Communicating Desperation: Palestinians’ Suicide Bombing in Hallaj’s Novel Refugee without Refuge
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7596/taksad.v9i2.2646Keywords:
Suicide bombing, Israel, Palestine, Desperation, Refugee camps.Abstract
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is one of the thorniest conflicts in the world. The life of the Palestinians in refugee camps under occupation is very difficult. Curfews, checkpoints, detention, and violence permeate all aspects of their daily life. Striving against poverty, their vicious enemy, and the constant struggle to survive are daily nightmares. However, they are often perceived as terrorists and war criminals. Dixiane Hallaj’s Refugee without Refuge: A Novel of One Palestinian Family is an attempt to highlight the problems Palestinians face in the refugee camps in occupied Palestine. The novel engages in establishing the relationship between the horrendous living conditions of the Palestinians and the aggression of the Israeli occupation forces on one hand and the violent reaction of the Palestinians on the other. It demonstrates that suicide bombing committed by the Palestinians is a rebounding of the Israeli violence and atrocities exercised against the Palestinians and that such lethal acts have no relation to religion or politics. They are personal decisions and acts taken after a long tragic suffering under the yoke of occupation. This article argues that Hallaj’s novel challenges the familiar notions and preconceptions of Palestinians as violence agitators, suicide bombers, and terrorists, which are propagated by western media and literature. The article focuses on Hallaj’s depiction of the Palestinian suffering and their final determination to get rid of their persecutors using violence after all nonviolent means become impossible. Psychoanalysis theory is applied to the novel to criticize the protagonist’s motives to attempt suicide bombing.
References
Allaham, A. A. (2009). The short story as a form of resistance: a study of the short stories of Ghassan Kanafani, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Alice Walker. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Newcastle University, Newcastle, United Kingdom.
Arendt, H. (1970). On violence. New York: A Harvest/HBJ Book.
Asad, T. (2007). On suicide bombing. New York: Columbia University Press.
Dzikansky, M., Kleiman, G., & Slater, R. (2012). Terrorist suicide bombings: attack interdiction, mitigation, and response. FL: CRC Press.
Euben, R. L. (2002). Killing (for) politics: jihad, martyrdom, and political action. Political Theory, 30(1), 4-35.
Fanon, F. (2004). The wretched of the earth. (Philcox, R, Trans.). New York: Grove Press.
Frese, S. (2010). “Can’t You Hear the Shooting?” -Death and Violence in Palestinian-American Literature on the Middle East Conflict. Studia Universitatis Petru Maior. Philologia, 9, 253-263.
Hallaj, D. (2011). Refugee without refuge: A Novel of One Palestinian Family. USA: Createspace Independent Pub.
Hanafi, S. (2010). Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon laboratory of indocile identity formation. In M. A. Khalidi. (Ed.), Manifestations of Identity: The lived reality of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon (1-25). Institute of Palestine Studies.
Hanafi, S. (2014). UNRWA as a ‘phantom sovereign.’ In S. Hanafi, L. Hilal. & L. Takkenberg. (Eds.), UNRWA and Palestinian refugees: From Relief and Works to Human Development (258-280). New York: Routledge.
Hassan, R. (2011). Suicide bombings. New York: Routledge.
Jayyusi, M. (2004). Subjectivity and public witness: An analysis of Islamic militance in Palestine. Unpublished paper for the SSRC Beirut Conference on the Public Sphere in the Middle East, October 2004.
Margalit, A. (2003). The suicide bombers. The New York Review of Books. 50(1), 36-39.
Morris, B. (2004). The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pape, Robert. (2005). Dying to win: The strategic logic of suicide terrorism. New York: Random House.
Sartre, J. (1963). Preface. In F. Fanon. (Ed.), The wretched of the earth (7-35). New York, NY: Grove Press.
Somasundaram, D. (2010). Parallel governments: Living between terror and counter terror in northern Lanka (1982-2009). Journal of Asian and African Studies, 45(5), 568-583.
Strenski, I. (2003). Sacrifice, gift and the social logic of Muslim ‘human bombers’. Terrorism and Political Violence, 15(3), 1-34.
The Electronic Intifada. (2011). Israeli checkpoints kill women in childbirth, says new study. The Electronic Intifada. Retrieved July 18, 2018, from https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-checkpoints-kill-women-childbirth-says-new-study/10145.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
All papers licensed under Creative Commons 4.0 CC-BY.- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
- No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
