The return of the Palestinian question in the Arab world and beyond

Edited by Haoues Seniguer (Science Po Lyon) and Francesco Cavatorta (Université Laval)

The attack that the Palestinian Hamas perpetrated against Israel and the subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza have placed once more the Palestinian question at the centre of regional and international politics. This special issue examines the reaction of social movements, including Islamist ones, across the Arab world, in Israel, and beyond to the violence on October 7^th and during the following months. How have Islamists been impacted by it, and how have they dealt with the unfolding violence? How have Islamists characterized and understood  the Hamas attacks on October the 7^th, and the Israeli indiscriminate assault on Gaza and the Palestinians? How have other movements of different ideological persuasions across the world reacted? How has all of this influenced social movements of all hues within Israel? These are the underlining questions that the special issue seeks to answer.

Despite the normalization process with the state of Israel that several Arab states are engaged in and a process of ideological self-moderation, the majority of Arab Islamist organizations, if not all of them, have maintained the Palestinian question at the core of their identity and political agenda. However, it was not as central as it was in the past, with several Islamist movements more preoccupied with domestic politics and the post-2011 changes - the retrenchment of authoritarianism and the civil conflicts affecting the region. Something similar can be said about movements of different ideological persuasions both in the Arab world and beyond. The Palestinian question had been central not only to Islamists, but to leftist and nationalist movements from the Arab world to Latin America to Europe and had become a key part of anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, and anti-racist discourse. It had been however largely forgotten prior to October 2023, but it has now become once more a central issue of social and political mobilisation across the world.

In this special issue, we first uncover and explain the way in which Hamas and Israeli violence has influenced Islamist movements, many of whom need re-legitimation. Radical violent groups have been defeated due to both state-led repression and internal failings (i.e., the Islamic State) and are today rather marginal actors. Moderate Islamist political parties have been defeated at the polls after the considerable policy failures while in government following the 2011 uprisings. For its part, the authoritarian retrenchment across the Arab world has meant a more limited space for Islamist social movements and associations to operate freely. In short, Islamism – in all of its components – is suffering a crisis of legitimacy. How does the conflict in Israel/Palestine impact Islamism? How have Islamist forces in the region historically constructed their relationship with Palestine and the Palestinians? How have Islamist organizations discussed and mobilized around the Israeli assault on Gaza? Second the special issue examines the impact of this new phase of the conflict on non-Islamist actors in the region and outside of it. How do civil societies across the world understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? How does mobilisation occur and how does it differ or connect with Islamism?  Third, the special issue looks at the way in which different sectors Israeli society have reacted. Although very critical voices about the conduct of the Israeli government have arisen, the conflict has further empowered the ultra-nationalist violent settlers’ movement and silenced the Arab-Palestinian minority within Israel. How does Israeli civil society mobilise and what kind of conflictual dynamics have developed?

The originality of this approach stems from three factors. Firstly, this is a multi-disciplinary effort that considers the religious dimension of the conflict and the place of ideology, without giving way to culturalist essentialism; the aim is to combine the long-term with the history of the present. Second, the aim is to broaden the focus on the Palestinian question by looking at the transversality of mobilizations around the conflict, within the Arab, Palestinian, and Israeli societies and  diasporas living in the West, as well as across identity-based borders. Finally, the focus is on movements outside the region and without diasporic connections to the conflict.

This special issue seeks country focused as well as comparative and historical contributions on the following topics, among others:

-        The positions of ulemas on the question of Palestine from a historical and/or contemporary perspective.

-        The discursive mobilization of Islamist social movements, radical violent groups and/or political parties.

-        The discursive and material mobilization of Israeli parties and organizations, whether from the left or the nationalist right or the racist and violent settlers’ movement.

-        The post-Arab uprisings ideological and operational development of the Palestinian Hamas.

-        The role and positions of Arab civil society within Israel.

-        Reflections on the religious references Islamists have adopted and adopt towards the Palestinian question.

-        The positions and discourse groups/parties/associations of different ideological persuasions across the Arab world and beyond.

-        The management of Islamists and the Palestine question by the state/states in the region.

-        The mobilization in Europe and the West more broadly around the Israeli-Palestinian question after October 7^th.

Submission procedure and deadlines:

Articles, written in English, should be submitted to the editors according to the following schedule: (we shall adjust the deadlines to PaCo’s schedule)

- Selection of long abstracts for articles: 13 July 2024

- Submission of articles: 15 November 2024

- Provision of peer review feedback: 15 March 2025

- Submission of revised drafts: 15 July 2025

- Publication of the issue: 15 November 2025

Long abstracts should include the following information:

(1) A description of the topic,

(2) How the paper addresses one or more of the nodal points of the SI,

(3) Empirical data and methodology,

(4) Findings.

The total length of your article must not exceed 10,000 words (and not less than 8.000). Note that the word total includes references, notes, tables, figures and diagrams.

To send your paper proposal, please submit a long paper abstract (700-1,000 words) to francesco.cavatorta@pol.ulaval.ca and haoues.seniguer@sciencespo-lyon.fr by 5 July 2024.

Selected contributors will be asked to submit their full paper (7,000-8,000 words) by 15 January 2025. All papers will be sent to two external referees for final assessment.

PArtecipazione e COnflitto. The Open Journal of Sociopolitical Studies is a quartile two, Scopus-ranked international journal of sociology. We publish three issues per year. PACO is ranked CLASS A by the Italian Academic Research Evaluation Agency (Anvur) in disciplinary area 14 (Social Sciences). PACO is ranked first among the journals published in Italy in Sociology and Political Science by the SCIMAGO index 2017 (SJR: 0.323; Q2). It ranks as 18th in the world ranking of open access scientific journals in Sociology and Political Science.