Explore the vast range of titles available.

The purpose of this study is to pragmatically examine cryptic language Palestinian inmates employ on daily basis to communicate coded, secret messages among themselves and to mislead Israeli jailers. The pragmatic meaning of this special language reflects the harsh conditions of Palestinian security prisoners in all aspects of their routine social, military, and security life inside Israeli prisons. The data of the study have been collected from interviews with five newly freed Palestinian prisoners who served long sentences in the Israeli jails. For a better analysis, the data have been classified into metaphoric and non-metaphoric based on their situational use in the prison environment. The study found that although these terms have drifted from their original semantic usages and acquired new pragmatic applications initiated by Palestinian prisoners' needs for socializing, maneuvering, and security concerns, they still exhibit strong connection between their literal and pragmatic meanings. Put differently, in some cases, the pragmatic meaning of the terms used inside the prison conceptually maps their literal meaning outside the prison context. The study also has revealed that these terms convey different (indirect) speech acts of warning, threatening, command, and request in the prison context. We recommend other researchers to focus on the cryptic language of Palestinian female prisoners who might have needs and concerns that are different from those of the males'.

Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a multifactorial neurodevelopment disorder. Several prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal factors are suggested as risk factors for ASD. This study aimed to correlate prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal factors in a limited number of ASD cases in Palestine. Methods: A case-control study involved 120 children (60 typically diagnosed with ASD and 60 healthy matched with the ASD group). The parents of the children in both groups were asked to fill out the questionnaire. Results: The study showed a higher male-to-female ratio in the ASD group. A family history of ASD was reported in 38.3% of the ASD group and 11.7% in the healthy group. Three prenatal risk factors, including maternal passive smoking, preserving follow-up prenatal visits, and experiencing psychological stress by mothers, were significantly associated with ASD. Most of the postnatal factors were significantly associated with increased ASD risk. The studied perinatal factors were not significantly associated with ASD. The parental factors, such as paternal age greater than 30 years and lower levels of education, displayed significant risk factors associated with ASD. Conclusion: This study found significant associations between several prenatal, postnatal, and parental factors and ASD in a sample of Palestinian children.

The current study is designed to identify factors that affect the psychological resilience of Palestinian adolescent ex-detainees of Israeli jails and understand the meaning and content of psychological resilience. This study utilizes qualitative data collection and analysis methods, mainly conducting semi-structured interviews and thematic analyses of interview content. The study sample consists of ten adolescent ex-detainees and uses purposeful selection to ensure the inclusion of ex-detainees from the southern areas of the West Bank (Bethlehem and Hebron) , aged between seventeen to nineteen. The findings indicate that resilience is based on a high tolerance of stress resulting from traumatic events, such as arrest, and the ability to control life events, along with the reinforcement of a positive attitude toward social and political experiences, and the capacity to transform stress into an opportunity instead of a debilitating threat. The results also show that resilience is correlated with various factors, including secure attachment, supportive relationships, social support systems, conflict relationships - personal and collective aggression, challenge, commitment to principles (i.e. nationalism) and post hoc engagement in public events (community and voluntary work, solidarity visits with families of ex-detainees, participation in public discourse).

هدفت الدراسة التعرف على درجة الدافعية في العمل، وعلاقتها بمستوى الأمن الاجتماعي لدى موظفي وزارة الداخلية الفلسطينية، تم استخدم المنهج الوصفي الارتباطي، كما تم استخدام الاستبانة كأداة للدراسة والتي طبقت على عينة عشوائية طبقية تكونت من 256 موظفا وموظفة بنسبة 39.3% من مجتمع الدراسة الذي تكون من موظفي وزارة الداخلية الفلسطينية البالغ عددهم 650 موظفا وموظفة، وبعد جمع الاستبانات ومعالجتها إحصائيا باستخدام الأساليب الإحصائية للعلوم الاجتماعية، توصلت الدراسة أن فقرات درجة الدافعية في العمل لدى موظفي وزارة الداخلية الفلسطينية كانت ما بين المتوسطة والمرتفعة؛ فقد تراوحت المتوسطات الحسابية للأبعاد ما بين 3.65 إلى 4.26، وتشير هذه النتيجة إلى أن درجة الدافعية في العمل لدى موظفي وزارة الداخلية الفلسطينية كانت مرتفعة، وذلك بدلالة الدرجة الكلية التي بلغ متوسطها الحسابي 3.95 ونسبتها المئوية 79%. وتشير النتائج أيضا أن فقرات مستوى الأمن الاجتماعي لدى موظفي وزارة الداخلية الفلسطينية كانت ما بين المتوسطة والمرتفعة، فقد تراوحت المتوسطات الحسابية للفقرات ما بين 3.22 إلى 4.30، ويتضح من هذه النتيجة أن مستوى الأمن الاجتماعي لدى موظفي وزارة الداخلية الفلسطينية كانت مرتفعة، وذلك بدلالة الدرجة الكلية التي بلغ متوسطها الحسابي 3.96 ونسبتها المئوية79.2%، وتفيد النتائج وجود علاقة طردية ذات دلالة إحصائية بين مستوى الأمن الاجتماعي والدافعية في العمل لدى موظفي وزارة الداخلية الفلسطينية؛ حيث بلغت قيمة معامل الارتباط بينهما 0.561 وهذا يعني أنه كلما زاد مستوى الدافعية زاد مستوى الأمن الاجتماعي لدى موظفي وزارة الداخلية الفلسطينية. وأوصت الدراسة بضرورة تعزيز مبدأ تكافؤ الفرص بين العاملين في المؤسسات الحكومية والاهتمام بالمساواة بينهم، وزيادة مستوى التفاعل بين الموظفين والتركيز على العمل الجماعي المشترك، وتقدير الجهود التي يبذلها الموظف في العمل لان ذلك يساعد على الاستمرار في تقديم هذا المجهود ويشكل حافز غير مادي للموظف.

This article examines the ways in which Mahmoud Darwish's contrapuntal notion of memory, catastrophe, and mourning exhibit an aesthetic of freedom, intransigence and resistance. Darwish's intellectual and aesthetic project is primarily premised upon the pleasures and pitfalls of memory and catastrophe as a site of spatial and cultural resistance. For Darwish, memory and catastrophe are not only about the absence and presence of geography and home, but they are also metaphorical in every way. In The Presence of Absence (2011) , Darwish argues that metaphors form a peculiar mode of geography and space. Drawing on Edward Said's notion of late style and Judith Butler's argument on the politics of mourning, this article sets out to examine the ways in which Darwish's Memory for Forgetfulness and In the Presence of Absence embody a radical form of aesthetic and intellectual praxis, writing against the grain and the politics of mourning.

This research aims at studying the complicated nature of the identity crisis suffered by the second generation of Palestinian Americans. This goal has been further explored by referring to different theoretical perspectives and conceptual paradigms to understand and analyze this topic under investigation. Many models and approaches have been used to reflect on the experiences of the Palestinians living in the US as Diaspora communities, facing the hardships of refugeedom and the pain of Return dream to the homeland. Both researchers attempted to rationalize the usage of these western related theories to fit the Palestinian context by matching them with a set of other literary studies, resources and oral interviews with the second generation of the US-born Palestinian Americans. Methodologically, the current research is qualitative, descriptive and of analytical nature, benefiting from primary and secondary data available in various research areas. The two researchers conducted field interviews with the second generation of Palestinian - Americans that revealed that all these factors including occupation, seeking refuge, American democracy, the American press and stereotyping created an identity crisis to those Palestinians. However, that crisis can be solved in the long run if a real political transformation took place on real ground at the level of the American - Palestinian relations and at the level of the relationship between Arabs and Israelis in the new Middle East.