Roadblocks

1
Roadblocks Resistance

• Imagining Power in Ranas Wedding
• Basic Background

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Basic questions

• Whats the conflict about?
• Whos who and how they got there
• Power configurations who has more power?
• In the film, why are there roadblocks everywhere?
  

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Roots of conflict Contested territory

• New (20th century) conflict
• Historically Arabs Jews in the region got along
  fairly well
• Nationalist conflict over land
• Product of late 19th-early 20th c. forces
• Contemporary Protagonists Palestinians VS state
  of Israel
• Both sides see themselves as laying claim to
  justice
• Both sides see themselves as vulnerable victims
• Asymmetric power relations

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Palestine under Ottoman rule, 1400s-1917
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Palestine under British rule (Palestine Mandate),
1917-1948
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Whos who Palestinians

• See themselves as nationally distinct members of
  a broader Arab community
• Sunni Muslim Christian
• About 90 Muslim 10 Christian
• Continuously lived in area since about 1200 BC
• Early 20th century Multiple senses of identity
  Muslim, Christian, Ottoman, Arab, Palestinian
• Palestinian nationalism strongly develops after
  1960s

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Whos who Jewish Israelis

• Small numbers of Jews had lived in area
  continuously since about 1200 BC
• 1880s-1939 five main waves (aliya) of Jewish
  Zionist immigration
• Causes anti-Semitism, pogroms, economic
  depression in Russia E. Europe WWII and the
  Holocaust
• Primarily guided by (secular) Zionist nationalism
• 90 from Europe
• 1950s-1990s N. African Russian immigration

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Some demographics

• 1878 443,000 Arabs 15,000 Jews
• 1914 560,000 Arabs 80,000 Jews.
• Arab pop 84 Sunni Muslim, 16 Christian
• Jewish pop about 70 longtime inhabitants, about
  30 Zionists
• 1933 950,000 Arabs 280,000 Jews
• 1946 1.26 million Arabs 608,000 Jews
• 2004 Israel 6.5 million people
• About 20 non-Jewish, mostly Palestinian Arab
• 2004 West Bank Gaza 3 million people

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States and statelessnesspower configurations,
1948-1967

• Foundation of Israel Zionists win the war,
  1948-49
• British (London) support for Zionism, 1917-1939
• High level of Zionist organization mobilization
• WWII and the Holocaust
• New waves of immigration
• New international support (U.S., Russia)
• Palestinian political suppression fragmentation
• Arab political divisions
• Palestinian al-Nakbah dispersal disaster
• 700,000 Palestinians forced out of Israel proper
• community administratively divided between
  Israel, Jordan, Egypt (no Palestinian self-rule)
• Arab world Arab forces highly divided

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States semi-states Power configurations,
1967-2004

• 1967 Six Day War Israeli military occupation of
  Palestinian areas after 1967
• 1 million Palestinians fall under Israeli
  military rule
• 1981 Israel annexes East Jerusalem extra W.
  Bank land
• Settlements and land seizures by 1985 Israelis
  control over 52 of the West Banks land and at
  least 40 of the Gaza Strip.
• Status of East Jerusalem Palestinians
• 1994 Oslo Accords give Palestinian Authority
  some Palestinian self-rule in parts of the
  territories

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Why are there roadblocks everywhere?

• Resistance, Violence, Security
• First Palestinian Intifada (uprising), 1987-1994
• Broad societal involvement
• Mostly nonviolent plus stonethrowing, etc.
• Second Palestinian Intifada, 2000-2004
• Mostly young men
• Suicide bombing and other attacks
• Between Sept 2000 Jan 2003, 550 Israelis killed
  in Palestinian attacks 1,600 Palestinians killed
  in Israeli attacks
• Israeli settlements bypasses
• Number of Israeli settlements increased by 50
  after signing of Oslo Accords
• About 400,000 Israeli settlers in E. Jerusalem,
  West Bank, Gaza

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