Ratio Juris: Hamas and the Right of the Palestinian People to Self-Determination

The simplistic binaries that frame conversations of Palestinian armed struggle evoke the condescension expressed by colonial overloads toward the resistance of indigenous peoples. ‘Palestinians have a culture of hate,’ commentators blast on American TV screens. ‘They are a people who celebrate death.’ These familiar accusations, quick to roll off tongues, are both highly effective at framing public discourse and insulting as racist epithets. On the other end of the spectrum, I recalled conversations with Europeans and Palestinians who critiqued my reference to Palestinian armed struggle as ‘violence.’ They saw this framing as a form of condemnation [as if Liberal Capitalist Democracies never resort to such violence!], casting armed struggle in a negative light [like the French and American Revolutions?!]. Support of the rifle, they argued, was not only comprehensible and dignified, but necessary. It was the only way to secure Palestinian rights against a murderous and unrelenting occupation. [….]

The prevailing inability or unwillingness to talk about Hamas in a nuanced manner is deeply familiar. During the summer of 2014, when global newsrooms were covering Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip, I watched Palestinian analysts being rudely silenced on the air for failing to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization outright. This condemnation was demanded as a prerequisite for the right of these analysts to engage in any debate about the events on the ground. There was no other explanation, it seemed, for the loss of life in Gaza and Israel other than pure-and-simple Palestinian hatred and bloodlust, embodied by Hamas. I wondered how many lives have been lost or marred by this refusal to engage with the drivers of Palestinian resistance, of which Hamas is only one facet. [….] Understanding Hamas is key to ending the denial of Palestinians their rights after nearly a century of struggle for self-determination. It is also a prerequisite to halting the cycles of violence that are intermittently unleashed on the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. [….]

More than two million Palestinians now live in the Gaza Strip [some 1.4 million are Palestinian refugees]. That makes it an urban population larger than most American cities. But the human dimension, so visceral to anyone who walks the streets of any city in the strip, is almost an afterthought, if a thought at all, to many who think of the place. The image of Gaza as a terrorist haven has been all-consuming. As has its image as a war-torn pile of rubble, sterile and devoid of live. The collective punishment of millions has become permissible, comprehensible, and legitimate. Destroying schools and targeting UN shelters, as Israel did in 2014, are military tactics that have been justified as essential for Israel to defend itself against terror. The killing of more than five hundred children during that same operation for many becomes little more than an unfortunate necessity. [….]

There is no doubt that Hamas carries out terror-inducing activities within Israel and the Palestinian territories. The movement itself, through its various publications, explains how it seeks to create terror to pressure the Israeli government to end its occupation of Palestinian land. Hamas’s actions fit into the definition of terrorism used by the U.S. Department of State, which notes that ‘terrorism is premeditated politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.’ While Hamas itself admits that it has used such tactics, it vehemently rejects being designated a terrorist organization. The logic underpinning this seeming contradiction is the absence of a single definition about what constitutes terrorism. The term is malleable and subjective [although I would argue that it need not be], and more importantly, has been used as a tool of war. The definition put forward by the U.S. State Department has consistently and cynically been manipulated to justify illegal and morally reprehensible military measures, in this case by Israel. Furthermore, while the label of ‘terrorism’ under this definition can be applied to Hamas, it fails to account for the terror cause by Israel’s relentless military regime over the Palestinians.

It is exceedingly difficult to engage in a discussion on terrorism, which is precisely why it is a powerful device to undermine any legitimacy that organizations such as Hamas may have. Like all definitions of terrorism, the one put forward by the U.S. State Department is highly contested. Why is terrorism limited to subnational groups or clandestine agents if states are the biggest perpetrators of organized violence against civilians? How does one discriminate violence aimed solely at terrorizing civilians and legitimate armed resistance aimed at securing internationally sanctioned rights that invariably end up killing civilians? How are civilians defined in a world where the notions of war and peace are increasingly very difficult to ascertain, and where the form of warfare has outgrown the very laws that define it?

Classifying Hamas as a terrorist organization has justified sweeping military action against Palestinians, depoliticizing and dehumanizing their struggle. It has also prevented the possibility of viewing Palestinian armed resistance as a form of self-defense within the context of war. [….] While international law has made exceptions for viewing Israeli military operations in Gaza through the lens of a security paradigm, security for Palestinians against consistent Israeli aggression appears to be absent. In thinking of the morality of the morality of Palestinian armed struggle, the knowledge that violence has animated numerous anticolonial liberation trajectories somehow dissipates. The historical context in which Hamas operates, and which has given rise to Hamas as an armed resistance movement in the first place, is overlooked. [….] While self-sacrifice in the context of national armies and the defense of one’s homeland is celebrated the world over, indeed is the foundation of nationalism, Palestinian self-sacrifice is studied as a perplexing anomaly. [….] The worldview of Palestinian resistance fighters is that they are engage in a justified war against a violent and illegal occupation that terrorizes them and their family members. Their adoption of armed struggle, in this particular context, draws on its own legal, political, and theological justifications governing the laws of war and its conduct. Without justifying this resort to violence, one has to see and understand it from center of gravity that is rooted in the Palestinian territories, not in the West. — From the Preface to Tareq Baconi’s Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance (Stanford University Press, 2018)

* * *

At The Faculty Lounge, ‌Professor Alexander Tsesis of Loyola University, Chicago, School of Law (Raymond & Mary Simon Chair in Constitutional Law and Professor of Law), made the following comment to a blog post by Professor Steve Lubet at The Faculty Lounge about individuals and groups who fail to sufficiently (intentionally or not) clarify the distinction between Jews (and thus Judaism) and Zionists (and thus Zionism):

“This is beautifully written, Steve. As a further example of your point, Hamas’s genocidal calls for the annihilation of Jews is also often misrepresented in the media as a fight against Zionists. But Hamas is too honest in its genocidal intentions to let their efforts be whitewashed, keeping its religious calls to kill all Jews in its Charter despite the many efforts of outsiders to have it altered (Article VII, etc.). Hamas is very clear in the Introduction about whom it regards to be its enemies: ‘Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.’”[slightly edited for concision and clarity]

Here is my—now edited and expanded—response to this comment at the blog alongside further information about Hamas that is typically missing from mass media treatments in the US, let alone national political discourse, be it from our representatives in Washington, D.C. or government officials of any sort expected to have some knowledge and expertise in foreign affairs related to the Middle East:

Any assiduous or minimally diligent and fairly dispassionate student of the Israel-Palestinian conflict in general and Hamas in particular should arrive at the conclusion that Hamas, for most of its existence, and speaking for the organization (or institution) as a whole (in other words, a few actors have proven to be exceptions), has not acted in conformity, nor seriously attempted to comply with its (largely morally and politically odious) Charter. Moreover, Hamas does not view it as providing a politically relevant program of action or strategic guidance of any sort (and there is a paucity of evidence to the contrary). This has been meticulously and continually documented over the years in the work of the foremost scholarly experts on this subject.

It’s well known that Hamas has resorted to acts of terrorism in its defense of Palestinians and its struggle for collective self-determination on their behalf. But to look at Hamas as a terrorist organization simpliciter strikes me as singularly unhelpful and unduly reductionist. Why? Because much of what Hamas does as a political organization and religious and social movement falls well outside the scope of terrorism, or even violence for that matter, one conspicuous reason it has been able to garner widespread social and electoral support. To say so does not amount to an endorsement of terrorist acts, let alone an attempt at justification, but it does aid us in our understanding and explanation of Hamas in this grossly asymmetrical political conflict. This brings us to consideration of possible reasons to account for why Hamas has resorted to acts of terrorism when it otherwise exhibits rationality as a collective actor, at least from the vantage points provided by political science and sociology. Given the striking asymmetrical nature of the conflict with the state of Israel, and the early use of such acts in the struggle for Palestinian self-determination by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), it’s quite understandable why some members of Hamas thought it necessary to employ this kind of political violence: it proved successful in the past in bringing attention to the Palestinian cause and did not preclude the PLO’s eventual official recognition as the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people,” although of course the PLO itself would come to formally “reject violence and terrorism” as central to its struggle for Palestinian liberation and self-determination.

Keeping acts of terrorism in historical and political perspective enables one to sympathize with Hamas while at the same time appreciating what might be done to prompt Hamas to forswear resort to such tactics, which is not equivalent to refusing to use violence as a justified means of individual and collective self-defense (as in the Just War tradition or as similarly sanctioned within Islamic legal traditions under the rubric of ‘jihad’). To characterize Hamas as “a violent, fanatical, backwards, illiberal, anti-Semitic terrorist organization” (as was done by a law professor commenting at the Opinio Juris blog several years ago) amounts to a dismissal of Hamas in the terms of a reductionist Manichaean moralism and black and white thinking so as to preclude an appreciation of the sundry reasons Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere accord the group democratic legitimacy and political support. Moreover, it blinds us to the possibility, enhanced by recent historical precedents, that an Islamist or jihadist political organization might very well transform itself by way of “de-radicalization” that is at the same time more likely to commit to democratic principles, processes, and methods. Such Manichaean moralist rhetoric contributes to a political and cultural climate conducive to “dehumanization of the Other,” and thus Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishai can proclaim without compunction: “We must blow Gaza back to the Middle Ages.” It renders the public within Israel and its supporters and sympathizers abroad more ideologically receptive to pronouncements like the recent one from Gilad Sharon (son of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon) in The Jerusalem Post: “We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza.” Consider by way of further illustration this story from Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East in the National Intelligence Council:

“In early 2010, one of Washington DC’s most prestigious think tanks was holding a seminar on the Middle East which included a discussion of Israel’s December 2008-January 2009 assault on Gaza which killed about 1,300 Palestinians. When the death toll was mentioned, one expert on the panel smiled enigmatically and intoned: ‘It’s unfortunate, but every once in a while you have to mow the lawn.’ The remark, which likened killing hundreds of men, women and children – many of them noncombatants – with trimming the grass, was greeted with a light tittering around the room, which was filled with some of Washington’s most elite, highly educated and well-paid Middle East experts. Not a single one objected to the panelist’s black humor.”

Again, nothing said should preclude us from affirming a categorical moral, political, and legal rejection of terrorist acts (properly defined of course), yet it should enable us to see why focusing exclusively on such acts inhibits our ability to contribute to the conditions that will enable Hamas to see the futility and folly of terrorism. Dismissals and condemnations come all too easy when unaccompanied by any meaningful acts by powerful outside parties to help alter the dynamics of the conflict in way that would put Hamas and other Palestinian groups on equal footing with the state of Israel so as to help create the propitious conditions of a meaningful negotiated resolution to the conflict, one that minimally entails full and formal recognition of the collective rights of self-determination for the Palestinians.

Hamas has abided by a number of ceasefires, both declared and de facto. And how did Israel, the U.S. and even the European states respond? How did these parties respond to Hamas’ considerable investment in democratic principles and procedures? And so forth and so on. As recent historical narratives will attest, most acts of political terrorism are clearly acts of desperation of one kind another for one reason or another, thus when otherwise rational collective political actors resort to same it’s possible if not probable that changing socio-political conditions can move these actors to abandon at least these forms of violence and rely on more conventional means of resolving political conflict.

In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the use of terrorist tactics needs to be viewed in a historical and conflictual context in which the Israeli state is notorious for flagrant and repeated violations of international humanitarian, criminal, and human rights law, including the prohibitions of colonialism and apartheid, through its unremitting reliance on “preemptive violence” and “targeted killings,” the habitual resort to “collective punishments” (since 1967), especially in Gaza, the “forcible transfer” of civilians from their homes, systematic violations of the prohibition against the destruction and appropriation of property of Palestinians (designated by international law as ‘protected persons’) and widespread human rights violations. Israel has for some time now been inexorably moving toward annexation of the West Bank, in conjunction with its ongoing expansion of Jewish settlements—in egregious contravention of international law—since 1967 in the Occupied Territories.
It is also worth pointing out that Illan Pappe has provocatively and I think correctly termed what the Israeli army has been doing in Gaza Strip since 2006 (including ‘Operation Cast Lead,’ 2008-9; ‘Operation Pillar of Defense,’ 2012; ‘Operation Protective Edge,’ 2014; and the response to the 2018 ‘Land Day’ protests) as “incremental genocide,” the historical seeds of which go back to the founding of the Israeli state itself, which involved well-documented acts of ethnic cleansing (a ‘crime against humanity’) as predominant form of prevailing Zionist ideology (in which religious and mythic beliefs are used to provide a sacred sanction for a political program of colonization and dispossession) motivating this variation on the theme of settler-state colonialism. Hamas, on the other hand, has shown no evidence whatsoever of “genocidal intent,” let alone committed acts of ethnic cleansing or genocide (while distinguishable, these can overlap). In a blog post on “Hamas and Terrorism” at Religious Left Law I made the following claims:

Respected researchers in and outside Israel have thoroughly documented and explained how “Hamas is neither anti-modern or anti-democratic, nor inherently anti-Western.”
Hamas recognizes the significance and relative authority of popular mandates.
Like other rational collective actors, Hamas has historically been open and responsive to contractualist or quid pro quo bargaining and negotiations with the state of Israel, to which Israel has repeatedly responded with disdain and dismissal, topped off with on ongoing assassination (targeted killings) campaign of its key leaders.
Hamas’ ability to inflict violence is an important source of its political authority (recall that States are frequently defined by their de jure or de facto monopoly on the means of violence and that Hamas is fighting for recognition of a right to collective self-determination which, in our time and place, takes the form of a State). “While this capacity for violence provides important symbolic capital for Hamas as a whole, the majority of its political leaders derive the bulk of their authority from other sources—increasing the possibility of a transformation away from violence if Hamas members believe their basic security will be guaranteed through different means.”
With regard to democratic and especially electoral politics (e.g., the municipal and legislative elections of 2004-2006), Hamas has made cross-ideological alliances and the bulk of its “election manifesto reads like that of any ‘secular’ political party.” As part of their decision to participate in electoral politics Hamas fielded “candidates with political and administrative, rather than paramilitary experience, [which] suggests that it recognizes that political capital in the domestic arena is derived from having non-violent, administrative skills and professional expertise than from a career in the resistance.”
Hamas has repeatedly demonstrated a “readiness to make alliances, even with those who support a two-state solution and co-existence with Israel,” a fact that “further underlines that Hamas is not fanatical and incapable of compromise, but pragmatic.”
Hamas leaders, notably Khalid Misha’al, have repeatedly stated they would not object to a two-state solution were the terms favorable to the “will of the people” (‘During the 2006 election campaign, senior Hamas legislative candidates Hasan Yousef and Muhammad Abu Tair categorized negotiations with Israel concerning a two-state solution as legitimate if they were both “in the interest of the people” and “presented to the new parliament,” the embodiment of the popular will.’) and their willingness to abide by a long-term hudna or truce (several decades, the terms of which would be renewable), evidences a de facto recognition of the state of Israel. Hamas is hardly prepared to pronounce a de-jure like or principled recognition until such time as Israel is willing to grant the collective right of self-determination to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories (note again the logic of reciprocity).

With the help of Michael Bröning’s first class research as detailed in his book, The Politics of Change in Palestine: State-Building and Non-Violent Resistance (Pluto Press, 2011), let’s introduce the (frequently morally and politically odious) Hamas Charter as it relates to its current struggle for the liberation and self-determination of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories (presumably they are also concerned with the legal and political standing and status of Arabs in the state of Israel):

“For decades Western and Israeli observers have based their assessment of Hamas not only on the movement’s violent operations [indiscriminately described as ‘terrorist’ by these selfsame observers and their mass media] but on a policy document, the ‘Platform of the Islamic Resistance Movement’ (the Hamas Charter), which appears to describe the identity and political agenda of Hamas with indisputable clarity. The Charter was published in the form of a leaflet in 1988 and is an oft-quoted point of reference for Western observers, the so-called pro-Israel lobby in the US and the Israeli public [in other words, for these parties, this document functions as a dogmatic, transparent, and hermetic sacred text that determines and thus explains both the political ideology and praxis of Hamas]. Effectively, the Charter constitutes the only widely circulated document that is used to characterise Hamas. The prominent position the Charter has attained in Western discourse can be seen by the preponderance of full-text quotations featured prominently on the websites of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

The Charter is politically and moral repugnant and regressive in many respects: it aims in anachronistic fashion to establish an Islamic state, it expressly avows preference for militant jihad (a conception that has often been understood along the lines of ‘just war’ theory but here is correctly translated as ‘holy war’), and promotes the proposition that Palestinian land is “an Islamic Waqf” consecrated for Muslims until the Day of Judgment (cf. that kind of Zionist ideology that claims that possession of this land is sacred right with biblical warrant and traced at least as far back to the Jews of Roman Palestine, hence the Jews are a nation belonging, as it were, to Palestine). But even more disturbing, Bröning points out, the document is littered with “ … statements that are blatantly anti-Semitic …, equating Israel to Nazi Germany by condemning ‘Nazi Zionist practices’ and paraphrasing the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ as proof of Israel’s inherent wickedness. In a truly abhorrent paragraph (§ 22), the Charter features a blatant (mis)representation of modern history fraught with anti-Semitic stereotypes.”

And yet we can question whether the ideas contained in the Charter accurately reflect the history, politics, and beliefs of Hamas over time, given that it “…has been referenced numerous times to demonise Hamas by comparing the movement to Al Qaeda and similar organisations. Despite obvious shortcomings, this is a view that only sporadically has been questioned. Most proponents of this traditional perception of Hamas firmly adhere to the conviction that the Islamic Resistance Movement is not only unwilling to engage in political compromise with Israel but that Hamas is also inherently incapable of change per se” (Bröning).

The military and political powers-that-be in the state of Israel have an ideologically driven vested interest in maintaining this radically simplistic and “frozen” image of Hamas and have proven strategically hell-bent on taunting, tempting, and provoking Hamas to behave in ways that can be viewed in conformity with this image (and on occasion Hamas has taken the bait, although it has been the smaller and far more radical Islamist groups like the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine that act in the spirit if not letter of the Charter), similar to the psychological and political mechanisms found in self-fulfilling prophecy. How relevant is the Charter to understanding Hamas? On the ground, it has shown itself to be virtually irrelevant. In Bröning’s words,

“In reality, Hamas, like many social institutions, has undergone dramatic change in recent years [this was written about a decade ago], partly influenced by outside factors and partly reflecting internal responses to external developments. Following Hamas’s participation in the Palestinian elections of 2006, the movement’s electoral triumph, the international boycott, Hamas’ seizure of Gaza Strip in 2007, Israel’s 2008-9 war in Gaza [and again in 2012 and 2014, as well as the 2018 Palestinian ‘Land Day’ or ‘border’ protests] and caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s suppression of Hamas institutions in the West Bank, the Hamas of today bears little resemblance to the original movement founded in 1987-8.”

Bröning proceeds to note that these changes have largely “gone unnoticed by Western observers” for obvious ideological reasons and concedes that Hamas itself has “expressed ambiguous and, at times contradictory statements and policies that not only reflect different wings struggling over the movement’s future but have also targeted a wide range of audiences.”

“[While Hamas’ Charter] serves as a convenient point of reference for Western and Israeli observers … [it is] probably more widely read in Washington DC or West Jerusalem than in the Palestinian Territory. In the OPT, the Charter has fallen into near-total political neglect. Realising that it failed to represent the movement’s evolving identity and resulted in a significant political fall-out, protagonists inside Hamas were faced with the difficult choice of defending a document that had effectively turned into a PR liability or of officially re-drafting it. Initially, it seemed that the latter was to be the course of action. In 2003, the Hamas political bureau in Damascus commissioned the re-drafting at this time would be perceived as giving in to external pressure. To avoid appearing compliant with Western demands and in order to retain a certain degree of ambiguity in its programmatic heritage, Hamas leaders subsequently opted for a different strategy for overcoming the problems generated by the Charter. [….]

First, for years Hamas leaders have refrained from publicly embracing the Charter. The document today is noticeably absent from any Hamas statement and is unavailable on most Arabic-language webpages affiliated with Hamas. One exception is the web presentation of the Qassam Brigades (Hamas’ military wing [although often to the chagrin of Hamas’ political leaders, its decision-making is markedly independent from the larger Hamas organization]) which, in the summer of 2010, published an abridged version which rather tellingly only included the Charter’s ‘Ideological Starting-Points’ and deleted the anti-Semitic slander of subsequent paragraphs.

Second, Hamas leaders have been engaged in drafting more recent policy documents that have effectively replaced the Charter in all but name. These statements have been partly issued as communications to foreign diplomats and were partly developed as official policy documents for election campaigns in the Palestinian Territory. Third, Hamas leaders have played down the relevance of the Charter. Thus Mahmoud Ahmad Al Ramahi, the Secretary General of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), notably clarified that the Charter should not be confused with the Holy Qu’ran and was backed by Khaled Mishal, the head of Hamas’ political bureau in Damascus, who explained that ‘the Charter should not be regarded as the fundamental frame of reference.’ Rather, Mishal reiterated in a television interview with PBS host Charlie Rose that Hamas’ practice and recently policy outlines have effectively replaced the Charter. ‘So, the whole world should deal with Hamas, with what it practices, its political stance that it declared, and not based on the Charter that was put [sic] 20 years ago.’

Fourth, attempts to cast doubts on the legitimacy of the Charter have been notable. Hamas leaders have repeatedly pointed out that it has never been internally debated or formally approved. Proponents of this approach have pointed out that the Charter was written by a single confidant of Hamas’ founder Ahmad Yassin, Abdel Fattah Dukhan. Dukhan wrote the Charter without an official mandate, failing to utilise broad consultative processes that would have otherwise been the norm. This multi-level approach of minimising the significance of the Charter has not achieved the desired effect of freeing Hamas from the Charter’s fall-out—at least not among Western observers [who have a penchant for demanding from others what they would not even ask or consider of themselves]. Rather, critics of these attempts to contextualise the Charter have been quick to demand a formal rescinding of the Charter as proof of a ‘moderate’ Hamas. While such claims might appear understandable, it is doubtful whether such critics would be willing to accept even a formal renouncing of the Charter as anything but a tactical manoeuvre.”

Toward Understanding Hamas

Baconi, Tareq. Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance (Stanford University Press, 2018).
Brenner, Björn. Gaza under Hamas: From Islamic Democracy to Islamist Governance (I.B. Tauris, 2012).
Bröning, Michael. The Politics of Change in Palestine: State-Building and Non-Violent Resistance (Pluto Press, 2011).
Cardici, Paola (Andrea Teti, tr.) Hamas: From Resistance to Government (Seven Stories Press, 2012).
Gunning, Jeroen. Hamas in Politics: Democracy, Religion, Violence (Columbia University Press, 2009).
Milton-Edwards, Beverley and Stephen Farrell. Hamas: The Islamic Resistance Movement (Polity Press, 2010).
Mishal, Shaul and Avraham Sela. The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence, and Coexistence (Columbia University Press, 2000).
Pappe, Ilan. Ten Myths about Israel (Verso, 2017). For the relevant material on Hamas, see ch. 9, ‘The Gaza Mythologies’).
Roy, Sara. The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1995).
Roy, Sara. Hamas and Civil Society in Gaza: Engaging the Islamist Social Sector (Princeton University Press, 2011).
Tamimi, Azzam. Hamas: A History from Within (Olive Branch Press/Interlink, 2007).

Essential Reading

Abu-Lughod, Ibrahim. The Transformation of Palestine: Essays on the Origin and Development of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1971.
Abu-Lughod, Ibrahim. Palestinian Rights: Affirmation and Denial. Wilmette, IL: Medina Press, 1982.
Abu-Lughod, Ibrahim, ed. The Arab-Israeli Confrontation of June 1967: An Arab Perspective. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1970.
Abunimah, Ali. One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. New York: Holt McDougal, 2007.
Abunimah, Ali. The Battle for Justice in Palestine. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2014.
Allegra, Marco, Ariel Handel, and Erez Maggor, eds. Normalizing Occupation: The Politics of Everyday Life in the West Bank Settlements. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2017.
Allen, Lori. The Rise and Fall of Human Rights: Cynicism and Politics in Occupied Palestine. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013.
Azoulay, Ariella and Adi Ophir (tr. Tal Haran). The One-State Condition: Occupation and Democracy in Israel/Palestine. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013.
Barghouti, Omar. BDS: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions—The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2011.
Benvenisti, Eyal. Legal Dualism: The Absorption of the Occupied Territories into Israel. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990.
Benvenisti, Eyal. The International Law of Occupation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Blumenthal, Max. Life and Loathing in Greater Israel. New York: Nation Books, 2013.
Bröning, Michael. The Politics of Change in Palestine: State-Building and Nonviolent Resistance. London: Pluto Press, 2011.
Cattan, Henry. Palestine and International Law: Legal Aspects of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. London: Longmans, 2^nd, 1976.
Cattan, Henry. The Palestine Question. London: Saqi Books, 2000.
Chomsky, Noam. The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1999 ed.
Cobban, Helena. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation: People, Power and Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Cypel, Sylvain. Walled: Israeli Society at an Impasse. New York: Other Press, 2006.
Davis, Uri. Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within. London: Zed Books, 2004.
Dunsky, Marda. Pens and Swords: How the Mainstream American Media Report the Israeli Palestinian Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
Falk, Richard and Burns H. Weston. ‘The Relevance of International Law to Palestinian Rights in the West Bank and Gaza: In Legal Defense of the Intifada,’ Harvard International Law Journal 32, No. 1 (1991): 191-204.
Farsoun, Samih K. (with Christian E. Zacharia). Palestine and the Palestinians. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997.
Finkelstein, Norman G. Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. London: Verso,1995.
Finkelstein, Norman G. Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008 ed.
Finkelstein, Norman G. Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2018.
Flapan, Simha. The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities. New York: Pantheon, 1987.
Gordon, Neve. Israel’s Occupation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008.
Gorenberg, Gershom. The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967 1977. New York: Times Books, 2006.
Hajjar, Lisa. Courting Conflict: The Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza. London: University of California Press, 2005.
Kattan, Victor. From Coexistence to Conquest: International Law and the Origins of the Arab Israeli Conflict, 1891-1949. London: Pluto Press, 2009.
Kattan, Victor, ed. The Palestine Question in International Law. London: British Institute of International and Comparative Law, 2008.
Khalidi, Rashid. Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
Khalidi, Rashid. The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2006.
Khalidi, Rashid. Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2013.
Kimmerling, Baruch. Politicide: Ariel Sharon’s War against the Palestinians. London: Verso, 2003.
Kimmerling, Baruch and Joel S. Migdal. The Palestinian People: A History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.
King, Mary Elizabeth. A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance. New York: Nation Books, 2007.
Kovel, Joel. Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine. London: Pluto Press, 2007.
Krämer, Gudrun. A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.
Kretzmer, David. The Occupation of Justice: The Supreme Court of Israel and the Occupied Territories. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002.
Makdisi, Saree. Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2008.
Maoz, Zeev. Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel’s Security and Foreign Policy. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006.
Masalha, Nur. A Land Without People: Israel, Transfer and the Palestinians. London: Faber and Faber, 1997.
Pappé, Ilan. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oxford, UK: Oneworld, 2006.
Pappé, Ilan. The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge. London: Verso, 2014.
Pappé, Ilan. The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories. London: Oneworld Publications, 2016.
Pappé, Ilan. Ten Myths about Israel. London: Verso, 2017.
Pappé, Ilan, ed. Israel and South Africa: The Many Faces of Apartheid. London: Zed Books, 2015.
Pearlman, Wendy. Violence, Nonviolence and the Palestinian National Movement. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Peleg, Ilan and Dov Waxman. Israel’s Palestinians: The Conflict Within. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Quigley, John. The Case for Palestine: An International Law Perspective. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.
Quigley, John. The Statehood of Palestine: International Law in the Middle East Conflict. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Rodinson, Maxime. Israel: A Colonial-Settler State? New York: Anchor Foundation/Pathfinder, 1973.
Rogan, Eugene L. and Avi Shlaim, eds. The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Said, Edward W. The Question of Palestine. New York: Vintage Books, 1979.
Said, Edward W. The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After. New York: Vintage Books, 2001 ed.
Said, Edward W. and Christopher Hitchens, eds. Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question. London: Verso, 1988.
Sand, Shlomo. Invention of the Jewish People. London: Verso, 2010.
Sayigh, Yezid. Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Shlaim, Avi. Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations. London: Verso, 2009.
Slater, Jerome. “What Went Wrong? The Collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process,” Political Science Quarterly, 116, No. 2 (Summer 2001), pp. 171-199.
Tilley, Virginia, ed. Beyond Occupation: Apartheid, Colonialism and International Law in the Occupied Territories. London: Pluto Press, 2012.
Yiftachel, Oren. Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.
Zertal, Idith and Akiva Eldar. Lords of the Land: The War Over Israel’s Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007. New York: The Nation Books, 2007.