The Politics of Gaza Beach: at the Edge of the Two Intifadas (original) (raw)

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is talked about every day. But to what extent can the Palestinian speak? In the late 1980s, Palestinians engaged themselves in the first Intifada (1987–93), a loud popular struggle against the Israeli occupation. Yet, almost two decades later the Israeli army still holds increasingly harsh and impenetrable control over Pales- tinian lives and living space, relatively unchallenged by the outside world. The apparent failure by Palestinians to overcome Israeli occupation through popular struggle has, during the ongoing second uprising, the Al-Aqsa Intifada (2000–), been coupled with the emergence of increas- ingly polarised imaginaries of the Palestinians’ struggle. The first Intifada articulated clear and compelling Palestinian demands for national self- determination. Central to it were heroic images of Palestinian national- ism in which teenagers confronted Israeli tanks with only stones in their hands. These images located the struggle firmly within the wider frame- work of earlier anti-colonial and national liberation movements and generated growing international support for Palestinians in both the West and the Arab world. During the second Intifada, understandings of Palestinian subjectivity have become more polarised and problematic. Instead of popular demonstrations and national unity, the second intifada is often associ- ated with the rise of Islamic militancy, a crisis of the Palestinian national movement and a process of political fragmentation. Images of masked gunmen and suicide bombers rather than stone-throwing teenagers have seized centre stage as symbols of Palestinian resistance. Alternatively, in representations sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, images of heroism have to a large extent been superseded by representations of Palestinian victimhood, which tend to reduce the status of Palestinians to passive victims of Israeli occupation. This article examines these vast differences between the two Intifadas by looking at the shifting ways in which Palestinians have resisted and negotiated the occupation in one of the most unrepresented spaces of Palestinian everyday life, the beach in Gaza. The specific aim here is to Third Text ISSN 0952-8822 print/ISSN 1475-5297 online © Third Text (2006) http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/09528820600855428 j10320TLCOu-090ahTrn4.050iyuyi1kTgr620lrd0aioaE-0nl8J8rT0a_au08a&@MAlen/2nx0Ak_2dyaFt9a1ryar5(Ft8h/api2Jrc5norau8l4icoenln8i7y.cst2c4)io20/s.1sm06Lg40;mt760du580-5249727682(5o@nliunel).ac.uk CTTE_A_185474.fm Page 418 Thursday, September 14, 2006 9:58 AM 418 1 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, eds Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, Macmillan Education, London, 1988, pp 271–313 explore the reasons behind this process of polarisation and to create space for understandings of Palestinian subjectivity beyond the narrow parameters of militancy and victimhood.