https://jupidi.um.edu.my/index.php/hscps <p><strong>The International Journal of Palestine Studies (IJPS</strong>) is a double-blind peer-reviewed, open-access journal that publishes two issues annually, in February and October. Dedicated to advancing knowledge and research on all matters related to Palestine, IJPS addresses broad, common concerns among scholars in areas such as human rights and life under occupation in Palestine while promoting rigorous empirical research. The journal serves as a bridge between academics, stakeholders, and policymakers, fostering communication among researchers across diverse fields, from science to social science.</p> <p>IJPS is the official journal of the Hashim Sani Centre for Palestine Studies (HSCPS). All articles published in IJPS are freely accessible electronically from the journal's website, with no subscription fees or other forms of payment required. Committed to maintaining high academic standards and an international reputation, IJPS welcomes original, theoretical, and practical submissions from scholars worldwide, guided by the insights and suggestions of its international advisory board.</p> Universiti Malaya en-US The International Journal of Palestine Studies https://jupidi.um.edu.my/index.php/hscps/article/view/62623 <p>This paper critically examines the persistent double standards in Western political and media discourse concerning state violence, resistance, and human rights, with a particular focus on the representation of the Palestinian struggle. While Western democracies often claim to uphold international law and moral responsibility, their support for Israeli military actions despite overwhelming evidence of civilian harm reveals a profound dissonance between stated values and foreign policy practices. This contradiction not only undermines global norms of justice but also entrenches a discourse that dehumanizes Palestinians and delegitimizes their resistance. The study adopts Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 1995; van Dijk, 2001) to interrogate how language and power interact in Western media and political rhetoric. CDA enables the exploration of how ideologically loaded terms such as "terrorism," "self-defense," and "security" are employed to frame Palestinians as perpetual threats while obscuring the structural violence of occupation and apartheid (Pappé, 2006; Finkelstein, 2003). Drawing on postcolonial theory, particularly Said’s (1978) notion of Orientalism, the paper argues that Palestinians are persistently othered through orientalist tropes that portray them as irrational, violent, and culturally incompatible with Western values. The analysis is further supported by media framing theory (Entman, 1993), which highlights how selective emphasis and omission shape public understanding and policy outcomes. The findings reveal several key patterns: (1) Palestinian resistance is discursively delegitimized through labels like “terrorism,” ignoring legal justifications under international law; (2) Israeli actions are consistently framed as defensive, while Palestinian voices and historical grievances are marginalized; (3) orientalist tropes reinforce colonial hierarchies and justify violence; and (4) human rights discourse is applied inconsistently, suggesting a racialized or strategic hierarchy of victimhood (Butler, 2008; Douzinas, 2007). Ultimately, these discursive patterns are not merely rhetorical but serve to legitimize geopolitical asymmetries and reinforce settler-colonial domination in Palestine.</p> Mohammed H Alaqad Fatma Benelhadj Haida Umiera Hashim Copyright (c) 2025 Mohammed H Al Aqad, Fatma Benelhadj, Haida Umiera Hashim 2025-07-02 2025-07-02 1 1 https://jupidi.um.edu.my/index.php/hscps/article/view/56670 <p>Western media is evidently biased when it comes to reporting on escalations in Israel and Palestine in a way that disadvantages the Palestinians. However, recently, there is a visible trend in the rise of Palestinian counter-narratives which interrogate and address the biased discourse in Western media. The rise in Palestinian counter-narratives can be attributed to social media, as it allows Palestinians to bypass the problem of mainstream media censorship, including giving a platform to many Palestinians who advocate for the Palestinian cause. This paper focused specifically on Mohammed El-Kurd, who has used his platform as a journalist, writer and activist to provide counter-narratives to dispute the misrepresentation and invalidation of the Palestinian people. Using the textual analysis element of Fairclough’s Three-Dimensional (3D) model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this paper explained the linguistic features of three of El-Kurd’s articles published in the American magazine <em>The Nation. </em>The study finds that El-Kurd consistently used the active voice, negative expressive values of his Western counterparts as well as repetition, overwording and collocations.</p> Hana Muhamad Amin Mohammad Ali Al-Saggaf Copyright (c) 2025 Hana Muhamad Amin, Mohammad Ali Al-Saggaf 2025-07-02 2025-07-02 1 1 https://jupidi.um.edu.my/index.php/hscps/article/view/61685 <p>Since October 2023, Israel’s intensified military campaign in Gaza has extended beyond physical destruction to the deliberate targeting of Palestinian intellectual life. Education, serving as both a means of development and a form of national resistance, faces an existential threat as the assassination of scholars directly undermines resilience and post-war reconstruction. This study examines how the killing of academics disrupts mentorship and the intergenerational transfer of knowledge among postgraduate students at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG). It also assesses IUG’s institutional responses amid widespread infrastructure collapse and ongoing genocide. Using a qualitative case study approach grounded in Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of academic capital (1986), the research draws on semi-structured interviews with three professors and three Master’s students from Linguistics, Islamic Studies, and Geography faculties. Findings reveal a collapse in supervision capacity, ruptured knowledge transmission, and loss of disciplinary depth, especially in specialized fields like Islamic Creed. Beyond documenting these impacts, the study theorizes the destruction of a people’s capacity to imagine and build a collective future as intellectual erasure. As a critical contribution, this paper introduces “mindocide”—the deliberate targeting and killing of scholars as epistemic warfare, and coins three additional terms: Palestiniacide (systematic targeting of Palestinians), futuricide (the killing of future possibilities), and humanitycide (the destruction of human dignity and collective humanity). By framing higher education as both a target and a tool of resistance, this study sheds light on the academic dimensions of genocidal violence in Gaza.</p> Ibrahim M. Alsemeiri Copyright (c) 2025 Ibrahim Alsemeiri 2025-07-02 2025-07-02 1 1 https://jupidi.um.edu.my/index.php/hscps/article/view/61688 <p>This study examines the U.S.-India multilateral cooperation in the Middle East - most notably through the I2U2 group and the India – Middle East – Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). It examines the regional and international factors that have shaped this cooperation, with particular emphasis on its political, economic, and geopolitical dimensions. The analysis reveals how these initiatives reflect deeper strategic shifts in the regional and global order, including U.S.-led efforts to advance Arab-Israeli normalization, India’s emergence as a pivotal actor in reshaping regional trade and logistics networks, and the formation of new alliances that move beyond traditional frameworks— strategically bypass China—in alignment with a shared U.S.-India strategic vision. The study also highlights Dynamics of U.S.-India multilateral cooperation, after the outbreak of the Gaza War in October 2023 through April 2025. While the Gaza War introduced complex security and geopolitical challenges to the prospects of renewed cooperation between Washington and New Delhi, the study identifies credible indicators of potential continuity that emerged during the war itself, particularly through nascent political and economic arrangements. It concludes that the resumption and sustainability of U.S.-India cooperation in the region remain plausible in light of ongoing transformations. This outcome, however, is contingent upon the capacity of the involved actors to navigate prevailing regional challenges, establish a minimal degree of stability, and foster a broader consensus that accommodates the diverse interests of participating states—within an international environment marked by volatility and accelerating change.</p> Manal Allan Copyright (c) 2025 Manal Allan 2025-07-02 2025-07-02 1 1 https://jupidi.um.edu.my/index.php/hscps/article/view/61995 <p data-start="268" data-end="1196">In <em data-start="271" data-end="312">Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History</em>, historian Nur Masalha challenges the colonial narrative that views Palestine as a modern invention. Drawing on archaeology, cartography, and historical texts, he traces the continuous presence and identity of the Palestinian people over millennia. From ancient Philistia to the Arab province of Jund Filastin and beyond, Masalha highlights local agency and the region’s pluralistic heritage, including the contributions of Arab Christians and Muslims. He critiques Zionist historiography, biblical archaeology, and the erasure of indigenous place names, framing these as tools of settler-colonialism. This decolonial history restores dignity to Palestinian identity and resists historical erasure. A companion website with digital resources could further amplify its impact. As a Palestinian scholar, I see this book as both a scholarly achievement and a powerful act of resistance.</p> Mohammed H. Alaqad Copyright (c) 2025 Mohammed H. Alaqad 2025-07-02 2025-07-02 1 1