Assessing Nonviolence in the Palestinian Rights Struggle

Notes

1. Within Palestinian society, the term shahid refers to anyone killed by the enemy. In the West, however, the term is used for those who undertake “martyrdom” operations (such as suicide bombings), individuals Palestinians call istishhadi .

2. Indeed, the reality of Israel's expanding settler colonialism has led a number of commentators to argue that the two-state solution is no longer feasible and that only a “one state solution” remains. This could comprise a single democratic and secular state across Israel, the West Bank and Gaza with equal rights for all citizens – an option which Israel refuses to countenance as it would require the Jewish state to relinquish the religious identity of the State and its largely ethnocratic system of governance. Others fear that if the current reality continues, the future could witness an Israeli incorporation of presently occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem with the consolidation of apartheid for Palestinians. These two options ultimately pose the choice between democracy and the extension of apartheid. For wider discussions on these issues, see Abunimah ( 2006); Tilley ( 2005); Faris ( 2013).

3. For an in-depth discussion of the blockade, see UNOCHA ( 2015).

4. See, for example, discussions in Beaumont ( 2015).

5. For a more detailed discussion on the situation facing Palestinian universities, see Bekhradnia ( 2009).