Palestine in the Air

Chin-chin Yap is a writer and filmmaker. She edited Human Flow: Stories from the Global Refugee Crisis (2020) and has been published in the Journal of Palestine Studies, Digital War, Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts, The Tax Lawyer, and Art Asia Pacific. She has produced documentary films including Human Flow (2017), The Rest (2019), Ximei (2019), and Rohingya (2021).

• Introduction Histories of Flight Colonial and National Aviation Diplomacy and Critical Air Studies Literature Review Methodology and Chapter Summaries 1 Air, Space, and Society How Air Expanded Space The First Air Statesmen Imperial Projections Civilian Air Travel Village Files2 Chosen Instrument Politics in the Air Palestine Airways and Aviron Eastern Airways and the Arab Airways Association Gumbley and the Chosen Instrument3 Capital Flight Middle East Aviation in the 1950s Jerusalem-Amman Relations Kendall Town Plan and Point Four Aviation in Israel, 1948–67 Arrested Motion4 Perforating Worlds A Crisis of Representation The Skyjackings Air-to-Ground Communication A Crack in Time Diplomatic Payoffs5 Chairman of the Air New York and Havana Visual ApproachWindfall from America Onboarding the Media The Libyan CrashHomecoming6 An Airport, a Flag, an AirplaneAligning Revolutions New Winds in Oslo Missed Approaches Terminal Ambition7 Flying While Palestinian Mobile Typologies Getting to the Airport Turning Points Airport Refugees and Wheel-Well Stowaways8 Reterritorializing Time-Space Dislocation Remixing Realities Lines of Flight Airborne Incursions Epilogue

A bird's eye perspective on the role of aviation in Palestinian state-building, international diplomacy and cultural iconography. Chin-chin trains her interdisciplinary lens on Palestinian airports, airlines and air travel against broader political developments, highlighting aviation as a form of colonial domination, as an act of resistance, and as a central dimension in the representations of Palestinians in the popular imagination.