chapter One, the Cairo Agreement was a watershed moment in the regularisation of, and provision of rights to Palestinian refugees. Since the Cairo

Agreement was abrogated, however, the Lebanese state has reverted to restrictive, pre-

Agreement laws, which generally make no special provisions for Palestinian refugees

(Said 2001, 133). The movement of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon remains for the most part unrestricted, except when the state deems it problematic for reasons of security. 88

Palestinians residing outside of refugee camps need merely to give notice of a change in residency; those residing in camps, however, must apply for a permit prior to moving from one camp to another (al-Natour 1997, 365). With respect to movement across

Lebanese state borders, a decree from July 1967 exempts Palestinians from providing travel documents when crossing the Syrian-Lebanese border. Another decree, dating from December 1954, used to exempt Palestinians from paying visa and passports fees, but it is no longer valid (366). These, as well as other exemptions that aimed to lessen the burden on Palestinian refugees have been progressively phased out as the PLO's power in Lebanon has decreased, as Lebanese public opinion turned increasingly against

Palestinian refugees and the Cairo Agreement, and as surveillance of Palestinians and the camps intensified.

At the height of this period, the Ministry of the Interior (under Prime Minister

Rafik Hariri) ruled that those travelling abroad had to obtain from the Surete Generate both an exit and entrance visa. This ruling severely affected the mobility of Palestinian refugees, especially those working outside of Lebanon at the time. Many of these refugees were not granted re-entry visas, and thus found themselves stranded in the countries in which they were employed at the time, or through which they were travelling. According to estimates, such was the case for some 100,000 Palestinian refugees registered in Lebanon (al-Natour 1997, 365). Prime Minister Selim Hoss rescinded the requirement when he was elected in 1999, but the restrictions were re- imposed when Hariri returned to office in 2001 (Ohrstrom 2007). Although the requirement has since again been lifted, many states remain weary of granting visas and 89 work permits to Palestinians residing in Lebanon, fearing that the re-entry visa requirement could be re-imposed at any time.

Incidentally, the Hariri government also heightened restrictions on the property rights of Palestinian refugees. Until that time property regulations stipulated that foreigners could not own property within three kilometres of the Lebanese border, that all undeveloped land had to be built on within the first five years of purchase, and that a certain percentage of the value of the purchase had to be paid in fees to the Lebanese state (al-Natour 1997, 372-3). The current law, passed by Hariri's government in April

2001, specifically stipulates that stateless residents of Lebanon cannot own or inherit property (Sayigh 2005, 24). While those who already own property are allowed to make use of it, the property cannot be inherited, and thus occupied by their descendants.

According to some Palestinians the implementation of the law has intensified overcrowding in the refugee camps, as those Palestinians whose families used to own property outside of the camps have been forced to return.

Palestinian refugees have also experienced increased difficulty in securing legal employment. Prior to 1962 there existed in Lebanon no clear legislation regulating foreign workers. The 1962 Law Regarding Entry to, Residency in, and Exit from

Lebanon prohibited non-Lebanese citizens from engaging in paid or unpaid employment unless licensed to do so by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (al-Natour 1997,

366). The ability to engage in legal employment was further restricted by the reciprocity regulations that grounded the Lebanese state's provision of work permits. In accordance with the principle of reciprocity, a non-Lebanese citizen was permitted to engage in only 90 those occupations that were also open to a Lebanese citizen in the country of that foreigner's permanent residence or citizenship. Palestinians, however, lack a state that can reciprocate employment rights to Lebanese citizens. Consequently, they remain exempt from almost all professional occupations, and have traditionally had to resort to working as manual or seasonal workers, or otherwise find means of circumventing these legal restrictions. Some Palestinian doctors, for instance, are employed by Lebanese doctors who take a percentage of their earnings as payment for allowing the Palestinian doctors to work either under their licenses, or without one. The list of jobs unavailable to

Palestinians has lengthened over the years, and now includes both manual and clerical jobs in administration and banking, laboratories and pharmacies, electronics, mechanics and maintenance, and teaching. Palestinians also cannot practice medicine, engineering, or law. In addition, Palestinian labour is restricted in the service sector, where

Palestinians cannot work as concierges, guards, cooks, bakers, hairdressers, and in other independent occupations such as trade, printing and publishing, and car maintenance.

("Palestinians Mark 40 Years since the Disaster of 1967").

Unemployment in refugee camps is as high as 60%, with nine out of ten

Palestinian refugees either unemployed, or underemployed in low-paying, informal jobs

("Palestinians Mark 40 Years since the Disaster of 1967"). According to a 2003 FAFO

Report, only 15% of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon hold valid work permits (al-Madi

and Ugland 2003, 150). Recently, the restrictions that have contributed to these high unemployment rates have begun to be reconsidered. In June 2005, a decree by Labour

Minister Trad Hamadeh partially lifted restrictions on the approximately 70 occupations 91 previously inaccessible to Palestinian refugees ("Palestinians Mark 40 Years since the

Disaster of 1967"). However, the resignation of the Labour Minister, and the deadlocks, instability, and resultant power vacuum that has marred the Lebanese state since

December 2006 make it impossible to ensure the full implementation of the decree.

Richard Cook, UNRWA Director for Lebanon argues that there have, in fact, been no

"changes on the ground" ("Palestinians Mark 40 Years since the Disaster of 1967").

Moreover, as Save the Children UK Spokesperson Shaheen Chughtai indicates, significant obstacles still exist to securing a work permit, and access to many professions

(such as medicine and law) continues to be restricted ("Palestinians Mark 40 Years since the Disaster of 1967"). The fundamental problem, of course, is that a ministerial decree, its implementation notwithstanding, is merely that — the decree of a particular minister

(who has, in this case, resigned) based on his or her interpretation of the existing law; the actual law remains unchanged.

Palestinian refugees are perhaps least restricted with respect to education.

Palestinian students can study at the elementary and intermediate level in UNRWA schools, or in Lebanese schools (sometimes with the assistance of UNRWA). At the secondary school level, 10% of places at Lebanese schools are reserved for foreigners, and Palestinian students can compete for those places (al-Natour 1997, 372), as well as for places at universities in Lebanon. However, as Ali Houaidi, Secretary General of the

Palestinian Organisation for the Right of Return argues, placing Palestinian refugees on par with foreigners contributes to low enrolment and completion levels in secondary schools; secondary school rates of completion for Palestinian students are as low as 14% 92

(Farha 2007). Additionally, many Palestinian refugees see little point in attempting to pursue secondary and tertiary education as restrictions on employment make it extremely difficult to find employment other than that which is unskilled and irregular. Those who are lucky find employment in the camps or with UNRWA, but such jobs are scarce.

While Richard Cook likens the organisation to a municipality, providing education, health, employment, and other relief and social services to registered Palestinian refugees, he also notes that UNRWA's 2006, 67.4 million dollar budget for Lebanon translates to an annual per capital budget of 71-72 dollars, at a time when supplementary

PLO aid is almost nonexistent, and when Palestinians are finding it increasingly difficult to find work in Gulf countries, which results in a significant decrease in remittances to the camps ("Hundreds of Thousands of Refugees Look to UNRWA to Meet Basic Needs:

Organisation Struggles to Provide Aid and Services as Population Growth Stretches its

Budget").

Perhaps most importantly from the perspective of this dissertation, the Lebanese state categorically refuses to grant citizenship to Palestinians refugees (with the exception, as previously mentioned, of Christian Palestinians). The 19 January 1969 citizenship law bases citizenship on blood ties, and in a temporally limited fashion on the territorial principle — the latter applies only to individuals (and their descendents) who held Ottoman citizenship prior to the institution of the Republic. With respect to naturalisation, foreigners who reside in Lebanon for more than five consecutive years, women who marry a Lebanese citizen and reside in Lebanon for one full year, and those determined to have rendered outstanding services to the state can be naturalised. A 15 93

January 1925 law also stipulates that nationality can be conferred and withheld by the

President of Lebanon, as a manifestation of his sovereignty, at his discretion (al-Natour

1997, 374).

If, as under all other circumstances, the Lebanese state considered the status of

Palestinian refugees to be equivalent to that of foreigners Palestinians could be granted citizenship under existing Lebanese laws. With respect to citizenship, however, the

Lebanese state differentiates between Palestinian refugees and foreigners, using the previously mentioned Arab League recommendation that Palestinians retain their nationality as official grounds for the exclusion of most from Lebanese citizenship (al-

Natour 1997, 374-5). The Palestinian refugees' exclusion from citizenship, and their relationship to the citizenship regime have had widespread implications for all kinds of other citizenship issues. For instance, recent attempts to pressure the government to allow women to pass nationality to their children and non-Lebanese husbands has been met with concern that such measures would help naturalise, and thus settle Palestinian refugees in Lebanon (Samaha 2007).

Subverting the State: Palestinian Refugee Camps and the Lebanese State

Although access to Lebanese state citizenship has always been restricted for Palestinian refugees, it has historically not impeded the emergence of Palestinian rights in a uniform and consistent manner. Moreover, laws pertaining to Palestinian refugees have changed over the course of their 60-year residence in Lebanon, and even those that have remained in force have been inconsistently interpreted, applied, and enforced. Similarly, camps 94 have changed in structure and shape, and the dynamics within the camps, as well as between the camps and Lebanese state have been continually refashioned, largely in accordance with the changing political, economic, and social climate in Lebanon and surrounding states. Various attempts have been made to schematise and periodise

Palestinian refugee presence in Lebanon (Peteet 2005, Sayigh 1994, Suleiman 1999), and while the complexity of the schematisations vary, general agreement seems to exist not only with respect to the historical junctions at which the relationship between Palestinian refugees and the Lebanese state was transformed, but also with respect to the kind of relationship that filled the temporal spaces between these junctions. This dissertation has thus far, and will generally follow the periodisation provided by Jaber Suleiman (1999), for while other periodisations are similar, his is simultaneously the most detailed, and the most clear. When necessary, and when significant variations exist, however, it will be supplemented by others.

Suleiman (1999) separated the period between 1948 and the present into six phases. He considers the first phase, which he labels "Adaptation and Hope" (1948-58) as being marked by a welcoming attitude toward Palestinians, and generally amicable relationships between the refugees, and the Lebanese citizens and state. "Crackdown and

Covert Activity" follows between 1958 and 1969. This phase begins with a rebellion against President Camille Chamoun in 1958, which precipitated the coming to power of

General Fouad Chebab. According to Sayigh, while Chamoun managed the refugee camps indirectly, by relying on Palestinian adherence to the leadership of the mufti, 95

Chebab took a more hard-line and direct approach in relation to the camps, and among other measures installed in each an Army Intelligence Bureau (Sayigh 1994, 25).

Toward the end of this period, armed Palestinian resistance began to establish bases in south Lebanon from which it attacked Israel. This prompted retaliatory bombardment, and thus a more hostile attitude toward Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

Suleiman (1999) argues that the increasingly aggressive policy regime led to an uprising in the camps, supported by the Lebanese National Movement (LNM), which forced the withdrawal of the Lebanese state from within the camps. The camps, now "liberated zones," began to be administered by the Palestinian Kifah Mussellah (Armed Struggle).

The process of liberating the camps from the control of the Lebanese state culminated in the signing of the Cairo Agreement on 3 November 1969, and the inauguration of the third phase in the history of Palestinian camps in Lebanon, which Suleiman calls "Overt

Activity and Institution Building," and which lasted from 1969 to 1982. According to

Suleiman, this was the heyday of PLO presence and activity in the camps, as well as in the south of Lebanon. Social, political, and military organisations multiplied, and the camps became increasingly autonomous entities. Julie Peteet's argument that refugee camps in Lebanon cannot be understood exclusively as spaces of confinement that

"cordon off challenges to state sovereignty" is based largely, although by no means exclusively on this period in the history of the refugee camps (Peteet 2005, 29). One of the arguments of this dissertation, namely, that Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon destabilise and unhinge the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex that grounds the 96 nation-state, speaks also (albeit not exclusively) to this period in Palestinian-Lebanese relations.

This autonomy lasted through the initial stages of the Lebanese civil war, until the

Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and the subsequent departure of the PLO and

Palestinian resistance fighters. Suleiman (1999) labels the period that followed, between

1982 and 1985, the period of "Discord and Internecine Conflict." As the Chapter One indicated, the period was marked by the departure of the PLO and Palestinian resistance fighters from Lebanon, the massacres of Sabra and Shatila, and simultaneous intensifications in the isolation and surveillance of the camps. It was marked also by the

9 May 1983 split between Fatah, and what became known as Fatah al-Intifada. The fifth period was that of the "War of the Camps" (1985-1989), discussed at some length in the previous chapter. The period was marked by a re-arrangement of alliances within the camps, as the Palestinian National Salvation Front and Amal (both hitherto backed by

Syria) found themselves on different sides of the conflict. Moreover, following the lifting of the siege, loyalists (those backing Fatah) largely departed from Beirut camps and moved south, mainly to Rashidiyya, al-Bass, Burj al-Shamali, Ain al-Hilweh, and

Mieh Mieh refugee camps. Burj al-Barajneh, Shatila, and Mar Elias in Beirut, as well as

Beddawi and Nahr al-Bared in the north remain under NSF control, although both NSF

and Fatah maintain a presence in all camps (Suleiman 1999, 69).

Writing in 1999, Suleiman describes the sixth and last phase as the "Current

Phase", conceives of it as lasting from the end of the civil war until the 'present', and is

quite vague with respect to its characteristics. While focus on reconstruction, economic 97 development, and political stability in the ten years that followed the conclusion of the civil war effectively placed concerns over Palestinian refugees on a sort of backburner, some largely unsuccessful and disingenuous efforts were made to reinstate a dialogue between Palestinian refugees and the Lebanese state (Suleiman 1999, 69-70). The past few years, however, have witnessed a marked change in the discourses deployed by the

Lebanese state with regard to Palestinian refugees and refugee camps. Among others, the

Israel-Hizbullah war of 2006 and its political and economic aftermath, continuing fighting over control of Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp and its surrounding area, as well as the recent battle over Nahr al-Bared brought Palestinian refugees back into the limelight, led to their re-constitution as a 'problem' for the Lebanese state and society, and strengthened the state's resolve (at least its rhetorical resolve) to definitively deal with the

'problem'.

Governing City-Camps: Sovereignties, Territories, Citizenships

It is often argued that Palestinian refugees in Lebanon experience the worst living conditions among all Palestinian refugees in Arab countries, due in large part to their exclusion from most of the social, economic, and civil rights accorded to other residents of Lebanon (Jacobsen and Khalidi 2003, 188). The overall standard of living is made worse by the overcrowded refugee camps in which most of the population resides. A smaller portion of refugees in Lebanon live in what are known as gatherings, or officially defined areas where more than 25 Palestinian refugee households live in close proximity to each other (Ugland 2003, 20), while a still smaller number live outside of both camps 98 and gatherings. Approximately 60% of Palestinian refugee communities are located in urban spaces (about half of those are in city centres, and half in city suburbs), and 40% outside of urban areas (Jacobsen and Khalidi 2003, 255). Eleven refugee camps remain in Lebanon, as the three camps that were destroyed during the civil war have not been rebuilt (and cannot be, in accordance with the directives of the Lebanese state), and the recent battle over Nahr al-Bared levelled most of the camp. While the current Lebanese government has promised that this camp will be rebuilt in its original place, suspicion exists among Palestinian refugees as to the genuineness of that promise ("Residents of

Ain Al-Hilweh Fear Rival Militants Could Turn Their Refugee Camp into New Nahr al-

Bared").

As a result of the progressively decreasing number of camps, tightening restrictions on property ownership and inheritance, and natural population growth, over

45,000 registered refugees reside in Ain al-Hilweh in the suburbs of Saida — presently the largest camp in Lebanon — and some 20,000 refugees inhabit Burj al-Barajneh in the south of Beirut ("Lebanon Refugee Camp Profiles" 2003). Located minutes from Beirut's international airport, on the main highway into Beirut, the latter is a one square kilometre patch of land on which tightly packed, concrete apartments are stacked on top of each other to a height of at least three stories. The camp is so dense, and stacked so high that sunlight reaches neither ground floor dwellings, nor most of the alleyways that wind between them, and are often no wider than the width of a human being (so that one must turn sideways to let another pass). Although, as previously mentioned, there are few restrictions on the movement of Palestinian refugees within Lebanon, many never leave 99 the camps, as they fear persecution and surveillance, or are too frail, sick, depressed or poor to engage in 'normal' city life. As over the years, the camps have become cities in their own right, or perhaps more accurately, cities-within-cities, many refugees feels little desire to step outside the only city in which they feel welcome and at home. Inside the camp, exterior walls are decorated with murals that welcome pilgrims returning form the hajj, and commemorate martyrs and special events in the life of the camps, and in the history of Palestine. Part of a public (and simultaneously private, as it occurs on the inside of the camps) manifestation of the claiming of space, such commemoration can also be seen as representative of an attempt to constitute or maintain a community, with a common history and present (Khalili 2005).

While the camp is located in a densely populated area of the city, it does not bleed into the surrounding areas. It is encircled by roads (and bordered by an empty field on one side), and the outward-facing walls of the tightly stacked concrete houses create a conceptual and physical wall around it. Within cities, however, there also exist camps that are somewhat different. Sabra and Shatila, for instance, located just across from Burj al-Barajneh, is comprised not only of an official camp, but also of a slum inhabited by poor migrant workers and Lebanese. Although it bleeds into the surrounding area, an interior camp, militarised and governed by Palestinian refugees, is still perceptible. Other camps are smaller, and those in the Beqaa Valley, for instance, have a much more rural character. However, they share with some of the above camps their obvious separation from the surrounding area, and their enclosed, city-like (or in the case of rural camps, village-like) character. Located in the Beqaa Valley, al-Jaleel is less dense than urban 100 camps, and although poverty is higher and space for housing more restricted, quality of life seems somewhat better, especially when measured in terms of breathing space, privacy, and the relationship between the camp and surrounding communities.

Palestinians living in gatherings or among the Lebanese population are obviously less isolated from Lebanese society, but poverty remains high particularly among the former, as most UNRWA and other NGO services are not available in gatherings. While it would be interesting to explore the different spaces that Palestinian refugees inhabit within the territorial boundaries of the Lebanese state, this dissertation will focus on camps, as those are the spaces that are most exceptional in their relationship to the state- sovereignty-citizenship complex that this dissertation aims to disrupt. The dissertation, therefore, will focus on what Shaq al-Qutub (1988) has dubbed "city-camps", or spaces where city life has at least partially been duplicated, spaces like Ain al-Hilweh, Nahr al-

Bared, and Burj al-Barajneh, which contain stores, hairdressers, restaurants of various kinds, pharmacies, bakers and butchers, car mechanics, fruit and vegetable markets, schools and nurseries, hospitals and factories.

The ambiguous and precarious status of these camps has been acknowledged in at least some academic and policy circles, although until very recently there has been little evidence of a desire to remedy this through some sort of regularisation. Writing from an urban planning perspective, al-Qutub argues that Palestinian refugee camps, as

"unorganised, unplanned urban communities," are problematic not only in terms of their internal organisation and structure, but also for the spaces in which they are located (al-

Qutub 1988, 208). It is apparent, from even this first assertion, that the discourse of 101 which al-Qutub is a part is in line with that deployed by the state. The work of al-Qutub, however, is important here not only in spite of (or because of) the discourse that he represents, but because he recognises the camps as distinct spatial arrangements, different not only from slums, shantytowns, ghettoes, and other refugee camps, but also from other

"temporary cities". As al-Qutub notes,

The concept of temporary cities or urban communities usually refers to situations where the displaced persons are sheltered in tents, wooden, pre-fab, and other forms of temporary housing until they are moved to more permanent housing...However, in the case of the refugee camps, although they started as temporary shelters when repatriation was expected to take place within weeks, they have become a more permanent (although considered temporary in political terms) feature. The small communities are now virtually cities, of various sizes and complexities. They are not considered to be shantytowns, slum areas, or poverty belts surrounding old cities of modern metropolises, nor are the segregated urban patterns known in the west applicable (al-Qutub 1988, 208; emphasis added).

While al-Qutub's hope is for the refugee camps to be recognised as "temporary urban communities" or "urban complexes", and "to be considered in urban development policies" (208), the reason for alluding to his work here is, of course, much different.

First, it is one of the few examples of work that recognises the peculiar physical and political situation of the camps. Second, the author importantly alludes to the grounding complexity of the temporal status of the camps, and in some way subverts traditional understandings of temporariness and permanence by referring to the spaces as "camp- cities" (209). Finally, al-Qutub's work references, if only indirectly and in passing, what is most interesting from the perspective of this dissertation, namely, the disjunction between the camp in its material and political actuality, and the discourses that the 102

Lebanese state employs in defining the camp in relation to itself, and to the state- sovereignty-citizenship complex.

Inhabitants of city-camps such as Burj al-Barajneh see the camps as transpositions of parts of Palestine, as the camps are comprised of village quarters, each occupied by refugees from a particular area in Palestine. Many writers have pointed to this phenomenon (Peteet 2005, Roberts 1999, Sorvig 2001), and have generally attributed it to the initial exodus of refugee populations by town or village (Peteet 2005, 59). Writing about Burj al-Barajneh, S0rvig argues that segregation within the camps, as well between the camp and its outside has intensified following the War of the Camps, as refugees became more suspicious of each other, and of 'foreigners' in the space. According to

Sorvig this resulted in, for instance, the exodus of Shi'a from the core of the camp, which they now enter only in exceptional circumstance (Servig 2001, 60). According to the

FAFO Report published in 2003, 75% of Palestinian refugees residing in camps live among individuals from the same area of origin in Palestine; the opposite is true in gatherings, where approximately 70% of refugees live in close proximity with individuals of varying origins (Ugland 2003, 185). The camps, therefore, are structured in a unique, rather subversive manner (at least with respect to the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex), as transplantations of Palestine into Lebanese territory.

As the above makes apparent, the camps are quagmires of sovereignties, territories, and jurisdictions. Not only are they, and the refugees who inhabit them

subject to often contradictory, ambiguous, and overlapping international and Lebanese

laws and jurisdictions, but the spaces are also at least partial geographical reproductions 103 of pre-1948 Palestine, and are governed accordingly. With respect to the internal governance, therefore, the situation is not any less complicated. Suleiman argues that no single referential authority exists within the camps (Suleiman 1999, 76). According to

Suleiman, since the political and organisational restructuring that followed the War of the

Camp the refugee camps of Beirut and the Beqaa Valley have been under the control of the opposition, with Fatah maintaining a low profile; almost no Fatah loyalists exist in the camps of north Lebanon, in which opposition and Islamist forces are presently in positions of authority. As previously mentioned, Fatah maintains the most powerful presence in the camps of south Lebanon (77). In addition to the direct control exerted by the aforementioned political parties and factions, the camps are also administered by

Popular Committees. The Committees, which maintain a role akin to that of a municipality, liaise with the Lebanese authorities, guide foreign delegations through camps, arbitrate minor disputes between camp residents, and preside over day-to-day affairs such as garbage and sewage collection, and the provision of, and collection of payment for water and electricity (Peteet 2005, 13). Even here, however, the situation is actually much more complex, for some of the electricity and water is supplied by

UNRWA, some by the Lebanese government, and some is tapped into by the Popular

Committee, or camp residents themselves. According to FAFO 28% of the water in urban camps is supplied by Popular Committees, 16% by the Lebanese government, and

7% by UNRWA (Ugland 2003, 195-7). All the while, the Lebanese state officially maintains a blanket prohibition on the provisions of both in refugee camps. 104

Making matters more complicated is the existence of more than one Popular

Committee in each camp. While the committees were originally meant to exist independently of the parties and factions active in the camps, at present a number of competing political organisations have assembled their own Popular Committees in a bid to increase their influence within the camps (Peteet 2005, 13; Suleiman 1999, 76).

Popular Committees are supplemented by Security Committees, which register

'foreigners' who stay in the camps, deal with crimes committed in the camps (both as a quasi-security force that investigates and brings in suspects, and in some cases as a quasi- judiciary, meting out punishment for petty crimes), and oversees camp jails. It also liaises with Lebanese police when the crimes are deemed too serious to be handled internally, and escorts the suspects to the camp's border, where Lebanese police take over custody. Also known as the Steadfastness and Confrontation Committees, their power and influence is said to have grown as they filled the 'security vacuum' created by the departure of the PLO from Lebanon (Nassar 2007).

In addition to Popular and Security Committees, post-1982 camps are also partially controlled by what Peteet calls an "ambiguous, amorphous, and highly localised leadership" (Peteet 2005, 15). As Suleiman — who argues that Ain al-Hilweh camp in

Saida is a microcosm of the "Palestinian scene in Lebanon" — constructs a detailed schema of political parties, militant organisations, and other formal and informal leadership organisations in the camp, it in not necessary to attempt to create a list here

(Suleiman 1999, 71-6). It will suffice to say that a myriad of such organisations continually engage in a struggle for influence in, and control over the camps. The 105 previously mentioned geographical terrain that the camps reproduce through their village structure adds another layer of leadership to this already complex arrangement. Village

Committees group together individuals with common geographical origins in Palestine, and are involved in the provision of various social services. According to Suleiman,

Village Committees are the only camp leadership bodies that are not in some way connected to political parties or factions within the camps. He argues that their independence is tolerated both because they do not compete for resources with the political organisations, and because the historical, communal ties on which they depend are considered too powerful to destabilise (75).

A number of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) also work within the camps, and even though most do not hold much sway politically, their economic resources, as well as the social assistance they provide make them a crucial, and at times controversial part of the camps' landscape. While creating a catalogue of all of these organisations is unnecessary, a number of the more prominent ones are enumerated below, to give a sense of this part of the camp landscape. The Women's Humanitarian

Organisation (WHO) plays a fairly important role in the provisions of social services in

Burj al-Barajneh and Sabra and Shatila, with a focus on early childhood education (the

organisation runs nursery, day care, kindergarten, and after-school and summer programs), vocational training, elderly care, and physiotherapy and disability services.

Najdeh, which runs its programs out of a number of refugee camps but services both

Lebanese and Palestinians, provides assistance to low-income families, and runs vocational and technical training programs, an adult-literacy program, a micro-credit 106 program, and various programs for children. Additionally, it spearheads numerous awareness campaigns, which have recently focused on environmental health, women's and children's rights, and family planning. Bait Atfal Assomoud, another organisation with branches in a number of refugee camps runs dental clinics, and various recreational and cultural programs for children and young adults. Originally created to assist children orphaned following the Tel al-Zaater refugee camp massacres, the organisation has since extended its mandate.

Other organisations active in the camps include the Vocational and Technical

Training Committee (VTTC), which adjusts its training programs to the demands of the

Lebanese labour market, and the Arab Resources Centre on Popular Arts (ARCPA), whose mandate is to encourage critical thinking and creative problem solving through the provision of various programs and cultural materials. In addition to these, and the many other organisations that work in the camps various short-term projects are also sponsored by local and international organisations, including a recent children's photography project ('"Their Own Agony': Photography Project Hands Camera to Children"), and a

World Vision program to help children with developmental disabilities (May 2007).

UNRWA, of course, is the largest service provider within the camps. Moreover, 61% of camp households live on land partially or wholly leased by UNRWA; a mixture of government and private ownership accounts for the rest of the land (Jacobsen and Khalidi

2003,191).

Although as the above indicates, connections and relationships do exist between the camps and their outside (be it through the liaising between various camp committees 107 and the Lebanese state, or through organisations that serve both Palestinian refugees and

Lebanese citizens) the camps remain largely physically, as well as politically and economically isolated from their surroundings. Peteet, writing about post-civil war

Shatila, describes it as a "ruralized" and "isolated" space "in the midst of a vibrant, post­ war urban centre" (Peteet 2005,13-5). She describes a place

physically isolated within its newly carved out boundaries. Donkeys pulled carts through what remained of the few narrow roads once used by cars and tracks. Chickens roamed the alleys...Bombed and burned out buildings in a state of perpetual suspension gave the impression that any forceful movement could bring the whole pile tumbling down (Peteet 2005, 15)

As Peteet noticed on her return to the camp following the civil war, increased Lebanese surveillance of, and authority over the camps, and the Syrian and Lebanese checkpoints erected at its entrances violently re-forged its borders. For Peteet, the camps became quintessential border communities, "located on the margins of bounded national spaces and local places", making transparent the limitations and possibilities of both (15, 25-8).

The existence of the camps simultaneously on the inside and outside of the sovereign, territorial domain of the Lebanese state is crucial from the perspective of this dissertation.

As will become apparent further on in the dissertation, the camps' transgression of the inside-outside dyad is what makes them destabilising vis-a-vis the nation-state.

While Sabra and Shatila have since been (at least partially) rebuilt, the Sabra market is again vibrant and full of Palestinian and Lebanese shoppers, and the boundaries between the camp and the surrounding slums have once again started to blur, the heyday of Palestinian and Lebanese interaction is long gone. With the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, the Syrian checkpoints disappeared, but the sense of isolation that 108

Peteet so poignantly describes remains, at least in part. Activist Mervat Abu Khalil argues that prior to the 1982 departure of the PLO, the camps were full of life, and a vibrant part of Beirut. In comparison, they are now ghettoes, separated from the rest of the city (Ohrstrom 2007). The post-civil war relationship between camps such as Burj al-

Barajneh and Ain al-Hilweh and their surrounding areas is more indicative of a trend of increased isolation, retreat, suspicion, and fear.

This trend was only heightened, especially in the camps of south Lebanon and

south Beirut, by the recent Israel-Hizbullah war, which was marked by an almost complete absence of Palestinian refugee voices, and a sense that any involvement (even rhetorical) would make Palestinians a scapegoat for the war. As surveys of Lebanese

citizens make apparent, this lack of integration extends beyond political engagement or

institutional cooperation, and beyond the recent events. More than half of the Lebanese

surveyed by Hilal Khashan admitted to having no relationships whatsoever with

Palestinian refugees, and 75% rejected the idea of Palestinian resettlement in Lebanon,

fearing that it would reignite a civil war, and shoulder the Lebanese state with an

unbearable economic burden (Khashan 1994).

Although the above survey of the manner in which Palestinian refugee camps are

structured, organised, and governed is by no means exhaustive, it provides a sufficient

narrative of the camps. More detailed depictions of the camps are provided by S0rvig

(2001) and Roberts (1999), who focus on Burj al-Barajneh; Peteet (2005) and Sayigh

(1994) who focus on Shatila; and Suleiman (1999), who writes about Ain Al-Hilweh. An

evocative ethnographic study of a woman's life in a refugee camp in the Occupied 109

Territories, which can serve to shed light on the similarities and differences between lives in the camps is provided by Penny Johnson (2007). The purpose of the above narrative is merely to bring to attention the manner in which the physical structure and political administration of the camps simultaneously emerges from, and undermines the state- sovereignty-citizenship complex on which the Lebanese state is grounded. As quagmires of sovereignties and administrations, surrounded by inconsistently permeable borders, the camps are spaces that, in undermining the distinction between the inside and outside of state, nation, sovereignty, and citizenship can shed a new and distinct light on the said complex.

Discursive Constructions of Palestinian Refugees and Refugee Camps

Palestinian refugees and refugee camps are implicated in various discourses, which simultaneously reflect and construct their existence in Lebanon. These discourses, which have been variously deployed and re-deployed by the Lebanese state are of importance to this dissertation, as it is their positioning of the camps that grounds the opening from which a distinct way of conceiving the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex and its relationship to the political can be imagined. As is the case with all discourses, those deployed with respect to Palestinian refugees and refugee camps do not form an internally cohesive whole, but are at times contradictory and incoherent. At the same time, however, they do form a body of statements that refers to, and takes reference from a particular group (Palestinian refugees) and the spaces they inhabit (refugee camps). 110

One of the most prominent strands within this discursive regime is that which constructs Palestinian refugees as having created within the territorial boundaries of

Lebanon a state-within-a-state, and refers to Palestinian refugee camps as security islands. While this strand is certainly not new, it has recently been re-deployed, with increased frequency, by the Lebanese state and its various agencies. The discourse of state-within-a-state was already present prior to the signing of the 1969 Cairo Agreement, and the Agreement is often seen as a material response to the concerns generated by this discourse. As the PLO's influence in Lebanon began to grow toward the end of the period Suleiman called "Resistance and Covert Activity" (1958-1969), uprisings

"liberated" the camps from the Lebanese state, and Palestinian resistance expanded throughout southern Lebanon, the Cairo Agreement became a means of restraining the

Palestinian field of influence and operations, and thus a means of arresting the development of a Palestinian state within the Lebanese state. Eventually, however, the

Cairo Agreement came to be seen as the progenitor either of a state within a state, or at least of security islands within Lebanese territory in the form of Palestinian refugee camps and resistance bases. With respect to the former, the Cairo Agreement came to be constructed as being too permissive, Palestinian refugees came to be constructed as attempting to extend their influence beyond the already-indulgent Agreement, or both.

With respect to the construction of Palestinian refugee camps as security islands, the

Cairo Agreement became the progenitor of spaces within Lebanese territory over which

Lebanese state sovereignty did not extend. Ill

Thus, the context to which the Cairo Agreement responded, the Cairo Agreement itself, and the environment that was fostered by its institution were constructed as having permitted the emergence and maintenance of either a state-within-a-state, or at least security islands over which the state had no control. While this discourse has been re­ deployed in the aftermath of the Israeli-Hizbullah war, and in a context of an increased

Lebanese state interest in decisively dealing with the Palestinian refugee population, references to the state-within-a-state and to the camps as security islands are present within much of the literature on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Simon Haddad, for instance, notes that the Maronite Christian community in Lebanon has always perceived the presence of Muslim Palestinian refugees, and the state within a state that this community constituted as a threat to the Christian-dominated political system (Haddad

2003, 31). Suleiman, whose own argument does not support the assertion that Palestinian refugees camps exist "beyond the reach of Lebanese law" nevertheless acknowledges the potency and recurring nature of the discourse, and his own normative stance remains firmly entrenched within the framework constructed by it (Suleiman 1999, 72). Suleiman quotes Shakir Abu Sulayman, a Maronite League official as referring to Palestinian refugee camps as security islands that exist outside of the authority of the state, and cites also the call of prominent al-Nahar journalist Jibran Tuwayni for the Lebanese state to neutralise the security islands that exist within the Lebanese state by entering the camps, so that "the cancellation of the Cairo [Agreement] is not just a symbolic act" (72).

Suleiman himself argues that such perception of Palestinian refugee camps is false, as the camps are in fact firmly within reach of the Lebanese state: 112

The Lebanese Internal Security Forces do enter the camps in coordination with camp authorities to arrest suspects and carry out similar missions. They also have informers and other contacts inside the camps. But the Lebanese state appears unwilling for political reasons to base the police or army in the camps, preferring to leave internal policing to the various Palestinian factions operating in the camps. Thus, while the camps are not regularly policed by Lebanese law enforcement, they are not beyond the reach of Lebanese law (Suleiman 1999, 72).

I find Suleiman's argument problematic for at least two reasons. First, the argument seems based on the assumption that the Lebanese state, in a position of power relative to the Palestinian refugees, is able to enter and exit the camps at will and simply chooses, for the time being at least, to not police the camps extensively. While such argument is certainly useful if the aim is to discredit the argument that a state-within-a-state exists in

Lebanon, it depends on the positioning of the Lebanese state as an omnipotent force that does with the Palestinian refugees and refugee camps what, and when it pleases. One could argue, however, that the Lebanese state cannot in fact enter and exit the camps at will, as Palestinian refugees have managed to extract from it some degree of autonomy, and usurp some of its territorial sovereignty.

Second, Suleiman's argument seems premised on a rather intransigent dichotomy, reflected throughout the security island discourse: either the camps exist outside of

Lebanese law, or they exist within the purview of Lebanese law. What is problematic with such dichotomy is that it does not permit the possibility of the existence of a grey zone between the law and its outside, which is constitutive of, and constituted by the law while comprising a space that is simultaneously a space of a-legality and surplus-legality

(as opposed to legality or illegality). The significance of this alternate interpretation of the camps will become apparent in subsequent chapters. What is most important to note 113 here is that, these problematic aspects of Suleiman's argument notwithstanding, his work remains embedded in, and a testament to the prevalence of the discourse that constructs

Palestinian refugees and refugee camps in Lebanon as constituting security islands and a state-within-a-state.

As previously mentioned, this discursive strand has recently been re-deployed.

The fight between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam for control of Nahr al-Bared refugee camp prompted a re-deployment of the discourse by the media, who began to represent Palestinian refugee camps as security islands in which extremist groups were allowed to flourish (Ohrstrom 2007). Mirroring to some degree accusations that the so- called Arafat Trail — which the Cairo Agreements condoned, and through which weapons were smuggled across Lebanon to Palestinian resistance fighters — was buttressing the Palestinian state-within-a-state, concerns recently re-emerged that

Palestinian refugee camps were safe-havens for militants, and nodal points on weapons- smuggling routes ("Army Shoots Down Reports of Arms Smuggling"). Despite the

Lebanese army's statements to the contrary ("Army Shoots Down Reports of Arms

Smuggling"), the discourse has maintained potency.

The re-emergence and strengthening of this discourse is further attested to by the decline in Lebanon's position on the Failing State Index, issued annually by the Fund for

Peace. According to the index of 177 states, Lebanon is the world's 28th most failing state. A failing state is marked by several attributes, including: "loss of physical control of its territory or a monopoly on the legitimate use of force," an "erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions, an inability to provide reasonable public services, 114 and the inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community" ("Lebanon Plunges in Annual Index of 'Failed States'"). Interestingly, in its report on Lebanon the Fund for Peace does not make mention of Palestinian refugee camps, but asserts rather that in Lebanon "Hizbullah operates as a state within a state," controlling large sections of Lebanese territory, holding a large quantity of weapons, and providing social services in impoverished Shi'a areas ("Lebanon Plunges in Annual

Index of 'Failed States'"). Incidentally, while the makers of the index acknowledge that

Hizbullah "has managed to join the legitimate government," they see this as a hindrance to the Lebanese state, arguing that it has made the disarmament of Hizbullah's militant wing virtually impossible. What is interesting here is that the discourse, whose initial object in Lebanon was Palestinian refugees has not only been recently re-deployed in relation to the Palestinians, but has also brought new discursive objects into its domain.

Related to the discursive strand that constructs Palestinians as having created a state within the Lebanese state, and constructs camps as security islands is that which constructs Palestinian refugees as an unbearable burden for the Lebanese state.

According to this discursive strand, the Lebanese confessional political system, the stability of which depends on a delicate balance between Christians and Muslims, could not bear the naturalisation of the mainly Muslim Palestinian refugees (Khashan 1994).

Not only do Palestinian refugees and the camps that they inhabit have a destabilising effect on the already fragile confessional equilibrium, but their regularisation — in the form of the granting of citizenship, or merely civil or economic rights — would introduce an irreparable and devastating asymmetry. As was the case with the aforementioned 115 discursive strand, references to Palestinian refugees as an unbearable burden have re- emerged at various historical junctures. Rafik Hariri, during whose prime ministership the rights of Palestinian refugees were severely curtailed, stated at the time that to grant

Palestinians civil and social rights during the post-civil war peace process would be tantamount to their settlement in Lebanon, which in addition to being destabilising would be a concession to Israel (Haddad 2003, 41). More recently, Lebanese media reported that Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora expressed "concern" over the presence of large numbers of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Siniora's office denied that he was expressing any animosity toward the Palestinians, and argued that he was merely categorically refusing their settlement for reasons of demography and Lebanese constitutional provisions ("Siniora Clarifies His Remarks on Palestinians"). Expressions of animosity notwithstanding, the statement forms part of a discourse of concern over

Palestinian presence in Lebanon.

Constant anxiety over settlement is characteristic of this discourse. Most, if not all of the laws that regulate Palestinian presence in Lebanon (such as those that restrict the entry of building materials into the camps, or prohibit their rebuilding or expansion) are supposed to safe-guard the temporariness of Palestinian presence in Lebanon, and prevent the institution of anything that might hasten or encourage Palestinian settlement.

Extreme anxiety over the prospect of settlement has led to a perception that anything and everything that makes the lives of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon more comfortable and bearable is the first step on the road to their permanent settlement. While the Palestinian refugee leadership itself categorically rejects re-settlement in Lebanon, and — 116 importantly from the perspective of this dissertation — makes rights demands on the assumption that Palestinian presence in Lebanon in not permanent, the discourse deployed by the Lebanese state seems grounded on the fear that Palestinian desire for repatriation is untrustworthy, ingenuous, or both. This fear of settlement and its unbearable burden is a constant presence in discourses regarding Palestinian refugees, surfacing with more or less tenacity at various historical junctures, in response to particular moments or events, and in accordance with the parties who deploy it.

You may recall from the previous chapter that the accusations that Palestinian refugees were plotting to usurp and resettle Lebanese territory already surfaced during the battle over Maghdousheh, on the eve of the War of the Camps. More recently, a proposal to transform the newly re-established PLO bureau in Beirut into a full-fledged Palestinian

Embassy prompted suggestions that such development would hasten Palestinian settlement in Lebanon. At first merely a rumour, Siniora's attempt to include it as a point of discussion on the parliamentary agenda was blocked by the Lebanese president and opposition parties, including Hizbullah, on the grounds that "such transformation could lead to the settlement of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon" ("Upgrade of Palestinian

Bureau to Embassy?"). Arguments by the head of the Lebanese portion of the Lebanese-

Palestinian Dialogue Committee, Khalil Makkawi that the establishment of a Palestinian

Embassy was unrelated to the settlement of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, and aimed merely at the promotion of Palestinian-Lebanese dialogue seemed to have gone unheard; the discussion was suspended ("Cabinet Puts Off Decision on Palestinian Embassy

Following Contentious Debate.") 117

The 2005 opening of a PLO bureau (the first since the PLO's expulsion in 1982) was itself considered a step on the road to mending Palestinian-Lebanese relations.

While expressing concern over Palestinian presence and possible settlement in Lebanon,

Fouad Siniora has simultaneously engaged in attempts to regulate and 'normalise' the situation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. These efforts took on added urgency following the Israel-Hizbullah war of 2006, the general reconstruction and restructuring that the war precipitated, the increasingly uncontrollable situation in Ain al-Hilweh, and the battle over, and destruction of Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in the summer of 2007.

Under Siniora's leadership, the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee was established on 13 October 2005, and was charged with finding solutions to all problems plaguing Palestinian refugees in Lebanon ("Committee 'Improving' Palestinians'

Lives"). For the first time in the history of Palestinian residence in Lebanon fundraising and reconstruction projects were not only sanctioned for the camps, but the Lebanese government made a commitment to improving the camps and the lives of the Palestinian refugees "under the government's protection" (Austin 2006).

Touted as a "turning point in the historically troubled relationship" the

committee's projects, to be phased-in over the course of four years included a reduction

in the time it took to secure permission for building materials to enter refugee camps, and

improvement in sewage facilities, and access to water and electricity ("Palestinians Doubt

Latest Promises of Support"). A report on the committee's progress, released two years

into its mandate, outlines as its accomplishments the reduction of the waiting period for

permits to bring construction materials into the camps from several weeks to 48 hours; 118 government recognition of Palestinian authority passports issued to refugees who fled the

Occupied Territories after 1967; the offer to issue temporary paperwork to some 4,000

Palestinian refugees who lack any documentation; and the request to the General

Security's General Directorate to return travel documents previously confiscated from

Palestinian refugees crossing the Lebanese border, and to cease confiscating such documents ("Committee 'Improving' Palestinians' Lives"). Moreover, a ministerial delegation visited the 12 refugee camps in March 2006, making it the first time any state official entered what Lysandra Ohrstrom in her article about Palestinian-Lebanese relations calls the "semi-autonomous communities" (Ohrstrom 2007). As outlined by the

Committee, its future plans include: the drafting of amendments to the foreign labour and property ownership laws, which would exempt Palestinian refugees from the principle of reciprocity on which the current laws are based; the regularisation of weapons in the camps in a manner that places such weapons under the sovereign jurisdictions of the

Lebanese state; a discussion regarding weapons-smuggling routes that are ostensibly overseen by the PFLP and Fatah al-Intifada; and the processing of documentation for non-ID Palestinians (Ohrstrom 2007).

Notwithstanding what seem to date, from the Palestinian perspective at least, rather meagre accomplishments, Siniora's expressed desire to transform Palestinian-

Lebanese relations is significant. The formation of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue

Committee alone is significant, as it places the Palestinian refugee leadership at least rhetorically on par with Lebanese leadership in negotiations for Palestinian rights in

Lebanon. What is more, the government's expressed desire to decisively deal with the 119

'Palestinian issue', and the manner in which it wants to deal with it mark a drastic departure from the manner in which the state has approached Palestinian refugees thus far

— one oscillating between a head-in-the-sand approach, and the repression-surveillance approach. It reflects also a departure from the hitherto adamant refusal to regularise

Palestinian status to any degree, or to improve the quality of life for Palestinians in

Lebanon. This is not to say that the Lebanese state has recently become a benevolent benefactor to, and advocate of Palestinian refugees; at least some of the initiatives are overt attempts to affirm the sovereignty of the Lebanese state over the refugee population and the 'troublesome' refugee camps. My interest, however, is not to look for motives or hypothesise regarding intentions. What is important from the perspective of this dissertation is to understand the discourses that construct the Palestinian presence in

Lebanon, the manner in which they are deployed by the Lebanese state to structure the relationship between itself and Palestinian refugees, and the manner in which they simultaneously condition, and are conditioned by that relationship.

Although it might seem that a transformation of this magnitude in the relationship between the Palestinians and the Lebanese state would unhinge, or at least significantly alter the discursive regime from which it originally emerged, such has not been the case.

The aforementioned departure from what has thus far characterised the Palestinian-

Lebanese relationship has not only been grounded in this discursive regime, but has in some ways entrenched it further, and precipitated the ensconcing of other discursive strands. Two separate discursive strands that have recently come together are that which constructs Palestinian refugees as the cause of the Lebanese war, and that which 120 constructs them as guests in Lebanon. While both are not new, with the first having already emerged during the civil war, they have been re-deployed and re-combined in interesting ways by both the Palestinian refugees, and the Lebanese state. These discursive strands resurfaced during, and following the Israel-Hizbullah war of 2006, which took place almost exclusively on Lebanese soil, and in the aftermath of which the

Lebanese government effectively collapsed. Interestingly, allusions to the construction of

Palestinians as the cause of the civil war were at this time generally made by Palestinian refugees and Palestinian leadership who accounted for their silence during this war, and during the protests and resignations that paralysed the Lebanese government with references both to their perceived role in the civil war, and their guest status in Lebanon.

Responding to questions regarding the Palestinian position on the political turbulence in

Lebanon, and to unconfirmed allegations that at least one of the gunmen involved in the riots was Palestinian, the PLO representative Sultan Abu al-Aynayn stated that

Palestinians "are keeping an equal distance from everyone" (Zaatari 2007). In an interview, Samih Rizk, member of the Shatila branch of the PFLP made the following statement regarding the political situation in Lebanon:

We're not going to be part of this, or say loudly that we are with [the opposition] because we don't want to be involved in any way. After all, remember what happened with us in 1975. In 1975, everyone was blaming Palestinians...Look, before the war we had negotiations with the politicians over the Palestinian file — now we have nothing...Our priority in Lebanon is to find a job...This is a Lebanese internal conflict and we don't want to interfere in the internal matter of any country. Here, we are guests (Samaha 2006).

At least two interesting things can be gleaned from this statement. First, recent events have led Palestinian refugees to recall the manner in which their involvement in the 121

Lebanese civil war was constructed, and to re-evoke this discourse in order to protect themselves from its re-deployment by the Lebanese state. Second, the discursive strand that marked Palestinians as guests on Lebanese territory has also been re-evoked by

Palestinian refugees, who are pre-emptively deploying it in order to shield themselves from being accused of contributing not only to the civil war, but also to this most recent war. That the Palestinian refugees employ the same discourses as the Lebanese state is exemplary of how various subjects can be implicated in, and make use of the same discourse, but to very distinct ends.

Palestinian invocations of the guest discourse are also evident in relation to the aforementioned attempts to restructure the Lebanese-Palestinian relationship. The battle over the control of Nahr al-Bared refugee camp has precipitated both Palestinian and

Lebanese desires to "restructure and reorganise" the refugee camps in a manner that would, in the words of one Palestinian representative, prevent "random groups such as

Fatah al-Islam" from claiming to be a recognised Palestinian faction. The formation of a

Higher Coordination Committee to interact and negotiate with the Lebanese government started to be discussed during the protracted fighting in Nahr al-Bared. A list of

"suggested bylaws" included the stipulation that all Palestinians consider themselves

"guests of the Lebanese", guests who would not "interfere, in any way, in Lebanon's domestic affairs" (Zaatari 2007).

Even more recently, again re-invoking the guest discourse as well as a version of the unbearable burden discourse previously deployed by the Lebanese state, PLO representative Abbas Zaki launched the Palestine Declaration in Lebanon Treaty, which 122 outlines the PLO's new policy on Lebanon and bilateral relations between the Lebanese and Palestinians. Speaking at the official launch of the Treaty, Zaki acknowledged that

Palestinian refugees were "a burden to the Lebanese," and apologised for "the harm we

Palestinians have unintentionally caused you all through our stay in your country." He noted that Palestinian presence in Lebanon has "made the lives of the Lebanese complicated, and forced Lebanon to put up with additional burdens it was not ready to undertake." In calling for "a truly comprehensive and final Lebanese and Palestinian reconciliation," he underscored the need for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon to "respect

Lebanon's independence and sovereignty," and reiterated that Palestinians were strongly opposed to any plans for permanent settlement ("Zaki Apologises for Burden Posed by

Palestinians").

Ain al-Hilweh and Taamir

Although these discourses have been in circulation for a period of time, many of their creative and at times seemingly counterintuitive re-deployments have come in the context of the instability generated by the Israel-Hizbullah war, and the increasingly unstable situation in Ain al-Hilweh and Nahr al-Bared refugee camps. I attend to these specifically as they exemplify, perhaps most poignantly since the Cairo Agreement, events around which the aforementioned discourses coalesced, and through which they were consolidated, and gained strength and momentum.

The recent events at Nahr al-Bared fit more easily into a temporally defined moment (having taken place between March and October of 2007). The events at and 123 around Ain al-Hilweh, to which I will attend to first, constitute a much less temporally defined moment. Ain al-Hilweh is the largest, and the most dangerous and volatile refugee camp in Lebanon. Located in the suburbs of the southern city of Saida, its population numbers somewhere between 50,000 ("Lebanon Refugee Camp Profiles") and

70,000 ("UN Aims to Raise Living Conditions in Ain al-Hilweh"), and has been characterised as a "tiny 1.5 square-kilometre cinder block camp" within the "lawless boundary" of which "several thousand armed militias vie for control" ("Residents of Ain

Al-Hilweh Fear Rival Militants Could Turn Their Refugee Camp into New Nahr al-

Bared."). The camp is located in the neighbourhood of Taamir (also known as Khat al-

Sikkeh), which like the camp itself has become an object of state-within-a-state and security island discourses, and has been called a "small stretch of no-man's land" between "the boundary of Ain al-Hilweh and one of the Lebanese army checkpoints that overlooks the camp" ("Residents of Ain Al-Hilweh Fear Rival Militants Could Turn

Their Refugee Camp into New Nahr al-Bared."). These discourses have been strengthened by a recent problematisation of the inability of the Lebanese state to assert sovereignty over the area, in which various militant and political groups (including, but not limited to various Palestinian factions) have thus far reigned sovereign. While there still exist no plans for direct Lebanese control over the space of the refugee camp, a number of attempts to permeate and control Taamir have recently been made by the

Lebanese Army at the behest of the Lebanese state, as well as some Palestinian representatives. The recent focus on, and problematisation of the violence around Ain al-

Hilweh is itself not unrelated to the re-emergence of some of the aforementioned 124 discourses, as Ain al-Hilweh has always been difficult to control for the Lebanese state.

The coalescence of the aforementioned discourses around Ain al-Hilweh, therefore, needs to be seen as simultaneously constituted by the recent violence, and generative of the problem of Ain al-Hilweh and Taamir.

In December of 2006, a "combatant" and a nine year-old girl were wounded in the camp when a dispute between residents developed into armed clashes. Separately, a bomb exploded in the camp during celebrations of the Hamas electoral victory in the

Palestinian Territories (Zaatari 2006). By January 2007 the perception emerged that armed clashes were increasing in frequency, and were no longer the exclusive domain of militant factions, but were becoming a commonplace method of resolving civil disputes.

The Palestinian Follow-up Committee (established to serve as an intermediary between the Palestinian factions controlling the camp and the Lebanese state) met to discuss possible ways of confronting what was now commonly perceived as "escalating violence" ("Doves Become New Source of Ain-al Hilweh Violence.").

Widely reported clashes between the Lebanese Army and a group calling itself

Jund al-Sham at a Lebanese army checkpoint at the entrance of Ain al-Hilweh was the straw that broke the camel's back. The area was declared a "virtual security vacuum", and came to be repeatedly referred to as "an area notorious for assassinations and shootings involving Palestinian factions, as well as Islamist factions vying for control over the nearby camp" ("Army Battles Militants During Overdue Taamir Deployment";

"Jund al-Sham Militants Take Over Preschool Near Ain al-Hilweh"; "Two Dead as New

Violence Hits Palestinian Camps"). This and other clashes between Jund al-Sham, armed 125

Palestinian factions, and the Lebanese Army strengthened the security island discourse, and the resolve to extend Lebanese state sovereignty over the area. While details of the actual conflict are not of great importance here, and have been reported on elsewhere

("Army Clashes with Jund as-Sham Over Veiled Woman"), what is interesting from the perspective of this dissertation is the manner in which this situation was dealt with.

Although the stated aim was the expansion of Lebanese state sovereignty over the area, the Palestinian-Lebanese Follow-up Committee, and representatives of Asbat al-Ansar (a

Palestinian faction in a position of relative power in Ain al-Hilweh) negotiated with Jund al-Sham fighters at the behest of the Lebanese Army, who requested in a letter that they apprehend and hand over those involved ("Army Clashes with Jund as-Sham Over Veiled

Woman").

Even prior to the urgency precipitated by the aforementioned events, the re­ claiming of the Taamir neighbourhood for the Lebanese state was on the agenda. At the beginning of November 2006, a government meeting was organised by the Security

Department in Southern Lebanon to discuss the possibility of a "peaceful deployment" of the Lebanese Army into Taamir, the possibility of confiscating all weapons in the Saida region, and the synchronisation of various security departments in the south. Separately, the Taamir Follow-up Committee, comprised of representative of various Palestinian factions and Islamic groups operating in the neighbourhood held a meeting in Ain al-

Hilweh, with the purpose of arriving at a common stance with regard to the said deployment. The deployment was generally welcomed, albeit with some reservations.

Finally, for the first time since 1975 an officer of the Lebanese Army entered the refugee 126 camp; he entered the camp to discuss and coordinate the deployment of the Lebanese

Army in Taamir with a number Palestinian factions ("Meeting Aims for 'Peaceful' Army

Return to Taamir").

The concessions the Lebanese state had to make so that the possibility of a

"peaceful deployment" was kept alive did not end there. In response to the talks of deployment some dozen members of various armed Palestinian factions moved residences, from the western sector of Taamir (which was supposed to fall under the control of the army) to just inside Ain al-Hilweh (where complete Lebanese sovereignty could not possibly extend); those who moved were financially compensated for their resettlement by the Lebanese state. The Lebanese Army, moreover, discussed the possibility of setting up Palestinian checkpoints along the streets on which these individuals settled. As an additional part of the effort to pave the way for army deployment, a number of individuals wanted by the Lebanese state for "minor offences", and "forced to join armed militias in order to escape justice" received amnesty from the state ("Armed Groups Move House to Make Way for Army in Taamir"). Perhaps encouraged by these efforts, some members of Jund al-Sham occupied a preschool in

February 2007, demanding that they also be compensated for the loses they incurred while relocating in order to avoid capture following Lebanese Army deployment into

Taamir ("Jund al-Sham Militants Take Over Preschool Near Ain al-Hilweh").

Deployment, however, still did not proceed smoothly. As it commenced toward the end of January 2007, armed clashes erupted between the army and militant groups, including Jund al-Sham. Intermittent violence continued throughout the deployment: a 127 car bomb exploded in Taamir, a Palestinian taxi driver was shot in Ain al-Hilweh, two

Fatah members were assassinated in the camp, and an attempt was made to assassinate the leader of Asbat al-Ansar ("Two Dead as New Violence Hits Palestinian Camps").

Daily confrontations left the camp "in a paralysis", re-activating the discourse that constructed the area as a security island. This time, the characterisation was made by the

Follow-up Committee of National and Islamic Forces, who vowed that Palestinians would not be dragged into a conflict, and that "the camps [would] not be turned into a security island" ("Clashes at Ain al-Hilweh Ball 2 Fatah Members"). Echoing the sentiment, Abbas Zaki stated that "Palestinian camps will not be a refuge for fugitives nor will they disrupt Lebanese and Palestinian civil peace" ('"No Escape:' Fatah Gives

Jund al-Sham 72 Hours to Turn Over Killers of Two Members"). Re-deploying also the guest discourse, Zaki later added that Palestinians "are guests in Lebanon and we do not interfere in domestic affairs" ("Sabaa Meets with PLO Representative in Lebanon").

Despite army deployment, by the end of June militant factions battling for control over the camp were perceived to be on the rise, with security preserved by frequently opposed groups ("Jund as-Sham Fighters Botch Bomb-Building Attempt"). Then, a number of barriers were erected in Ain al-Hilweh and Taamir, attributed by some to tensions between Hamas and Fatah following their confrontations in the Palestinian Territories.

The barriers prompted some residents to state that they felt as if they were caught up in "a potential no-man's land" (Bathish 2007).

What is also interesting from the perspective of this dissertation (beyond the re­

deployments and strategic re-evocations of the various aforementioned discursive 128 strands) is that the 200 soldiers and seven armoured personnel carriers being deployed into Taamir were escorted into the neighbourhood by armed members of various

Palestinian factions, acting as their ushers and guides ("Army Battles Militants During

Overdue Taamir Deployment")- The continued instability in Taamir, moreover, gave rise to proposals to organise and deploy a Palestinian security force in and around the camp, made up of 150 members of different Palestinian factions. The force would act as a

"buffer" between the Lebanese Army and uncooperative militia groups, including Jund al-Sham. That the expansion of territorial sovereignty over this area has been nearly impossible for the Lebanese state, and that Palestinian groups seemingly continue to have the upper hand relative to the state illustrates at least two things. First, Palestinian refugees have clearly been able to usurp, if only temporarily, the sovereignty claimed by the Lebanese state. Second, and more fundamentally, it illustrates the volatility of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex that grounds the nation-state. It manifests sovereignty without state, rights without citizenship.

Nahr al-Bared

More generally, the events of Taamir and Ain al-Hilweh demonstrate both the materialisation of a discourse, and the emergence and shaping of discourse by, and in relation to material circumstances. The struggle for control of Nahr al-Bared, which temporally overlapped with the events in Ain al-Hilweh and Taamir, is similarly revealing. Tensions began to flare in Nahr al-Bared (pop. 35,000, located on the outskirts of the northern city of Tripoli) in mid-March 2007. Pressure began to grow in the camp 129 to expel from within its borders members of Fatah al-Islam, an offshoot of Fatah al-

Intifada. Pressure for the group to leave came from both the Lebanese Army and

Palestinians residing in the camp. The latter argued along with Jibril Rajoub, Senior

Security Advisor to Mahmoud Abbas (in Beirut at the time) that the group had "nothing to do with the Palestinian cause", and submitted a formal complaint to the camp's

Popular Committee asking for an immediate solution to the group's presence in the camp

("Army, Fatah al-Islam in Standoff at Nahr al-Bared"). In an indirect acknowledgement of Palestinian sovereignty over the camp, Fatah al-Islam was constructed as an "intruder"

("Army, Fatah al-Islam in Standoff at Nahr al-Bared") and an "alien" influence ("UN

Convoy Attacked in North Lebanon") by both the Palestinian leadership, and the

Lebanese state discourse and media. The Palestinian leadership also categorically objected to the group being labelled Palestinian, arguing that only 3% of the membership was of Palestinian origin ("Fatah Commander Vents Fury at 'Gang of Criminals' with

'External Agenda'").

Initially largely unknown, the group was thrust into the limelight by the tensions, and eventual violence in Nahr al-Bared, and information about it began to trickle out

(Fielder 2007; Nassar 2007). Eventually accused, and found responsible for the 13

February 2007 twin bus bombing in Ain Alaq, Fatah al-Islam was also accused of plotting various attacks from within the confines of Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, to be carried out by the group's 'external' wing ("Magistrate Concludes Probe into Ain Alaq

Twin Bus Bombings"). Although the situation was becoming increasingly tense it was not until May, when violence broke out between the group and the Lebanese Army, that 130 the situation became critical according to Lebanese state discourse. Fighting between

Fatah al-Islam and the Lebanese Army broke out in the early morning of 21 May 2007, when the army raided a Fatah al-Islam safe-house in Tripoli while pursuing individuals suspected of bank robbery; 22 soldiers and 19 Fatah al-Islam militants died in the ensuing violence. Interestingly, suggestions that the army enter the camp to root out the group were already being made at this early stage in the conflict, but deployment was put off, pending more discussion ("22 Troops, 19 Fatah al-Islam Fighters Dead"). Lebanese, as well as some international media were preoccupied with Nahr al-Bared for the duration of the fighting, and day-by-day reports from the camp headlined Lebanese news reports.

As such detailed account of the fighting is unnecessary from the perspective of this dissertation, this chapter attends only to the events around which some of the already highlighted discursive strands were re-deployed, and coalesced.

Although the fighting was intense since May, the army did not enter the camp until much later. Inside the camp, Palestinian factions attempted (at various moments and to various degrees of success) to wrest control from the militants. Approximately a month into the battle it was reported that the southern part of the camp was under the control of Fatah and other armed Palestinian factions hostile to Fatah al-Islam, and that the militants were now caught between the area controlled by the said factions and the

Lebanese Army, which continued to shell the camp from the outside ("Lebanese Army

Traps Militants in South End of Nahr al-Bared"). Two months into the fighting reports of casualties were mounting daily, and the shelling of the camp continued. A complete evacuation of Palestinian refugees, however, did not take place until the end of August 131

("3 Lebanese Army Soldiers Die in Battle in Nahr al-Bared").1 Given the choice to be billeted with Lebanese families or placed in government sponsored shelters, or to make their way to other Palestinian refugee camps, most refugees chose the latter, which exasperated the already dire situation of many camps. According to Richard Cook,

UNRWA Director for Lebanon, "many chose to go to the camps rather than temporary accommodation outside of the camps because they feel safer with other Palestinians and because they are less likely to encounter problems without their ID cards" ("UNRWA

Highlights Plight of Palestinians Caught in Nahr al-Bared Conflict"). The ability of the militants to resist the army until October 2007, when the conflict finally drew to a close as the camp was almost entirely destroyed, was explained by the army's concern for the civilian population, and their ignorance of the camp's geography and structure (Samaha and Zaatari 2007).

Reverberations of the events at Nahr al-Bared were felt in other refugee camps.

Tensions heightened in Ain al-Hilweh, where Jund al-Sham vowed to rise in support of

Fatah al-Islam, while others were reported to have expressed "unlimited support" for the

Lebanese Army. Fatah tightened security in and around the camp, and its gunmen spread out along all main roads in anticipation of a possible uprising ("Fatah Commander Vents

Fury at 'Gang of Criminals' with 'External Agenda'"). As protests against what was

For details regarding the humanitarian conditions in Nahr al-Bared, as well as in the camps to which most refugees were evacuated see reports in the Daily Star by Lysandra Ohrstrom (22, 25 May 2007), Nichole Sobecki (25 May 2007) and Nour Samaha (29 May 2007 and 9 June 2007). For reports on the economic impact of the battle over the camp see reports in the Daily Star by its staff reporters (25 April 2007), and by Lysandra Ohrstrom (29 May 2007), Rym Ghazal (15 June 2007), and Nour Samaha (6 June 2007). 132 perceived by many as an indiscriminate shelling of Nahr al-Bared were mounted in Ain al-Hilweh, Beddawi, Burj al-Barajneh — where a sit-in was organised around a symbolic

"return tent" ("Human Rights Watch Flays Treatment of Palestinians") — and elsewhere, the Lebanese government expressed fear that a "chain-reaction" would spark conflict in

other camps ("Army Steps up Shelling of Militants at Nahr al-Bared"). Protests were also organised just outside of Nahr al-Bared by refugees demanding to be allowed to return to the camp; 30 protestors were wounded, and three killed by the army ("Three

Palestinians Killed in Protest Outside Nahr al-Bared"). Fears of a "chain-reaction" were

intensified by reports that some Palestinian factions, particularly the Popular Front for the

Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC) joined the Nahr al-Bared battle

in support of Fatah al-Islam ("Brief Lull in Fighting Allows Aid Into Nahr al-Bared").

The decision to allow the Lebanese Army to breach the perimeter of the camp,

although not opposed by the Palestinian leadership, and no longer prohibited by the

already abrogated Cairo Agreement, was continually delayed. Interestingly, the

(abrogated) Cairo Agreement came under harsh criticism from some quarters for

hindering the army's operation by prohibiting its entry into the camp ("Army Steps up

Shelling of Militants at Nahr al-Bared"). Commenting on the situation retired General

Elias Hannah argued that "a clean-up operation inside Nahr al-Bared was needed",

following which "we [could] go back to the way things were after 1969" ("Ex-General

Doubts Army Will Enter Camp"). Although he partially retracted the statement,

Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah argued that while attacks on the Lebanese Army by

Fatah al-Islam "crossed a red line", so would the army's invasion of the camp ("Senior 133

Hizbullah Official Urges All Sides to 'Respect Army Martyrs'"). While the debate was raging, and discourses of state-within-a-state and security islands were re-deployed and re-combined with invocations of the Cairo Agreement (actually adhered to, at most, on grounds of convention), some analysts argued that the army was actually too poorly equipped to invade the camp, had no hope against the urban warfare that would ensue if they breached the camp's perimeter, and was actually remaining outside both for these tactical reasons, and for fear that entering the camp would create the perception that it was "fighting the whole Palestinian community in Lebanon" (Fielder 2007).

Even in the initial stages of the conflict Abbas Zaki noted that, "the decision to enter Palestinian refugee camps is a purely Lebanese concern" (Hodeib 2007). The PLO reiterated this position on a number of occasions, and noted that it has "repeatedly declared that [it] supported Lebanon's sovereignty and endorsed any decisions Lebanese authorities made" (Qawas and Zaatari 2007). Debate over the army's possible entrance into the camp was the catalyst for the reinvigoration of a wide-ranging discussion regarding Palestinian presence in Lebanon. As previously mentioned, the discourse that constructed Palestinian refugees as maintaining a state within the state of Lebanon re- emerged from various quarters, and through different statements, as did the discursive strand that constructed Palestinian refugees as guests on Lebanese territory. Fouad

Siniora argued that the Lebanese state would not "allow any side to weaken [Lebanese] unity and [Lebanese] resolve to enforce security and law over all Lebanese lands, and to protect people both inside and outside the camps", and added that only the state of

Lebanon was a legitimate bearer of arms in Lebanese territory. MP Michel Aoun echoed 134 the sentiment, noting that it was a "black day" when the Lebanese Army was "targeted by guests on its own territory while seeking to establish security and stability" ("Aridi

Applauds 'Courageous' Effort by Soldiers").

A variation of this discourse, which sought to remedy the state-within-a-state and

'security island' situation through the extension of Lebanese sovereignty over the camps was also deployed. Exemplary of this is the statement made by Commander General

Michel Suleiman, who saluted "all those innocent martyrs who have sacrificed their lives for the Lebanese people in the battle for dignity and national sovereignty" (Samaha and

Zaatari 2007). According to Mohamed Ali Khalidi (professor of philosophy at the

American University in Beirut), that the existence of so-called security islands at one point suited the Lebanese state fell prey to collective amnesia. Khalidi argues that the discourse was in fact strategically deployed to protect the army from potentially dangerous policing, enabling it and the state to relinquish responsibility for the camps by providing them with the excuse that the clashes that broke out within were beyond their control (Fielder 2007). By the time of Nahr al-Bared, such concerns had seeped entirely out of the discourse, and security islands became a problem, and a menace to Lebanese territorial sovereignty.

In another variation of the discourse, Palestinian refugees (as they were the ones in charge of their security islands) were blamed for the violence. As Palestinian residents of the camp argued that Fatah al-Islam established itself in the camp without the knowledge and permission of camp leadership ("Hamas Official Urges Army not to

Make Palestinian Civilians Pay for Fatah al-Islam's Actions"), Siniora argued that "Fatah 135 al-Islam's entry into the Nahr al-Bared camp show[ed] the failure of the Palestinians' autonomous security system" (Fielder 2007; "Siniora Says Fatah al-Islam Fighters

Linked to Syria"). Others stipulated that lax security from Fatah, combined with a large population of unemployed and "restless" youth produced an environment suitable to the growth and development of Fatah al-Islam ("Residents of Ain Al-Hilweh Fear Rival

Militants Could Turn Their Refugee Camp into New Nahr al-Bared"). Still others argued that the absence of the state in Palestinian refugee camps for nearly six decades laid the foundation for the current crisis in Nahr al-Bared (Ohrstrom 2007). The message was clear: Lebanese sovereignty over the security islands had to be established. The army did eventually enter the camp, and on 26 June 2007 erected Lebanese flags over several buildings inside what remained of Nahr al-Bared (Bathish 2007).

In an interesting example of the existence of contradictory statements within a discourse, the Lebanese state was concurrently demanding that Palestinian factions within the camp themselves "reach a final decision on how to deal with the issue of Fatah al-Islam" (Ghazal 2007). Khalil Makkawi admitted that, "everyone [was awaiting]

Palestinian initiatives to resolve the problem" ("Lebanese Army Resumes Battle Against

Fatah al-Islam"). At the same time, suggestions that Fatah should join the Lebanese

Army in fighting against Fatah al-Islam were categorically dismissed by Fatah representatives, who argued that such action was not even up for discussion, as it was up to the Lebanese Army to end the standoff ("Hamas Official Urges Army not to Make

Palestinian Civilians Pay for Fatah al-Islam's Actions"). The Lebanese army, however, continued to call on the "Palestinian brothers" in the camp to take a "brave stance" 136 against the militants, and convince them to desist from attempting to infiltrate areas of the camp still under the control of other Palestinian factions, or better still, to surrender

("Army Tightens Noose on Fatah al-Islam").

In a slightly bizarre testament to the potency of Lebanese anxiety over the potential of Palestinian settlement, President Emile Lahoud ventured that the attack on the army at Nahr al-Bared was a "devious scheme led by the United States to impose a settlement of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon" ("Hamas Official Urges Army not to

Make Palestinian Civilians Pay for Fatah al-Islam's Actions"). While this sentiment did not seem widespread, a consensus (at least a rhetorical one) emerged that the relationship between Palestinian refugees and the Lebanese state had to be restructured. As Khalil

Makkawi argued, while "60-year-old problems cannot be solved in a matter of weeks", a restructuring of the relationship was necessary. For his part, Abbas Zaki acknowledged the need to create "new relations with our Lebanese brothers" (Qawas 2007). This discourse of restructuring has, however, also been criticised, as some fear that restructuring is in fact a euphemism for the re-imposition of a harsh security and surveillance regime that would "clamp down on Palestinians" (Fielder 2007).

Conclusion

This and the previous chapter aimed to set the stage for a conceptual re-evaluation of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, and the manner in which it grounds our understanding of the political. By attending to the manner in which the refugees and refugee camps were produced, to their ambivalent status in international and Lebanese 137 law, and to the manner in which they are constructed by Lebanese state discourse, the chapters attempted to unhinge the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, and to clear a path for a differently grounded interpretation of the political. To this end, this chapter gave an account of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, and attempted to compliment the previous chapter's engagement with the camps as a by-product of the emergence of the state of Israel by attending to the tangent between the Lebanese state and the camps, to the camps themselves, and to the discourses that construct and delineate their presence in Lebanon. In doing so, the chapter demonstrated that the camps, and the discursive regime through which they are structured actually destabilise, and begin to fracture the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex they are supposed to sustain. The stage has now been set, and the ascent to the climax is well underway. 138

Chapter Three: The Emergence of, and Contestation over the State — the State-Sovereignty-Citizenship Complex

If the co-constitutive nature of the relationship between conceptual and material realms is to be taken seriously, then the path to the climax, or the clearing of the clearing must involve an inquiry not only into the historical and material conditions that have contributed to the emergence of the present, but also into the conceptual lineage that makes possible its sustenance. As the previous two chapters inquired into the emergence of the refugee and refugee camp from within the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, this chapter attends to the emergence and development of the complex itself. To this end, it attends to the emergence of the concepts of citizenship and sovereignty, as that emergence is constructed by dominant, state discourse. It attends to these concepts, as it is these concepts that comprise and underpin the state-citizenship-sovereignty complex that in turn constructs the nation-state as the legitimate container of the political.

Thus, by narrating the manner in which dominant constructions of citizenship, sovereignty, and their relationship emerge, the emergence of the nation-state — as grounded in the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex — is simultaneously narrated.

Narrated also is the manner in which the nation-state attempts to position itself as the source of the primary call to which one ought to respond, and the principal framework through which to respond to others. If the political is imagined as the decision on who to respond to, then one of the objectives of this chapter is also to outline the manner in which the nation-state, through the concepts of sovereignty and citizenship, claims to be that which holds a monopoly on the political. The chapter, therefore, guides the reader 139 along the conceptual lineage that state discourse constructs to naturalise the nation-state, and its monopoly over the political. The lineage provided for each concept is not the only possible lineage; it is the lineage constructed by state discourse. Yet, when state discourse constructs and deploys a lineage, this lineage must be taken seriously, and examined carefully (which is not to say it needs to be believed) as its effects are indisputable. It is the lineage through which the nation-state order claims to be the natural order of things; its effects create and sustain the nation-state system that at present most visibly and effectively structures our engagements with, and responses to others.

The lineage that the chapter examines, therefore, is the lineage that state discourse constructs to naturalise the nation-state, and justify its monopoly on the political. That a lineage is constructed, however, does not imply that diversion was, or is not possible. A lineage is, in fact, comprised of a series of diversions, and what is more, it is the sustained possibility of diversion that produces a lineage. It is precisely diversions not made, and paths not taken that make up the path that one is walking. Thus, in addition to tracing the lineage the state constructs of the concepts of sovereignty and citizenship, the chapter concerns itself precisely with the diversions whose obliteration produced the nation-state and its claim over the political.

What must be kept in mind, moreover, is that even if irreconcilable conceptual differences exist, the dominant narrative often organises a relation or identification between them. As is pointed to by Isin, conceptual unity and continuity are often a strategy; often, they are nothing more than strategic emulation and appropriation (Isin

2002, 3). The continuity, evolutionism, and presentism of this lineage are strategies of the 140 modern state, deployed to construct the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex as the only possible nexus at which the political can emerge. Thus, it is necessary to keep in mind that although concepts such as sovereignty, citizenship, city, polis, state, and nation exist in different temporal and conceptual contexts, both within and across discourses, they do not necessarily refer to an identical object. What matters is not only the name, which signifies the dominant interpretation of the time, but the manner in which it is interpreted at the particular temporal and conceptual juncture. It is therefore taken as given that concepts evolve, metamorphose, and even though they bare the same name, are at times unrelated to each other. As Isin again aptly points out, many of those now considered citizens would be considered non-citizens if one were to use Plato and Aristotle's concept of citizenship (Isin 2002, 159-160). At the same time, however, we need to acknowledge that structural and genealogical affinity can exist between concepts without the concepts being identical (de Wilde 2006, 195), and that that which is dispersed at every moment does not disappear, but becomes a kernel in future symbolic configurations (Deleuze and

Guattari 1987, 7). What does not die can reappear elsewhere, even if in a manner unrelated to its original meaning.

Two things, therefore, can be said about the relationship between the concepts that comprise the lineage examined in this chapter. It is given that a difference exists between concepts that appear the same in name, and that concepts do not persist unaltered through time and across space. However, conceptual unity and continuity can be discursively constructed where none exists. With this in mind, the second objective of the chapter is to attend to some of the attempts that have been made to unhinge, 141 destabilise, and denaturalise the lineage that is constructed in the state's defence. The chapter's second aim, therefore, is to attend to those critical engagements that reveal that it is state discourse itself that makes the concepts and thinkers it deploys speak to each other, to the inevitability of the nation-state, and to the legitimacy of its monopoly over the political. The latter part of the chapter will build on these, and address some alternative ways of conceptualising the emergence of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex and the kind of political it structures. The chapter, therefore, both outlines, and begins to take apart what state discourse constructs as the conceptual history of its origin.

In doing so, it both outlines, and begins to take apart that which gives the nation-state its legitimacy: its continuity, naturalness, and the historical unity of its constitutive elements.

In beginning to de-struct the lineage constructed by state discourse, the chapter beings to clear the way for the complete de-struction of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex by that which it itself necessarily produces: the refugee and the camp. As the space that captures the nation-state's excess, the camp holds for the nation-state the promise of stabilising the nation-state order. It simultaneously, however, holds the promise of its destabilisation and de-struction.

State Sovereignty

I will attend first to the state-sovereignty side of the conceptual lineage. As a narrative tool, and as it is the tripartite relationship between law, legitimacy, and sovereignty that grounds the discourse of state sovereignty, I will explore the conceptual lineage of state sovereignty by attending to its relationship to, and materialisation through law and 142 legitimacy. At the first intersection of this tripartite relationship, that between sovereignty and law, state discourse constructs the modern state as the incarnation of sovereignty, as expressed through, and encoded in law. The law is positioned as both the ground and effect of sovereignty, and the sovereign state is positioned as that which structures the field of response and responding, and the political. It is at the second intersection, that between sovereignty and legitimacy, that the state eventually establishes itself as the exclusive structure through which to respond, and thus the exclusive realm of the political

Sovereignty and Law

Two constitutive problems can be identified at the intersection of sovereignty and law, the addressing of which seems to have generated the most interest and concerted effort, yet which still preoccupy contemporary theorists of sovereignty and law. The first concerns the location or positioning of the sovereign in relation to the law. While a spatial metaphor can be employed for purposes of visualisation, and the problem can thus be more clearly expressed as the problem of the spatial location of the sovereign in relation to the law, the metaphor is of limited utility, and as will later become apparent actually hinders a truly critical and disruptive interrogation of the relationship between sovereignty and law. The second problem is that of the prerogatives of sovereignty with respect to the law, given its location in relation to it. In other words, it concerns the manner in which the sovereign enacts, or is enacted by the law and functions in relation to, and through the law. This section engages analytically with the ways in which those 143 interpreting the relationship between sovereignty and law attempt to grapple with these two problems.

It is important to begin with Plato and Aristotle, as their work is constructed by the discourse that grounds the political in the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex as the origin of political thought, and the first to philosophically and systematically approach the question of rule in a polity. The temporal and conceptual leap between Plato and

Aristotle, and the medieval, and early-modern conceptions of sovereignty that will be discussed later will soon be evident. However, it is with such gaps and through such leaps that the state discourse contrives the lineage, and constructs the origins of the modern state. It is through this lineage, and its strategically deployed continuity that the state, and its monopoly over the political is legitimated. Beginning with Plato and

Aristotle is necessary for another reason. By and large, counter-lineages and critical interventions into this discourse of the emergence of the state still take Plato and Aristotle as their starting point. They position themselves against the lineage that begins with Plato and Aristotle, or against dominant interpretations and appropriations of their concepts, but do not often question the starting point itself.

In his Introduction to Plato's Laws, Trevor Saunders conceptually positions the text between the Republic and the Statesman. According to Saunders, the latter is indicative of Plato's fundamental desire that an absolute ruler — who in commanding most comprehensively the knowledge of moral truths will be most capable of deciding, and reacting to any circumstance, with recourse to the law only if necessary — reign sovereign over the republic (Saunders 1975, 25-7). In his expert command of the 144 knowledge necessary to rule justly (Plato 1997, 294), make judgments, and control populations (336), or in other words, through the possession of the art of kingship or statesmanship (357-8), the statesman is positioned by Plato above the herds that he rears

(301), yet below the gods to whom he still bears a resemblance (313). The infrequency with which individuals of such abilities are found within a population does not escape

Plato (341). According to Saunders, Laws is Plato's reconciliation with the unlikelihood that such statesmen will appear frequently, as it positions an intransient code of law as the ultimate, if second best sovereign (Saunders 1975, 25-7).

Plato, however, is not directly and systematically preoccupied with the question of the sovereign's location with respect to the law. The relationship between the statesman, sovereignty, and the law is most clearly articulated by Plato when he prescribes that "no one should go against the laws or in other words should go against the judgment of the sovereign" (Plato 1997, 342), while maintaining that "at the same time a king shall only be called a king if he rules by the law" (346). A number of insights regarding the relationship between sovereignty and the law can be drawn from these two statements. In the first statement Plato definitively equates the law with the judgment of the sovereign, implying consequently that the sovereign is at the origin of the law, or at least, of laws (concrete and particular). At the same time, he stresses in the second statement that the king as sovereign is only king in so far as he rules by the law. The phrase "by the law" itself contains, at least with the benefit of hindsight, an ambivalence with which those who followed Plato engaged with more directly, namely, the king- sovereign's relationship to the law. Does law bind him, or in other words, must he rule 145 within the confines of law? Or does he rule through and with the law, and thus maintain a relationship of exteriority to it? More fundamentally perhaps, the relationship between the two aforementioned statements and the previously discussed connection between statesman, sovereign, and law begs the following question: Is the king or statesman the true sovereign who produces immutable law to serve as his always imperfect representative, and thus is somehow above the law and can dispense with it whenever he sees fit, or does he exist somehow within the confines of the law, or in other words, either binds himself to that which he produces or is bound to that which exists independently of him? The seeming impossibility of precisely framing or definitively answering the aforementioned questions is actually far more interesting and important than if it were possible to ask and answer them with certitude. The ambivalence that underlies both the questions and answers speaks to an aporia at the very foundation of state discourses of sovereignty, whereby the sovereign's relationship to law cannot be characterised either as one of interiority or exteriority. It seems, in fact, that the use of such categories (no matter how willing one is to stretch, bend, or straddle them) actually impoverishes the inherently ambivalent location of the sovereign with respect to the law.

On a slightly different register Aristotle also grapples with the ambiguity of the sovereign's location with respect to the law. According to Ernst Kantorowicz — on whose work Foucault claims to have built his genealogical critique of sovereignty

(Foucault 1975, 29) — Aristotle attempts to come to terms with this ambiguity by placing the sovereign in the position of mediator between natural and positive law, and hence firmly below natural, yet simultaneously above positive law (Kantorowicz 1957, 135). 146

This distinction between natural and positive law anchors the sovereign in more solid ground, at least in terms of his position with respect to the law, and at least for the time being, for as will later become apparent, the distinction between natural and positive law is itself far from unambiguous. Yet, it is here in Aristotle that Kantorowicz finds antecedents of the medieval assumption that apart from any positive law, and hence independently of all positive law there exists a "meta-legal Law of Nature" that is self- sufficient "per se" (135). Augustine and Aquinas later paint this distinction with a different hue. For both, the meta-legal Law of Nature does not stand at the origin of itself, but comes from the ultimate source: God (Cassirer 1946, 98). The sovereign, therefore, is no longer merely bound by natural law, but is in fact merely an earthly sovereign, subjugated to an ultimate, independent, and self-sufficient heavenly sovereign.

Yet all ambiguity is not resolved, for an earthly sovereign, while inherently profane and evil through his begetting in the original sin (111) is for Aquinas the unique earthly representative of God, and thus must be obeyed absolutely, even if his own power is never absolute (107). The sovereign, therefore, is qualified and subjugated by his profanity, while being simultaneously positioned above, and hence under no obligation to, profane law.

In all of the abovementioned attempts to elucidate the relationship between the sovereign and law by positioning them in relation to each other it is already easy to discern efforts to legitimate sovereignty. Sovereign authority is legitimated through the establishment of the existence of a theologically, or at least meta-legally (naturally) grounded continuity with respect to sovereign power. Although a more detailed 147 examination of the relationship between sovereignty and legitimacy is to follow, it is important to point to issues of legitimacy here, so as to acknowledge the intimate relationship between the manner in which the sovereign is positioned with respect to the law, and the manner in which its sovereignty is legitimated.

Although the lineage constructed by the discourse the state deploys to legitimate itself almost always implicitly or explicitly originates with Plato, Jean Bodin's On

Sovereignty, originally published in 1576, is often cited as the first work to deal exclusively and comprehensively with the question of sovereignty (Schmitt 1932a, 6).

Although perhaps unwittingly, and only with the help of the lines of continuity and descent drawn by the discourse through which the state is legitimated and explained,

Bodin assembles, albeit with some crucial modifications, the interpretations of the relationship between the sovereign and the law that have thus far been outlined. For

Bodin, "law is nothing but the command of a sovereign making use of his power" (Bodin

1576, 38). Consequently, the sovereign is for Bodin essentially he who stands outside of the law, or above it in the sense that he is its originator and its creator, and hence never its subject. This is for Bodin an essential, constitutive characteristic of sovereignty, and he who possesses it is by necessity the sovereign. The absoluteness of the sovereign's command of law, however, is tempered again by the distinction between natural and positive law, which like for Augustine and Aquinas has a decisively theological underpinning. Bodin's sovereign does not, in fact, stand outside and above all law, for he is unquestionably subject to "divine and natural laws" (Bodin 1576, 13). 148

Nothing thus far seems extraordinarily different from what has already been outlined regarding conceptions of the location of the sovereign in relation to law. The sovereign is above, and untouchable by the positive law which he is himself the origin of, and below, and subjected to natural and divine law. Moreover, like in some of the aforementioned conceptualisations, Bodin's sovereign is also simultaneously God's earthly (and thus inherently imperfect) representative. As it is "the law of God and nature that we must obey the edicts and ordinances of him to whom God has given power over us, unless his edicts are directly contrary to the law of God, who is above all princes"

(34), the "contempt for one's sovereign prince is [necessarily] contempt toward God"

(46). What is beginning to emerge more clearly, therefore, is a justification of the positioning of the sovereign as the source of the primary and original call to which one must respond, and the law through which the sovereign materialises as the primary and foundational framework through which to respond.

Bodin's analysis, however, also illustrates an ambiguity in the position of the sovereign with respect to the law. Like the ambiguity present in Plato and Aristotle, it announces the potential to unhinge, denaturalise, and desacralise the emerging legitimation of sovereignty. The ambiguity with respect to the sovereign's location in relation to positive law that resembles, or is founded in natural law is exacerbated by

Bodin's further insistence that while the sovereign is subject to no law, he is subject to

"just and reasonable contracts" (Bodin 1576, 14), for "a contract between a prince and his subject is mutual; it obliges the two parties reciprocally and one party cannot contravene it to the prejudice of the other and without the other's consent" (15). The distinction 149 established by Bodin between contract and law again, in effect, not only diminishes the absoluteness with which he seemingly unequivocally invests the sovereign, but also subjects the sovereign, if not to law (although the distinction between law and contract is rather vaguely articulated by Bodin), then at least to some legal framework.

The ambiguity of the sovereign's location with respect to the law is heightened when Thomas Hobbes, and then Jean-Jacques Rousseau grapple with, and attempt to delineate the relationship that Bodin merely hints at, namely, that between natural, and positive or civil law. For Hobbes, the sovereign is not subject to civil law, for as the sovereign makes law and commands through it (Hobbes 1651, 183) he cannot be bound by it. It is impossible, argues Hobbes, "for any person to be bound to himself; because he that can bind, can release; and therefore he that is bound to himself only, is not bound"

(184). While situated above civil law, the sovereign remains subject to the laws of nature, which are for Hobbes abundant, and which he details with great care (91-92, 106-

110). It is by natural law, for instance, that the sovereign is obliged to ensure the safety of its subjects (231). What complicates matters again, at least when attempting to ascertain the location of the sovereign with respect to the law, is the relationship that

Hobbes establishes between natural and civil law, whereby "the law of nature, and the civil law, contain each other, and are of equal extent" (185). The sovereign's location with respect to the law, therefore, remains ambivalent or more precisely, remains impossible to ascertain with the precision demanded of an either/or logic that is often perceived to be a necessary component of cogent and thus acceptable definitions and interpretations. 150

Rousseau, who largely follows Hobbes with respect to the position of the sovereign in relation to the law, locates the sovereign firmly above the law (Rousseau

1762, 36), arguing that it is impossible for the sovereign to "impose upon itself a law it could not break" (26). Interestingly, unlike Hobbes, Rousseau does not continually anchor the sovereign below natural law, discussing more frequently its location above positive law. Whether or not this marks a substantive departure from Hobbes cannot be answered in this dissertation. What is more pertinent here is that for both Hobbes and

Rousseau the sovereign's command over law is generated, in a sense, from below, as for both theorists it is the social contract that produces the sovereign. While the implications of this will be discussed at some length when the relationship between sovereignty and legitimacy is addressed, it is important to point here to the chasm that emerges, as a direct consequence of such understanding of the sovereign, between Hobbes and Rousseau, and thinkers like as Bodin. While the spatial location of the sovereign between natural and positive or civil law may initially seem comparable, Bodin's understanding of the relationship between the sovereign and the law does not, and cannot (due to the link he establishes between the sovereign and God) make room for an understanding of the sovereign as existing entirely above the law, for he is empowered by something that is above him still. As a representative of God, Bodin's sovereign can only be installed in his position above positive law by that which is above him and to which he remains subjected to, namely, God. As Hobbes and Rousseau's theory of sovereignty does not depend on God in that manner, it is possible for them to also locate the sovereign above the law, but in a manner that is entirely distinct from that of Bodin. 151

While it would be wrong to argue that the understanding that Hobbes and

Rousseau develop of the relationship between the sovereign and law lacks theological underpinnings, medieval conceptions of the relationship between the king and the law make a much more direct use of Christian theology in their attempt to come to grips with the ambivalence of the sovereign's location in relation to the law. Kantorowicz's genealogy of sovereignty, which he traces through the concept of the "king's two bodies", points to the salience of theological concepts in medieval understandings of the location of the sovereign in relation to the law. According to Kantorowicz, the first clear elaboration of the doctrine of the "king's two bodies" can be found in Edmund Plowden's

Reports, written during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in which it is stated that,

the King has in him two Bodies, viz., a Body natural, and Body politic. His Body natural (if it be considered in itself) is a Body mortal, subject to all Infirmities that come by Nature of Accident, to the Imbecility of Infancy or old Age...But his Body politic is a Body that cannot be seen or handled, consisting of Policy and Government, and constituted for the Direction of the People, and the Management of the public weal, and this Body is utterly void of Infancy, and old Age, and other natural Defects and Imbecilities....and for this Cause, what the King does in his Body politic, cannot be invalidated or frustrated by any Disability in his natural Body (Kantorowicz 1957, 7).

In so far as the sovereign embodies a body natural and finite, and a body supernatural and immortal he exists simultaneously among, yet always above mortals, and all that they are subjected to and succumb to. For Norman Anonymous, in whose understanding of the king's twinned nature Kantorowicz finds some of the earliest traces of the "king's two bodies", the king is twinned through his anointment and consecration, and thus appears as the perfect Christomimetes, mirroring the power and dual nature of Christ (who is both human and divine, una persona, duae naturae) (48-9, 58-9). 152

While it is precisely Kantorowicz's point that the origins of the concept of the

"king's two bodies" are not legal or constitutional but rather theological (58), it is certainly not an invitation to look for the relationship between sovereignty and law elsewhere. For Kantorowicz, Christomimesis re-manifests itself in the king's relationship to Law and Justice. John of Salisbury, writing in 1159, attributes to the sovereign both absolute power and absolute limitation by law, for "although he be not bound by the ties of Law, he is yet Law's servant as well as that of Equity" (quoted in Kantorowicz 1957,

95). As direct dependence on Christ-centred understandings of sovereignty waned, the king appeared as the intermediary between positive law, which he stood above and from which he was free, and a semi-divine Reason, which he stood below, and which

Kantorowicz finds later reincarnated in the Reason of State (107). Theologically based modes of thinking about the sovereign are thus never wiped out, but are in fact translated into new secular and chiefly juristic modes of thinking, surviving precisely through their transference into a secular context (115). Eventually, argues Kantorowicz, the "secular authority of the Roman law-books appeared to the jurists, as jurists, more valuable and important and more convincing an evidence than the sacred literature, so that even straight quotations from the Bible were reached, preferably, by a detour; that is, by citing the volumes of Roman Law" (117).

For Kantorowicz, therefore, that which in the lifetime of British judge Bracton, for instance, is already largely abandoned and considered immaterial actually makes possible the complexity of his thinking regarding the location of the king in relation to the law. In the early thirteenth century, Bracton's king, while subject to the "law of the 153 land", remains still in some senses above and beyond law, for the law cannot be set in motion against him (Kantorowicz 1957, 147). While Kantorowicz notes the novelty of the theoretical subjugation of the king to the law, and the novel status of law as "the true sovereign", (147) he cautions against conceiving of Bracton's maxims exclusively as restrictions (149). That the king remains in some senses above and beyond the law is of equal importance; yet, what is perhaps of greater importance and interest, at least for the purposes of this chapter, is that the king's status above the law is, for Bracton, guaranteed by the law itself. Thus, while the king is bound to the law that makes him king, that law simultaneously positions him above itself (150).

This ambivalent position of the sovereign in relation to the law permeates the discourses that attempt to come to terms with the relationship between sovereignty and law. Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben more recently take up this irresolvable ambivalence, which marks the intersection of sovereignty and law seemingly from the earliest attempts to think through their relationship. Instead of attempting to resolve it, it becomes for both an essential quality of sovereignty. For Schmitt, the sovereign stands outside the normally valid legal system while simultaneously belonging to it, "for it is he who must decide whether the constitution needs to be suspended in its entirety" (Schmitt

1932b, 7). It is because of Bodin's insistence that the ambiguous position of the sovereign is its essential quality that, for Schmitt, Bodin's conceptualisation of the relationship between sovereignty and law marks the beginnings of the modern theory of state. For Schmitt, Bodin's perpetual return to the question of the extent of the sovereign's boundedness to the law, and his eventual conclusion that in emergencies the 154 tie to general, natural principles ceases signal that Bodin incorporates the element of decision into the concept of sovereignty (8). While the implications of grounding sovereignty in decision will be discussed in more depth later, it is important to note here that in perceiving the decision — on the exception — as the foundational and definitive mark of sovereignty, Schmitt makes the ambivalent location of the sovereign with respect to the law its essential feature. For Schmitt, the sovereign remains a "borderline concept"

(Schmitt 1932b, 5), whose decision on the exception (which itself is not codified in the existing legal order) "cannot be circumscribed factually and made to conform to a performed law", which is precisely what makes relevant the "question of sovereignty"

(6).

In working through Schmitt's understanding of the relationship between the

sovereign and the law, Agamben supplies an even clearer illustration of this ambivalence.

For Agamben, the sovereign is "at the same time outside and inside the juridical order", marking its limit (Agamben 1995, 15). The exception that materialises itself in the camp

(174) is thus constituted by the rule, which in suspending itself gives rise to the exception

(18). Following Schmitt, Agamben conceptualises the law as being comprised of two

fundamental elements, the norm and the decision, which in effect embeds both the norm

and the exception within the realm of the law (Agamben 2003, 34). For Agamben,

through Schmitt, "even the exceptional situation remains accessible to juridical

knowledge, because both elements, the norm as well as the decision, remain within the

framework of the juridical" (35). Thus, "the sovereign stands outside of the normally

valid juridical order, and yet belongs to it" (35). 155

The analyses provided by Schmitt and Agamben make clear that a spatial metaphor for the relationship between the sovereign and the law is actually inadequate.

As the sovereign and the law constitute each other at the moment that sovereignty is enacted, the sovereign cannot be spatially fixed either on the outside or inside of the law.

More than merely identifying the ambivalence of the sovereign's location, however, such analysis in fact makes obsolete the spatial metaphor and renders inoperative the categories of inside, outside, above, and below the law. Sovereignty and law form each other's limit, not in the sense that the sovereign is merely he who stands outside the law producing or applying it, but in the sense that the sovereign requires the law for its existence, just as the law necessitates the sovereign. The impossibility of thinking the law without the sovereign and the sovereign without the law reveals that the relationship between the two cannot be articulated in terms of a spatial metaphor, as a spatial relationship would necessitate the independent existence of the sovereign and the law.

With Schmitt, therefore, the sovereign and the law are not positioned in relation to each other, but are in fact situated within each other.

Working with Schmitt, Agamben attempts to illustrate how such mutual constitution is possible. For Agamben it is through the state of exception that the sovereign is enacted, while at the same time enacting the law by virtue of being sovereign. The sovereign is enacted by, and simultaneously enacts the law at the moment when the law makes it possible for the sovereign to suspend it in its own name. Thus, located neither outside, inside, above, nor below the law, the sovereign exists only by way of the law, and the law exists only by way of the sovereign. With this argument, we 156 have in a sense come full circle: from legitimating sovereignty through that which is categorically on its outside, namely God, to legitimating it immanently, through the law that maintains it as sovereign. It is with this argument, moreover, that the state- sovereignty side of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex begins to unravel. The lineage that the state establishes for itself with respect to its sovereignty had began to show cracks from the very start. The ambivalent and impossible to definitively crystallise relationship between the sovereign and the law runs like a motif — implicit at times, explicit at others — through the relationship between sovereign and the law from its earliest theorisations onwards.

As I argued at the outset of this chapter, two constitutive problems can be identified at the intersection marked by the interpretive struggles over the relationship between sovereignty and the law. The first, the problem of the sovereign's location in relation to law, is the one that has been addressed thus far. The second, which hinges on the first but is distinct from it, concerns the prerogative of the sovereign with respect to the law. Put differently, what is the role or function of the sovereign with respect to the law? While Plato does not clearly articulate what Bodin and Schmitt conceptualise as

"marks of sovereignty" (Bodin 1576, 49, Schmitt 1932b, 8), he does articulate some of the functions of the sovereign in relation to the law. For Plato, the sovereign engages in the "weaving together, with regular intertwining, of dispositions of brave and moderate people.. .and holds them together with this twining" (Plato 1997, 357-8). To this end, he judges, controls populations, and legislates (338), setting down the law "for each and every one" (339). Plato's sovereign, therefore, has an effective monopoly on rule. This 157 re-emerges time and again as a mark of sovereignty. Plato, however, sets the stage for yet another aspect of future discourses on sovereignty. In combining the sovereign's task of controlling populations with his task of rearing herds (310), "pasturing living creatures" (313), and acting in their best interest (294), he lays the ground for thinkers such as Foucault and Agamben who much later conceptualise the intersection of sovereignty and biopolitics.

If the language of the marks of sovereignty is to be employed when analysing the prerogatives of Bodin's sovereign in relation to the law, the mark of Bodin's sovereign is his ability to give law to subjects, without their consent (Bodin 1576, 23, 55-6, emphasis added). For Bodin, the mark of sovereignty lies not in the mere giving of law, but precisely in obliging obedience to the law that is given, or in other words, in commanding through diktat without the necessity for consent. It is perhaps here that Schmitt sees what he considers a fundamental mark of sovereignty, namely, the monopoly on deciding the exception. According to Schmitt, in considering sovereignty to be indivisible — an essential quality of sovereignty for both Bodin (1576, 49-50, 92), Schmitt (1932b, 11), and according to the discourse that naturalises, and legitimates the existence of the modern state and state order — and in granting that the sovereign's tie to law ceases in an emergency, Bodin incorporates the decision into the concept of sovereignty (8). The sovereign's ability to decide on an exception to the law thus structures his relationship to, and function with respect to it. The prerogatives of Bodin's sovereign, therefore, include a monopoly on the giving of law without consent, and a simultaneous monopoly on the decision to suspend the law. 158

Like for Bodin, for Hobbes the sovereign is the legislator, or the "maker of law"

(Hobbes 1651, 184). His prerogatives are not related to his sacredness, but rather to his emergence from a profane contractual relationship. Interestingly, this desecration of the sovereign is in a sense empowering, as now it is the sovereign as such, not the sovereign as representative, or incarnation of God that founds both the legal and moral sphere. It is in the sovereign, and in the law through which he commands that Hobbes locates justice and morality, as a lack of common power, which equates to a lack of law, renders useless concepts of right, wrong, justice, and injustice. Since right and wrong can only be judged in the presence of the law (89), and a conception of justice and injustice arises only in society (90), morality and justice emerge from the sovereign, through the law.

For Hobbes, for whom the embodiment of sovereignty is the Leviathan, the sovereign is also "the artificial soul that gives life and motion to the whole body"

(Hobbes 1651, 9). Thus, an unruly and disparate multitude "are made one person, when they are by one man, or one person, represented" (114) through the animating and life- giving force of the sovereign that is itself constituted in this moment. This is what state discourse latches on to, constructing internal unity and homogeneity of interest the markers of modern state sovereignty. As in Plato, however, it is also interesting to find in

Hobbes an allusion to the life-giving and life-sustaining capacities of the sovereign. It is possible, therefore, to locate in both Plato and Hobbes traces of an understanding that the sovereign's right to the life and death of his subjects is not confined merely to the right to command death, but is also in some senses the right to the production, and sustenance of life. As I alluded to at the outset of this chapter, this is not to say that Plato and Hobbes 159 are in fact constructing the same sovereignty, referring to the same object, or have the same understanding of the sovereign's command over life and death, or even the concepts of life and death themselves. It is only to say that even though concepts and concerns do not persist unaltered through time, affinities can exist between and within concepts, and can disappear and re-appear elsewhere.

Rousseau's understanding of the social contract as an "act of association [that] produces a moral and collective body", and that receives from that same act "its unity, its common self, its life and its will" (Rousseau 1762, 24) positions him in line with Hobbes with respect to the sovereign's life-giving function. He does not, however, dwell on this capacity, highlighting instead the prerogatives of, and restrictions on the sovereign within law. For Rousseau, as sovereignty emanates, through the social contract, from the general will — it is, in fact, the contracted exercise of the general will (24-25, 29) — the sovereign cannot by necessity act in a manner contrary to the collective interest, "since it is impossible for a body to want to harm.. .its members" (26). This, however, cannot exactly be conceived of as an impingement of law on the prerogatives of the sovereign, since sovereignty is merely the exercise of the general will, and the sovereign merely a collective being (29) directed by the general will, and given the contractual prerogative, as the body politic, of absolute power over all of its members (32). It is because of this that the sovereign's absolute power with respect to the law — namely, his ability to pardon, exempt from the law (Rousseau 1762, 36), revoke the law (79), or break the law

(26) — does not make a "master" out of the sovereign (30), even at the moment when the sovereign demands obedience. It is also in this context that Rousseau's insistence on the 160 distinction between acts of sovereignty and their application makes sense. For Rousseau, the distinction hinges on the difference between law and its application. Thus, the acts of declaring war and making peace are not in fact acts of sovereignty, as they do not constitute law but are merely its applications (30-31).

A clear distinction between the law as such and its concrete, particular application is also foundational to Schmitt's understanding of the relationship between sovereignty and law. For Schmitt, the sovereign's fundamental prerogative with respect to the law is its suspension. To suspend the law in this manner is wholly distinct from, and irreducible to the right to break or revoke laws; it is perhaps closest to the oft-recurring right of the sovereign to exempt, although the manner in which some of the aforementioned thinkers conceptualise exemption still resembles particular and concrete exemptions and pardons, and not in fact an exemption from law itself. Schmitt's sovereign is "he who decides on the exception" (Schmitt 1932, 5), where the exception is characterised by "unlimited authority, which means the suspension of the entire existing order" (12). In other words, the exception is that which emerges when the state remains while the law recedes (13).

Yet, as the relationship between the sovereign and law is one whereby the former presupposes and constitutes the latter (and vice versa), the exception remains, first, accessible to jurisprudence, as its foundations (the norm and the decision) are located firmly within the realm of law (13), and second, distinct from anarchy and chaos for the same reason (12). Therefore, it is the monopoly on the decision to suspend the law from within and through the law itself, and not the monopoly to coerce or to rule that is for

Schmitt the essential prerogative of the sovereign with respect to the law. As such, the 161 sovereign delineates the realm of the law — which does not necessarily imply that he produces the content of law (Schmitt, 1932b: 23) — by deciding on the exception. He is, therefore, "the highest legislator, judge, and commander simultaneously. He is also the final source of legality and the ultimate foundation of legitimacy" (Schmitt 1932, 5).

Agamben borrows from Schmitt the notion that the sovereign is marked by his legal prerogative to decide on the exception (Agamben 1995, 15-18), or in other words, to suspend the law from within, and through the law itself. His analysis of the relationship between sovereignty and biopower, however, importantly supplements the analysis provided by Schmitt. For Agamben, sovereignty and biopower cannot be separated, as the production of a biopolitical body is the original activity of sovereign power (Agamben 1995, 6). For Agamben, biopolitics lies at the foundation of sovereign power. It is "as old as the state of sovereign exception" (Agamben 1995, 6), as western politics constitutes itself through an exclusion (which is simultaneously an inclusion) of bare life (7). The sovereign who is, like for Schmitt, neither on the inside nor outside of the juridical order but marks, in effect, its limit (15), marks in the same manner the intersection between juridico-institutional and biopolitical power (6), producing through law the biopolitical body.

If the relationship that Schmitt and Agamben establish between the sovereign and the law is accepted, then both the location of the sovereign in relation to law, and the sovereign's prerogatives within the law are complicated and complexified far beyond the ambivalence that was pointed to at the outset of this section. With respect to the location of the sovereign in relation to law, the initially employed spatial metaphor becomes 162 entirely obsolete, as the sovereign and the law are shown to exist as always already constituted within, and through each other, as opposed to existing as separate entities related to each other in space. The sovereign's prerogatives with respect to the law must similarly be reconceptualised, as the obliteration of a spatial relationship between the sovereign and the law necessitates a fundamental reconceptualisation of the sovereign- law interaction. It becomes impossible to conceptualise the sovereign as either giving law or being given rights by the law, as constraining or producing through the law or being constrained and produced by it; it becomes necessary to conceptualise the sovereign as being and enacting all of these simultaneously.

Sovereignty and Legitimacy

The problem of legitimacy, like the problem of the relationship between sovereign and law precedes the constitution of state as the par excellence enactment of sovereignty.

The relationship between sovereignty and legitimacy, therefore, is attended to on two distinct registers. On the metaphysical register, I show that assumptions of unity and oneness dominate discourses concerning sovereignty. On the concrete or particular register, the section attends to the manner in which particular enactments of sovereignty are legitimated. As in the section concerned with the relationship between sovereignty and law, it is important to remain cognisant of the danger of attributing normative positions to analytical thinkers, and retain a modesty that precludes not only a definitive judgment regarding the analytical-normative categorization of thinkers, but also the idea that such a divide can objectively exist within the work of certain thinkers, or between 163 them and their peers. It is for this reason that this chapter employs the terminology of interpretive struggles, which signals the impossibility of prying apart the analytical from the normative.

As the thinking of Plato should again serve as the starting point, it must again be said that Plato is not at pains to justify the right of the sovereign. It seems, rather, that he takes largely for granted that those who possess the personal qualifications of statesmanship (the previously discussed superiority in reason and judgment, and the expert knowledge to manage a population) will naturally rule, as such abilities exist only among the few, and will thus be recognised by the masses (Plato 1997, 341). Plato is perhaps more interesting on the metaphysical register, as in his thinking traces of what is to come can retrospectively be discerned. For Plato, in addition to the aforementioned qualifications the sovereign acts in the best interest of the citizens (294), and fashions proper and desirable citizens in the process (355). The unity between sovereign and subject in terms of interests already assumes the unity of interest among subjects, their oneness with each other and the sovereign. Interestingly, the sovereign is simultaneously

(and seemingly contradictorily) conceived of as bringing this oneness and unity to the subjects through his sovereignty, by "bringing their life together in agreement and friendship and mak[ing] it common between them" (357-358). In Plato's interpretation of sovereignty, therefore, emerge traces of self-generating and self-reinforcing unity and oneness. The state discourse that attempts to legitimate and naturalise the existence of the modern state and its monopoly on the political glosses over this contradiction, and constructs unity and oneness to be inherent rather than fabricated. 164

For Bodin and many of his contemporaries, the question of the legitimacy of sovereignty is as unproblematic as for Plato, but for vastly different reasons. For Bodin, the sovereign's legitimacy derives from God, who decrees obedience to the sovereign

(Bodin 1576, 34). Unless the edicts and ordinances of the sovereign are "directly contrary to the law of God" (34), contempt for one's sovereign is contempt for God (46).

It is not necessary, and likely impossible as far as Bodin is concerned, to legitimate sovereignty beyond this. For Augustine, while God also serves as the ultimate source of legitimacy, he does so through the media of good and justice. Since God is the source of good and justice, a sovereign's legitimacy comes from the divinely inspired laws of justice he implements. Whether the sovereign is just or unjust, however, ultimately matters little as Augustine still prescribes obedience on the basis of the sovereign being a representative of God (Cassirer 1946, 104). Aquinas, on the other hand, legitimates disobedience to a tyrant, but only in so far as it is guided by an idea of justice that is itself grounded in the will of God (105).

Medieval ideas regarding the semi-divine nature of the king and his status as an earthly representative or embodiment of Christ, who is himself an embodiment of God, serve to legitimate his sovereignty beyond question (at least for those subscribing to a

Christian theology). When it comes to legitimating the state as a particular enactment of sovereignty, medieval thought again makes use of God, both directly and indirectly, as the ultimate source of both legality and legitimacy. For Aquinas, legitimating the sovereignty of the state within a theological framework is tricky, since like all else that is profane the state comes into being as a result of the original, and most profound sin of 165 man (Cassirer 1946, 107). Yet despite its profanity the legitimacy of the state is assured by its status as a bulwark against the "greatest evil of all", the evil of anarchy (110-111).

In a sense, the state is legitimate by default.

In his attempt to come to grips with the origins of state, and later nation-state

legitimacy Kantorowicz unearths connections between this theologically grounded

discourse, and medieval and modern discourses concerned with secular legitimations of

state sovereignty. According to Kantorowicz, the state as it began to develop in the

twelfth century was "avowedly secular" despite considerably borrowing from the

ecclesiastical model; secular law, including secularized canon law was henceforth used to justify the "holiness of the ruler" (Kantorowicz 1957, 60). It is through this budding

political theology that "something definitely secular and seemingly 'unholy' in the

Christian and every other sense, namely, the fisc, was turned into a thing quasi-holy"

(189). As the idea of liturgical kingship gradually dissolved giving way to a pattern of

kingship centred on the sphere of law, "a new halo began to descend upon the nascent

secular and national state...when the state began to claim sempiternity or perpetuity

which hitherto had been attributed only to the Church" (192). Among others, it was the

endowment of the state with an eternal corpus mysticum, akin to that of the Church (232),

which masked its contingency and artificiality, and imbued it with a sacredness that

would have been considered sacrilegious by the theology in which it was grounded.

It is from this juncture that the state, and later the nation-state acquire the kind of

legitimacy the enables them to demand death in their name. According to Kantorowicz,

death pro fide (for faith and fealty) is in the thirteenth century eclipsed, or included in 166 death pro patria, or death for the fatherland. As such, the latter appears as the work of caritas, and the sacrifice of a citizen for his brothers and his community is equated with the sacrifice of Christ for the salvation of man and mankind (Kantorowicz 1957, 242-44).

In this way, death for the mystico-political body that is the fatherland is legitimated by its equation with religious martyrdom (268). The legitimacy of the secular sovereign, however, could not hinge on the transference of the aforementioned concepts alone; the problem of continuity remained (273). What remained problematic, more specifically, was the lack of correspondence between the eternality of the head of the mystical body of the Church (Christ, eternal because he is simultaneously God and man) and the head of the body politic, a common mortal (272). For Kantorowicz, the concept of the king's two bodies is precisely that which camouflaged the problem of continuity, and in turn populated the political and legal thought of the late Middle Ages with sempiternal bodies that eventually acquired legal immortality, and legitimated the legal continuity of a state and a people (273-301).

Temporal continuity, while not reducible to the unity and oneness that served as the implicit source of sovereign legitimacy for Plato, works also on principles of unbroken continuity, permanence, and harmony. Both have a naturalising effect as they crystallise and stabilise sovereignty conceptually, and across time. Instead of calling attention to the discontinuities, contingencies, and struggles that in fact generate particular moments and incarnations of sovereignty, state discourse conceals them beneath the facade of temporal and conceptual universality. In their explanations of the origins of legitimate sovereign power Hobbes, and then Rousseau — whose work figures 167 prominently in the discourse deployed by the modern state to legitimate its sovereignty and monopoly on the political — engage with both the discourse of temporal continuity, and that of unity and oneness. For both Hobbes and Rousseau the social contract founds and legitimates sovereignty. In the state of nature that precedes the social contract each individual is his own ultimate sovereign, making judgments about everything and having the right "to do all things" (Tuck 1996, xxviii). Naturally inclined to seek more power

(Hobbes 1651, 70) yet created equal to all others his individual circumstance is never completely secure — insofar as he lives without a common power to keep himself and his peers in awe — and he lives in a condition of war of every man against every man (86-

89). Persisting in such conditions eventually becomes problematic, as a point is reached at which the maintenance of individual life is threatened, and the "original state" can no longer persist, as "the human race would perish if it did not alter its mode of existence"

(Rousseau 1762, 23). In order to survive, man enters into an association or contract with his peers, founded on the principle of the "total alienation of each associate, together with all of his rights, to the entire community" (24). For Rousseau this in effect means that

"each...places his person and his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and as one we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole"

(24). This act of association, therefore, produces,

a moral and collective body...which receives from this same act its unity, its common self, its life and its will. This public person, formed thus by union of all the others formerly took the name city, and at present takes the name republic or body politic, which is called state by its members when it is passive, sovereign when it is active, power when compared to others like itself. As to the associates, they collectively take the name people; individually they are called citizens, insofar as participants in the sovereign authority, and subjects, insofar as they are subjected to the laws of the state (Rousseau, 1762: 24-25). 168

Enacted by, and comprised of those who enact it sovereignty is thus "merely the exercise of the general will", and the sovereign is merely a "collective being", the people within the social contract (29).

As previously mentioned, for Hobbes, on whose conceptualisation Rousseau builds, the sovereign's legitimacy is also grounded in the contract between those individuals in whose interest it is to "restrain themselves" for their own preservation

(Hobbes 1651, 117). The grounding of sovereign legitimacy, therefore, is the same for

Hobbes and Rousseau; it is the social contract, into which men enter voluntarily and for their own utility, and through which the sovereign is enacted. Between Hobbes and

Rousseau, however, there are important differences in emphasis. Among them is the distinction in the relationship between the sovereign and sovereignty, and the human being. Unlike for Hobbes, sovereignty is an inalienable property for Rousseau; the general will is a form of sovereignty that is not only indivisible, but also inalienable

(Ansell-Pearson 1996, 80; 84).

Hobbes, moreover, seems to emphasise the singularity of the sovereign, who upon being enacted through the contractual association of disparate individuals becomes a compound of their power, yet simultaneously stands above, and removed from them. The sovereign is "one person, natural, or civil, that has the use of all their power depending on his will" (Hobbes 1651, 62). For Hobbes, "a multitude of men are made one person, when they are by one man, or one person represented; so that it be done with the consent of everyone of that multitude in particular. For it is the unity of the representer, not the 169 unity of the represented, that makes the person one (114). For Hobbes, therefore, the sovereign, although artificial (9) in the sense of having been enacted through contract, is legitimate precisely because he is contractually and consensually enacted, and maintained for the benefit of all. Moreover, as the sovereign is enacted by the subjects he can never do injustice to them, as his interests are their interests (124). As the subject and sovereign judge and will the same, it is also Hobbes's contention that a sovereign with unlimited power is not only legitimate, but is in fact consistent with the liberty of the subjects (148). In Rousseau, while the emphasis seems to shift from an individual sovereign to sovereignty as embodied in the collectivity produced by the social contract, the sovereign's legitimacy springs from similar sources. The sovereign is legitimate because he is contractually enacted — by unanimous consent, stresses Rousseau

(Rousseau 1762, 81) — and because sovereignty is merely the exercise of the general will (29), and hence the common interests of the people (26). Like for Hobbes, for

Rousseau conventions are at the foundation of all legitimate authority; no man has natural authority over others; force does not bring about right or legitimacy (20).

The problematic nature of social contract theory notwithstanding, a revolutionary moment can be discerned in Rousseau, as it here that the autonomous will of the individual is made the sole basis of legitimate sovereignty and political power (Ansell-

Pearson 1996, 35). It is here that one of the most dramatic shifts in the legitimation of sovereignty takes place. It is no longer God, God's earthly representative, or any one person or body on which God has bestowed particular talents, insights, or powers that grounds or legitimates sovereignty but man himself. Sovereignty is no longer legitimated 170 from above, but instead from below; it is not from above that unity among subjects is forged, but individuals themselves become one, and form a unity of interest that extends beyond the present, into the future. This revolutionary moment, however, is also the moment at which the possibility of the nation as the legitimating ground of sovereignty emerges.

As was previously noted, Kantorowicz traces the emergence of the nation-state's ability to legitimately demand death in its name to the halo that descended upon it when the state began to claim the perpetuity hitherto attributed to the Church, and when martyrdom, or death for the faith, began to be extended to, and eclipsed by death for the fatherland (Kantorowicz 1957, 192, 242-4). The nation's legitimacy was thus guaranteed from above, through a political theology that tied the perpetuity of the nation to that of the Church. When combined with the nation's conquest of the people and the state

(Arendt 1951, 291), this legitimation of the state through the sacred opens the possibility of the emergence of nation — unified in its past, present, and future through interest, will, and the sacred bond of an eternal, earthly fatherland — as that which fundamentally legitimates the sovereignty of the state.

If the sovereignty of the nation was thus legitimated through the descent of that which is above, then Rousseau's concepts of the general will and the common interest conditioned the possibility of legitimating it by the raising of that which is below. The people, brought together by their common interest, and as a consequence expressing and embodying a general will, are at the same time constructed into a unity through the general will. The legitimacy of the sovereign comes, in this sense, from their unity of 171 interest and will. Sovereignty is thus also made into, and legitimated through the profane. In legitimating sovereignty through man, the door is opened to its legitimation by men who become one by virtue of their common interest and will. As Arendt argues, once the nation conquered the state, the sovereignty of the people was reinterpreted as the sovereignty of the nation (Arendt 1951, 291). The state, therefore, becomes an instrument of the nation, and the general will and common interest that underpins it becomes the general will of the nation.

That Rousseau's revolutionary moment lays at least a partial ground for the legitimation of state sovereignty through nation is a perfect example of struggles over concepts, and their appropriation by one force or another; the revolutionary potential that lies in the usurpation of sovereignty from God can be co-opted and taken over by the nation, which itself can be taken over by racial discourses, resulting in the emergence of a concept quite unlike its predecessor, and emptied entirely of its original critical potential.

Co-optation and taking over, however, themselves do not represent a final blow, do not immobilise and render a concept lost to critical re-deployment. As Deleuze and Guattari crucially note with respect to the state's co-optation of the war machine, "turning the war machine back against the nomads may constitute for the State a danger as great as that presented by nomads directing the war machine against the States" (Deleuze and Guattari

1980, 419). Thus, as has been alluded to throughout the dissertation, the nation-state's strategy for survival, its expulsion of excess, its creation of the refugee, and the subsequent capture of that excess within the camp has the potential to destabilise and de- struct precisely that which it attempts to make possible and sustainable. 172

While both Hobbes and Rousseau attempt to legitimate sovereignty from outside of the law, and ultimately legitimate it as the profane coming into being of the law through the social contract, itself grounded in common interest, Schmitt does not look to legitimate sovereignty by anything external to itself, or the law it generates. While he does point to the theological lineages of "all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state" (Schmitt 1932b, 36), this allusion does not seem intended to create a theological justification for sovereign power, as was the case in much of medieval thinking regarding sovereignty and the state. In a bit of circular logic, Schmitt legitimates the state — "which reveals itself only in the making of law" and not in the application of law, or in the maintenance of any public interest (23) — by its monopoly on politics. This in turn enables the state to make the ultimate political decision — to distinguish between friend and enemy — and demand that its subjects die in its name.

The state's sovereignty, therefore, is in a sense legitimate because the state, through its sovereign prerogatives, makes it so. While some argue that such circular logic can only be explained by Schmitt's normative commitment to an authoritarian form of state

(McCormick 2004, xlii), it may well be that he is making a merely analytical observation

(which is not to say that he does not have a normative position of his own), or that his interest lies in examining the connection between state, politics, and sovereignty, and not in legitimating that relationship.

Whether a definitive verdict on the above can ever be reached, or more fundamentally, whether it is necessary to preoccupy oneself with attempts to do so is beyond the scope of this analysis. What is important here is that Schmitt does not 173 attempt to legitimate the existence of a sovereign in general, or the sovereign state in particular beyond the circular manner alluded to above. With this in mind, perhaps the more interesting question would be whether Schmitt's inability or refusal to address, or

disinterestedness in the question of sovereign legitimacy actually says something about the nature of sovereignty and legitimacy. For Schmitt, "the idea of the modern

constitutional state triumphed together with deism, a theology and metaphysics that banished the miracle from the world", and with it rejected all arbitrariness and exception

(Schmitt 1922, 36-7). For Schmitt, even 17th century state theory continued to identify the monarch with God, positioning the sovereign as the "primeval creator" (46-47). As a

consequence, continuity is maintained between theological and secular sovereignty,

which implicitly justifies the power and absoluteness of the latter. In choosing to eschew

that lineage by creating a closed, mutually constitutive relationship between the sovereign

and the law Schmitt can perhaps be interpreted as reintroducing some of the arbitrariness

and contingency that is concealed through the mechanism of continuity.

Agamben approaches the question of the sovereign's legitimacy from somewhat

of a different angle, even though his analysis of sovereignty is heavily influenced by

Schmitt's. While Schmitt's analysis merely hints at the role of the nation in debates over

sovereignty, Agamben perceives a direct, legitimating relationship between nation and

sovereignty. Agamben defines the nation-state as a state that makes nativity or birth (that

is, naked or bare life) the foundation of its sovereignty (Agamben 1996). What makes

this connection possible is the previously discussed relationship Agamben established

between sovereignty and biopolitics. For Agamben, the production of the biopolitical 174 body is the original activity of sovereign power (Agamben 1995, 6); this inherent link between biopolitics and sovereignty legitimates the sovereign as an embodiment, and natural extension of the inherently biological nation.

Prior to Agamben, Arendt begins to develop a similar understanding of the legitimating potential of nation, although her analysis does not explicitly address the biopolitical component through which Agamben is able to unravel the relationship between nation-state and sovereignty. Arendt's analysis, however, remains a crucial antecedent to Agamben's work, as it is she who points to the manner in which the nation conquers the state. For Arendt, the state's inherent function, namely, the protection of all its inhabitants is replaced with the emergence of national consciousness by an understanding that the state's duty extends only to "nationals" who belong to the national community "by right of origin and fact of birth". For Arendt, the state is in this way

"partly transformed from an instrument of the law into an instrument of the nation"

(Arendt 1951, 230). In her attention to the importance of birth and origin, and her crucial observation that the nation-state cannot expand simply because its base, the nation, cannot be stretched (127), Arendt lays the ground on which Agamben later thinks through the nation as a biopolitical entity par excellence, and one whose naturalisation and conquest of the state combine to make it, according to state discourse, the legitimate foundation of state sovereignty

As the nation conquered the state, it also conquered the discourses that legitimated state sovereignty by means other than that of nation. As Arendt notes, when the nation conquered the state the sovereignty of the people was reinterpreted as the 175 sovereignty of the nation (Arendt 1951, 291). With its racialisation and concomitant naturalisation, the nation was able to become the sovereign state's primary and fundamental legitimating factor. As previously argued, the nation's foundational and legitimating function seems to have been made possible by the convergence of two processes. First, the nation was legitimated from above, through the processes described by Kantorowicz, which amounted to something like a sacralisation of the nation. Second, the nation was legitimated from below, through the association of legitimate sovereignty with the general will of a unified, homogenised people, for when nation conquered the state, the sovereignty of the people was also reinterpreted as the sovereignty of the nation

(291). On the one hand, therefore, sovereignty was legitimated through its sacralisation, on the other through its profanation.

Once the nation is constructed to found and legitimate the state, excess is inevitably produced. The excess is that which exists among the people, but which the nation defines and constructs itself against. The excess, in other words, is comprised of those who are not part of the nation. As I argued in Chapter One, the state of Israel emerged, and legitimated itself by declaring itself a state for the Jewish people, a people without a state; but the distinction between people and nation was at the time already non-existent. As Arendt argues, not only has the nation conceptually taken over the state, and with it the people, the mere fact that the state of Israel was able to legitimate its existence within a system of nation-states speaks to the discursive nationalisation of the

'people' to whom it makes reference, as only recognised nations can at present make legitimate claims to statehood. The excess that was produced by the creation of the 176

Israeli nation-state was abjected into the camp. The process that was supposed to stabilise the fledgling state, and rid it, as Morris argued, of the hostile and destabilising

Palestinian Arab population actually creates the potential of destabilising it further, and further revealing the contingencies and discontinuities state discourse glosses over in order to legitimate its existence and present form.

The camp unhinges the two features of state sovereignty that are perhaps most grounding: its indivisibility, and its monopoly on the political. Monopoly over the political will be addressed in Chapter Five. In accordance with the discourse deployed to legitimate the modern state, indivisibility is the fundamental characteristic of sovereignty.

Bodin articulates this most clearly. For Bodin, the sovereign "is infinite and by logical necessity two infinites cannot exist, so we can say that the prince whom we have taken as the image of God cannot make a subject equal to himself, and thus cannot share his sovereignty (Bodin 1576, 50). Although the notion of the indivisibility of sovereignty has persisted as part of the lineage that underpins the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex through which the modern state is legitimated, and claims monopoly over the political, it has been variously interpreted at different points in its conceptual history.

While for Bodin the indivisibility of sovereignty is associated with the inherent infinity and uniqueness of the sovereign, for Hobbes it is produced, as opposed to existing naturally. The social contract that founds and enacts sovereignty is that which engenders its unity and indivisibility by producing a "great Leviathan" (Hobbes 1651, 9) within whom a multitude is made one (114). The indivisibility of Rousseau's sovereign

— for whom indivisibility is also an essential mark of sovereignty (Rousseau 1762, 30) 177

— is in this sense much more akin to Hobbes's indivisibility than Bodin's. The sovereign for Hobbes and Rousseau also possesses absolute power, but again the distinction between this absolute power and that attributed to the sovereign by Bodin is irreconcilable. For Hobbes and Rousseau, absolute power does not have the connotation of a master-servant relationship. For Hobbes, it is the merely the compounded power of all who make themselves party to the social contract (Hobbes 1651, 62), and for

Rousseau, as it entails merely the exercise of the general will, in obeying the sovereign subjects in fact "obey no one but their own will alone" (Rousseau 1762, 34). As was previously alluded to, although Hobbes and Rousseau are not directly implicated in discourses of nation, and their conception of sovereignty need not necessarily lead to the legitimation of state sovereignty through the nation, both legitimate sovereignty within the realm of the profane. In doing so, they open the door for the legitimation of the state through the nation. Simultaneously, racial discourses that essentialise the nation, and secularised concepts of divine continuity raise the nation to the status of a something like a profane God, in a sense legitimating its profanity through the sacred.

State Citizenship

The state-sovereignty-citizenship complex through which state discourse legitimates the nation-state, and which it constructs as the political's exclusive legitimate domain can be destabilised also from its other side, namely, the state-citizenship dyad. The state- citizenship intersection, however, will not be addressed as meticulously as the state- sovereignty relationship was addressed. This is because the aim of this section, and of 178 the examination of the state-citizenship relationship is to illustrate how legitimate responsibility, responding, and the political are, according to state discourse, conditioned by citizenship, which itself emerges at the intersection of state and sovereignty. To this end, the section examines the conceptual line of descent in accordance with which modern citizenship emerges as the conceptual endpoint that begins with Plato and

Aristotle, as merely the complete articulation of citizenship and the political. State discourse glosses over, or renders inoperative conceptual breaks and discontinuities, and constructs conceptual unity and continuity, strategically employing it to give the appearance of an unbroken line of descent. Yet ambiguities, cracks, and lacunae can still be perceived. Like the previous section, therefore, this section attends also to those critical engagements that reveal that it is state discourse itself that constructs such conceptual unity and continuity.

In discussions of modern state citizenship a common point of departure is not the connection between state and citizenship, which comes much later, but the etymological connection between city and citizen, citoyen, cittadino and burger (Heater 1999, 133).

The etymological connection, of course, is no mere serendipity, as the city in general

(Isin 2002, 50), or the occidental city in particular (Weber 1921, 316-7) is frequently considered the "cradle of citizenship" (Heater 1999, 133). This section, therefore, begins with an investigation of some of the ways in which the city-state, and the city figure in state discourses of citizenship, from Plato and Aristotle's attempts to elaborate the city- citizenship dyad onwards. It then proceeds to examine the ways in which the city has been employed to counter state discourse's conflation of citizenship and state citizenship. 179

Aristotle theorises the city-state as a hylomorphic compound comprised of matter

(inhabitants) and form (constitution) (Reeve 1998, lv). The ideal constitution, the

"constitution-of-citizenship", simultaneously implies the delimitation of the community of citizens through the exclusion ofoikos, and in equating the will of the citizens with the general interest affirms the city-state's harmony and unity (Balibar 2004, 195). For

Aristotle, moreover, the city-state, is a natural (Aristotle 1998, 3) and organic (Reeve

1998, lxix) phenomenon. All human beings are by nature political beings (Aristotle

1998, 3), and thus naturally inclined to live in the most quintessentially political community, namely, the city-state. Thus, an impulse toward the formation of the city- state exists naturally in everyone (5). While in its material form the city-state evolves from an agglomeration of households and then villages, it is prior "in nature to the household and to each of us individually, since the whole is necessarily prior to its parts"

(4). It is, moreover, the most complete, self-sufficient, sovereign, and authoritative community (1), which "comes to be for the sake of living, but...remains in existence for the sake of living well." (3)

The link between the city and the political, therefore, is already drawn by

Aristotle, as is the link between city and citizenship. In addition to the aforementioned characteristics, the city-state is comprised of "a multitude of citizens", both qualified and unqualified (Aristotle 1998, 65-6), who express their political being through their citizenship, and thereby perfect and fulfil their own selves in this political community

(Heater 1999, 46). The relationship between the citizens and the city, however, is symbiotic rather than parasitic. The citizen becomes through the city, but the city 180 becomes equally through the citizen. Moreover, just as the city belongs to the citizen, so too does the citizen belong to the city. For Aristotle, "one should not consider that any citizen belongs to himself alone, but that each of them belongs to the city-state, since he is a part of it" (Aristotle 1998, 227). Consequently, the sacrifice of the self for the good of the whole becomes one of the latent foundations of the Aristotelian conception of citizenship, and is eventually taken up by republican constructions of citizenship.

While Aristotle's city is a city of (at least limited) difference, a concern for homogeneity permeates Plato's work. For Aristotle, "the more of a unity the city state becomes the less of a city-state it will be", as "a city-state naturally consists of a certain multitude.. .not only a number of people, but of people of different kinds, since a city- state does not come from people who are alike." (Aristotle 1998, 27) This difference, in fact, is constitutive of the city: "as it becomes more of a unity", argues Aristotle, "it will turn from a city-state into a household, and from a household into a human being" (27).

The elimination of difference, therefore, is undesirable unless the destruction of the city- state is the aim. While it would be impossible to argue that at the time of Aristotle the concept of nation existed in the manner it does at present, it is important to note that for

Aristotle a distinction exists between a city-state, and what the translator renders as nation. The distinction hinges precisely on the concept of difference (27), which according to Aristotle is present in the former but not in the latter. For Plato, on the other hand, difference within the city-state extends only so far as the existence of "proportional 181 inequality"2 among those inhabiting the city (Plato 1970, 215). Instead, what is considered valuable and desirable is that everyone feel pleasure and pain at the same things, that everyone praise and blame with complete unanimity (208), and that everyone

"enjoy the same pleasures in the same fashion" (309).

It is worth reiterating here that the concepts of citizenship and city conceptualised by Aristotle and Plato are far removed from the concept of citizenship as it is constructed by state discourse as the foundation of modern state citizenship. State discourse, however, obliterates that difference, and what is more, glosses over the distinction between Plato and Aristotle's renderings of the city. As is the case with the concept of sovereignty, conceptual discontinuities and incompatibilities are strategically ignored by state discourse, which constructs modern state citizenship as having descended, in an uninterrupted fashion, from a unified Greek origin. What is more, state discourse takes for granted Plato and Aristotle's accounts of the city, of citizenship, and of the relationship between the city, citizenship, and the political. Contestations and struggles over the city and over the political are thus rendered invisible, and as Isin (2002) notes, the strategic appropriations, emulations and lacunae at the heart of these narratives are thus concealed. Moreover, in the state discourse that figures the city as the original and essential site of citizenship, the relationship between the city, citizenship, and the political emerges not as the relationship between the city and the political on the one hand, and the city and citizenship on the other, but rather as a tripartite relationship of

2 For Plato, equality and justice lie precisely in proportional inequality, or in the granting of the 'equality' that unequals deserve (Plato 1970, 215; 230). 182 mutual constitution and articulation. Therefore, as Isin points out, citizenship becomes that which gives the right to be political (Isin 2002, 3).

Narratives that attempt to wrestle the city away from state discourse are thus, in one sense, struggles over both citizenship and the political. In critical citizenship studies

— as exemplified by, among others, Etienne Balibar — the city, in addition to figuring as the cradle of citizenship, also figures as the site of struggle (Balibar 2004, 50). In opposition to narratives that constitute the city as a site of synoecism and confraternity

(Weber 1921, 320), the city is figured as a fortress whose gates are forcefully pried opened by different groups at different historical moments. While still figuring the city as the site and condition of both citizenship and the political (Isin 2002, 50-1) Isin offers a counter-narrative in which the city as well as the state become technologies of struggles over citizenship and the political (154). Citizenship, in this case, becomes an identity that

"exists through its alterity, and strategies and technologies of citizenship are about the dialogical constitution of these identities via games of conduct" (36). For Isin, therefore,

"citizenship at any given moment and space cannot be defined without investigating strategies and technologies as modes of being political that implicate beings in solidaristic, agonistic, and alienating orientations of being political, constituting them as citizens, strangers, outsiders, and aliens" (36). The city, then, becomes the "difference machine", the configuration constituted by the encounter of groups that make claims "to that space that is objectified as the city" (50).

In this way, the city ceases to exist as a predetermined shape, form, or unity; it is neither a background for the aforementioned struggles, nor a foreground over for which 183 groups struggle. It is instead the battleground through which groups define their identities, stake their claims, wage their battles, and articulate citizenship rights and obligations (Isin 2002, 50). Thus, far from being a mere geographical space, a container of citizens, or an embodiment of harmony and fraternity, the city as figured in critical discourses of citizenship is an entity that "provokes, differentiates, positions, mobilizes, immobilizes, oppresses [and] liberates" (50). Critically reinterpreted, the city becomes a site of struggle, or more appropriately, a site produced and defined precisely through struggles over citizenship and the political. These reinterpretations of citizenship, and also of the city often serve as a critical attempt to break the state-citizenship bond. As such, they attempt also to break the monopoly that the state claims over the political, as they associate citizenship (or that which has traditionally given right to the political) not with the state but with the city, not with institutionalised unity and harmony but with difference, struggle, and usurpation.

In Arendt, the conflict between the city and the state seems — if the work of

Arendt is aligned with the above attempts to position the city as an antidote to the state — to metamorphose into the conflict between the state and the nation. For Arendt, the conflict between the state and the nation comes to light when the French Revolution combines the Declaration of the Rights of Man with a demand for national sovereignty.

As a consequence, the same set of rights becomes at once the inalienable heritage of all human beings, and the specific heritage of a specific nation (Arendt 1951, 230). The practical outcome of what is for Arendt a fundamental contradiction is that, "from then on human rights were protected and enforced only as national rights" and the state, whose 184 supreme task was to protect and guarantee man his rights as man and citizen was transformed "from an instrument of law into an instrument of the nation" (230).

According to Arendt, "the state was forced to recognise only 'nationals' as citizens, to grant full civil and political rights only to those who belonged to the national community"

(230).

For Arendt, as previously noted, the nation's conquest of the state was neither innocuous nor beneficial, and reverberations of its detrimental consequences are felt to this day. The unprecedented scale and depth of homelessness and rootlessness signal the unsustainability of a world order structured around the nation-state (Arendt 1951, vii).

Arendt points to the First World War as the event that both revealed the collapse of states established in accordance with the principles of republican thought, and intensified the conviction that true sovereignty can only be attained through national emancipation. As the French Revolution's declaration of inalienable human rights hinged on the existence of an abstract human being who in fact did not exist anywhere (291), the aftermath of the

First World War made abundantly clear that those without a national government were deprived not only of their ostensibly inalienable human rights, but also of the right to have rights (292). Being human, therefore, no longer served as the condition for being a citizen. Rather, being a citizen, and more importantly being an authentic, national citizen of the nation-state in question became the prerequisite for being human. With the conquest of the state by the nation, the human being that was conceptualised as a political animal was transformed into a national animal (230). 185

Rogers Brubaker, whose Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany

(1992) theorises the fundamental differences between kinds of nationalisms and nation- states, also acknowledges the nation's taking over of citizenship. He notes that the nation-state, as a new site of citizenship, is shaping a "national citizenship" (Brubaker

1992, x-xi) in accordance with which "every state claims to be the state of, and for, a particular bounded citizenry, usually conceived as a nation" (x-xi). With a state that legitimates itself by claiming to be a state of, and for a nation, the politics of citizenship become the politics of nationhood (182). The nation, in turn, regardless of the kind of nationalism it generates, "is something more than the mere aggregate of persons who happen legally to belong to the state (22); it is not merely a set of institutional arrangements, but a way of thinking about and appraising political and social membership (188).

These statements point to a rather under-explored affinity between Arendt and

Brubaker, who is almost exclusively associated with attempting to differentiate political and ethnocultural nationalisms. Both, however, acknowledge the nationalisation of state, and see it as having a significant impact on citizenship. This convergence notwithstanding, a fundamental difference remains. Brubaker's argument regarding the existence of distinct kinds of nation-states — political and ethnocultural — permits him to suggest that an expansive citizenship is compatible with the nation-state, and with the nationalisation of citizenship and the political (Brubaker 1992, x). For Arendt, on the other hand, citizenship grounded in the nation state is inevitably restrictive. Its expansiveness is truncated by the inflexibility of its base, the nation (Arendt 1951, 126). 186

If Arendt's argument is taken to what seems to me to be its logical conclusion, it could be said, following Comaroff and Comaroff, that while citizens of a nation can imagine embracing diversities, autochthony forms the limit. Being alien marks the ultimate fissure, as autochthony serves as the naturalising allegory of collective being in the world

(Comaroff and Comaroff 2005, 128; 144).

The nationalisation of citizenship, and as Arendt argues the nationalisation of the human being and his rights, leads also to a nationalisation of the political, at least if the political is conceptualised as the choice of who to respond to. While this will be discussed at some length in the coming chapters, two things should be mentioned here.

Responding to one's fellow nationals, and through the mechanisms of the nation-state is constructed by state discourse to be always primary, unquestionable, and beyond calculation. The discourse deployed by the state constructs response to the fellow national citizens as fundamental, and the response to others as not only secondary, but one that necessitates a cost-benefit analysis. Responding to non-nationals within, and outside of the border of the nation-sate is of course possible, and even at times encouraged by state discourse. Responsibility towards non-nationals, however, is frequently conceived to be an ethical, and not a political responsibility. Appeals are frequently made to ethical and moral principles, and the response is justified in ethical or moral terms, which are in turn seen to transcend, or lie outside of the political. If the response is seen as a response on political grounds, its political nature is constructed as something to be avoided, and its politicalness is defined as, and associated with selfishness, and ulterior, non-humanitarian motives. 187

The proliferation of trans- and supra-national institutions and networks toward the end of the last century have led some scholars to disagree with the above assessment, or with Arendt's assessment that an abstract human being is deprived not only of his inalienable human rights, but also of the right to have rights. Yasemin Nuhoglu Soysal, for instance, argues that while the nation-state remains the physical site of citizenship the ability of guest-workers, and in some cases those lacking status to share in a modicum of civil, social, and political rights and responsibilities is a signal that national citizenship is losing ground to a postnational citizenship anchored in deterritorialised notions of universal human rights (Soysal 1994, 3; 137). Soysal argues that contrary to Arendt's fear that "the loss of national rights was identical with the loss of human rights" (Arendt

1951, 292), the person has again come to transcend the (national) citizen (Soysal 1994,

142), and the basis of national citizenship has been undermined (137).

Whether nation-state obligations towards migrants have expanded or not, and whether the expansion has been substantive or merely formal are not of fundamental importance to the argument being made in this dissertation. More crucial is Soysal's apparent indecision regarding postnational citizenship. Soysal seems to alternately argue that, (a) postnational citizenship, as the current citizenship model, ensures that migrants, guest workers, and non-status individuals share in the rights and obligations of citizenship, and (b) that citizenship is not in fact imperative to membership in a community (Soysal 1994, 3), and formal citizenship is insignificant in comparison with physical presence (124). While the former can be taken to imply that citizenship, albeit now in a postnational incarnation, is still a valid measure of polity membership, the latter 188 implies citizenship is no longer a measure of belonging. Aside from being seemingly incompatible, if this were indeed the case, postnationalist citizenship is merely a pseudonym for human rights.

I do not mean to suggest that a discourse of human rights, premised on the transcendence of national and other differences on the grounds of a common humanity does not exist. However, in addition to the fundamental shortcomings of human rights discourses, the outlining of which is not within the purview of this dissertation, the call of the mere human being remains secondary to the call of the nation. The lineage traced in this and the previous section, through which the legitimacy of state sovereignty becomes grounded in the nation, provides one explanation for this hierarchy. The hierarchy's ramification is that the co-national, the fellow citizen, is to be responded to first, through, and within the framework of the nation-state. As a result of the conflation of human rights with national rights, the mere human being is evacuated to a no-man's-land, to what nation's conquest of the state has successfully made into a politically non-existent space outside of itself.

No human being as a mere human being can legitimately and politically exist within an order that depends on, and is grounded in the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex. The human being is always categorised as something other than a human being, be it foreigner (i.e. a citizen and national elsewhere) or refugee (i.e. a citizen of nowhere only temporarily, and only at present). Even this temporary and relative lack of national citizen status, however, is disturbing. As early as Plato's discourses on the city and citizenship, foreigners have been a source of ambivalence and uncertainty. While in ideal 189 states, citizens would never fraternise or come into contact with foreigners as the infiltration of unfamiliar and inevitably inferior customs could prove disastrous (Plato

1970, 500), the inevitable imperfections of most states necessitated the implementation of laws governing foreigners, including strict restrictions on their length of stay (354).

Adding to the discourse on foreignness, Aristotle notes that the law of some city-states

"goes so far as to admit some foreigners as citizens" but only in times of a "shortage of legitimate citizens," and only to "gradually disqualify" them when the crisis has abated

(Aristotle 1998, 74-5).

However, to speak of the connection between citizens, foreigners, and others exclusively in terms of qualification and disqualification, inclusion and exclusion, and in

fact, to class all others as foreigners does not do justice to the complexity of the state-

sovereignty-citizenship complex on which these interactions are structured. Isin's

account of the relationship between citizens and their others can serve as a supplement.

As previously mentioned, for Isin, relationships between citizens and others are more

appropriately conceived of in terms of alterity: as relationships between citizens,

strangers, outsiders, and aliens involving solidaristic, agonistic, and alienating strategies

(Isin 2002, 30-1). In addition to rendering the relationship between citizens and others more complex, such conceptualisation includes not only those outside of the community

of citizens, but also those within the community that are rendered other (i.e. abnormal, peculiar, disturbing, threatening) to whatever happens to be the dominant narrative of

citizenship at the time. It is important to note, of course, that the other in particular, and 190 otherness in general are categories that lack essential content. What is at one moment familiar can become foreign at the next; what is coveted now may be superfluous later.

The question of who can become a citizen is, therefore, an intrinsically political question. In turn, as previously mentioned, the connection between citizenship and the political means that it is also a question of the criterion for being political. For Aristotle, human beings enact the political by ruling and being ruled in turn (1998, lix); they enact the political as citizens who simultaneously make and subject themselves to law. The political and the polis are thus inextricably linked, and consequently so too are the political and citizenship. For Aristotle, moreover, there exists an intrinsic relationship between the juridical sphere, the political, and citizenship, as citizenship is always

enacted in, and thought law. It is such relationship between the political, citizenship and the juridical sphere that state discourse constructs as the foundation, and origin of modern

state citizenship. As previously noted, in arguing that this narrative of origins is merely

one narrative among others, and what is more, strategically deployed, Isin makes a

fundamental contribution to the denaturalisation of the state-citizenship-sovereignty

complex that it underpins.

In denaturalising the manner in which the relationship between the state,

citizenship, and the political is conceptualised, Isin attempts in particular to denaturalise

citizenship as constructed and naturalised by state discourse. For Isin (2002), it is those who are not citizens, but enact themselves as such that are in fact responsible for the

political, and that enact the political through their appropriation of citizenship. Thus,

while maintaining a commitment to a concept of citizenship and its relationship to the 191 political, he breaks the connection between citizenship and the state. Thinkers like

Schmitt, on the other hand, maintain that an inextricable link exists between the political and the state as the sole bearer and guarantor of law (Schmitt 1932a, 6). What is more, for Schmitt it is not the citizens who enact and delimit the political through their enactments, but rather the sovereign who demarcates the political on their behalf (7).

Although Schmitt dismisses as circular and futile attempts to define the political as something of the state and the state as something of the political (20), his sovereign who enacts the political in deciding on the friend and enemy (34) is necessarily the state (46,

53).

Schmitt's conceptualisation of the relationship between the state and the political is crucial to discourses of citizenship, particularly to determinations of belonging. While

Schmitt does not employ the terminology of citizenship, his understanding of belonging and non-belonging through the friend and enemy antagonism deeply resonates with categorisations and hierarchies of the state discourse regarding citizenship. As in the case of the citizen and non-citizen (or the inauthentic citizen, or the foreigner) neither the friend nor the enemy possess an essential content; their substance is not fixed, but rather, determined by the context of the concrete antagonism (Schmitt 1932a, 30), be it inter- or intra-state (32). Perhaps most importantly for this discussion, a mere terminological shift from enemy to "disturber or peace" or "outlaw" does not eliminate this supreme antagonism (79); it merely serves to euphemise its perpetuity. Unlike in most of the aforementioned conceptions of citizenship, the political decision belongs exclusively to the state sovereign, and is the demarcation of the friend from the enemy. For Schmitt the 192 essential mark of sovereignty is the sovereign's monopoly on the decision: the decision regarding the exception (Schmitt 1922, 5), and the ultimate political decision, namely the friend-enemy distinction (Schmitt 1932a, 46, 49). As the decisive political entity, the sovereign state "possesses an enormous power: the possibility of waging war and thereby publicly disposing of the lives of men...the right to demand from its own members the readiness to die and unresistingly to kill enemies" (46). Command over the life and death of its citizens, or in other words, the right to legally and legitimately demand death in its name, is for Schmitt a fundamental mark of sovereignty. The political, therefore, belongs neither to the citizens (as in Plato and Aristotle), nor to those who partake in the social contract (as in Rousseau); being political is not enacted through solidaristic, agonistic, and alienating relationships between citizens and their immanent others (as in Isin). The political, rather belongs exclusively to the state sovereign, who becomes political by demarcating the friend from the enemy. It is with Schmitt, therefore, that we come full circle in terms of the political: from the sovereign, to the state, to the citizen, and back to the sovereign. It is a political generated within a closed, self-reinforcing and - legitimating system grounded in the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex.

As was argued at the outset of this chapter, the lineage whose contours have thus far been outlined is discursively constructed to naturalise and legitimate the modern state, and its claim over the political. Although lacunae, discontinuities, and ambiguities were made apparent throughout the chapter with the help of the critical insights of a number of thinkers Michel Foucault provides perhaps the most sustained interrogation of state discourse regarding the origins of the nation-state, and the most complete counter- 193 narrative to that deployed by the state. The work of Foucault is of importance here as it presents an alternative to the narrative deployed by the state, and renders apparent the contingencies and struggles through which the present came into being, but which the lineage constructed by state discourse eradicates.

Of greatest relevance to this dissertation is the distinction Foucault makes between the juridico-philosophical, and historico-political discourses of sovereignty

(Foucault 1997). The juridico-philosophical discourse grounds the juridical theory of power, or the theory of right. The theory of right, the fundamental assumption and conclusion of the state's narrative of its origins, not only constructs power as that which can be possessed and thus alienated through contract, but also legitimates its possession by the state. As Foucault argues, it serves to legitimate modern state sovereignty and its demand for obedience (1997, 26); it constructs continuity where there is in fact contingency, and masks modern sovereignty's origin in, and relationship to war. The historico-political discourse, on the other hand, makes war the permanent basis of all institutions of power (1994a, 60-3). In accordance with this discourse, the sovereign state does not emerge (as it does for Hobbes and Rousseau) when armed struggle ceases, but rather, as a result of the struggle and the contingency of war. The discourse, moreover, speaks of the continuation of war beneath the sovereign state and its law (1997, 50).

For Foucault, the politico-historical discourse is a discourse of the nation. When it first emerged, it constructed society as the enemy of the nation, as it identified society with state. According to the historical narrative that founds this discourse, as the state attempted to establish itself as sovereign, it caused perpetual suffering to the nation by 194 committing against it various acts of violence (1997, 73). The nation, therefore, had to fight the society/state in order to enact itself as sovereign. In the 19th century, this historico-political discourse came together with a discourse of race. Their coming together established a national order of things (classifying the peoples of the world along national lines) in which all nations were identified as races. Nations as racialised groups became the natural containers of populations (134; 167).

It is the coming together of the two discourses that also marks the racialisation of society, and its equation with the nation. The state, as that which is identical to society, was no longer the enemy of the nation, but became rather something of its tool. The state's raison d'etre became the protection of the now racialised nation, and the assurance of its continuation (Foucault 1997, 216). It is for this reasons, the discourse insists, that the state needs to develop technologies and strategies with which the society (now identified with the racialised nation) can be defended against all threats (primary among them being the biological threat of extinction). It is at this juncture that we witness the emergence of biopower, which creates races, and aims to prolong their existence by either inventing technologies to enrich them, or by eliminating threats to their survival.

Biopower, therefore, emerges "beneath sovereign power", as a power distinct from it, as well as from disciplinary power (Foucault 1997, 241). For Foucault, the emergence of racism is implied in the manner in which biopower functions through sovereign power, as the only way in which sovereign power can be squared with biopower (258).

As Marianne Constable points out, some have taken Foucault's critique of the juridico-philosophical discourse as an indication of his "disbelief in state" (Constable 195

1991, 370). As Constable points out, however, Foucault takes state apparatuses and manifestations quite seriously; what Foucault does not take for granted, however, is the state's narrative of itself, or the theory of right it uses to legitimate and naturalise itself

(370). Foucault asserts that this discourse, and the theory of right that legitimates sovereign power, presuppose the individual as a subject of natural rights, who surrenders some of those rights to the sovereign. What needs to be analysed, according to Foucault, is in fact the very emergence of this subject, or the manner in which subjedification manufactures subjects in the first place (Foucault 1994b, 39). For Foucault, subjects are effects of various power relations, and so subjectification is itself a power relation through which the individual subject, whose existence is presupposed by the juridical- philosophical discourse of power, comes into being. As Foucault's primary aim is to write the history of the subject, he actually needs to write the history of power relations

(1997,45).

Foucault points to two kinds of power relations, which are in no way entirely separate: disciplinary power and biopower. It is not necessary, from the perspective of this dissertation, to enter into a detailed discussion of the manner in which disciplinary power operates. It is the second type of power — biopower, or the management of life — that is crucial, as it is biopower that enables the functioning of sovereignty. As biopower emerges with racial discourse, sovereignty keeps functioning not in the way that juridico- philosophical discourse claims, but in association with this biopower, creating and managing political and other subjectivities. It is at this point that critiques such as those brought forward by Caldwell (Caldwell 2004, 5), who argues that Agamben combines 196 what Foucault has separated in the analysis of power (biopower and sovereign power) become difficult to sustain. Contrary to this argument, I would argue that both thinkers attempt to give an account of the manner in which the modern political condition and subjectivities emerge as a result of the grounding relationship between biopower and sovereign power. Differences notwithstanding, they are united in their interrogation of the manner in which subjectivities come into existence, and the effect of the relationship between sovereign power and biopower on these subjectivities.

It is this critique of what I have thus far referred to as state discourse — which naturalises state sovereignty through the juridico-philosophical discourse — that grounds the next chapter's positioning of camp as that which captures the excess that is produced when nation takes over the state, and state sovereignty is legitimated through a racialised nation. Foucault's critique is crucial, in short, as it again brings us full circle to the state-

sovereignty-citizenship complex, and the manner in which it sustains itself. In

denaturalising the complex, and the conceptual lineage that grounds and naturalises it, it brings us to the camp.

Conclusion

Chapters One and Two have attended to the manner in which the refugee and the camp,

as empirical entities, emerged through, and out of the state-sovereignty-citizenship

complex. For reasons outlined in the Introduction, the state in question was Israel. As

the nation-state emerged, so too did the refugee and the camp, or the excess that had to be

abjected, and the space into which it was expelled, and through which it was recaptured 197 so that the continuation and stability of the state system could be assured. This chapter focussed on the emergence of the state itself, by attending to the lineage that state discourse constructs to legitimate its existence and its claim over the political.

One might ask why a state's discourse regarding itself ought to be given any credence, and what, if anything can be garnered from it about the camp that exists outside of, and against it. The answer to the first part of that question is simple: credence and credibility is not what this dissertation aims to assess, and what is more, a discourse is as valid as the effects it generates. What makes an analysis of that discourse crucial for the understanding of the camp, and particularly its critical and transformative potential with respect to the political, is that the modern state, as an outcome of the manner in which it is constructed and legitimated, actually produces the camp. Of greatest importance here is to show that the discourse, and hence the state and the political it constructs and legitimates is not only contingent and contrived, but ultimately unsustainable.

The ultimate de-struction of this discourse, and of the relationship between state, citizenship, sovereignty, and the political that it attempts to sustain is made possible through the camp, the very camp that the modern state produces to sustain itself. Even though the camp was not directly discussed in this chapter, the state discourse attended to in the chapter makes thinking about the camp inevitable. The following chapter will

speak to this inevitability by looking directly at the manner in which the camp, which was

supposed to capture the excess that the emergence of the sovereign nation-state produced, actually creates the potential for its destabilisation, and loosens its grip on the political. 198

Chapter Four: The Camp — De-structing the State-Sovereignty- Citizenship Complex

Thus far, I have been guiding the reader toward the climax by, in a sense, laying the empirical and conceptual ground of the path of ascent. By narrating the emergence of the state of Israel, and the relationship between the refugees it produced and the Lebanese state, the first two chapters outlined the empirical emergence and development of the refugee and the refugee camp. By attending to the manner in which state discourse constructs the origins of, and legitimates the nation-state and its claim on the political,

Chapter Three implicitly narrated the conceptual emergence of the camp as the necessary by-product of, and space made possible by the nation-state.

This chapter marks the climax. As outlined in the Introduction, given the co- constitutive nature of concepts and material reality, the climax at which the relationship is interpreted is like a second beginning or a foundational leap, which conditions the possibility of an-other understanding of ourselves, others, and the world in which we

exist. The climax is, if the language of Heidegger is to be employed, a clearing that

allows things and people to be encountered, and defines the parameters of the encounter.

Things and people, camps, refugees, nation-states, citizens, and sovereigns do not exist

independently of the way in which they are lighted by the clearing; the clearing is not

surrounded by what is, but rather what is exists as such as an effect of the clearing. That

the clearing lets something manifest itself in a particular way introduces fundamental

contingency into our understanding of ourselves and others, consequently admitting the 199 possibility of an-other understanding, and thus the possibility of being otherwise. The

clearing, which enables us to stand at a distance from the state-sovereignty-citizenship

complex that structures our relationship to ourselves and others, gives us an opportunity

to perceive it differently, to see the cracks and lacunae that we might not have been able

to perceive otherwise. It allows us, in other words, to take the first step towards

unhinging and de-structing it, and from its fragments building something altogether

different. The refugee and the camp, as that which is produced and abjected by the state-

sovereignty-citizenship complex, is also that through which it can be de-structed.

This chapter marks the climax as it argues that the refugee and the camp, which

emerge as defensive technologies of the nation-state — as that which would capture its

excess, and enable the maintenance of equilibrium within the order of nation-states —

can simultaneously de-struct it, and its claim to the political. Although, and because the

camp emerges as the space that captures those who do not fit into, and hence are a

destabilising force in the nation-state order, it is the camp that brings with it the

possibility of a de-struction of that order, and the political it structures, and hence the

possibility of envisioning an-other political. This chapter marks the climax, in other

words, because it is the moment from which, looking back, it is possible to see how the

camp unhinges the very discourse and institutions that produce it. Looking ahead, it is

possible to begin to make out the outlines of an-other foundation for the way in which we

understand ourselves, others, and the world we share.

In keeping with the structure maintained thus far, the chapter attends first to the

manner in which Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon de-stabilise and de-struct the 200

ground on which the Lebanese state is legitimated, and claims monopoly over the political. The second part of the chapter attends to the conceptual camp, and explores the

manner in which its emergence unhinges the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, the

system of nation-states that depends on it, and the political that it claims to produce and

legitimate. The chapter, therefore, begins to de-struct and denaturalise not only the

relationship that the discourse of the state attempts to establish between state,

sovereignty, and citizenship, but also the relationship it constructs between the state-

sovereignty-citizenship complex and the political. Through this destruction, an opening

for an alternative way of being, and an alternative imagining of the political is made

possible.

Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon

By demanding and eliciting a response, and through their demands challenging the

foundations of the nation-state, the Palestinian refugees and refugee camps have

destabilised the Lebanese state, and the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex through

which it grounds itself and its political. They have not merely stretched the political,

enlarging the concepts of citizenship or the political by extending their inclusiveness, but

have, in a sense, displaced the political, and transformed its sense, and its limit. In doing

so, they pointed to the possibility of a different political existence. In order to look at the

ways in which this has occurred it is necessary, first, to assess the discourses that define

Palestinian presence in Lebanon. It is necessary, second, to attend to the ways in which

Palestinian refugee presence complicates responding on the grounds of the state- 201 citizenship-sovereignty complex, and in doing so complicates the political that is grounded in it. Chapter Two identified a number of discursive strands that construct

Palestinian presence in Lebanon. As their discursive parameters were outlined therein, I focus here on how they point to the manner in which the camps unhinge and de-struct the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex on which the existence and legitimacy of the

Lebanese state depend.

The discursive strands that constitute the camps as a state-within-a-state and as security islands speak most directly to the state-sovereignty dyad of the state-sovereignty- citizenship complex. These discursive strands, of course, do not, in a temporally causal sense, complicate or unhinge the state-sovereignty relationship. Rather, they speak to an already complicated and ambivalent relationship, one quite unlike that constructed by the state discourse attended to in Chapter Three. The discursive strands that construct

Palestinians as a group determined to create a state within the Lebanese state, and

Palestinian refugee camps as security islands are, like all statements within a discursive

field, continually in flux, and at times self-contradicting. As I previously mentioned, the

Cairo Agreement, for instance, is alternately constructed as a means of restraining the

Palestinian sphere of influence and operations in Lebanon, and a means of expanding it.

As I alluded to in Chapter Two, the Cairo Agreement was either constructed as having

good intentions but being ultimately too permissive, and taken advantage of by ungrateful

Palestinians, or as a progenitor of a Palestinian state within the Lebanese state, or at least

of security islands within an otherwise contiguous territory. Moreover, statements were

made that constructed this as problematic in terms of Lebanese state sovereignty, and 202 thus in need of being remedied. Other statements, however, which similarly situated the camps as security islands that were undermining the sovereignty of the Lebanese state did not paint this situation in a negative light. Placing the camp outside of the sovereign purview was seen as purposeful, and in fact beneficial to the state as the camp's existence outside of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex placed it also outside of the state's realm of responsibility. Another discursive strand, albeit one far less influential and dominant, constructed the camps as not actually outside of the purview of the sovereign state. In accordance with this discursive strand, whether directly administered by the state, or indirectly governed by it, the camps are always within its reach, and so the state can exercise its sovereignty whenever and however it chooses.

As I noted in Chapter Two, discourses invoking the Cairo Agreement re-emerged during the Ain al-Hilweh and Nahr al-Bared crises, even though the Agreement had long been invalid. Arguments that the camps were zones within Lebanese territory over which the state had no control and exercised no sovereignty re-emerged, and were reinforced by the manner in which the Lebanese state machinery actually engaged with the camps.

That the Lebanese state and army were negotiating with Palestinian leadership over entry not only into Ain al-Hilweh, but also into the neighbourhood of which the camp was a part, that they needed to be escorted into the area by Palestinian security, that the establishment of a Palestinian security force was discussed, and its ad hoc existence already condoned by the Lebanese state all signal the actual invalidity of the state- sovereignty-citizenship complex, and thus also the conceptual lineages on which it depends. The state could exercise only partial sovereignty in some areas, and none at all 203

in others. The camp itself remained inaccessible, and even though the state's sovereignty technically extended over it, the Lebanese state lacked any actual sovereignty, and

certainly lacked sovereign legitimacy. During the Nahr al-Bared crisis, in addition to

deployments similar to those mentioned above, the Lebanese state machinery deployed

the discourse in a manner that, for lack of a better term, doubly acknowledged the failure

of its sovereignty. Statements were made, for instance, in which blame for the crisis was

cast on Palestinians, who were constructed as having precipitated the crisis by failing to

effectively administer their semi-autonomous camp. In other words, the security island

situation at Nahr al-Bared in the spring and summer of 2007 was the result of the failure

of Palestinians to effectively administer their security island.

Before moving on to addressing what the emergence, rearticulation, and

circulation of these discourses can tell us about the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex

in which the Lebanese state is grounded, one peripheral observation can be made. That

the Cairo Agreement, despite its invalidity, continued to play an important role in both

Nahr al-Bared as well as in the protracted predicament of Ain al-Hilweh demonstrates

perfectly the co-constitutive nature of discursive and material effects, conceptual

constructs and material reality. The invalid Agreement, constructed as the foundational

document of Lebanese state engagement with Palestinian refugees, made the camps

inaccessible to the Lebanese state. What is perhaps even more interesting is that when

the perimeter of Nahr al-Bared was eventually penetrated, the invalidity of the Cairo

Agreement was not generally employed as a justification. 204

How do these discursive strands shed a different light, and in doing so undermine the state-sovereignty dyad of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex? When judged against the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, the events that came to pass at Ain al-

Hilweh andNahr al-Bared refugee camps expose the Lebanese state's lack of sovereignty over, and legitimacy in spaces located within its territorial boundaries. This lack, of course, undermines the state-sovereignty part of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, as complete and unadulterated sovereignty over people and territory is one of the fundamental principles to emerge from the conceptual lineage in which the complex grounds itself. Yet simply making the argument that the Lebanese state lacks sovereignty over the camps is inadequate for two reasons. First, such an argument merely illustrates that state sovereignty is being challenged. While this might indeed be the case, it is neither the whole story, nor an adequate one. All that the account reveals is that a group has been able to challenge the state's claim of ultimate and indivisible sovereignty, and usurp some of that sovereignty in an attempt to break the state-sovereignty connection, and destabilise the state. In order to make this account more adequate it is necessary to add that the state, while being challenged for its sovereignty by a space external to itself, is in fact also the progenitor of that space. The space that challenges the state, in fact, emerges out of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex to contain precisely such

challenge. Second, the statement that the state lacks sovereignty over an area is itself misleading, as physical presence within a space is not the only way for the state to

display, and exercise its sovereignty. As the case of Nahr al-Bared aptly demonstrates,

the Lebanese state not only eventually entered the camp, but in a display of sovereignty 205 as forceful as any unrelentingly bombed and shelled it from its perimeter. The state's sovereignty over such spaces is perhaps more aptly described as a difficult, or at times negotiated sovereignty, rather than an absolute or non-existent one.

Thus, the discourse through which the Lebanese state legitimates itself and its existence is, in fact, a fiction. Instructive at this point is the analysis of Robert Davidson.

Building on, and interpreting Agamben, Davidson engages in what could perhaps be labelled an analysis of modern practices of the state of exception. Following the vocabulary of Agamben, Davidson argues that the state of exception is experienced as a dislocating localisation (Davidson 2003, 16). To describe the process in which the state engages when producing a state of exception, Davidson develops the concept of excision of territory, and analyses the various ways in which the state excises its territory as a means of creating a state of exception (5-7). The state's perforation of itself, and its ability to contract its influence by leaving a part of its territory exposed is what interests

Davidson, who opposes it to analyses in which the state is seen as fundamentally expansionary (if not in terms of territory, then at least with respect to its sphere of influence). Davidson eventually points to, but does not seem to notice that this perforation and exception is not, in fact, the contraction of the sovereign state. He points, for instance, to the fact that those evacuated into a zone that the state excises remain subject to the laws of that state, and are promptly tried in accordance with them if they commit a crime (6-7). Noting that the state perforates itself in order to avoid responsibility (6), Davidson does not take that realisation to what seems to be its logical conclusion, namely, that the zones that emerge as the state perforate itself are neither 206 outside nor inside its sovereignty, but constitute rather the grey zone in which law recedes but state remains, the "anomic space in which what is at stake is a force of law without law" (Agamben 2003, 39).

The state-sovereignty relationship, therefore, is more ambivalent and sophisticated than would seem from the discourse that presents the state as either sovereign or not, either contiguous and unified, or nonexistent as a legitimate, sovereign

state. Absolute sovereignty or no sovereignty is what state discourse constructs as the only alternatives with respect to state sovereignty. This, however, excludes the possibility of a third option, namely the existence of a grey zone between sovereignty and its lack. This grey zone, both constitutive of, and constituted by sovereign law comprises a space that is simultaneously one of surplus legality and a-legality (as opposed to

legality or illegality), of surplus sovereignty and a lack of sovereignty. As is apparent

from the discourse traced in Chapter Three, theorists of sovereignty have struggled to

legitimately locate the sovereign either as the progenitor of law and hence above all laws,

or as the progenitor of law and yet also laws' subject. Although numerous thinkers have

struggled to overcome this ambiguity in the relationship between the sovereign and the

law, the situation of refugee camps in Lebanon illustrates the ambiguity's unresolvability.

Coupled with the partial and always precarious presence of the sovereign-state in and

around the camps, the sovereign-state is also precariously situated with respect to its

ability to create and maintain its law within and around the camps. The camps are at

once the subject of an excess of international and state law, spaces governed by no law, 207 and at times, as was the case with Nahr al-Bared, spaces governed by no longer existing or enforceable law.

The same ambiguity exists with respect to sovereign legitimacy within the camps.

In accordance with the state discourse that structures the state-sovereignty-citizenship

complex, the Lebanese state's sovereignty over the camps is already precarious, for

although the camps are located within its territory, their inhabitants are neither nationals nor citizens of the state. Interestingly, therefore, it is the national principle legitimating

the existence of the Lebanese state that simultaneously delegitimates its sovereignty over

the Palestinians, themselves a nation in need of a state. Although in other discourses

regarding Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, particularly those around citizenship, the

nation principle always supersedes the territorial principle, when sovereignty over the

camps is at stake the Lebanese state reverts to the territorial principle, claiming

sovereignty on the grounds of territorial integrity. The situation is further complicated by

the fact that the Lebanese state has leased much of the land on which the camps are

located to UNRWA, acknowledges that an international Palestinian 'government' has at

least partial authority over the refugees, and at times encourages or at least condones the

existence within and around the camps of administrative and security mechanisms that

are not of the state.

The anxiety-ridden discourse of Palestinian settlement in Lebanon also sheds light

on both the state-sovereignty, and the state-citizenship dyads of the state-sovereignty-

citizenship complex. The discourse is interesting in two ways. First, it is interesting

because Palestinian refugees are considered a threat to the Lebanese nation, which is the 208 legitimate 'owner' of the state, and to which the state is responsible. It is also a threat, however, to the religious balance that exists within this nation, and maintains the nation's unity and proper functioning in relation to the state. Palestinian refugees, therefore, become an unabsorbable population, a constant and unabating threat. They constitute a threat to the state because even if they do not demand a state of their own they necessarily need one within the order of nation-states. What is interesting here, and points to a fundamental anxiety at the core of the nation-state and the state-sovereignty-

citizenship complex in which it is grounded is that while a particular kind of anxiety might exist in Lebanon, the anxiety over settlement is itself not unique. In his

investigations of Tanzanian refugee camps, Simon Turner points not only to the mixed,

overlapping, and often-indeterminate jurisdiction over, and within the camps, but also to the anxiety surrounding the potential settlement of the refugees (Turner 2005, 313).

Like in Lebanon, the fear of making permanent what is constructed as temporary becomes manifest in measures that border on the absurd. The Tanzanian state, for

instance, prohibits the planting of perennial plants in, and around refugee camps as they

indicate permanence (Turner 2005, 316). Turner argues that this, and other such

measures reveal the Tanzanian state's attempt to preserve its national sovereignty by

making the camps and their inhabitants as temporary and exceptional as possible (Turner

2005, 342). What it reveals, more fundamentally, is the state's resilience against that

which can be constructed as temporary, against identities (or lack thereof) that, while

threatening the stability and legitimacy of the nation-state remain anomalous and

exceptional. These would be far more threatening, if not impossible to defend against, if 209 they are permanent, as then they are no longer anomalies, but that which reveals the fundamental fiction and unsustainability of the nation-state.

The anxiety-ridden discourse of Palestinian settlement in Lebanon is also interesting, as in accordance with the political as defined and legitimated by the nation-

state, the Lebanese state has no political responsibility for Palestinian refugees; yet the refugees demand a response. Since, for reasons stated above, they cannot be naturalised or otherwise absorbed into the nation-state, the state's response necessarily undermines the state-sovereignty-citizenship framework of responding, and thus its claim of monopoly over the political. Through the camps, and its response to them, the state itself

subverts the political that it has attempted to monopolise. The anxiety over Palestinian

settlement demonstrates the unsettling influence of Palestinian refugees vis-a-vis the

Lebanese state. The Lebanese state, however, continues to respond, even if in responding

it subverts the very structure on which it depends. The state has had to respond to

Palestinian refugees, and even though it officially withholds from them many of the

rights it accords its nationals, it has at many moments granted their demands. Most

telling is the fact that while Palestinian refugees are still not being granted citizenship,

they are being responded to, and in certain ways being regularised as 'guests' in Lebanon.

Two things can be said about these developments. First, anxiety over settlement speaks

to the tenuousness of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex that underpins the nation-

state; it cannot sustain itself in the face of a permanent camp, or a permanent refugee.

Second, the state's attempts to diminish the threat by constructing the camp and the

refugee as a temporary aberration are inadequate, as the camp and the refugee are forcing 210 the state to respond in a manner that indicates that that which it bases itself on, its narrative of state-sovereignty-citizenship, is in fact a fiction.

The discursive strand that constructs Palestinian refugees as guests in Lebanon is itself destructive of the state-citizenship discourse that the nation-state attempts to sustain, and sustains itself through. This discursive strand is deployed by the state to explain and legitimate the lack of regularisation with respect to Palestinian refugees while simultaneously accounting for their precarious position in relation to the state-citizenship- sovereignty complex. Recently, it has also been redeployed by the Lebanese state to evoke hospitality while denying citizenship, and to place the refugee population firmly outside of the political delineated by the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex. Guests ought to be treated with care and compassion, but they are in the last instance guests and not citizens or future citizens. In an important example of manoeuvring and appropriation, the discourse has also been deployed by Palestinian refugees, who use it to shield themselves from potential criticism of their presence in Lebanon, and particularly their involvement in Lebanese politics, as well as to indicate their desire to remain non- citizens. Apparent most recently during the Israel-Hizbullah war of 2007, the discourse was again deployed during the May 2008 clashes between pro- and anti-government forces.

What is perhaps most interesting in relation to these appropriations of the guest discourse is that Palestinian refugees, while constructing themselves as guests in Lebanon continue to demand rights equivalent to the citizenship rights afforded to Lebanese nationals. Palestinian refugees are thus not asking for rights on the grounds of 211

citizenship, but are actually asking for rights as guests. They are, in fact, asking for

citizenship rights to be accorded to guests, and in doing so are subverting the state-

sovereignty-citizenship complex through which the nation-state is constructed and

legitimated. They are asking for citizenship rights while simultaneously expressing the

desire, and claiming the right to remain non-citizens. In making this demand, Palestinian

refugees are becoming political by refusing to be political in the manner that being political is constructed by the state. They are being political without being citizens and

without being part of the sovereign nation-state; they are, in fact, being political outside

of, and against the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex that claims to monopolise it.

The Camp as a De-structive Element

The Palestinian refugees and refugee camps, and the discourses that construct their

presence in Lebanon shed a different light on the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex

and the nation-state it sustains. They bathe the complex in a light that reveals its cracks

and lacunae; most importantly, they bathe the complex in a light that denaturalises it,

making it emerge as the precarious and fragile construction that it is. As conceptualised

by Agamben, the camp, and related concepts of state of exception and bare life give us

the opportunity to perceive the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex for the temple that

it is, and thus help us to denaturalise it, and its claim on the political. The history of the

camp, however, (and, for that matter, the history of the concepts of state of exception and

bare life) stretches beyond Agamben. The camp, at least its incarnation as the

concentration camp, is alluded to by Arendt, as is the idea of bare life, a life unfettered by 212

state-attributed identities such as citizen and national. The state of exception, in turn, has been theorised extensively, perhaps most influentially by Schmitt. Of course, as

employed and interpreted by Agamben they become distinct concepts, but as is the case

with all concepts, they retain traces of their previous lives. Moreover, Agamben remains

the only theorists who rigorously interrogates the concept of camp, and its effects on the political.

Although Agamben's understanding of camp was alluded to in the Introduction, it

is worth recalling here, as it comprises the conceptual linchpin of this entire dissertation.

What is crucial is that for Agamben the camp is important not only for its conceptual, but

also for its paradigmatic and analytical potential. Agamben conceives of camp not as an

historical anomaly, but as the nomos of the political (Agamben 1996, 38-40); he

conceives of it not as merely a concept, but as a paradigm through which a novel

interpretation of the political can emerge. For Agamben, as previously mentioned, the

camp is also the materialisation of the state of exception (1995, 174; 1996, 42). It is this

relationship between the state of exception and the camp that allows Agamben to imbue

the camp with a paradigmatic quality, or in other words, to argue that material

incarnations of the camp are varied, and in themselves not crucial to his overall argument

regarding the camp's analytical and political potential. For Agamben,

we find ourselves virtually in the presence of a camp every time such a structure is created, independent of the kinds of crime that are committed there and whatever its denomination and specific topography. The stadium in Bari into which the Italian police in 1991 provisionally herded all illegal Albanian immigrants before sending them back to their country, the winter cycle-racing track in which the Vichy authorities gathered the Jews before consigning them to the Germans, the Konzentrationslager fir Auslander in Cottbus-Sielow in which the Weimar government gathered Jewish refugees from the East, or the zones 213

d'attentes in French international airports in which foreigners asking for refugee status are detained will then all equally be camps. In all these cases, an apparently innocuous space...actually delimits a space in which the normal order is de facto suspended and in which whether or not atrocities are committed depends not on law but on the civility and ethical sense of the police who temporarily act as sovereign (1995,174).

The camp is the space opened by the materialisation of the state of exception, and although Agamben periodically alludes to some of its material incarnations (1996, 42), it is the camp as the spatial arrangement of the state of exception (1996, 37-8), and thus the camp's ability to materialise anywhere that forms the crux of his argument.

As camp is the state of exception materialised, it is necessary to attend briefly to

Agamben's understanding of the state of exception, which is directly influenced by

Schmitt's. In arguing that the state of exception materialises as camp Agamben takes

Schmitt's understanding of the state of exception as the foundation for his own understanding of camp. Agamben follows Schmitt on three fundamental fronts. First, he agrees with Schmitt that in suspending the normal order the state of exception does not create chaos or anarchy, but rather a space where the state, and hence its mechanisms remain (Schmitt 1922, 12). As Schmitt emphasises, and as is crucial to remember in the context of this dissertation, the sovereign suspends the law in order to preserve itself (13); it withdraws in order to remain. Second, and related to this is that for both Schmitt and

Agamben, although with different emphases, the state of exception is characterised by the suspension of law. For Schmitt, it is the space where the state remains, but the law recedes (12); for Agamben, it the space where law is de facto suspended (Agamben 2003,

4; 1995, 174). Third, Agamben argues that the state of exception is created through the 214 law, and remains indebted to, if not imbedded in it. While in a sense outside the law, the state of exception simultaneously belongs to it (2003, 35), as it is that part of the juridical order that suspends it (26). As such, it is that which forms the juridical order's threshold

(26). This is in keeping with Schmitt, for whom the state of exception remains a part of the juridical framework, as both decision (on the state of exception) and norm constitute its part (Schmitt 1922, 13). As such, the decision on the state of exception, or the decision to enact an exception (and thus inherently the decision on what the parameters of the norm are) remains within the juridical realm. It is in this sense that the state of exception is, for Agamben, the state of being outside, yet belonging (Agamben 2003, 35); it is that which cannot be included in the whole that it is a member of, and cannot be a member of the whole that it is already included in (1995, 25).

That Agamben's conception of camp is indebted not only to Schmitt's interpretation of the state of exception, but also to Arendt's understanding of the concentration camp is evident in two ways. First, in addition to conceptualising the camp as a space characterised by a de facto suspension of law, Agamben emphasises, like

Arendt, that it is a space where anything is possible (Agamben 1995, 170; Arendt 1951,

287-8), and where the decency and civility of the police, and not the law play a determining role (Agamben 1995, 174). As it is a space where the law effectually recedes while the state remains, it is a space where the relationship between state sovereignty and the law is broken, and state remains sovereign not through law, but through the effects of its mechanisms. 215

It is, therefore, a space where the police can act as sovereign (Agamben 1995,

174), and anything is possible. It is at this point that a number of critics find fault in

Agamben's argument. Some (Walters 2008, 188) assert that Agamben's camp is either problematic as such, or at least not applicable to some of the proposed incarnations of camp (to refugee camps and detention centres, for instance) as laws and other juridical mechanisms both create, and to some degree govern such places. It is important, however, to remember three aspects of Agamben's conceptualisation of the relationship between the camp and law. First, of importance is Agamben's understanding of the ban, since the relationship between law, the state of exception, and the camp is characterised by the ban. For Agamben, when the law is in force without prescription (as is the case in the ban), the law is in fact more pervasive than it is under normal conditions, precisely because of its lack of content (Agamben 1995, 50). It is for this reason that in the state of exception, the violation and execution of law is indistinguishable (57). It is for this reason, moreover, and in this manner the law preserves itself precisely through its suspension, and applies to those excluded or abandoned precisely through their exclusion or abandonment (1999a, 162). When faced with the state of exception, therefore, one is faced with the force of law. In other words, one encounters a law that is in force, but is not necessarily applied (2003, 39), a law that is in force, but without necessary significance (1999a, 169-70).

Second, as the camp is a materialisation of the state of exception it is a space created through a juridical process, and one that remains within the juridical realm. As such, it remains within the realm of law, subject to the law at least in the sense that the 216 law structures its parameters, even if it then effectively withdraws from the space that it created. Third, and perhaps of more direct relevance to the aforementioned criticisms, it can be argued that Agamben emphasises the de facto suspension or withdrawal of the law from within the space of the camp. It might be possible to argue, moreover, that in acknowledging his indebtedness to Foucault (Agamben 1995, 3-7; Raulff 2004, 610)

Agamben indicates that he generally takes for granted that it is a thing's effect, and the practices related to it, and not the thing itself that should be taken as given. If taken seriously, how state discourse constructs the camp, and what it suggests are its de jure conditions is of little relevance to an understanding of what actually occurs in the camp.

What matters most is not that the camp is, de jure, governed by laws, and that laws pertain, dejure, to those who find themselves within its perimeter. What matters is that, de facto, the law can be suspended, and anything is possible. What matters, de facto, is the civility and decency of the police.

As mentioned at the beginning of this section, Agamben's conceptualisation of the camp as paradigm, and as the nomos of the political runs concurrent to his conceptualisation and development of the camp as the materialisation of the state of exception. Although distinct arguments, that the camp is not an anomaly, and that it can in fact serve as a conceptual and analytical paradigm are not unrelated. When discussing the paradigmatic quality of the camp Agamben argues that his deployment of paradigm makes his work analytically and methodologically akin to the work of Foucault. He

argues that a paradigm is like an example, a historically singular phenomenon, something

like Foucault's panopticon, or his own homo sacer, muselmann, or state of exception 217

(Agamben 2002a). Although it is a historically singular phenomenon, it is possible to extrapolate from it to a large group of phenomena, which in turn enables one to come to an understanding of historical structures (Raulff 2004, 610). Two things are of importance in this conceptualisation. First, it is important that Agamben acknowledges the historical singularity of what he refers to as the paradigm or example. While his work, on a number of occasions, alludes to various post-World War II incarnations of camp, the specificity of the concentration camp, and its fundamental distinction from other incarnations of camp can simultaneously be maintained. At the same time,

Agamben continues to maintain that a structural similarity, or analogy can exist between the various incarnations of camp.

Second, Agamben's conceptualisation of camp as paradigm once again reiterates what was already noted in previous chapters in relation to concepts of citizenship and sovereignty: conceptual affinity does not imply conceptual identity and ahistoricity.

Elements of conceptualisations, understandings, and manners of deployment disappear only to reappear elsewhere, in an incarnation perhaps entirely unrelated to their previous incarnation. As Agamben argues elsewhere, it is not his intention to explore the material incarnations of camp, or to detail the kinds of atrocities committed there (1996, 37).

What I think he alludes to here is that it is also not his intention (nor does he need to) draw comparisons between, for instance, a Nazi concentration camp and a refugee camp.

Such comparisons, while conceivable on the one hand, are on the other fundamentally inconceivable; the understanding that something is either historically singular or ahistorical, either unique or generic, is itself flawed. It is in this sense that the camp is 218 simultaneously historically singular, and the nomos of the political; it is a paradigm, an example that always belongs to the set that it exemplifies, while at the same time standing outside of it.

It was important to make brief mention of Agamben's conceptualisation of paradigm here, as Agamben develops his interpretation of bare life, as he does his interpretation of camp, along the premise that it is precisely such a paradigm. It is impossible to gauge the full, conceptual impact of camp without attending to bare life, as decision on bare life constitutes, next to the decision on the state of exception, the sovereign state's other prerogative, and constitutive moment. Like his conceptualisation of camp, Agamben's conceptualisation of bare life is quite complex and multifaceted. As in his conceptualisation of camp, moreover, the work of Arendt seems influential in his conception of bare life. Resonances of Arendt's discussion of the plight of the human being following the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen can be felt in the

concept, and the connection made between bare life and the refugee is related, perhaps, to these resonances. In addition, some have made a connection between Agamben's bare

life and Benjamin's mere life (Caldwell 2004, 8). This is, of course, far from unthinkable, as the ghosts of Benjamin can be felt at many moments in the work of

Agamben. While some of these, particularly the ghosts of messianism, will be attended

to in the next chapter, the scope of this dissertation prohibits a fuller examination of the

affinities and dissonances between the two.

If we keep in mind Agamben's deployment of paradigm, and conceive of homo

sacer as a paradigm in the exemplary sense, the variety, and number of conceptions of 219 bare life that Agamben puts forth begin to make more sense. It is necessary, first and foremost, to address homo sacer, as it is Agamben's best-developed, perhaps foundational, and definitely paradigmatic conceptualisation of bare life. While attending to the historical specificity of the concept of homo sacer, and tracing it to Roman law,

Agamben not only equates bare life and homo sacer (Agamben 1995, 8, 79), but argues that every society decides who their homines sacri are, or in other words, what life is devoid of value (139). According to his interpretation of the Roman legal concept, the homo sacer is he who is the sacred man — sacred in the sense of being accursed, impossible to touch without dirtying oneself (79) — who can be killed without punishment, but not sacrificed (8; 81-2). He is the one who has been banned from the city of men, who has been in effect reduced to mere humanity, and hence effectively almost animalised. For Agamben, the homo sacer is of paradigmatic importance as it the original figure of life taken into the sovereign ban, and its abandonment constitutes the exclusion through which the political dimension is constituted (83). It is important, moreover, as it is that figure through which the sovereign constitutes itself as that power that can decide on the life worth living, and that power that constitutes the political order, and demarcates the boundary of the political through the abandonment of bare life. As

Agamben argues, the sovereign is he with respect to whom all men are homines sacri

(84), as it is he who decides who the homines sacri are.

We should pause here, and reflect on this conceptualisation and its relationship to the sovereign, and to the political. It is important, from the outset, to keep in mind that the political domain to which Agamben refers, and which he understands to be created 220 through the abandonment of bare life, is the political that I have thus far referred to as being conditioned by the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex. At many moments

Agamben refers to this political somewhat problematically as the western conception of political (Agamben 1995, 7). This notwithstanding, I would argue that the political to which he refers is the political whose lineage I outlined in Chapter Three. It is the political over which the nation-state claims monopoly, and which state discourse constructs as the only legitimate political — deriving its legitimacy from the aforementioned lineage. For this reason, criticisms of bare life on the grounds that it is depoliticised or apolitical are misplaced. First, in arguing that the exclusion of bare life is that which founds western politics, and that in fact bare life is included within its domain precisely through this original exclusion, Agamben actually sees bare life as the very foundation of the dominant, state-based conception of the political. At the foundation of this political is man's act of opposing himself to bare life through language, while at the same time maintaining a relation with it (Agamben 1995, 8). This is the act of separating bios from zoe, pure, biological subsistence from a life worth living, a potentially political life.

Second, Agamben is simultaneously critical of such conceptualisation of the political, and argues that it is necessary to invent the political anew (1996, 16). As such, the political that is founded on this original exclusion is, for Agamben, not the political that needs to be salvaged, nor the political that needs to be expanded, stretched, or in some manner reformulated so as to include bare life. It is, for Agamben, a political of an age gone by, a political founded on the fiction of the theory of sovereign right, one that 221

should be discarded rather than expanded. For Agamben, it is not only undesirable, but

also impossible to return to, or remain within the realm of classical politics; there is no

return from the camp (Agamben 1995,18). Bare life, thus, is political in a second way: it

is the foundational figure of a coming political. Bare life, therefore, is both the originary political element (88) and the figure that will usher in a new political. It is not only that

whose inclusion (through its original exclusion) founds the political monopolised by the

state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, but that on which a new political can be imagined.

As such, no life is more political than it (183), while at the same time no life is more

dangerous to the classical political order. Agamben argues that the bare life created by

modernity cannot be tolerated by it (179). In this manner, that which is produced by the

political (bare life) or the nation-state (refugee) as excess, and expelled so that stability

and equilibrium can be maintained is at the same time that which threatens it, and

exposes the fiction on which it is founded.

When discussing bare life, for which the paradigmatic figure is homo sacer, it is

impossible to not refer to the refugee. For Agamben, the potential of bare life is at present

found in the refugee. Many of those interpreting, and working with Agamben have taken

the refugee and refugee camp to be the par excellence example of bare life, and the state

of exception/camp respectively. Agamben recognises Arendt as the first theorist who

politicised the refugee by illustrating the refugee's exclusion from the political

framework founded on the nation-state. For Arendt, the post-War entrenchment of the

nation-state system created an unprecedented number of refugees, and a refugee

'problem' impossible to get rid of, due largely to the impossibility of repatriation, and the 222 undesirability of naturalisation (Arendt 1951, 281; 283-5). For Arendt, the greatest and most tragic consequence was that insofar as they could not belong to any community, they lost the right to have rights (295-6).

It is through this that Arendt first pointed to the fiction of human rights and the mere human being in contemporary state discourse. According to Agamben, Arendt pointed to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizen as the document that, in making the human being appear as such, simultaneously removed it from within the scope of the political, and hence from the possibility of having rights (Agamben 1995,

126). The Declaration of the Rights of Man is, for Arendt, the document with which human rights broke down, as effectively, the human became the citizen, and human rights became citizen rights, to be protected by the nation-state (126-8). Thus, human rights broke down when bare human beings actually appeared in the realm of the political, as part of the declaration (126), and when those who advocated for human rights were faced with a naked human being who lost all qualities other than being human (Arendt 1951,

297; 299-300).

As Arendt argues, as soon as the world was confronted with bare human beings, without the nation-state to grant and protect their rights, the world could not cope; there was no place in the political order of the nation-state for a pure, naked human being

(quoted in Agamben 1996, 20). It is for this reason that the refugee, as the bare, homeless human being can fit within the order of nation-state only if it remains a temporary status (20). If state discourse were to acknowledge its permanence, it would effectively acknowledge the collapse of the nation-state order, for permanent and 223 legitimate existence outside of the nation-state framework would spell the end of a system based on the assumption that nation-states are the only legitimate container of humanity. Caldwell argues that the discourse of nation-state combines with humanitarianism to make refugees aberrant citizens who must be contained in camps

(Caldwell 2004, 14). I would argue that the discourse of nation-state does not, in fact, need to combine with any other discourse to make the refugee an aberrant, anomalous, temporary figure. What is most important about the construction of the refugee as

aberrant, however, is that as a result of its aberrance, the refugee is also often constructed

as morally aberrant. As Liisa Malkki points out, post-World War II discourses

constructed homelessness as a political-moral problem, and as a threat to moral behaviour

(Malkki 1992, 34). The normalisation of the relationship between place and people made

displacement seem pathological. As a result, one of the first remedies given to refugees

is a spatial one (34). As Arendt argues, in a perfectly organised nation-state system, the

loss of home meant the loss of humanity (Arendt 1951,296-7). Refugees, therefore, were

not only pathologised, but became raw, undifferentiated material (Malkki 1992, 34), the

indistinct, nondescript, yet threatening and destabilising excess created by the nation-state

system.

That the refugee continues to threaten the order from which it is expelled, and

thus has the potential to subvert it did not escape Arendt, or Agamben after her.

According to Agamben, Arendt was the first to point to the potential of the refugee, and

to make the refugee the vanguard of its time (Agamben 1996, 16). For Agamben, the

refugee is the "only figure for people today", the only category in which we can see the 224 forms and limits of the coming political community (16, 22). Arguing that it is necessary to abandon concepts through which subjects of the political have hitherto been represented — man, citizen, sovereign, people, worker — Agamben argues that the figure of refugee ought to be retained to ground the new political (16). For Agamben, the refugee is the only possible figure, as it is the refugee who breaks the identity between human and citizen, and birth and nation (1995, 131; 1996, 21). It is, as such, a limit concept that calls into question the categories of the nation-state (1995, 134), and thus brings the fiction of sovereignty into crisis (1996, 21). It reveals the bare life that secretly founds the political (1995, 131), the bare life through the exclusion of which the state politics are founded, and through the exclusion of which — as the only truly political element — the political is actually evacuated from the space of state politics. It has the potential, therefore, to clear the way for new categories of a political where bare life is no longer separated or excepted (1995,134).

As bare life, therefore, the refugee has two distinct, albeit intrinsically related functions. First, the refugee exposes the unsustainability of the nation-state, the impossibility of organising humanity into nation-state containers without there being a substantial, destabilising remainder or excess. In doing so it reveals, second, the unsustainability of modern, nation-state sovereignty, and in turn, the fictitious foundations of the discourse that buttresses and legitimates the state-sovereignty- citizenship complex through which it operates. As bare life, the refugee opens a space from which the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex can be perceived in a light that reveals it as a construct, an unsustainable fiction, and in doing so denaturalises it, and the 225 naturalising narrative by means of which it constructs and legitimates itself and its claim over the political. The camp, and particularly the refugee camp, serves an analogous function. As a space that contains bare life, the political excess of the nation-state's political, or the destabilising remainder of the nation-state, the refugee camp enables us to perceive the categories of the nation-state in the kind of light, and from the kind of distance (the kind of clearing) that denaturalises it, and in denaturalising it commences the process of its de-struction.

Bare life, the refugee as its modern example, the camp, and the refugee camp as its modern example, are political subjects and spaces par excellence. They are, in fact, the subject and space which, upon denaturalising and destructing the nation-state, and with it the present political, can usher in a new political, and thus a new way of enacting our relationship to each other. The manner in which the camp and the refugee can ground a new political is, however, the subject of the next chapter. This chapter focuses merely on the manner in which the camp and the refugee denaturalise, de-struct, and destabilise the state-citizenship-sovereignty complex that naturalises the nation-state, and in turn, its claim on the political. While the work of Agamben is foundational in this regard, it has also produced a groundswell of theorising in the social sciences, much of it focussed on the concept of camp and its possible applications. Many have attempted to augment Agamben's work by interpreting his concepts, building on them, and creating spin-off concepts. As Agamben's work expressedly avoids dealing with particular incarnations of the paradigmatic camp, many have attempted to augment Agamben's 226 work precisely by applying the concept of camp to already existing material realities, and adjusting it if necessary.

Biilent Diken (2004), and Diken and Carsten Laustsen (2005) have made perhaps the most ambitious attempt to translate and apply Agamben's work. With the expressed purpose of using the work and concepts of Agamben to revitalise and refocus sociological analysis, Diken and Laustsen focus particularly on the concepts of bare life, camp, and state of exception. Although they employ the concepts fairly uncritically, their reading and interpretation of Agamben is difficult to sustain, so much so that the concepts they deploy actually seem to have little, if any relation to those conceptualised by

Agamben. This is not to say that their engagement with the work of Agamben has produced nothing valuable. For one, Diken makes an important contribution with the concept of transient permanence. Diken develops the concept of transient permanence by deconstructing the distinction between transient and permanent, and pointing to the unsustainability of their mutual exclusion (Diken 2004, 94). That permanence may in fact be transient, and thus may in fact be replaced by something altogether different denaturalises that which is, and opens the possibility of the existence of something else.

From the perspective of this dissertation, a conceptualisation of permanent transience could have been equally valuable. The distinction is not merely semantic. In speaking to the material reality of the camp (a transitory space turned permanent), it speaks also to the inadequacy and unsustainability of the categories of nation-state, of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, of the narrative that has been constructed to sustain it, and of its claim on the political. In acknowledging that that which state 227 discourse constructs as temporary in order to sustain and legitimate itself is in fact permanent, the concept of permanent transience destabilises the nation-state, and the discourse that sustains it in a manner distinct from transient permanence. In other words,

in exposing the permanence of that which the nation-state needs to remain temporary, the revelation that the transience of the camp and the refugee is in fact permanent has the potential to de-struct the order constructed around the nation-state.

If we return to Diken and Laustsen's application of Agamben's concepts, it seems that two misunderstandings lie at the foundation of many of the arguments they make.

The first is a fundamental misinterpretation of the relationship Foucault establishes between the normal and the abnormal. Diken and Laustsen argue for the need to

"radicalise Foucault" (as well as Schmitt) by doing away with the background of

normality against which the abnormal (or exceptional) could prove itself as such (Diken

and Laustsen 2005, 6). Equating the disappearance of this background of normality —

which needless to say neither Foucault nor Schmitt theorised, and Foucault's conception

of normality and abnormality in fact specifically opposes such understanding of society

— with Agamben's contention that the exception is becoming the rule, they argue that

the normality and abnormality (i.e. exception) are now a matter of choice (6). This,

however, is not the most consequential misinterpretation of Foucault, although one

related to it. What is most problematic, and of greater consequence to their argument is

their misinterpretation of Foucault's conception of power, which they understand as

revealing a fundamental duality of power, whereby power is both positive and liberating,

and negative and restrictive (9). 228

It is this equation of positive with liberating, and the subsequent jump from positive to liberating to voluntary (Diken and Laustsen 2005, 9) that is the most problematic. The chain of positive-to-liberating-to-voluntary does not exist in Foucault, who argues that power is positive, in the sense of being creative and enabling, which has little to do with voluntary or liberating in the manner discussed by Diken and Laustsen.

On the grounds of this crucial misinterpretation, Diken and Laustsen develop the concept of camping, which seems analogous to a kind of segmentation or ghettoisation of society

(1, 58, 73). On its grounds, moreover, they develop the idea of twin camps, or the idea that all camps come in twos (101; 109). There are old and new camps (147), real and virtual camps (150), and malevolent and benevolent camps, or forced and voluntary camps (9, 96). This last distinction is perhaps the most obvious and direct result of their misunderstanding of the concept of power, on the foundation of which they argue that there are bad camps for 'losers' or denizens (detention centres, refugee camps), and supposedly benevolent camps (theme parks, gated communities, sex tourism) for

'winners' or consumer-citizens (9). The logic on the basis of which they develop this conception seems to be that one can be excluded (involuntary exception, hence involuntary (en)campment, hence bad, restrictive, malevolent camp) or one can self- exclude (voluntary, self-exception, hence desirable — at least from the perspective of the one who removes oneself — camp, and at least a potentially benevolent, liberating camp). It is this logic that also enables Diken and Laustsen to create a relationship between mobile phone usage and the state of exception, and argue that the mobile phone is in fact an instrument of self-exception (58). 229

The above is not unrelated to the problematic manner in which they develop, and extend the concept of homo sacer. Seemingly entirely unaware of the paradigmatic manner in which Agamben deploys the concept, Diken and Laustsen argue that homo sacer is the antithesis of the multitude, but can, in fact, be transformed into it (Diken and

Laustsen 2005, 151-2). One is left to surmise that they are referring to multitude as conceptualised by Hardt and Negri (2000), which would position homo sacer as the singular, apolitical figure that, politicised through becoming a part of the multitude of homines sacri can effect political change. This problematic opposition aside, the remainder of their analysis seems based on the questionable assumption that all subjects and identities that blur, problematise or otherwise call into question pre-existing distinctions are homines sacri or bare life by virtue of this function. Although they do not say so outright, this seems to be the only reasonable explanation for attempting to establish an analogy between Diana, Princess of Wales and homo sacer, and the sovereign and the paparazzi (38).

Diken and Laustsen's attempt to apply, and build on the work of Agamben is problematic in a second fundamental way. For Diken and Laustsen, the camp is the enemy of politics (Diken and Laustsen 2005, 163), and unless politicised through the multitude, so too seems to be the homo sacer. As was previously discussed, and as I have continually argued in this dissertation, Agamben's bare life is pre-eminently political. So too is the camp, as it is through bare life and the camp that a new political can be established. Diken and Laustsen, however, are not the only theorists who disagree with that argument. Jenny Edkins and Veronique Pin-Fat (2005) are, like Diken and 230

Laustsen, sympathetic to Agamben's arguments. As such, they do not want to dismiss his conceptualisation of bare life as apolitical, and hence regressive with respect to

critical theory. Diken and Laustsen claim to politicise and radicalise Agamben's concepts

through a radicalisation of their Foucauldian foundations. Edkins and Pin-Fat, on the

other hand, attempt to politicise and radicalise bare life through Foucault, or more

specifically, through an application of Foucault's conception of power to the relationship between sovereignty, camp, and bare life. On the ground that Foucault's conception of power is intrinsically tied to resistance Edkins and Pin-Fat argue that relations of power

are not possible within the camp where bare life subsists, for within the camp resistance

is lacking (Edkins and Pin-Fat 2005, 10, 13). As relations of power exist only in the

presence of relations of resistance, and relations of resistance exist only in the presence of

relations of power, the camp is a space where relations of power do not exist. To the

question of why relations of resistance do not exist in the camp and do not apply to bare

life Edkins and Pin-Fat respond that it is so because camp and bare life are engendered by

sovereignty, and as sovereignty cannot be resisted, spaces and subjects entering into

relations with sovereignty are constructed not by relations of power, but by relations of

violence (13,17).

Despite what might seem like a hopeless bind in which the lack of relations of

power-resistance reduces the utility of camp and bare life to critical theory, and reduces

their effectiveness in unhinging and challenging the state-sovereignty-citizenship

complex's monopolisation of the political, Edkins and Pin-Fat find a way to politicise

bare life. They do so by arguing that what is necessary is a re-institution of power 231 relations (which, for them, would equal the reinstitution of political relations) through corporeal resistance to sovereignty, in other words, through the assumption of bare life

(Edkins and Pin-Fat 2005, 15). Illustrative of this kind of resistance is the refugee who sewed shut his lips in protest, as by assuming bare life he transformed it through the act of corporeal resistance into Agamben's form-of-life (16; 20), a life that resists the separation of bios and zoe on which the dominant conception of the political, and the state-sovereignty-eitizenship complex are grounded. While this in itself might not be a bad conceptualisation of corporeal resistance and its relationship to the political, Edkins and Pin-Fat's argument is problematic in two ways. It is a closed, circular argument that states that in relations of camp and bare life relations of power are absent because resistance is absent, and resistance is absent because relations of power are lacking.

Edkins and Pin-Fat then proceed to argue for the reinstitution of power through resistance, and the reinstitution of the potential for resistance through the reinstitution of power.

While this is a fundamental problem, it is not this that most interests us here.

What is of greater importance is the fundamental assumption of the argument, common to

Edkins and Pin-Fat, and Diken and Laustsen, namely, that bare life is apolitical (or anti- political) and camp is a space devoid of the political, and devoid of resistance and acting subjects (or worse, as Diken and Laustsen argue, the enemy of politics, the antithesis of the city). While the political potential of Agamben and the concepts of bare life and camp have been attended to previously, and will be attended to further in the subsequent chapter, I would like to point to two things here. First, it is important to take note of the 232 causal link that arguments such as this generally establish between resistance, actorship, and subjectivity; the political; and any critical use or endeavour. This connection seems to indicate that to be an actor or subject one has to resist; to be political one has to be a subject and resist, and inversely, to be an actor, to resist, to be a subject, one has to be political. This is a problematic connection, but one that will take more time to unravel than is possible given the scope of this dissertation. What is more relevant to the dissertation is the second issue, namely, the insistence that Agamben depoliticises (and hence removes subjectivity from) bare life and the camp. This, I would argue, cannot be sustained as an interpretation of Agamben's concepts of bare life and camp.

As previously mentioned, on a number of occasions Agamben refers to bare life, and bare life incarnated in the refugee as the most, if not the only political figure of our time (1996, ix-x). Bare life is political, first, as it is that which is excluded to found the dominant understanding of the political, and in being excluded is thus included as its limit. In this sense, bare life founds the political structured by the state-sovereignty- citizenship complex, and perhaps counter intuitively is that through which this political space is actually evacuated of the kind of political in which Agamben is interested. Bare life, however, is political is a second sense. In being that figure whose (inclusive) exclusion founds political space, and in a sense, whose exclusion evacuates the political element from within this political space, bare life is that figure on the grounds of which a different political can be built. The critics, therefore, can be answered in two ways.

First, Agamben explicitly states that bare life and the camp are political. For some, however, this might not be sufficient, as what an author at times states might in fact be 233 contrary to what the body of his work indicates. There is, however, a second response: it is the critics' inattention to Agamben's distinction between state discourse's conception of political, and the kind of political he is interested in furthering that leads to a misinterpretation of the relationship between camp, bare life, and the political, and their conclusion that they are depoliticised by Agamben.

It might be useful at this point to develop this argument by dissecting two statements made by Agamben, which separately and together could be construed as a depoliticisation of camp and bare life. Agamben states that "camp inhabitants are stripped of every political status" (Agamben 1995, 171) and that in the camp "power confronts nothing but pure life, without any mediation" (183). Let us look at the first statement first. That camp inhabitants are stripped of every political status does not need to imply that the camp is an apolitical space, and that its inhabitants are not political beings. The equation of the stripping of political status — the status that, according to state discourse regarding the political, is accorded to subjects (citizens) by the sovereign state — with depoliticisation as such shows nothing more than the inability to move beyond the language and discourse of state, which claims monopoly over the political.

Agamben, who builds on Arendt and her distinction between a qualified (nationalised, rights-bearing and -deserving, fettered, etc.) and un-qualified (un-nationalised, non- citizen, bare, naked, right-less, unfettered) life, seems likely to be noting that bare life is a life stripped of the categories that make a being political and rights-deserving according to a discourse for which the political exists only within the confines of the space structured by the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex. In other words, the crux of the 234 issue is, again, the distinction between the political as conceptualised by what Agamben has called the dominant, western discourse of the political, and the political to come.

Even more than the distinction between state discourses on the political, and the political to come, it is a matter of the distinction between state discourse and its conception of the political, and an-other understanding of the political. To say that Agamben depoliticises bare life and the camp by stating that they are stripped of every political status is to equate politicalness with that which the state deems political.

The second statement, that in the camp power confronts pure, unmediated life, can be understood in the same context. To interpret this statement as arguing that in the camp there is no political is, once again, to succumb to state discourse on the political, which claims the political for the state, and for those who it constructs through mediating categories such as national, citizen, resident, and so forth. That camp inhabitants are effectively (if not actually) stripped of those categories, and relate with the sovereign state directly, without mediating categories, does not mean that they do not resist, or are not subjects or actors. The problems surrounding the equation of resistance, subjectivity, actorship, and being political aside, it does not mean that they are not political. They are not political only if one is unable, or unwilling to step outside of, or beyond the discourse and categories deployed by the state, and if one continues to take its claims regarding itself, and its monopoly on the political for granted.

It is now possible, after this crucial diversion on the relationship between bare life, camp, and the political, to return to the refugee as an incarnation of bare life, to the refugee camp as an incarnation of camp, and to their potential to subvert the state- 235 sovereignty-citizenship complex, and usurp its claim on the political. As previously mentioned, Agamben argues that the refugee, in breaking the connection between man and citizen, and birth and nation denaturalises the nation-state by exposing the contingency and struggle through which it emerged, and through which the narrative that supports it — namely that of the legitimate, progressive, historical development of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex — attained dominance. Those not convinced of the politicalness of bare life, however, usually also remain unconvinced that Agamben conceives of the refugee as the political figure par excellence. Many seem to see themselves as politicising the refugee in spite of, and against Agamben. Others, like

Diken and Laustsen merely reproduce state categories and discourses, and as a consequence, actually do end up depoliticising the refugee.

That for Diken the refugee is apolitical is evidenced by his assertion that refugee camp life is characterised by living on small amounts of support, being prevented from finding work, having limited geographical mobility, and living where the government chooses (Diken 2004, 92). For Diken and Laustsen, camp refugees "learn merely to survive" (Diken and Laustsen 2005, 90). As the previous section of this chapter — which merely touched on the myriad of ways in which Palestinian refugees and refugee camps complicate, disturb, challenge, and usurp the power and the political space of the

Lebanese nation-state — indicates, this is certainly not the case. Moreover, as Peter

Nyers (2006) and Malkki (1996) argue, the difference between the perception and representation of refugees, and their self-perception and self-representation is vast

(Malkki 1996, 387). Thus, as Malkki argues in the context of a refugee camp in Africa, 236 while the camp's administrators de-politicise refugees and the refugee camp, creating an ahistorical, universal human subject (378), these refugees not only perceive their refugee status to have profound historical meaning (380-1), but also conceive of themselves as becoming political, and act and enact themselves accordingly (385). As Nyers argues, refugees subvert dominant understandings of the political by reclaiming their politicalness, and thus pushing the boundaries of the political (Nyers 2006, 98, x). That those without state citizenship are denied speech, and the expectation to be heard (16) does not mean that they do not speak, or do not expect to be heard. As I hope is evidenced by the above interpretation of the relationship Agamben establishes between the camp, bare life, and the political, Agamben's work supports, and in fact, necessitates these conclusions.

Conclusion

The aim of this chapter was twofold. It was, first, to illustrate how Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon challenge the Lebanese nation-state, and in doing so, expose the fictitious nature of nation-state legitimacy. It was, second, to illustrate how the camp, as theorised by Agamben, challenges the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex in which the nation-state is grounded, and through which the nation-state and its claim over the political is legitimated. Each of the two sections comprised one part of the climax. With this chapter, therefore, we have reached the climax, and stood in a clearing from the perspective of which the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex could be perceived for the 237

construction that it is, while its monopoly on the political could emerge as simultaneously illegitimate and fictitious.

Throughout the ascent, in the words of Heidegger, the world was beginning to world. The state-sovereignty-citizenship complex was being unhinged, disrupted, and

denaturalised from within the discourse it deployed to sustain and legitimate itself;

cracks, lacunae, and ambiguities were emerging from within the discourse that buttressed

and legitimated the nation-state's hold on the political. With this chapter, we stood in a

clearing that revealed the manner in which the refugee camp and the refugee, the camp

and bare life de-struct the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex that grounds the nation-

state, and the fictitious nature of its monopoly on the political. The next chapter marks

the descent. Having de-structed the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex and its

monopoly on the political, an attempt can now be made to imagine an altogether different

political. 238

Chapter Five: An-other Political — The Promise of Camp

The climax marked by the previous chapter was made possible by the confluence of my encounters with, and in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, and the trajectory of my academic work. It is a particular confluence, and with it a particular climax could be ascended to, and a particular perspective attained on some of the constructs that structure our world, our perceptions of ourselves and others, and our comportment towards them.

In providing a particular perspective, and enabling a stepping back to a particular distance, and in a particular direction a climax enables us to see our world (or at least a piece of that world) differently, bathed in a different light, highlighted and shadowed in different places, with different aspects concealed and unconcealed. This particular climax enabled us to glance at the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex that grounds the nation-state and its claim on the political from a distance afforded by the camp, and the refugees who inhabit it. They exposed the lacunae, crises, omissions, and glossing(s)- over that inhere in the discourse deployed by the modern state to legitimate its existence and its claim on the political.

By de-structing the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, and the discourse that brings it into existence, and legitimates its claim over the political, we are also able to glance ahead, to glimpse the possibility of alternative ways of conceptualising the world in which we exist. We can begin to imagine a different world, one not structured by the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, and hence a different political, one not claimed by it. The dissertation's work was the ascent, the clearing of the clearing; the descent, the 239 building of a new temple, and the imagining of an-other world is beyond its scope. This last chapter, therefore, merely offers a glimpse of the possibilities opened by the clearing, merely begins to explore the contours of a different political. Such endeavour is, of course, not new, and what this chapter attempts to construct is made possible by others' attempts to wrestle the political away from the grip of the nation-state. The chapter's first aim is to explore some of these attempts. The second aim of the chapter is to further explore the work of Agamben and those who engage with, and interpret his work.

Against conventional interpretations of Agamben, the chapter builds on the argument put forth in Chapter Four, namely, that as deployed by Agamben the concepts of bare life and camp, among others, can help us imagine the political in a an-other way. The third, and final aim of this chapter is to shed some light on the possibilities opened by this reconceptualisation of the political, possibilities that can perhaps, in the words of Arendt

(reproduced in the second epigraph to the dissertation), stave off the growth of worldlessness, and the spread of the desert.

Stretching and Relocating the Political

Denaturalising, and revealing the fiction of the state's monopoly over the political has for

decades comprised the work of critical theory. It would be both unnecessary and

impossible to discuss all, or even the majority of this literature here. I would argue, however, that much of this work can be roughly divided into two fundamental, although not mutually exclusive categories: work that wrestles the political away from the state by

stretching it, and work that does so by relocating it. Although by no means homogenous, 240 the first category, the stretching of the political, seems to be characterised by attempts to extend the political from an epicentre outwards. As if by means of a leak, the political extends out from the city or the state, and moves outwards to spaces and subjects outside of these epicentres. Whether the political bursts out, seeps out, or is siphoned off by those on the outside, whether it moves out in concentric circles, traverses scales and sub- scales, or spreads like an ink stain — unpredictably and without apparent form or pattern

— the political slowly consumes an increasing number of spaces, subjects, and acts. It is stretched over more of the margins, more and more of its outside. To this category belong also attempts to stretch, bend, and remould concepts that the dominant discourse constructs as prerequisites of being political: citizenship, subjecthood, rationality. While a version of the stretching of the political and its prerequisite concepts is apparent even in the discourse that legitimates the state and its emergence, it also can, and has been a critical, radical endeavour. First, the stretching of the political, the continuous pushing outwards of the envelope (or, alternately, its pulling) is critical as it has tangible, material effects on the lives of the subjects to whom it is stretched. Second, the bringing of the outside in (from the perspective of the state), or the stretching of the inside outwards

(from the perspective of its outside) does not need to imply the extension of an already constituted, unchangeable political. In the most useful and critical work, as the political is

stretched, it is also transformed, at times unrecognisably, at times into something unrelated to what state discourse constructs as the only form, and legitimate incarnation

of the political. Its most radical potential lies, therefore, in the fact that nothing can be

infinitely stretched; when stretched beyond its breaking point that which is stretched 241 bursts, and with it bursts the fiction of its infinite and essential inclusiveness, and the legitimacy it bestows.

If we take a closer look, at least two kinds of stretching of the political can be identified. The political, first, can be stretched to an ever-expanding number of subjects, spaces, and acts. With it, prerequisite and co-requisite concepts, identities, and statuses

(such as citizenship, or franchise) can also be stretched to accommodate more subjects.

According to discourses deployed by the state, this broadening or stretching of the political is often the organic outcome of the historical progression and evolution of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, a natural broadening of rights and expansion of inclusion. This discourse of the stretching of the political — in which the political's extension radiates from, and is directed by the state — has a critical counterpart. In the account offered by this critical counterpart the political and its prerequisite identities and concepts are not willingly extended by the state, but are in fact usurped or forcefully pulled by those on their outside. The political, therefore, is pulled from what the discourse deployed by the state considers its outside. In other words, those on the outside are included as a result of their struggle for inclusion, their tugging and pulling on the prerequisites of being political (citizenship, for instance). The state does not grant them citizenship, so that through the benevolence of the state they can become political; they become political by taking it, or struggling for entrance into it.

Whether the state is benevolent, and expands the political realm of its own accord, or subjects struggle for its extension and force the state to concede, this kind of stretching of the political is based on what Isin calls the logic of exclusion (Isin 2002, 4). It is a 242 logic that structures the order of nation-states, whereby everyone is a member of a nation, a citizen of a state; everyone is included somewhere, and hence can be excluded elsewhere. Those who are excluded, on the outside of the political — or of the citizenship that enables them to be legitimately political according to state discourse — are progressively included, either by waiting their turn in the queue of expanding rights, or by usurping them. In either case, the 'outside' — of the political, of citizenship, of rights-bearing subjects — shrinks, and the 'inside' expands. If taken to its logical conclusion, the entire outside can eventually be interiorised, and all the excluded

included. Not only, as Isin argues, does this assume the existence of pre-constituted

subjectivities (citizen and non-citizen, political and not political), but it necessitates also a pre-constituted political realm — generally, the political of the state-sovereignty-

citizenship complex — a realm into which one can enter, and within which one can persist.

The second, and far more radical strand of the stretching of the political is not

founded on any of the above assumptions. As such, it is not merely a further

radicalisation of the above discourses, but rather a transformation of the way in which the

political and its stretching is conceived. It is not founded on the logic of exclusion from,

or inclusion into a pre-existing political, but on a logic of the enactment of the political; it

is, in other words, not the extension of a pre-existing political, or the progressive

inclusion of the excluded into an already constituted political realm, but the expansion of

the political through its enactment by those constructed by the dominant discourse as not

political, or at least not legitimately political. For Isin, for instance, while citizenship — 243 in the sense of being in the city (Isin 2002, 51) — is a prerequisite for being political, formal citizenship is not, as non-citizens become part of the city by enacting themselves as such, by becoming political through trans-valuation and trans-figuration, and hence through the denaturalisation of the given (276-84). For Paul Clarke, similarly, the political is political not as a function of an inherent characteristic, but because it is constructed as such (Clarke 1996, 73). Such understanding not only denaturalises the existing conception of the political, but also enables the attribution of politicalness to subjects, spaces, and acts not immediately considered political. It is, in effect, the stretching of the political by its enactment elsewhere.

As should be apparent from the above, attempts to relocate the political are not entirely unrelated to the critical and radical attempts to stretch it. In fact, as mentioned at the outset, moving between stretching and relocating the political, or stretching the political to the point of effective relocation is not impossible. The focus of the reconceptualisations of the political through its relocation is the transference of that which grounds or creates the political, usually from an inside (state institutions, citizens, the dominant, those who have a part, the 'have-s') to its outside (non-state mechanisms, non-citizens, the oppressed, the subaltern, those who don't have a part, the 'have-nots').

Two versions of relocating of the political, a stronger and weaker version for lack of better terminology, can be identified. In the stronger version, the political is entirely removed from within state mechanisms and institutions; only that which exists outside of these institutions is political in the true sense of the word. Jean-Philippe Deranty's interpretation of the work of Alain Badiou places it within this category, as according to 244

Deranty politics ceases to exist for Badiou the moment state form is involved (Deranty

2003, 14). The work of Jacques Ranciere, on the other hand, would belong to the weaker version of relocating the political, as for Ranciere the political can exist in state institutions; it merely cannot be reduced to them (14). In one sense, the weaker version is characterised by both the inside and outside of the state being potentially political. The difference between the stronger and weaker version of relocating the political, therefore, seems to lie in where the political's epicentre is located, from where it radiates, and two whom we owe its existence.

According to Deranty, politics is for Ranciere the struggle for recognition of radical equality, and as such, is a version of the politics of recognition (Deranty 2003, 6-

7). It could, therefore, fit into the discourse of the stretching of the political, as it involves the extension of rights, or the extension of a part to those who have no rights, and those who have no part. It is not, however, the state-centric kind of stretching of the political, in which subjects queue up for entry into the political, or struggle for entry into it. It is more akin to the more radical strand, whereby those outside of what at the time comprises the dominant understanding of the political not only struggle for entry into it, but in doing so re-shape it from the outside. The difference lies, first, in Ranciere's understanding of politics as an event, one of theatrical quality, rather than an already existing, pre-constituted realm or set of institutions. Politics for Ranciere is the bursting onto the scene, the creation of a scene, the disruption of the pre-existing and given (8-9).

Radical politics is not the stretching of the given; it is, rather, its disruption and de­ struction. It lies, second, in the assumption that political subjects do not exist prior to the 245 start of political struggle; they become political through the political event that they create (4-5). It is, to use Derrida's understanding of the American Declaration of

Independence, the signature that invents the signer (Derrida 1986, 10). The perpetual

enactment of the political by those who have no part in what state discourse recognises as the legitimate political sphere not only denaturalises the latter, but also sows the seeds of the political outside of its perimeter. Those who enact the political on what the state considers the political's outside become political through such enactments, and thus the

outside becomes not only a political space, but a political space populated by political

subjects. Therefore, the political's condition of possibility, for Ranciere, lies precisely on

that outside, with the part that has no part (Ranciere 2001). For Isin, "we owe the

existence of politics not to citizens but to non-citizens", as the political is enacted when

non-citizens revalue and transfigure that which the dominant discourse constructs as

given (Isin 2002, 284).

The distinction between stretching and relocating the political is not one between

uncritical and critical, as conservative and transformative strands, lines of though, and

moments exist within both categories. A statist version of the stretching of the political,

moreover, can exist also in attempts to relocate it. Partha Chatterjee, for instance, finds

squatter settlements to be eminently political communities (Chatterjee 2005, 85). It

would seem, however, that what makes them political is that they posses characteristics

and institutions akin to those of a state, merely on a smaller scale (Chatterjee 2005, 85);

they are small scale replicas of the state, and the kind of institutions and mechanisms

state discourse constructs as political. In effect, while indeed relocating the political, 246

Chatterjee merely replicates the state and its political on what it constructs as its outside.

As such, the extension and relocation is in fact a rather conservative one. The distinction between stretching and relocating the political, therefore, while perhaps somewhat nebulous, seems to me to be between stretching the political from an epicentre outwards, and relocating the epicentre itself. The more radical tendencies discussed above in effect

straddle the categories of stretching and relocation. In many cases, moreover, the outcome of stretching and relocating the political is similar: that which is considered

apolitical becomes political. The difference, then, can be said to be one of focus,

emphasis, and means (as opposed to ends). At times, it seems even to be a matter of where the political is stretched from — from the inside out, or from the outside in. At times, the distinction is largely analytical. It is nevertheless useful, as constructing a

distinction only to eventually deconstruct it is in itself a critical exercise.

The Contribution of Agamben

As previously mentioned, the political can be stretched in a radical and transformative, or

a preserving manner; it can be transformed and transfigured through the stretching, or it

can merely be stretched. Likewise, the political can be relocated in a radical or statist

manner; its relocation can denaturalise and de-struct its pre-existing, state-sovereignty-

citizenship dependence, transforming it in the process, or it can merely relocate it, in its

pre-existing form, to its outside. While the conservative, preserving attempts to stretch

the political should not be dismissed, as they often have tangible, material effects on the

quality of life of those to whom it is stretched, they do not interest us here. What 247 interests us are the more transvaluing and transformative attempts to stretch and relocate the political, those that, in a sense, transcend the distinction between stretching and relocating. In revaluing the inside and outside, and in denaturalising and destabilising that which state discourse constructs as given, this work conditions the possibility of a further, more fundamental transformation of the political. Effective intervention into a field, argues Derrida, is impossible without this initial transvaluation, this initial overturning of a given hierarchy (Derrida 1972, 39). In this section, I would like to explore what possibilities are opened when Agamben's work on the political is added onto the foundations provided by these transvaluing and transformative reconceptualisations of the political.

It is my argument that Agamben's critique of the political (as constructed by state discourse), as well as his attempts to theorise an-other conceptualisation is distinct from those outlined above. If we attempt to describe Agamben's work as either stretching or relocating the political, we see that his work on the political is neither of the kind that stretches, nor of the kind that relocates it. Although it transcends the stretching- relocation distinction, it does so in a manner distinct from that described in the previous section. While it might be argued that Agamben relocates the political from the state to the camp, or from the citizen to the refugee, I would like to argue that he does not actually move the political. Rather, he exposes the contingency of the dominant conceptualisation of the political by pointing to the originary exclusion of bare life, the exclusion that founds the dominant conception of the political. In declaring that to be the eminently political element, he points to the existence of a path not taken, to the existence 248 of another possibility of the political at what state discourse constructs as the origin of the modern state system. In doing so, he disrupts the narrative that legitimates the nation- state, and as a result, delegitimates, disrupts, and denaturalises its claim over the political.

As Agamben himself argues, it is valuable to develop and work-over what a theorist leaves unsaid, undeveloped, and unworked-over (Agamben 2002a). This is precisely what I hope to do with Agamben's work on the political. Some might argue that what is to follow is perhaps not in keeping with what Agamben said or intended to say, or not the logical extension of his work. It is, like all else, an interpretation, and one that does not pretended to be anything more. It is, however, also an attempt to explore what

Agamben's work, and its interpretations can offer to the project of de-structing the relationship between the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex and the political, and constructing a new political from its fragments.

As was noted in Chapter Four, an argument exists that Agamben's work in fact contracts the political, or depoliticises those who, while perhaps not constructed as political by state discourse, are in fact political beings. This argument is worth at least partially reiterating here, as it is in response to it that I begin to point in the direction of an-other political. The argument (outlined in more detail in the Chapter Four) is that

Agamben depoliticises bare life and the camp, and with them the refugee, as well as the refugee camp. Critics of Agamben perceive the aforementioned subjectivities and spaces

(as well as their various incarnations) to be emptied by Agamben of resistance and agency, and hence also of the political. Edkins and Pin-Fat, for instance, argue that both

Agamben and Foucault conceptualise bare life in a way that precludes it from being a 249 political life (Edkins and Pin-Fat 2005, 9). Many critical theorists who engage with the work of Agamben seem to, in fact, politicise bare life, the refugee, refugee camps, and other associated subjectivities and spaces as if against Agamben's depoliticisation of them. William Walters, for instance, conceives of Agamben's camp as bleak, and proposes as an alternative an active, autonomous, subjectivity-inventing migrant (Walters

2008, 188). Peter Nyers, again as if against Agamben's conception of bare life and the

camp, puts forth the concept of politicised, resisting, and struggling "refugee warriors", who push the boundaries of the political, and resist their capture in depoliticised spaces

such as the camp (Nyers 2006,15).

As argued in Chapter Four, these arguments can be challenged on at least three

grounds. First, Agamben continually points to the politicalness of bare life and the

refugee. He argues, in fact, that the refugee is the political subjectivity par excellence,

the political figure on whose foundation a new conception of the political can be

constructed. Thus, while an argument can conceivably be made that Agamben's work

does not live up to the statements it makes about itself, it seems rather difficult to sustain

an argument that Agamben depoliticises something he explicitly proclaims to be political.

Second, it is necessary to attend to the distinction Agamben makes between state

discourses on the political (through which the political necessarily emerges within, and is

inextricably tied to the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex), and the kind of political

that Agamben wishes to delineate. Attention to the distinction enables us to interpret

Agamben as arguing that bare life, for instance, in being stripped of every political status,

is depoliticised merely from the perspective of the dominant, state discourse on the 250 political. To argue, then, that bare life and the refugee are depoliticised by Agamben is to fail to move beyond state discourse and constructions of the political, and of who qualifies as being political, or as having the status of a political being; it is to accept as legitimate the categories constructed by state discourse as prerequisite to being political, and to fail to move beyond the language and discourse of state that bestows on the state- sovereignty-citizenship complex a legitimate monopoly over the political. It fails to distinguish between the political of the state, and the kind of political that Agamben is after.

As noted in the previous chapter, the arguments that Agamben depoliticises the refugee and the refugee camp can also be challenged on the grounds of the relationship they often establish between resisting and being political. The necessary, and at times causal relationship between resistance, subjectivity, and the political seems problematic, or at least in need of being explored. One could ask, for instance, why subject-hood and political-ness are measured through resistance. Why, for instance, does a subject constitute itself as political through resistance? In addition to questioning this relationship, one could also question what seems to me to be a prevalent fixation, particularly in sociological analyses — the perpetual search for actors and resistance, and perpetual interrogations into whether or not resistance is accounted for. The sentiment that often those constructed as outsiders to the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, and depoliticised by dominant state discourses are in fact acting, transforming, and resisting is well taken. Nyers, aptly citing Ranciere, points out that if one does not wish to recognise another as a political being, one can start by not understanding or hearing their speech 251

(Ranciere in Nyers 2006, 33). It seems to me, however, that while perhaps initiated with noble intentions, the search for resistance seems at times to distract from, or even preclude an imminent critique, one willing to engage with what the work itself offers.

Moreover, such analysis often stops once the moment or subject of resistance is found.

This in itself, however, is not adequately transformative or destabilising. It can lead to a better understanding of pressure points, or points of resistance, but often does not lead to a questioning of the fundamental categories, distinctions, and concepts that ground the

status quo.

Agamben's conception of homo sacer and refugee, and their potential to usher in

a new political has also been critiqued from other angles, some more, some less relevant

for our purposes here. The three that seem to me to be most relevant are those of Peter

Fitzpatrick, Davide Panagia, and Anne Caldwell. They are most relevant as they speak

most directly to the relationship Agamben establishes between homo sacer and the

refugee and to the manner in which he deploys both concepts. Fitzpatrick argues, first,

that the relationship Agamben establishes between the refugee and homo sacer is

problematic, as the refugee is not in fact excluded from the human community in the

manner in which homo sacer was; the refugee is in fact recognised as part of the human

community by effective laws (Fitzpatrick 2001, 17). He argues, second, that Agamben's

use of the concept of homo sacer is not authoritative. Contrary to Agamben's claim,

Fitzpatrick asserts that the relationship between homo sacer and the social order of which

it was a part was actually quite normal. Homo sacer was not, as Agamben argues,

included solely through its exclusion, but was in fact part of the social order of the time 252

(3-4). That the killing of homo sacer was not equated with the commission of murder does not place it outside of the realm of law; it is not murder because it is in fact in fulfilment of the law; to kill homo sacer is to execute the law, hence is not punishable by it (4). As such, the contradiction that Agamben finds in the law, and on which he grounds his conceptualisation of inclusive exclusion, is actually resolved within the law itself (4).

Related to the criticism that Agamben's use of homo sacer is not authoritative is the concern that Agamben too readily, and too unproblematically projects the concept and problem of homo sacer to the modern period (Fitzpatrick 2001, 8). Fitzpatrick's concern is echoed by Panagia, who finds problematic that Agamben finds homo sacer, a historically-specific legal construct, to be recurring throughout history, and moreover, deploys it in a transcendental manner while simultaneously insisting that it is materially instantiated in modern politics (Panagia 1999, 3). Similar to this, although irreducible to it, is Caldwell's concern that Agamben finds a Roman category in a Greek world that would not have known of it (Caldwell 2004, 9).

These are, I would argue, legitimate concerns. Although he does not cite them directly, Agamben responds to this general category of criticism in a lecture titled "What is a Paradigm?" (2002a). Whether his responses satisfy the critics themselves is obviously impossible for me to ascertain, nor is it necessarily relevant to the problem at hand in this dissertation. What Agamben argues, in response to the above criticism, is that he is employing concepts like camp and homo sacer as paradigms, as examples or models that while singular, can serve as linchpins of further constructions (2002a). In 253 this, perhaps somewhat unsatisfactory manner, particularly from the perspective of historical accuracy, he addresses the criticisms levelled against his historically inexact use of categories and concepts.

That the refugee is governed by laws, and does in fact form part of the human

community is, I think, undeniable. From the perspective of this dissertation, however, the

concern is not whether this makes it distinct from, or incomparable to homo sacer, but whether or not Agamben should have abandoned the concept of refugee altogether, or at

least re-defined it fundamentally. Two things can be said with respect to the refugee's

relationship to the law. The refugee is, in one sense, a legal construct; it is through the

law (both international law and the law of the sovereign nation-state) that the refugee

emerges. In itself this does not make Agamben's construction and deployment of the

figure of the refugee inconsistent; for Agamben, that which is abandoned to the law's

outside is both created by, and abandoned through the law. What remains problematic,

however, is that once abandoned, the refugee is indeed still governed by laws, ones that

in fact emerge to specifically deal with the 'problem' of the refugee. This does perhaps

make the Roman concept of homo sacer incomparable to the refugee; it does not,

however, make Agamben's deployment of refugee any less valuable for our purposes

here. An argument could perhaps be made that, as became evident in the case of the

Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, laws that exist in theory often do not exist in

practice, and that, in any case, it is not the law, but its enactment and effect that are of

consequence. This, however, is not of greatest importance to us. Whether governed by 254

international laws or not, the refugee remains the destabilising excess produced by the nation-state, and the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex that underpins it.

It is for this reason that Agamben finds the figure of the refugee so valuable. As

the nation-state's excess, the refugee destabilises and denaturalises the nation-state, and

its claim on the political. In breaking the connections that found the modern nation-state,

those between nation and birth, and citizen and man, the refugee destabilises the nation-

state by revealing the fiction on which it is founded. In an attempt to re-stabilise itself, to

ride out the period of crisis, the nation-state system recaptures the refugee. Through the

camp, the refugee is re-inscribed into the order of the nation-state (Agamben 1996, 43).

Initially produced as the nation-state's excess, the refugee is again re-inscribed into the

nation-state order; through her exclusion she is included, recaptured by the system that

produces her (40). Yet, the crisis that produces the camp, argue Arendt (Arendt 1951,

287-8) and Agamben (Agamben 1995, 175), is a permanent crisis. The permanence of

the crisis ensures that the refugee and the camp become permanent identities and spaces,

and the nation-state is continually in need of new camps to contain its excesses. The

permanence of the refugee and the camp, in turn, puts the nation-state at perpetual risk.

Thus, in addition to breaking the connection between nation and birth, and citizen

and man, and in doing so destabilising the nation-state by revealing the fiction on which

it is founded, the refugee and the camp destabilise the nation-state in a second way. To

understand how, it is useful to employ the work of Deleuze and Guattari. For Deleuze

and Guattari, the state functions not on the principle of annihilation, but rather on the

principle of capture (Deleuze and Guattari 1987, 425). Deleuze and Guattari are not, nor 255 do they claim to be the first to suggest such a conceptualisation of the relationship between the state and its outside. Schmitt, argues Agamben, conceives of sovereignty as functioning not according to the logic of exclusion, but through the seizure of the outside

(Agamben 2000 104-5). If read with this in mind, the camp can be interpreted as the mechanism through which the state captures the excess it produces. The concentration camp was, in this sense, a means for granting the unlocalisable a permanent location

(1995, 20). While maintaining an affinity with these conceptualisations of the relationship between the state and the camp, Agamben differentiates his approach by arguing that what is outside is not included through internment, but through the suspension of the validity of the juridical order (18). This enables us to understand the state of exception as a mechanism of capture.

This distinction notwithstanding, the camp can still be said to function as the space that emerges within the nation-state system to include, and reinscribe into the system that which the system abjects in the first place. What I would like to focus on here is the important, yet frequently omitted part of Deleuze and Guattari's conceptualisation of state capture. Deleuze and Guattari argue that the state captures and appropriates the war machine — that which is exterior to the state apparatus (Deleuze and

Guattari 1980, 351), and that which it constructs as illegitimate and mad (354). As it captures and appropriates the war machine, the state turns it back on itself, and on the nomad, a subjectivity of the war machine, the one who is deterritorialisation par excellence and cannot, in opposition to a migrant, be reterritorialized or made sedentary

(381). It is here that those who employ the concepts of Deleuze and Guattari to talk 256 about the refugee or the refugee camp often stop (Nyers 2006, xiii). What follows, however, is perhaps most crucial: the state's capture and appropriation is in fact also dangerous for the state (Deleuze and Guattari 1980,418-9). That the idea that the capture

— and so from our perspective, the camp — is dangerous for the state is undertheorised.

Attention is paid to capture and appropriation, which misses the critical element of disturbance that the capture creates the potential for. That which the state attempts to capture, that which it in fact does capture in an attempt to stabilise itself and hide the fiction on which it is founded, is by this understanding also that volatile element which can lead to its destabilisation. What is more, the process of capturing that volatile element in the camp is in itself dangerous to the order of the nation-state.

The refugee and refugee camp, therefore, are triply destabilising. The refugee, first, reveals the fiction of on which the nation-state is founded by breaking the connection between birth and nation, and man and citizen. The refugee, second, denaturalises the nation-state order, and in being political opens the possibility of another political, one not monopolised by, or dependent on the categories of the nation-state. In revealing that there is in fact an outside, that there is in fact an excess, the refugee and the camp disrupt the order of the nation-state. Third, the camp, or the refugee's attempted reinscription into the order that produces it, is itself destabilising to the order that attempts to preserve itself through the refugee and the camp. That the exception is, for

Agamben, increasingly becoming the rule (Agamben 1995, 20; 1996, 6) should not, therefore, be taken as a bleak assessment of what is to come, but as a prophecy of tectonic movements and volcanic eruptions that the system will no longer be able to 257

contain. As an increasing number of refugees emerge from the deepening crisis of the nation-state, as capture in camps is increasingly the rule and not the exception,

increasingly a permanent 'solution' to the crisis, and not a temporary, stop-gap measure, the potential for destabilisation, revaluation, and transformation is perhaps unprecedented.

It is for the above reasons that, for Agamben, the refugee clears the way for new

categories of politics (Agamben 1995, 134), and as such, is the political figure par

excellence. It is perhaps the value he attributes to the refugee, the influences of Benjamin

or Schmitt on his work, or a combination of both that lead Agamben to position the

refugee as a kind of messianic figure. That in Agamben's work the refugee becomes a

messianic figure is not a criticism often brought against it. In fact, those who criticise

Agamben for depoliticising the refugee, or for transforming an active, resisting subject

into a passive, apolitical entity might perhaps even welcome such positioning. As

Agamben seems to indicate through the parable cited in the epigraph to this dissertation,

the small displacement necessary for the displacement of everything is so difficult to

achieve, and its measure so difficult to find that only the Messiah is capable of achieving

it (1993, 53). Although the refugee is not the Messiah, Agamben seems to find in the

figure of the refugee the messiah of the profane world, the provisional messiah who can

usher in an altogether different worldly world. Arguing that for Benjamin the messianic

figure was the proletariat, for Deleuze the minor people, for Foucault the pleb, and for

Ranciere "those who have no part", (2000, 30), Agamben defines the messianic figure as

the one able to nullify all juridico-factical conditions (31), and render inoperative all 258 present political divisions (de la Durantaye 2000, 8) by effecting that minimal displacement, not necessarily of things, but of their limit (Agamben 1993, 55).

Importantly from our perspective, the messianic figure introduces the notion that an otherwise is possible even once everything is finished (54). It can, therefore, unhinge and de-struct even that which claims or seems to be complete and immovable.

Agamben's conceptualisation of the refugee and its destabilising potential seems to fit with this understanding of the messianic figure. What is more, Agamben makes explicit reference to the "stateless" as a messianic community (Agamben 2000, 26). As if responding to those who criticise him for neglecting the agency of the refugee, Agamben makes it the catalyst par excellence, the messianic figure that can effect a revaluation of all values, a displacement that changes everything. It is against this elevation of the refugee to the status of a messianic figure that I would like to level a criticism. Creating a messianic figure, or more fundamentally, creating the need for a messianic figure is problematic. It is deterministic and essentialising. It is deterministic in investing one subject position with a transformative essence. It is essentialising, first, for the same reason; it essentialises the refugee as messianic figure. It is essentialising, however, also in a second sense. In addition to essentialising the refugee by investing it with a transformative essence, it essentialises all other subject positions as relatively un- messianic, non-transformative, lacking the potential to usher in a new political, to fundamentally transform the world which we inhabit. It not only essentialises identities and subjectivities, but also empties them of their complexities, their inherent, internal differences. 259

In Agamben's defence, the position of the refugee vis-a-vis the nation-state does make the refugee and the refugee camp ideal concepts through which to denaturalise the nation-state, and expose the fiction on which it is founded. As the discussion of

Palestinian refugees and refugee camps in Lebanon has illustrated, the camp provides the opportunity for the problematisation of the nation-state, and the state-sovereignty- citizenship complex through which it is legitimated. None of this is lost, however, if the refugee and refugee camp are treated as denaturalising, destabilising, and de-structive without being conceived of as messianic. As a figure whose permanent homelessness and nakedness speaks to the fictions that found the order of nation-states, the refugee can be conceptualised as opening a clearing, one clearing among many possible clearings, from within which the world in which we exist can be perceived differently.

An-other Political

I would now like to return to what I argued at the beginning of this chapter, namely, that critical attempts to reconceptualise the political away from the state seem to take two general forms: a stretching of the political and its prerequisite categories, or a relocation of the political. In its most critical form, the reconceptualisation of the political takes on what can be said to be a third form, which transcends, or in fact deconstructs the stretching-relocation distinction. What I would like to argue, having outlined the manner in which Agamben's conception of the refugee and the camp can help us imagine a different political, is that Agamben's reconceptualisation should not be considered either 260 a stretching, or a relocating of the political. What is more, while what he offers is indeed transformative, his conceptualisation is also distinct from the third category.

I would like to argue that instead of stretching or relocating the political,

Agamben's work interrogates, and attempts to de-struct the ground on which the political that is stretched or relocated is structured. It is for this reason that the work of Agamben, and the concepts he develops are so important to the project at hand. As I have argued from the outset, it is the de-struction of this very ground that makes possible the imagining of an-other political. Agamben's project does not aim stretch or relocate the political. Caldwell argues that Agamben in fact asserts that it is necessary to leave the entire tradition — through which the political is conceptualised — and the terms and mechanisms through which it operates (Caldwell 2004, 24). While this might be a bit of an overstatement, as it would indeed be impossible, Agamben is most certainly interested in the possibility of an-other political, or more accurately, in showing that an-other political always was, and still is possible. To articulate this other possibility Agamben inquires into the historicity of the political. It is only by doing so that one can de-struct the givenness of the political that is. It is precisely for this reason that Agamben points to what is constructed as the origin of the dominant conception of the political, and its constitutive premise: the inclusive exclusion of bare life. If it is on this premise that this conception of the political is founded, then the denaturalisation of that premise can disclose the possibility of an-other path along which the political could have emerged, and thus the possibility of an-other political. 261

According to Agamben, the inclusive exclusion of bare life was accomplished through the separation of bios from zoe. It is this separation that founded the city of men, the Platonic political. From this moment of separation, as from any other moment, an­ other path stretched out but became closed off. It was the path that, if taken, could have produced an-other political, one based not on the separation of bios and zoe, but rather, a political of the form-of-life. Agamben's understanding of form-of-life offers perhaps the clearest example of his attempt to challenge not only the content of the political, but also the very ground on which it is built. As it exists today, the political is based on a distinction between that which is political, and that which is a- or anti-political — a distinction between political, and bare life, or in other words, of bare life and form of life.

As I have previously argued, Agamben first shows us that bare life is actually not a- or anti-political. To stop there, however, would amount to stretching or relocating the political to bare life. What Agamben points to, instead, is a conception of the political that does not rely on the separation of bios and zoe: the political of the form-of-life.

Form-of-life is life that cannot be separated from its form (Agamben 1996, 3), and consequently, a life from which naked life is impossible to isolate (4).

For Agamben, the condition of the possibility of an-other, an altogether different political life is emancipation from the division between naked or bare life, and form of life (Agamben 1996, 8). The division's constitutive moment is, for Agamben, the sovereign's claim that the right to form of life is simultaneously conditioned by bare life and its abandonment. To be a political being, one must first be; yet, to be a political being one must abandon that (naked) being to the sovereign. The sovereign, and hence 262 the political structured by the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex depend on that separation. The state safeguards the (naked) lives of its citizens — not only those having the formal right to belong to a polity, but also those willing to carry out the duties of citizens, and conduct themselves as proper citizens — by safeguarding their form (the citizen). As the naked life first separated from its form is then subsumed under it, the naked life that has no form is abject-ed; it is captured in the camp.

The sovereign's authority, then, and the political structured on the foundation of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, depend on the unambiguous separation of bare, naked life from any form of life. If, however, we conceptualise form-of-life as life as such, then naked life can no longer serve as the condition of all forms of life.

Sovereign power, in turn, can no longer sustain its claim to be the life giving and sustaining power. Thus, by de-structing the distinction between naked life and form of life, and by establishing form-of-life as the possibility of political life Agamben is able to imagine a political that is altogether different, a political that is in no way conditioned by the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex.

What is essential to the form-of-life is that it bears the character of possibility.

For Agamben, "all singular ways of living are never facts but always possibilities of life"

(Agamben 1996,4). In other words, no way of being is essential, stable, or homogeneous if it is founded on the principle of form-of-life. On the contrary, all ways of being — and so all ways of being political — are always already mere possibilities, which in turn, and as a consequence of being mere possibilities, always contain within them new possibilities of being political, and new forms of life. This is a crucial insight, as 263 understanding political ways of being as potentialities or possibilities, and not as essential actualities opens up a space in which a different political can be imagined and articulated.

Against the always already defined political of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex,

Agamben posits a political of possibility, a political that never calcifies. This political, of course, conditions and necessitates the emergence of novel categories, and novel ways of conceptualising our relationship to our selves and our relationship to others. It necessitates, in other words, novel ways of imagining and resuscitating the world between us.

Crucial for Agamben are concepts such as inoperative community, the coming people, and whatever being (116-8). As these categories and concepts emerge only through the de-struction of the opposition between naked life and forms of life, including political life, they cannot be conceived of as either stretching or relocating the political.

They emerge, in fact, only through the de-struction of the foundation of the kind of political that has thus far been stretched or relocated. Of these categories, none

exemplifies what Agamben interprets as being political better than whatever being.

Whatever being is, for Agamben, being in pure singularity, without identity (Agamben

1993, 67). As it is singular, whatever being is neither universal nor particular (1). In this

sense, whatever being is akin to what Agamben calls the remnant (2000, 52). Man, for

Agamben, is remnant as beneath his being (beneath what he is) there exists no universal

human being (2000, 52-3). As whatever being is neither a particular being, nor a part of

the universal being, but rather, a remnant, Agamben's singular being enables the

deconstruction of the particular/universal opposition. Moreover, as it has no essential 264 properties, and no essence as such, whatever being does not have a historical destiny; it is always already a coming being (1993,2) — always potential, never fulfilled (35).

What is perhaps most crucial is that whatever being, in having no particular properties and in not belonging to a particular set (Agamben 1993, 2), belongs to the whole without belonging (67). Formulated in this manner, the problem of belonging opens the possibility of an-other political community — the community of whatever being (85). The community of whatever being or whatever singularities is not formed out of a condition of belonging (being such and such, i.e., being red) but by belonging itself

(85). This interpretation of community — which asserts that the community is not formed a priori by conditions of belonging, but is formed rather by the very act of belonging unconditionally — also reveals the ambiguity inherent in all community formations. For Agamben, being-called is the property that establishes all belonging, as being called something makes belonging to something possible; being called something is what conditions the possibility of the existence of a community of something-s. In being the condition of possibility of all belonging, however, being-called also precludes the possibility of essentially belonging, and brings all belonging radically into question

(10). To make an example of the example of being red: there is no essential condition of being red that creates a community of red-s other than being-called-red. Thus, the very condition of belonging calls into question belonging itself (10). The question for us now is this: what kind of a political is grounded in whatever being, and what kind of political emerges through, and from within the community of whatever singularities? 265

Agamben argues that the politics he envisions will not involve a struggle over the control of the state. It will, instead, involve the struggle between state and non-state

(Agamben 1993, 85), between state organisation and whatever singularity (85).

Agamben argues that this struggle was previewed at Tiananmen Square: when faced with

such singularity the state sent in the tanks (85). One of Agamben's most pertinent insights is that the state cannot tolerate singularities forming communities without affirming identities. While the state can tolerate any and all claims grounded in identity, tolerating even the emergence of a state-within-a-state or a state-within-itself, it cannot tolerate co-belonging without any representable condition of belonging (86). As

communities formed from whatever singularities are not bound by identities or sameness, the state finds them simultaneously irrelevant and fundamentally threatening, as it is

through these communities that an-other possibility of belonging and being political is

revealed.

This other politics is, for Agamben, grounded in the open, an open that is lacking

in the political that is conditioned by the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, and the

constitutive separation of bios from zoe. Agamben's interpretation of the open comes out

of his engagement with Heidegger's theorisation of the same concept. The open, for

Heidegger, is that which separates beings such as ourselves from the animal (de la

Durantaye 2003, 3). As Heidegger asserts, "First of all and everyday one's own world

and own Dasein are precisely the farthest" (Heidegger 1979, 246). Unlike animals,

however, beings such as ourselves can be distanced from everyday concerns, thereby

being in the open. Animals, unlike for instance stones, bear the potential of being in the 266 open, but do not, and cannot actualise that possibility (Agamben 2002b, 55). It is the potential for actualisation of being in the open — or, the experience of the world worlding — that makes us the beings that we are (de la Durantaye 2003, 4). In, and through the open beings such as ourselves become world-forming beings; in, and through the open we can be otherwise. Agamben both builds on, and in a sense transforms this conceptualisation of the open. For Heidegger, the actualisation of the possibility of being in the open is what constitutes both the beings that we are, and the open itself. According to de la Durantaye, for Agamben the open is the moment in which man's openness to world, and animal's openness to stimuli converge (5). In other words, it seems to be from the convergence of something like naked or bare life with a form of life that the open emerges. For Agamben, moreover, it is the inactualisability of the possibility (that it remains perpetually open, a perpetual, inexhaustible potentiality) that constitutes opening (6).

A community of whatever beings, therefore, can be conceptualised as a

community established on the basis of the open; it is a community grounded not in

essential belonging, but in the inexhaustible potential of the open. The community is

founded on, persists, and is held together by the openness — by the inexhaustible potential to imagine, be, and become otherwise. Belonging to the community, therefore,

cannot be based on presuppositions — nationality, language, or race (Agamben 1999,

47). It cannot be founded on already enacted and constituted identities (1996, 10). The

whatever being's existence in a community, therefore, is not mediated by any condition

of belonging other than belonging itself. 267

This idea of community is akin to Jean-Luc Nancy's conceptualisation of

community as that which is formed by the ecstatic being of beings (Nancy 1986, 4).

Nancy argues that the first thing to do when theorising community is to do away with the

discourse of community that is established through the myth of organic unity. According

to this myth, with the move from community to society organic unity among human

beings disappears (9). Contemporary discourses of the community assert that it is

necessary to regain that which is lost: the oneness and organic unity of the community

(10). According to Nancy, the problem with approaching the community in this manner

is that such an approach actually destroys the idea of community by reducing it to unity

and identity (12). For Nancy, community is the shared sovereignty of ecstatic beings

(25). The sovereignty of the subject as such does not exist, as sovereignty in fact

emerges from the ecstatic existence of beings in the world, and hence is always already in

need of others. In both Agamben and Nancy, then, we see a community grounded not in

sameness but in difference; one grounded not on the coming together of already existing

and enacted identities, but one through which ways of being, and ways of being political

are perpetually emerging and transforming. The community, therefore, is not established

once and for all, but is always already becoming something else, it is always opening,

becoming an opening for something else.

Both Agamben and Nancy argue that if we are to imagine a political other than

the one conditioned by the state-citizenship-sovereignty complex, we have to ground it in

the experience of such a community. If the openness of these communities, the opening

they provide for the political, or the open political that they enable is to be described 268 differently, it could be described through Derrida's conceptualisation of negotiation.

Negotiation for Derrida implies the absence of permanence for any position or thesis, the absence of stability in all beings, and the characterisation of existence by uncertainty

(Derrida 2002, 31). The incalculability that arises as a result of such uncertainty provides an absolute opening.

For Derrida, what follows this opening is the crucial moment of undecidability, which conditions the possibility of an authentic decision. For Derrida, an authentic decision must at some point become discontinuous with the norm (Derrida 2002, 200); it must interrupt the continuity between norms and rules, and our response. I would like to argue that it is this decision that constitutes the event of the political. As the moment of undecidability is a prerequisite for the existence of an authentic decision, the mere application of rules and norms does not qualify as the making of an authentic decision.

In being the mere application of rules and norms, an inauthentic decision is emptied of its political content, as it is emptied of undecidability; it is always already made, without having to be made.

To be political, the decision on the manner in which to respond, and to who to respond to cannot be exclusively conditioned by the norms of being political. It cannot merely fulfil the nation-state's expectations regarding who to respond to, and how. The moment we follow the state's call to respond primarily to, and through itself, or primarily to those who it constructs as fellow citizens or nationals, we forsake our political being to the state, and abandon the possibility of being political; we let the political decision be transformed into the application of a rule. It is at that moment, when the decision is 269 merely the application of a rule, that we sacrifice the possibility of a singular or whatever being, and abandon the open.

Conclusion

The primary concern of this dissertation was to inquire into the possibility of de-structing the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex and its claim on the political by means of the camp — the Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, and the camp as constituted by

Agamben. The second, but certainly not secondary concern was to inquire into the possibility of constructing an-other image of the political — one not conditioned by, or grounded in the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex. In this fifth, and final chapter I attended to this second concern, and thus attempted, with the help of Agamben, to offer a glimpse of what this political could be. This other political, I argued, is neither a stretched nor a relocated version of the Platonic political; it is, rather, a political built through the de-struction of the ground on which the Platonic political is built, and a re­ building of something altogether different. As Agamben's conceptualisation of form-of- life is precisely such an attempt, it is of immense value. It in itself, however, is not enough. The re-building of something altogether different requires not only the emergence of new concepts and new modes of thinking but also, and most importantly, the attempt to look into, and hold open the open.

For this reason, the chapter engaged not only with concepts provided by

Agamben, but also with those of Nancy and Derrida. It is through their encounter that I began to imagine an-other political. I argued, on the ground made possible by this 270 encounter, that being political lies in the authentic decision on who to respond to, and how. The political, in this sense, is constituted by singular responses grounded in the existential condition of whatever being. When the nation-state calls us, as citizens, to respond solely to, and through itself — when it monopolises the political — it destroys the possibility of being political. It appropriates the potential to respond into a mechanism that in fact does not allow for an authentic response, or an authentic decision.

For that mechanism to operate, in fact, the authentic decision must disappear. 271

Conclusion

To assemble an interpretation, one has to conceptualise the experiential reality one is attempting to interpret. While assembling an interpretation is, of course, an intrinsically worthwhile exercise, work does not stop there. Although the interpretive assemblage might indeed comprise a project's climax, it need not be its culmination. At the climax one might pause, and feel a temporary satisfaction at the interpretive assemblage one has constructed. One need not, however, conceive of the climax as a point of permanence or stability. What can follow the ascent is a descent that is perhaps more difficult than the ascent itself. It is during the descent that one can reflect on the view from the climax, on the distinct perspective that the clearing offers, and perhaps most importantly on the possibility of working up to an-other apex, of clearing an-other clearing. The climax, in this sense, is like a second beginning; one must now take apart the assemblage through which one ascended, and from its fragments attempt to imagine an-other clearing, or ascend to an-other climax.

The dissertation attempted to re-imagine the political by employing this sinusoid movement as its theoretical and methodological foundation. As such, the dissertation aimed, first, to ascend to an interpretation of the relationship between the conceptual and the material. It aimed, second, to descend by taking apart the assemblage to which it ascended, and in the opening provided by the climax, begin to reassemble the fragments anew. Specifically, it ascended by assembling an interpretation of the relationship between the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, and the camp that it produces. It 272 peaked with assembling an interpretation of the manner in which the camp can de-struct the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, and thus the equilibrium and zero-sum equation on which the order of nation-states depends. It descended by attending to the manner in which the camp, as the destructive element, creates the possibility of an-other political, one not conditioned or legitimated by the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex.

Chapter One provided an overview of the manner in which Palestinian refugees were discursively and materially constituted through the emergence of the state of Israel.

The chapter first provided an account of the emergence of the state of Israel, and thus an account of the emergence of Palestinian refugees, and the refugee 'problem'. The chapter, second, attended to the international refugee law in which Palestinian refugees were subsequently embroidered. The chapter then picked up the strand of the narrative of

Palestinian refugees that continued in Lebanon, and pointed to some of the concerns — which emerged during Lebanon's foundation, and throughout its history — in which

Palestinian refugees became implicated. On the foundation provided by this chapter,

Chapter Two built a more comprehensive narrative of Palestinian refugees and refugee camps in Lebanon. It attended, first, to their position in relation to Lebanese state law. It argued that rather than unequivocally defining and crystallising the position of

Palestinian refugees and refugee camps in Lebanon, the proliferation of laws actually engendered the proliferation of ambiguity and contestation over their position, and revealed their precariousness, and disruptive potential vis-a-vis the state. Second, the chapter gave an account of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. It looked at the space itself, at the manner in which it functions, and at the discourses that locate and construct 273

Palestinian presence in Lebanon. Finally, the chapter attended to two moments at which the relationship between Palestinian refugee camps and the Lebanese state could most clearly be seen, and at which the said discourses re-emerged: the ongoing contestation over Taamir, and Ain Al-Hilweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, and the summer

2007 siege of Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon.

With the third chapter, the dissertation shifted from an analysis of the material to an analysis of the conceptual. As the dissertation attempted to destabilise, denaturalise, and de-struct that which is given by state discourse in order to open the possibility of the emergence of an-other political, it had to inquire not only into the historical and material conditions that contributed to the emergence of that which is given, but also into the conceptual lineage through which the given is constructed, legitimated, and naturalised.

As Chapter One and Chapter Two inquired into the emergence of Palestinian refugees and refugee camps from within the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, Chapter Three attended to the emergence and development of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex itself. The chapter focussed on the manner in which the emergence of the nation-state is naturalised and legitimated by state discourse, or in other words, on the manner in which the nation-state's position as the source of the primary call to which one ought to respond, and the principal framework through which to respond to others is legitimated.

To this end, Chapter Three narrated the manner in which the nation-state, through the history it writes of sovereignty and citizenship, claims to be that which conditions the political. At the same time, however, the chapter pointed to the conceptual lacunae, 274 ambiguities, discrepancies, and glossing(s)-over that comprise state discourse, and to the manner in which the camp emerges from within this discourse.

Chapter Four marked the climax. It presented a conceptualisation of the manner in which the camp that the nation-state order itself generates de-structs, or at least creates the potential for the de-struction of the said order. It first attended to the manner in which

Palestinian refugee camps destabilise, de-struct, and expose the fictitious foundations of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex. Through engagements with Agamben and those who have interpreted his work, the chapter then attended to the camp, and explored the manner in which it unhinges the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex, the nation- state order, and the political that they claim to condition and legitimate. The chapter, therefore, began to de-struct and denaturalise not only the relationship that state discourse attempts to establish between state, sovereignty and citizenship, but also that which it establishes between the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex and the political.

If Chapter Four constituted the climax, Chapter Five constituted the decent. It constituted that part of the work of the dissertation that is at once most crucial, and just beyond its scope: the building of a new temple, the imagining of an-other political.

Chapter Five offered a glimpse at the possibilities opened when the nation-state and the camp it produces collide, and began to explore the contours of the possibility of a different political. To reformulate the political away from the state, and to shed some light on the possibilities opened by such reformulation, the chapter engaged with the work of Agamben, Nancy, and Derrida. For the remainder of the Conclusion, I would like to further explore this path of descent, and thus offer a clearer image of what I 275 conceive of as a different way of being political. In doing so, I will also point to the manner in which such critical approach to being political can direct us towards thinking the political with, and through the ethical. Although it is this dissertation, and the interpretations offered therein that have enabled me to begin imagining the ethical constitution of the political, the elaboration and theorisation of this relationship must be left to future work. The following, therefore, will merely offer a glimpse of the direction this work could take.

I would like to argue that the political should be re-imagined as the decision to respond, and to whom to respond to. The crucial, and perhaps constitutive part of this non-definitive definition is the concept of decision. Following Derrida, to authentically decide is to singularly respond in the face of undecidability (Derrida 1992, 61). To decide is not to apply already existing norms to a priori defined situations (24); an authentic decision comes into being (anew) every time one responds (or decides) in the face of undecidability. The authentic decision is, therefore, incalculable. Its authenticity, moreover, depends on it being doubly singular. First, it must be made anew, every time one is called to respond. Second, it must be made by a singular subject constituted at the moment of response, and not by a pre-existing entity, or higher authority that designates what the response should be. I would like to argue that on the foundation of such conceptualisation of the decision the political can be imagined as the moment of the authentic decision to respond. As such, the political is also the moment of the negation of a hierarchy of calls to which to respond, and a negation of the mechanisms through which to respond. In other words, the political is constituted not only by the negation of the 276 priority of the nation-state as that entity to which, and through the mechanisms of which to respond, but in fact by the negation of the priority of every call over every other, of every mechanism of response over every other.

Being political, therefore, means to respond singularly and authentically. It means, in other words, to decide to whom to respond to. This implies, first, that a priori definitions of the political should be discarded, or at least subjected to interrogation. It

implies, second, that one's response cannot be conditioned, or determined by an entity

such as the nation-state. To respond primarily to the call of the nation-state, or through the mechanisms of the state-sovereignty-citizenship complex is not to respond

authentically; it is to empty one's response precisely of the undecidability, incalculability,

and singularity that makes it political. Being political, therefore, can be thought of as that which destroys the possibility of the a priori primacy of a call. To be political is to

respond in a way that makes irrelevant the hierarchy of calls. Being political, in other

words, is to enact oneself anew with every response, to respond singularly in the face of

undecidability, and through it to not reverse but in fact de-struct the hierarchy of beings,

entities, and calls to which to respond. In the absence of all givens, all a priori

definitions and categories, the political becomes a realm of becoming, a realm that

becomes (differently) with every response. In this manner, not only is the political a

realm that becomes, but being political implies an absence of homogeneity, unity, and

stability. It implies, instead, the presence of difference and singularity.

Being political, therefore, is to decide authentically, and respond accordingly.

The political, as I have attempted to imagine it, is essentially ethical. It is such because 277 being political, like being ethical, concerns our singular being in a world, which we constitute, and share with others. The political is ethical, moreover, as it is constituted by a response on the basis of this singularity. 278

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