Since the Arab uprisings of 2011, Palestinian youth movements have formed unofficial and leaderless networks of political activism, using the internet to mobilise and bring together three generations of Palestinian activists. This book focuses on three key case studies that have marked a turning point in the development of youth-organised and grassroots Palestinian politics: the 15 March movement in Gaza, the Palestinians for Dignity movement in the West Bank, and the Prawer movement of young Palestinians in Israel. Drawing on extensive fieldwork composed of interviews with leading Palestinian activists in the West Bank and Gaza and detailed analysis of social media patterns, this book offers a fresh reading of Palestinian youth and their central online and offline role in popular protests against both Israeli and Palestinian power structures.
Albana Dwonch was most recently Visiting Scholar at the Ibrahim Abu LughodInternational Studies Institute, Birzeit University, Palestine. She has been activelyengaged in the NGO sector in the Middle East as Youth Development practitioner.She received her PhD in Near and Middle Eastern Interdisciplinary studies from theUniversity of Washington, USA.
PrefaceChapter One: IntroductionChapter Two: New Social Movements in the Internet AgeChapter Three: The Rise and Fall of the Arab SpringChapter Four: Gaza’s Forgotten RevolutionChapter Five: At a Crossroads in the West Bank - In Search of a Lost StrategyChapter Six: Between Old Demands and New Protests: Stop The Prawer Movement. A Case Study of Palestinian Youth activism in Israel, 2011-2013Chapter Seven: Concluding RemarksBibliography
It takes deep cultural knowledge to understand how people use technology. Dwonch has immersed herself in Palestinian communities using technology to express themselves politically and to understand their political positions. Most important, her time spent in these communities lets her explain how the role of technology in political culture varies across the generations of Palestinians trapped in a long term struggle for individual identity and collective security.