Unsettling the Hamas taboo: fragments, narrative and the politics of exposure

Machold, R. (2023) Unsettling the Hamas taboo: fragments, narrative and the politics of exposure. International Politics Reviews, 60, pp. 754-761. (doi: 10.1057/s41311-023-00457-5)

Abstract

Catherine Charrett’s The EU, Hamas and the 2006 Palestinian Elections focuses on the success of Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections and the European Union’s responses to this unforeseen event. More specifically the book takes up the EU’s refusal to treat Hamas a ‘normal’ political actor and legitimate, democratically-elected representative of Gazans. In doing so, Charrett seeks to break free the free from the oppressive stranglehold that the Hamas taboo continues to impose on Palestinians’ political horizons and the complicity of EU diplomacy therein. In doing so, The EU, Hamas and the 2006 Palestinian Elections is provocative, insightful and challenging in multiple ways. This article focuses on a few of the book’s central insights and provocations and then situates these within ongoing thinking about how to theorize and narrate empire and global politics otherwise. The article further outlines how the book engages with questions about the politics of truth, academic speech and pedagogy on Palestine and beyond. It argues that Charrett’s efforts to unsettle Hamas taboo and oppressive constraints of academic writing have wider significance in higher education in terms of what can be spoken of in the neoliberal university, how it can be articulated and by whom.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Machold, Dr Rhys
• Authors: Machold, R.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Politics
• Journal Name: International Politics Reviews
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• ISSN: 2050-2982
• ISSN (Online): 1740-3898
• Published Online: 04 May 2023
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2023 The Authors, under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited
• First Published: First published in International Politics Reviews 60:754–761
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher