View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by The Australian National University Writing the Resistance: A Palestinian Intellectual History, 1967-1974 Katlyn Maureen Quenzer January, 2019 A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the Australian National University © Copyright by Katlyn Maureen Quenzer 2019 All Rights Reserved Declaration I, Katlyn Maureen Quenzer, declare that this thesis is my own work. No material within it has been has been used for the award of any university degree or that of any higher learning institution. No material within it has been published previously or written by another person, except where appropriate acknowledgment has been given. ii Acknowledgments I thank God for giving me the health and wherewithal to carry this project through. Just shy of a year after meeting with Sadik al-Azm, he passed away. His thoughts and generous giving of his time have been indispensable to this thesis, and I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to meet him. Others too have passed, such as Clovis Maksoud. Their work, regardless of one’s approach, continues to be a resource to scholars and anyone with an interest in the Arab—Israeli conflict. I would like to thank the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (CAIS), who made this work possible. I am grateful to Professor Amin Saikal and Dr. Kirill Nourzhanov, who supported my application. I would also like to acknowledge the generous support given to me by the ANU University Research Scholarship as well as the Vice Chancellor Travel Grant. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the institutions that hosted me and allowed me to use their resources, particularly UC Berkeley’s Center for Middle East Studies, Dr. Emily Gottreich and Dr. Peter Bartu in particular. I am indebted to my supervisory panel. I thank my primary supervisor and chair of my panel, Professor James Piscatori, for all his advice and attention, close readings, and feedback. His encouragement and keen eye helped to see the project through. I also enjoyed his captivating stories, about which he should write a book. I also thank my external supervisor, Dr. Bashir Abu-Manneh, whose course during my undergraduate days at Barnard really woke me up and in large part led me to further my academic studies. He has given me more of his time iii than I deserve, and his immense knowledge of Palestinian and Arab intellectual work has helped guide me throughout and has provided me with invaluable feedback. I also warmly thank my supervisor Ms. France Meyer, whose assistance in locating key texts and libraries was vital. I greatly appreciate her encouragement and care throughout this project, as well as her vast knowledge of the world of translation. I would like to thank and acknowledge those who gave their time to be interviewed. Their contributions contributed to the richness of the story I had to tell. I thank Dr. Minerva Nasser-Eddine for her hard work and help during her time as my supervisor at CAIS. This thesis has benefited from the editorial work of Dr. Elisabeth Yarbakhsh, who provided assistance in copyediting. I thank Dr. Alina Sajid, who provided helpful feedback on a chapter and has been a support in scholastic efforts surrounding my thesis. I thank my friends for their sincere kindness, generous support, and patience. I am grateful to Sima for all the time and care she has given me. I thank Maria, Niken, Peony, Caroline, Nebiha, and Farida for showering me with support. I also thank Jessie and Raihan, who took the time to give helpful research advice throughout this process. I am grateful to the patience and thorough advice of Elisabeth, whose help and support toward the end was indispensable. I thank my neighbor, Helen, who kindly volunteered to read and comment on a chapter. I would like to acknowledge the help and kindness of my whole family. Thanks, more than I can say, to my mother for being a support and nurturer throughout this process. I thank my father for all his encouragement and counsel in seeing this project through, and my brother iv for tolerating my late-night writing sessions. I want to thank my grandmother, whose encouragement and support of my scholastic endeavors has helped lead me to undertake doctoral research. I would also like to thank Aunt Liza and Uncle David, whose dining room table I occupied for many hours a day, writing! I am grateful for my husband’s support as well as his helpful advice on my research. I also had the pleasure of receiving support from his family—my encouraging mother-in-law and sister-in-law and Uncle Ali, who shared his knowledge on all things Ghassan Kanafani. v Abstract This thesis explores the ideological work of the intellectuals involved in the Palestinian Resistance, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization more specifically, from 1967 to 1974. In particular, it sets out to answer the following question: What were the changing roles of the intellectuals involved in the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1967 to 1974, particularly in relation to anti-colonial politics, and why did they change? Being a particularly fertile time in Palestinian resistance history, many of those involved in the movement had the opportunity to explore new ideological possibilities for resistance and worked to link their movement ideologically to revolutionary resistance movements taking place globally at that time. The 1967 defeat was particularly poignant for Palestinian and Arab intellectuals, as it demonstrated to them that the work of the Ba'thists and Arab nationalists during the 1950s and 1960s had not created the necessary changes to liberate Palestine and, in their opinions, to liberate the entire society. Such changes, the intellectuals had hoped, would bring forth a larger revolution for the Arab world. With criticisms of local regimes, the intervention of external governments, and Zionism itself, they worked to reshape Palestinian resistance and reimagine Arab liberation. Yet due to fractured relationships and general disunity, it became difficult to create the type of resistance they had imagined. Three factors have seemed constraining: the shortcomings of the intellectuals, external factors, and problems in the ideas they developed for their society. Along with presenting the research question and hypothesis and defining key terms, the Introduction provides a literature review. The rest of the thesis chapters are arranged vi thematically and chronologically. Chapter One provides historical links between this newer generation of intellectuals and the older generation at the end of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning of the Mandate period. In Chapter Two, the initial reactions to the 1967 Defeat and the unique opportunity the PLO and its leaders had following it are analysed. Chapter Three considers the factionalism that took place within the PLO and the various ideological streams that were born of this. Chapter Four explicates the particular reasons why the ideologies they developed were troubled from the start, as well as some of the fundamental ironies within them. In addition to the possibility that their ideas did not suit the needs of the population in part because they did not have mass support, Chapter Five raises the notion that the efforts of the PLO’s intellectuals may have been overly quixotic, as some have argued. The Conclusion suggests that, in many ways, the period ends as it begins, with their dreams of revolution as dreams and their criticisms of the society and each other as they were after soon after the Defeat. vii Transliteration Note Within the text body, the transliteration of Arabic words and names can be variable. This thesis does not follow any systematic approach, but uses common spellings that have regularly appeared in English-language media and other publications (for example: Sadik al-Azm, Shafiq al-Hout, and fedayeen). This was done in large part for ease of reading. Nonetheless, in order to aid the reader in any further research, I have transliterated the titles of the Arabic texts and their publishers within the citations and bibliography. I used the Library of Congress guide for Arabic transliteration. Authors names, however, remain in the simplified form as in the text, to avoid confusion. The transliterated title and publisher along with the commonly-held author’s name will be sufficient in locating the texts. Additionally, within the references I have used the Library of Congress guide to transliterate lesser-known authors’ names. Finally, publishers who have a standardised transliteration of their publishing house are maintained (for example, Riad El-Rayyes rather than Riāḍ al-Raīs). viii Abbreviations Arab Nationalist Movement ANM Democratic Front for the Liberation of DFLP Palestine Front de Libération National FLN Palestine Liberation Front PLF Palestinian National Council PNC Palestine Research Center PRC Palestinian Liberation Organization PLO Palestinian National Liberation Movement Fatah Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—General Command PFLP—GC United Arab Republic UAR ix Contents Declaration .................................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................................ iii Abstract .......................................................................................................................................................