'Recreating' Gaza: International organizations and Identity Construction in Gaza Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Herman, Lyndall Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 30/09/2021 09:22:37 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/624515 'RECREATING' GAZA: INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN GAZA by Lyndall Herman __________________________ Copyright © Lyndall Herman 2017 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the SCHOOL OF MIDDLE EASTERN AND NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2017 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Lyndall Herman, titled ‘Recreating’ Gaza: International Organizations and Identity Construction in Gaza and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 4 April 2017 Leila Hudson _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 4 April 2017 Maha Nassar _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 4 April 2017 Alex Braithwaite _________________________________________________________________ Date: 4 April 2017 Ben Fortna Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: 4 April 2017 Dissertation Director: Leila Hudson 2 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: Lyndall Herman 3 Acknowledgements This project has been a labor of love that has come together over the past decade since I first travelled to the Gaza Strip to work for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. As such, there is a list of people to whom I owe a substantial amount of thanks. I want to first thank my dissertation advisor (or to use a more accurate term, doktormutter), Dr. Leila Hudson. Thank you for taking me on as an undergraduate with ridiculous notions of what I could accomplish and taking me back in as a doctoral student with much more defined aspirations. Thank you to the rest of my doctoral committee: Dr. Maha Nassar, Dr. Alex Braithwaite, Dr. Ben Fortna, and Dr. Aomar Boum, for your invaluable advice, guidance, and editing of this project as it progressed. Thank you also to my friends and colleagues in Gaza for nurturing my interest in and love of the Strip, but also for your tangible help in this academic venture and in my attempts to travel back to Gaza. In particular, Jodie, Scott, Sana and Kholoud I appreciate all of your help with and input on this project. And finally Dr. Michael Bonine, I would not be here if you had not taken me in as a college freshman and suggested I pick a region of the world to study – and wouldn’t the Middle East be the best one to pick! I thank you for instilling your love of the region into the legacy that you left at UofA, and for setting me on a course that would change my life. Thank you to the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Graduate and Professional Student Council and the Bonine Research Fellowship for helping to fund this project. There are very few places willing to take a chance on research about Gaza and I greatly appreciate your support. Thank you also to Don at the AFSC Archives, Birgir and Gulnora at the UNRWA Archives, and Ryan at the YMCA Archive, this research would not have been possible without your assistance. To my family, thank you for listening to me grumble about this process and for nodding and smiling whenever I tried to explain Foucault, although I know you’ll be happy if you never have to hear his name again. To Jill and Katie, I know our subjects are worlds apart, but your words of encouragement and guidance were the motivation I needed. And when that didn’t work your verbal ‘kick-in-the-pants’ did the trick. Thank you! Ksenia, you helped me to see the light at the end of the tunnel and convinced me it was all worth it, thank you! And finally to my PhD-crew, Christina, Miriam, Farzana and Courtney, I would have been lost without you ladies. Thank you for being on the journey with me and providing help along the way, I learned as much from your progress and experiences as my own. 4 Table of Contents Committee Approval ............................................................................................................ 2 Statement By Author ............................................................................................................ 3 Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. 4 Abstract ................................................................................................................................. 8 Chapter 1 – Introduction ....................................................................................................... 9 Why Gaza? ............................................................................................................... 12 Methods .................................................................................................................... 15 Theoretical Approaches ............................................................................................ 19 Chapter 2 – Gaza In the Literature ....................................................................................... 32 Gaza: A Brief History ............................................................................................... 38 Refugees: Specifics of the Palestinian Situation ...................................................... 47 Egyptian Administration of the Gaza Strip .............................................................. 49 The First Israeli Occupation of Gaza ........................................................................ 52 The De-Development of the Gaza Strip ................................................................... 54 The Oslo Accords Impact on Gaza ........................................................................... 56 International Organizations and Religious Charitable Groups ................................. 58 UNRWA: The Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees ........................... 67 Chapter 3 – Using Food as a Weapon: Quakers and the Politics of Food Aid ..................... 73 Debating Need: Who is a Refugee? .......................................................................... 75 The Origins of Gaza Special Rules .......................................................................... 79 Beyond Definitions: Meeting Need without Being Naïve ....................................... 82 The Bio-Power of Food: An Humanitarian Conundrum .......................................... 86 Too Many Cooks for the Zibdiyat Gambari: The Egyptian Military in Gaza .......... 90 Gaza Special Rules: Rations and Defining the Family ............................................ 93 Refugee Categorization: UNRWA’s Algorithms of Need ....................................... 95 Chapter 4 – Local Enterprise Projects: the Product of Moral Labor .................................... 100 The Friends in Contest: “Draft Dodgers” to Nobel Laureates ................................. 105 The Need to Stay True to Oneself: AFSC in Gaza ................................................... 109 Community Innovation and Involvement: From Soap-Making to Schooling .......... 111 Soap-Making: Tradition, Luxury, and Control ......................................................... 113 By Request: Education as Resistance ....................................................................... 120 Function and Expertise: Education as Job-Training ................................................. 124 Form Without Substance: Dairy Training in Gaza ................................................... 127 Governance through Conscious Resistance .............................................................. 132 5 Chapter 5 – Play & Training: YMCA Efforts to Create Self-Governing Palestinian Bodies ........................................................................................................... 137 History of the YMCA: Evangelical Beginnings ....................................................... 144 The YMCA in Egypt ...............................................................................................