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This is a comprehensive political analysis of the PLO. A correspondent in Beirut from 1976 to 1981, Helena Cobban has been able to study developments at close quarters and use documentary sources and first-hand recollections which have never been included in previous Western analyses of the movement. The book maintains that one key to understanding the development of the PLO is an examination of the development of its predominant member-group, Al-Fateh. The first part focuses on the history of Fateh, showing how its interests and the PLO's became intertwined. The latter part discusses the interrelations between the Fateh leadership and various factors which affect and are affected by its performance, such as the internal Palestinian opposition, the Arab milieu, and the resistance movement inside the Israeli-occupied areas. The final chapter draws together all the strands to arrive at the precise sources of the Fateh leadership's relative stability, as well as to assess its effectiveness in key areas of its operations.

This article examines the relationship between Cold War national liberation groups through their shared material and visual culture. Using China, Cuba, and Palestinian groups as its case studies, it reveals how Third World militants forged transnational associative networks in part through the transmission of cultural productions that reflected common values, assumptions, and metaphors. In Global South iconography, the AK-47 rifle became shorthand for a revolutionary transnationalism. The rifle is among the most iconic images in the world, even among those who have never seen one in person, and its use as a symbol is imbued with complex political meaning. While artists, themes, and ideologies varied widely in revolutionary art, the AK-47 was a metaphoric bridge between these groups and became a focal point of imagery for national liberation and transnational solidarity. Rather than demonstrating allegiance to the Soviet Union, the repetitious use of the rifle in visual culture became a way for revolutionary groups to stake out place as an imagined community across the Global South.

This essay reflects on the Palestinian habba of 2021, contextualizing it within the broader trajectory of Palestine's century-old anti-colonial continuum. Noting the substantial scale and intensity of the latest mobilizations, this essay argues that colonial structural realities induce a cyclical regeneration of popular resistance in historic Palestine and in exile. Nevertheless, the emancipatory prospects of this resistance depend on the transformation of moments that carry revolutionary potential into a long-term struggle, one that is sustained by rejuvenated national institutions pursuing unified anti-colonial principles and political programs.

How do terrorist groups control their members? Do the tools groups use to monitor their operatives and enforce discipline create security vulnerabilities that governments can exploit?The Terrorist's Dilemmais the first book to systematically examine the great variation in how terrorist groups are structured. Employing a broad range of agency theory, historical case studies, and terrorists' own internal documents, Jacob Shapiro provocatively discusses the core managerial challenges that terrorists face and illustrates how their political goals interact with the operational environment to push them to organize in particular ways. Shapiro provides a historically informed explanation for why some groups have little hierarchy, while others resemble miniature firms, complete with line charts and written disciplinary codes. Looking at groups in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America, he highlights how consistent and widespread the terrorist's dilemma--balancing the desire to maintain control with the need for secrecy--has been since the 1880s. Through an analysis of more than a hundred terrorist autobiographies he shows how prevalent bureaucracy has been, and he utilizes a cache of internal documents from al-Qa'ida in Iraq to outline why this deadly group used so much paperwork to handle its people. Tracing the strategic interaction between terrorist leaders and their operatives, Shapiro closes with a series of comparative case studies, indicating that the differences in how groups in the same conflict approach their dilemmas are consistent with an agency theory perspective. The Terrorist's Dilemmademonstrates the management constraints inherent to terrorist groups and sheds light on specific organizational details that can be exploited to more efficiently combat terrorist activity.

In this book, the distinguished scholar Hanna Batatu presents a comprehensive analysis of the recent social, economic, and political evolution of Syria's peasantry, the segment of society from which the current holders of political power stem. Batatu focuses mainly on the twentieth century and, in particular, on the Ba`th movement, the structures of power after the military coup d'état of 1963, and the era of îvfiz al-Asad, Syria's first ruler of peasant extraction. Without seeking to prove any single theory about Syrian life, he offers a uniquely rich and detailed account of how power was transferred from one demographic group to another and how that power is maintained today. Batatu begins by examining social differences among Syria's peasants and the evolution of their mode of life and economic circumstances. He then scrutinizes the peasants' forms of consciousness, organization, and behavior in Ottoman and Mandate times and prior to the Ba`thists' rise to power. He explores the rural aspects of Ba`thism and shows that it was not a single force but a plurality of interrelated groups--prominent among them the descendants of the lesser rural notables--with different social goals and mental horizons. The book also provides a perceptive account of President Asad, his personality and conduct, and the characteristics and power structures of his regime. Batatu draws throughout on a wide range of socioeconomic and biographical information and on personal interviews with Syrian peasants and political leaders, offering invaluable insights into the complexities of a country and a regime that have long been poorly understood by outsiders.

The Global Offensive shows how Palestinian liberation fighters--inspired and supported by other revolutionary groups in the Third World--waged a military and diplomatic campaign between 1967 and 1975 that seized the world's attention. Meanwhile, the United States and its allies in the region struggled to contain this revolutionary new force in the Middle East.

In the June/July issue of the Washington Report, Gee wrote about how the particular course of Israel's development, with its perseverance in colonial expansion and the consequent growth in power of the nationalist Right, has militated against the tendency toward normalization that can be seen in other settler colonial societies. In most societies that began as settler colonies, it should be recognized that the term \"normalization\" is descriptive of a tendency that happens within the settler society itself and how others internationally perceive it. For the surviving indigenous peoples living on a small portion of their ancestral lands, or on other lands allocated to them, with rights curtailed by various means, the sense of loss, of cultural destruction and in many cases, of discrimination, is persistent and fuels a striving to create a new and more just \"normal.\" Even in long established societies originating as settler colonies, this quest for justice by the dispossessed can cause anxieties in the colonists, perhaps due to a deep-down recognition that wrongs were done in the past and a fear that redress could pose an existential threat.

Many in the United States and Israel believe that Hamas is nothing but a terrorist organization, and that its social sector serves merely to recruit new supporters for its violent agenda. Based on Sara Roy's extensive fieldwork in the Gaza Strip and West Bank during the critical period of the Oslo peace process, Hamas and Civil Society in Gaza shows how the social service activities sponsored by the Islamist group emphasized not political violence but rather community development and civic restoration.

Against the backdrop of changes in the power structure of the international system at the end of the twentieth century, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) entered into a peace process with Israel in 1993. Initially characterized by the influence of a multilateral order and then by the unipolar order dominated by the United States, in addition to the asymmetry of power between the two parties, the process ended up failing. The heir to that political legacy, the Palestinian Authority (PA), has tried to compensate for this weakness—despite its dependency relationships—with an internationalization strategy the continued advance of which appears to be severely limited. Added to this is the setback brought about by the political and diplomatic offensive of the Trump administration (2017–2021), one of unilateral support for Israel and absolute Palestinian exclusion. However, the increasing reconfiguration of the world order, the arrival of the new Biden administration, and the receptiveness of the International Criminal Court to investigate war crimes in Palestine seem to indicate a new political juncture. In this situation, the PA could also try to counterbalance the power asymmetry by seeking greater involvement from countries such as Russia, which has returned to the region as a great power, and China, whose presence there is growing. In turn, the PA will have to deal with different issues (unity, elections, a renewal of leadership) and try to boost its political legitimacy and international alliances to three ends: the prominence and reactivation of the PA, the recognition of Palestine as a state with in situ results, and international protection from Israeli policies.

Kuttab discusses the identity of Fatah and Palestinian Authority (PA). From its early days, Fatah was the largest Palestinian faction and viewed itself as the leader of the Palestinian national movement. It lacked a doctrinaire ideology, as most of the other factions had, and included political views that ranged from leftist Marxist, Leninists to conservative Muslim Brotherhood types. After Fatah won the first elections held for the Palestinian National Authority, the confusion over the identity of Fatah increased since Arafat was the head of Fatah, the Palestinian Authority, and the PLO, to boot.