Beyond the Lines

Front matter

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Contents

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Note on Transliteration and Translation Maps

Index

169 187 193 195 217 239

Acknowledgments

Perhaps it is fitting to start a book that is fundamentally about resistance with the recognition that the success of this project rested on people who encouraged me to push boundaries. My deepest appreciation goes to my Palestinian and Lebanese interlocutors. Without their kindness, generosity, patience, hospitality, and engagement, this project would have gone nowhere. I regret that many of them—particularly in light of their personal dedication to preserving Palestinian history and to empowering the refugee community—have asked to remain anonymous. I would, however, like to thank the members of Fatah’s Women’s Office, who invited me to spend hours with them, who shared their lives and perspectives with me, and who protected me as though I were their sister. Officers in Fatah and representatives from the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon invited me to meetings, vouched for me, reflected on their memories, and provided copies of video archives from the Sabra and Shatila massacre and the War of the Camps. Members of the al-Khatib family, as well as Umm Umar, Umm Yusif, Umm Tariq, Umm Muhammad, Umm Khaled, and Umm Ibrahim, opened their homes to me and treated me as if I were one of their own children. Members of countless social associations, a number of employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and affiliates of several political factions went out of their way to grant me interviews, to facilitate introductions, and to broaden my understanding of Palestinian communities and histories in Lebanon and beyond. Omar al-Ghannoum, Raji Abdul Salaam, and Salah Hamzeh have acted as my sounding boards for years, and they deserve special recognition.

This project began as a dissertation at the University of Chicago. My PhD adviser, John Padgett, was an unwavering source of support and intellectual inspiration. John’s absolute disdain for disciplinary boundaries and pursuit of big, meaningful questions are the best models I could have as a scholar. Lisa Wedeen pushed me to do creative, challenging work and to foreground power and ethics. Despite their not being on my committee, Paul Staniland and Dan Slater were kind and encouraging mentors. Paul, in particular, organized a formative writing group focused on networks and armed organizations that included Jonathan Obert and Eric Hundman; it has been a privilege to continue thinking and discussing with them over the years. My committee members at Yale University were equally invaluable. Elisabeth Jean Wood’s incisive, generous comments helped x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS me to think through the social, political, and emotional intricacies of both militant organizations and research methodology. Steven Wilkinson was a grounding force whose comments pushed me to become sovereign over my methodological choices. During my time as a predoctoral fellow at the Program on Order Conflict and Violence at Yale’s MacMillan Center, Stathis Kalyvis’s relentless critiques forced me to clarify my theoretical and ontological approach, vastly improving the project. Time spent in the OCV offices on Prospect Street also introduced me to Eugene Finkel and to Janet Lewis; their own scholarly contributions and comments have profoundly shaped my work.

The communities anchored by George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies, where I spent a year as a post-doc, and the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) have had a transformative effect on my thinking over the years. I am particularly grateful to Marc Lynch and Jillian Schwedler, who have given me endless feedback, guidance, and emotional support. POMEPS generously hosted an early book workshop that included Amaney Jamal and Roger Petersen; this book and my own thinking are clearer thanks to them. Amaney, in particular, has been extraordinary in her mentorship and encouragement throughout the years. I have also benefited from the advice and friendship of brilliant people in these networks, including Nermin Allam, Melani Cammett, Laryssa Chomiak, Janine Clark, Adria Lawrence, Rabab al-Mahdi, Rima Majed, Lama Mourad, Curtis Ryan, and Stacey Philbrick Yadav.

My colleagues from the University of Chicago’s PhD program have continued to be a source of intellectual inspiration, support, and accountability. Christopher Graziul and Chad Levinson remain my amazing friends and collaborators. Throughout my graduate career, I was also lucky to be part of conversations, support networks, and reading groups that included Ahsan Butt, Sofia Fenner, Morgan Kaplan, Diana Kim, Yasmeen Mekawy, Lindsey O’Rourke, Dina Rashed, Erica Simmons, and Nicholas Rush Smith. While at Yale, my conversations with Beth Iams Wellman, Julia Choucair-Vizoso, Regina Bateson, Josh Goodman, and Francesca Grandi consistently influenced my opinions on research methods, the Middle East, and political violence.

Funding from the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship, the Social Science Research Council’s Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship and International Dissertation Research Fellowship programs, the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC), a POMEPS Travel Research and Engagement Grant, and Johns Hopkins University made it possible for me to conduct two years of research on the ground in Lebanon. The Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut hosted me in 2009-2010 and again in 2018. For giving me this home away from home, I thank Rami Khoury, Sari Hanafi, Tarek Mitri, and Rayan el-Amine.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi

A fellowship at the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Advanced Study gave me space to think and write for a semester. I am grateful to all these programs, and to their staff.

Archivists and librarians at the American University of Beirut (AUB), the Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS), al-Safir, the Institut francais du Proche Orient, PARC’s Ramallah office, and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Archives provided innumerable hours of assistance and shared invaluable knowledge. I would especially like to thank Kaoukab Chebaro, Donald Davis, and Perla Issa for their gracious assistance over the years. Video interviews from the Palestinian Oral History Archive (POHA), archival materials from the AFSC, and translated portions of Mahmoud Zeidan’s memoir (published by IPS) have been excerpted with permission; I extend my heartfelt thanks to the institutions that manage these collections or facilitated materials’ creation.

Over the years, I received invaluable feedback on chapters or concepts in this manuscript from Christopher Ansell, Emily Kalah Gade, Amelia Hoover Green, Margaret Keck, Zachariah Mampilly, Theodore McLauchlin, Timothy Pachirat, Wendy Pearlman, Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl, Anastasia Shesterinina, and Michael Weintraub. I am especially indebted to Faten Ghosn and Sean Lee, both of whom read the entire manuscript and contemplated the finer points of Lebanese and Palestinian history with me. Orkideh Behrouzan, Kanisha Bond, Milli Lake, and Sherry Zaks have repeatedly talked through the most minute details of this work with me and reminded me of the importance of practicing empathy and humanity when writing about violence. Before her passing, Lee Ann Fujii organized a writing group that included myself and Devorah Manekin; both read multiple early drafts of this work and provided indispensable suggestions. Helen Kinsella, Samantha Majic, Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, Joe Soss, Scott Straus, and Dvora Yanow have all been touchstones for me as I thought through my methodological approach to this work as well as the ethical commitments it entailed. My colleagues at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Minnesota have provided lively, intellectually generative environments in which I have been privileged to work. I am also grateful for feedback received during workshops at George Washington University, Princeton University, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Chicago, the University of Minnesota, the University of Virginia, the University of Washington-Seattle, Uppsala University, and Yale University. Portions of this book were previously published in The American Political Science Review; in Perspectives on Politics; and in World Politics. They have been included with permission from Cambridge University Press.

I have benefited immensely from the labor, wisdom, and wit of many research assistants over the years: Salah and Rima in Lebanon; Eslam Bedawy, Kelsey Fogt, Thomas Vargas, and Sean Williams at the University of Minnesota; Ayesha xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Durrani, Sofia Smith, and Raied Haj Yahya at Johns Hopkins University. David Meyer, also of Johns Hopkins, worked tirelessly with me to piece together historical data for the four maps included in this volume. This project would not be nearly as rich without their contributions. I am also indebted to the editing skills of Evan Ramzipoor and Audra J. Wolfe, who made this book far more readable than I could have done alone. I also wish to extend my appreciation to Roger Malcolm Haydon, who brought this project to its home at Cornell University Press, as well as to Jim Lance and to Clare Jones, who brought it to press.

Over the years, Beirut has hosted some of the most intense, skilled, and dedicated journalists I have ever encountered. Annasofie Flamand, in particular, introduced me to Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps during the summer of 2007, inviting me to tag along for a series of interviews in Ain al-Hilweh that are described at the beginning of chapter 1. She, along with Gabriela Keller and Abigail Fielding-Smith, were confidantes, sounding boards, and close friends throughout my time in Lebanon.

Anyone who has been through the process of writing a book knows that having compassionate friends to cheer you on and force you to go outside for some fresh air now and then is absolutely essential. Sarah Crawford, Laura Davulis, Eric Jabert, Janna Johnson, Alexandra Krensky, Racha Mouawia, Scot Myers, Yoda Patta, and Becca and Andrew Yates have been incredible in this regard. Iam also immensely privileged to have a supportive family that has encouraged my career choices. First among them is my mother, whose early skepticism about this research transformed into full-throated encouragement (in part thanks to my interlocutors themselves). Finally, Evann Smith was unexpectedly around for the beginning, middle, and end of this project. They are proof that taking the long road is often the most rewarding path.

Abbreviations

ALF ANM DFLP GUPS GUPW IDF LAF LCP LF LNM NLP PCP PELP PLA PLE PLO PNG PNO PNSF PPSF PRCS PSP SLA

Arab Liberation Front

Arab Nationalist Movement Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Union of Palestinian Students General Union of Palestinian Women Israel Defense Forces

Lebanese Armed Forces

Lebanese Communist Party

Lebanese Forces

Lebanese National Movement National Liberal Party

Palestinian Communist Party Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Palestine Liberation Army

Palestine Liberation Front

Palestine Liberation Organization Palestinian National Guard

Popular Nasserite Organization Palestinian National Salvation Front Palestinian Popular Struggle Front Palestinian Red Crescent Society Progressive Socialist Party

South Lebanon Army xiii

Note on Transliteration and Translation

I use a simplified version of the International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES) transliteration rules. The medial ‘ayn, and the hamza are marked, but I do not include other diacritical markings (such as the dots to distinguish da and dawd or the macrons used to mark long vowels). I employ the I MES Word List as a reference for common Arabic terms and some proper names, including Hizbullah, Yasir Arafat, kaffiyeh, Bekaa, and Salafi.

For the greatest accessibility, I give location names in Lebanon using common colloquial transliterations rather than employing IJMES rules; the same approach applies to maps. “Beirut” is written in English, whereas I use the Arabic names for Saida, Sur, and Trablous (Sidon, Tyre, and Tripoli, as they are rendered in English). I use the transliterated spelling “Sur” rather than “Sour” for clarity of pronunciation in English. Names of historical figures and living individuals are written either as they spell them or according to resources such as the PASSIA guide. Short interview excerpts are reproduced according to colloquial conventions for transliteration.

Translations for conversations and interviews with my interlocutors, as well as those for the Palestinian Oral History Archives interviews that I accessed, are my own. As detailed in appendix B, translations from Arabic-language memoirs, from archival documents, and from other source material are either my own or the work of research assistants who are fluent Arabic speakers. Perla Issa of the Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut lightly edited the translations of quotes from Mahmoud Zeidan’s memoir for accuracy and to ensure that the text conforms with a forthcoming English edition of the work.

XV

LEBANON

Trablous

Mediterranean Sea

Saida

A won

E a! hon;

NJ Nabanysh | Marjayoun e

ISRAEL

LEB al-Kalb

Zahle eo.

Bcharre (J

ANON

Baalbek J

Bekaa Valley

SYRIA DAMASCUS A) N 0 30 km A €3 Capital City

@ = City or Major Town ~N River Major Region (e.g. Arkoub)

SAIDA

ABRA

Mediterranean al-Hilweh wa Miyeh

Sı aynig

MAGDOUSHEH

N

© Location N ~ River A Major Road 0 1km Saida

AA Refugee Camp

MAP 3. Saida

SUR

, Burj al-Shamali

Mediterranec

Sea hidiyeh

© Location À

=== Major Road

Yj, refugee Camp O72 km T

MAP 4. Sur