Political Economy of Palestine: Critical, Interdisciplinary, and Decolonial Perspective

 Edited by Alaa Tartir · Tariq Dana · Timothy Seidel.

Middle East Today, 2021, 335 pages, ISBN 978-3-030-68642-0

Reviewed by Firdan FADLAN Sidik  

The weakness of Palestinian economy in the eye of the Israeli and Orientalist considered as a natural cause rooted from the genetical Arab fractured that led to the need of a superior power as Israel. The other view on Palestine economy was that their economy was shaped to became weak and continuously dependent on Israel. The Book edited by Alaa Tartir, Tariq Dana, and Timothy Seidel will come to the second opinion and unreveal the former opinion.

Such a deep and focus discussion work on political economy in Palestine has been done by a sort of scholars on the book entitled Political Economy of Palestine: Critical, Interdisciplinary, and Decolonial Perspective. Within the decolonialization perspective, the authors explained the discourses in the context of how did colonialization works in the realm of economics. This paradigm brought the readers to not consider Palestine economic issue partially, but should take into the whole paradigm of colonialization.

The paradigm utilized by the authors are critical, interdisciplinary, and decolonial perspective. The reader must be critical of what Palestinian Authority embraced on political system, that is the neoliberal agenda shaped by the external side that yields the racial capitalism: ‘follow the money, uncover the power dynamics’. Moreover, examining critical way should accompanied by interdisciplinary approach to unpack the intertwining relationship of colonialism, exploitation, nationalism, and patriarchy within the dynamics and trajectories of capitalism.  All this critical and interdisciplinary approaches are in a boundary of decolonialization process to challenge the logic of elimination, to give attention to the history of erasure.

This book comprised into three cahapters. After grounding some basic paradigm in the introduction by the editors, the meaning of economic domination and pasification will be elaborated in the chapter one on Contextualizing Palestinian Political Economy. The two aspecs of colonialization: physical violence (economic domination) and symbolic violence (economic pacification) was the framework within the Palestinian political economy. Human dispossession and land confiscation considered as physical violence to dominate Palestine territory. While stabilizing and normalizing the physical violence through such a policy as Oslo-Peace process considered as economic pasification. Both of these violences works at the same time on some particular issues, for instance: replacing Arab countries banks, massive land confiscation in strategic areas (fertile), controlling borders, restricted industrial zones, and limitating communication, transport, electricity, and daily needs. All these policies discussed in part one on Contextualizing Palestinian Political Economy.

The next chapter delve with how the overlapping feature between domination and pacification works on political economy of integration, fragmentation, and inequality. This part focus on problematizing the West-bank Israel integration through the Palestinian interaction with the Israeli border and permit regimes. Israel created the stategy to make Palestinian-Israel economy relation dependent. In the other words, Israel wanted Palestinian economy fragmented, pauperized and distorted so that Israel can intensify its colonial domination. For instance, the West Bank-Israel trade treated by Israel as a captive market for the Israel goods and diminish Palestinian products.

Due to the absence of Palestinian “real” representative, the Palestine economy driven by Israel controlled authority under the Palestinian Authority (PA) built in 1993. As stated in part three, an agreement to govern economic and fiscal relations in Palestine was signed in 1994 named The Paris Protocol. This is the starting point of encountering multifarious network between the Palestinian Authority and external sides (the Israelis, the international donor community, and self-interested regional Arab states) created the hegemony in the Occupied Palestine Territory. This was the neocolonial approach to reach alignment between the colonist and the native.

In the current Gaza economic situation, a mostly refugee territory of Gaza must be seen from the settler colonialism perspective which the primary object is the land itself, rather the surplus value within it.  This is make sense since Gaza was populated by the majority refugee that caused to the limited stock and faced extraordinary and exhausting limitation on their reproduction and access to land.  This threatening condition worsened by the neoliberalism mechanism by the Israel to co-opt indigenous communities invest in a future is a taming device that divides resistant communities.

The second section explores the contrast between the prospects of indigenous communities, characterized by non-futures, and the envisioned future of subdued neoliberal subjects. This dichotomy is manifested through the Palestinian Authority's influence on Gaza and Hamas, with state-like institutions perpetuating violent methods against Palestinian protestors, leading to divisions within the broader national resistance movement.

This book contributed much on how to read economic issue in a global perspective and put the issue in separated factions. As monitored by the editors, this wholehearted articles helped the public to understand not only what they are but how they come to be. A great achievement could not be prepared in a short period. By looking further into a deep analysis, one can reach a comprehensive understanding.

However, research can never complete a worldwide puzzle. This book still needs a further completion by adopting the opposing argument relating to the Palestine economic issue. The opposing view stated in this book is only a single fact that Israeli scientists justify the inferior status of Palestine economy by emphasizing the backwardness of Arab cultural and social tradition. This judgement used by Israeli to smuggle economic domination policy.