The Palestinian Diaspora on The Web: Between De-Territorialization and Re-Territorialization

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Programme de recherche TIC-MigrationsProjet e-Diasporas Atlas : http://e-diasporas.fr

e-Diasporas Atlas

Fondation Maison des sciences de lhomme190 avenue de France - 75013 Paris - France

The Palestinian Diaspora on The Web:Between De-Territorialization

and Re-Territorialization

Anat Ben-David

Avril 2012

Te article analyzes Web-based networks of Palestiniancommunities in Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Aus-tralia, United States, Canada, Spain, Argentina, Chileand Uruguay. Te ndings show a thematic and demo-graphic shift from organizations of Palestinian com-munities abroad to a transnational solidarity networkfocused on Palestinian rights and the Boycott move-ment. Although Palestinian erritories function as thenetworks strong center of gravity, analysis of the refe-rences reveals that diaspora and non-diaspora actorsoperate as two distinct but intertwined networks...


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The Palestinian Diaspora on The Web 2/36



The Palestinian Diaspora on The Web:Between De-Territorializationand Re-Territorialization

Anat Ben-David

Avril 2012

The authorAnat Ben-David is a PhD candidate in the program for Science, echnology and Society at Bar-IlanUniversity (Israel). She holds a BA in Comparative Literature from the Hebrew University and an MAin Media Studies from the University of Amsterdam. Anat is also aliated with the Digital Methods Ini-tiative, University of Amsterdam, which develops methods and tools for studying the Web. Her research

focuses on the geopolitics of digital spaces. Her dissertation examines the socio-technical mechanismsthat shape Palestinian borders, territories, and spaces on the Web.

Reference to this documentAnat Ben-David, e Palestinian Diaspora on e Web: Between De-Territorialization and Re-Territorialization,e-Diasporas Atlas, Avril 2012.

Plateforme e-Diasporashttp://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=section&section=25

Fondation Maison des Sciences delHomme - Programme de recherche IC-Migrations - projet e-Diasporas Atlas - 2012

Fondation Maison des sciences de lhomme190-196 avenue de France

75013 Paris - France

http://www.msh-paris.frhttp://e-diasporas.fr

Les Working Papers IC-Migrations -e-Diasporas Atlas ont pour objectif la diu-sion ouverte des travaux mens dans le cadredu projet de recherche ANR e-Diasporas

Atlas.

Les opinions exprimes dans cet article nen-gagent que leur auteur et ne retent pasncessairement les positions institutionnellesde la Fondation MSH.

IC-Migrations - e-Diasporas Atlas Wor-

king Papers are produced in the course of the

scientic activities conducted in the ANR

research project e-Diasporas Atlas.

Te views expressed in this paper are the

authors own and do not necessarily reect

institutional positions from the Foundation

MSH.


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AbstractTe article analyzes Web-based networks of Palestinian communities in Germany, France, Italy, Austria,Australia, United States, Canada, Spain, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Te ndings show a thematicand demographic shift from organizations of Palestinian communities abroad to a transnational solida-rity network focused on Palestinian rights and the Boycott movement. Although Palestinian erritories

function as the networks strong center of gravity, analysis of the references reveals that diaspora andnon-diaspora actors operate as two distinct but intertwined networks: while diaspora actors are unique inputting emphasis on community as activity type and on diaspora and the right of return as primary cause,non-diaspora actors are mainly dedicated to solidarity as activity and Palestinian rights and the Boycottmovement as primary cause. Despite this, ties between diaspora and non-diaspora actors are strongerthan among diaspora actors, which indicates that part of the dynamics of Palestinian communities ismanifest not only between diaspora communities, but mostly between diaspora communities and civilsociety organizations in their host societies.

Keywordsdiaspora, web, internet, Palestine, boycott, Palestinians

Mots-clefsdiaspora, web, internet, Palestine, boycott, Palestiniens


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he term Palestinian diaspora is highlycontested. It is often used alongsideother terms such as exile, dispersaland refugeeness1, and relates to a hete-

rogeneous group of individuals and communi-ties whose time and circumstances of dispersalrange from forced migration and exile to volun-tary migration, and whose status in their hostcountries ranges from refugeeness and stateles-sness to full assimilation (Hana, 2005, p. 157;Peteet, 2007, p. 630).

Te demographics of the Palestinian diasporaand its history are described by S. Hana (2003)in four main categories: economic migrants toSouth American in the 19th century; the trauma-tic dispersal of 700,000 Palestinians from Israel

to neighboring countries during the 1948 ArabIsraeli War; the second wave of displacement fol-lowing the Six Day War in 1967 and Israels occu-pation of the Palestinian erritories; and morerecent waves of political and economic migrationto Europe and the United States which started in1977 and were inuenced by political events suchas the 1982 IsraelLebanon war, the 1991 GulfWar and the Intifadas in 1987 and 2001.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau ofStatistics (2009), 6.8 million Palestinians live

in the diaspora, compared to 3.99 living in thePalestinian erritories (i.e.2.5 million in theWest Bank and East Jerusalem and 1.5 millionin Gaza). Tat is, over than half of the Palestinianpopulation worldwide lives in the diaspora. TePCBS report then species the demographics ofthe Palestinian diaspora:

1.25 million (11.5%) live in Israel; 3.24 millionlive in Jordan (29.8%); 1.78 million (16.3%)in the other Arab countries, and Palestiniansliving in foreign countries is estimated to be

618 thousand (5.7%)It should be noted that these gures include thepopulation of over 900,000 Palestinian refugeesliving in UNRWA camps in Lebanon and Syria(United Nations Relief and Works Agency forPalestine Refugees in the Near East, 2010).

1. Schulz and Peteet provide, each, a semantic analysis of theArabic equivalents to the English term diaspora. While theterm shatat, meaning dispersal, may be semantically closestto the English term, the frequent terms used by Palestin-ian refugees are manfa (exile, in the sense of forced expul-sion), andghurba(absence from the homeland). See Schulz,2003:20, Peteet, 2007: 639.

Te contestation of the term Palestinian dias-pora is thus complicated primarily by the factthat it covers populations of refugees and non-refugees, and by the fact that both populations areconsidered a stateless diaspora, that is, a diasporaof people whose home country is not an inde-pendent and sovereign state (Sheer, 2003, pp.23-24, 153-154), or, as dened by Schulz (2003,p. 10), communities whose focal point of iden-, communities whose focal point of iden-tity and politics is a place lost. Te contestationof the term is further complicated by Palestinianrefugees demand for right of return as part of apeace agreement that would settle the bordersof a future Palestinian state. Palestinian accep-tance of the term diaspora might indicate theacceptance of Palestinian refugees condition aspermanent2. While diaspora connotes perma-

nent settlement in the host country, refugeenessentails a temporary condition, and relates to thehost states eorts to keep their status temporary.Since Palestinian refugees comprise the largestgroups of Palestinians abroad, applying the termdiaspora with its connotations of permanentsettlement abroad and as an outcome of socialprocesses of identity formation vis--vis the hostcountry and the home country entails compro-mising their right to return. Reversely, the insis-tence on the politics of return may indicate the

refusal of the Palestinian diaspora (Peteet, 2007,p. 628).

Te literature on diaspora focuses on transna-tional networks, identities, ows and economicexchange as constituting contemporary diasporasin a globalizing world. Hana denes a diasporaas a set of relationships between the homeland,which functions as a center of gravity, and a peri-phery of nodes communities, groups and indi-viduals who relate to the territory of origin as acenter of gravity, but live in dierent parts of the

world:

A classic diaspora is dened by a center ofgravity which has two functions: it channelsthe ux of communications between diasporamembers at dierent peripheries, and providesa location where members (especially family)can meet. Te rst function does not necessa-rily suggest a physical site; the meeting loca-

2. As Julie Peteet Notes, Assigning Palestinians diasporicstatus could risk diluting concerns with policy and long-term, equitable solutions. Tis political dimension suggests acareful reading of the concept, in particular its exibility andthus widespread currency (2007: 636).


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tion might be a service provider or institutionsuch as the National Jewish Fund for worldJewry, the unisian Base of the PLO for Pa-lestinians and the PKK in Germany in theKurdish case. In regard to the second function,a physical geographical location is a necessityand is an important factor for communitarianeconomic transactions (Hana, 2003, p. 174).

Diasporas are thus constituted and dened by themulti-polar ties between the homeland and theperiphery, as well as by the ties among commu-nities in the periphery. Such ties are manifest atvarious levels, ranging from processes of identityand community-building, to economic exchange.Put dierently, national diasporas are denedand formed by constantly changing dynamics

between the national and the transntational. Inthe Palestinian case, the establishment of thePalestinian National Authority in 1993 has radi-cally changed the balance between the nationaland transnational components of the Palesti-nian diaspora, which necessitated rethinking thePalestinian diaspora in terms of transnationalnetworks in times of rising Palestinian natio-nalism and a process of state-building. In manyways, the Palestinian struggle for statehood wasinitiated by the PLO, which was, historically, adiaspora organization (Peteet, 2007, p. 637). Te1993 self-rule arrangements that followed theOslo Peace Process, however, changed the func-tion of the Palestinian diaspora both in shapingPalestinian national identity, as well as in parti-cipating in the state-building process. Accordingto Frisch, the territorialization of the PLO fol-lowing the 1993 Oslo Interim Agreements rever-sed the role of the Palestinian political leadershipfrom an outside into an inside organization,and resulted in the withering of the Palestiniandiaspora at the expense of the state-building pro-

cess, to the extent that diaspora political move-ments ability to make claims on the state-buil-ding process from the outside is a voice in thewilderness (2009, p. 257). Hana, on the otherhand, describes more complex and ambivalentways in which diaspora members partake in thestate-building process:

Tough willing to support the homelandeconomically and nancially, the diasporaalso seeks a decision-making role regardingthe process of institution building. Tere is a

certain amount of ambivalence and paradox,composed of a positive appreciation and a de-

leterious suspicion of national commitments,at work in the construction of the diasporacomposed. (2003, p. 175).

Tus Palestinian transnational networks andthe Palestinian national entity maintain mutual

dependencies of construction and deconstruction.While the Palestinian national identity has beenimagined and constituted by transnational dias-pora networks, the realization of the homelandin its current form has weakened them. In termsof Hanas analysis of diaspora networks as com-prised around a center of gravity, the territoriali-zation of the homeland as a self-ruling entity didnot strengthen the transnational network aroundit, but rather turned the Palestinian erritoriesinto a weak center of gravity around which par-

tial and torn transnational networks are formed.Since the term diaspora is too general to includeall Palestinian individuals and communitiesaround the world, too charged in relation to thepolitics of refugees right of return, and too abs-tract to encompass the complexity of sociallyconstructed and legal statuses, as well as changinglevels of national and transnational aliations,researchers agree that the term should be treatedas an analytical term, not an ontological one.3

Te following article presents Web-based

networks of Palestinian communities abroad,while taking into account the politics and com-plexities of the Palestinian diaspora both in rela-tion to the Palestinian refugees and their right ofreturn, and to the complex ties between trans-national networks, state-building eorts andthe politics of a stateless diaspora. Te researchquestions that guided the analysis draw on thetheoretical problems described above. reatingdiasporic dimensions of Palestinians abroadanalytically, the analysis is guided by the following

questions: Should the transnational network betreated separately from local politics? How can

3. Peteet, for example, suggests referring to diasporic di-Peteet, for example, suggests referring to diasporic di-mensions in the lives of Palestinians around the world thatare determined by factors such as the time of displacement,the spatial proximity to the homeland, and demography (Pe-teet, 2007:643). In a similar way, Schulz suggests treatingthe diaspora as a condition of alienation and estrangementof transnational networks of mobility that maintain uneasyrelationships with their homeland. Instead of treating thePalestinian Diaspora as a homogenous group, she suggeststo refer to Palestinians as people who lead diasporic lives,where diasporic dimensions can also be applied to Pales-tinians who reside in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, EastJerusalem and Israel (Schulz, 2003: 22, 73).


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one study the relationships between diaspora andterritory of origin in light of the ever-changingdynamics between center and periphery? Hasthe institutionalization and the territorializationof the political leadership indeed withered thePalestinian diaspora?

It should be noted that the following Web-basedanalysis of the Palestinian diaspora deviatesfrom the demographics presented in the PCBSreport, since it mainly shows actors and activitiesof Palestinians living in other foreign countries(to use the PBCS report wording), mainly theUnited States, Canada, Chile, Germany, Spain,France, Italy and Israel. As shall be further dis-cussed below, Palestinian refugees and Palesti-nians living in Arab countries are referred to by

many other actors (mainly humanitarian asso-ciations and inter-governmental organizations)or are discussed as a primary cause for advocacyor aid, but they are themselves absent as networkactors. Teir absence can be explained in bothmethodological and analytical terms. Methodo-logically, Palestinian refugees living in UNRWAcamps have a very low Web-presence, despiteeorts made in the past to establish websites foreach refugee camp in the Middle East4.

Analytically, the absence of Palestinian refugees

as actors in the following Web-based networkof the Palestinian diaspora reinforces the poli-tical ramications embedded in the concept ofthe Palestinian diaspora and its triangular rela-tionship with the refugees right of return, and thePalestinian Authoritys state-building attempts.

o better understand the dynamics and politicsof contemporary Palestinian diaspora networkson the Web, this article draws on Sari Hana-s analysis of the ties between new media andthe Palestinian diaspora in terms of periphery

and a (weak) center of gravity. Hana suggeststhat, although new media enable new forms ofconnectivity between diaspora actors unrelatedto their physical presence they are still aectedby the absence of a physical meeting place thepossibility of all diaspora members, especiallyrefugees, to meet in the diasporas center of gra-vity the Palestinian erritories5. According to

4. Such eorts were materialized around the Across BordersProject, which aimed to reconnect Palestinian refugee campsin the Middle East with the Palestinian erritories through

ICs. See Hijab, 2001; Schulz & Hammer, 2003; Aouragh,2010 and Ben-David, 2010.

5. Te question how to name the Palestinian erritories

Hana, the absence of a physical meeting placeresults in new forms of social integration, whichinclude both physical and virtual networks thathave distinct organizing principles. If, until theadvent of new media technologies, Palestiniandiaspora community networks manifested variouslevels of institutionalization, whether in the formof familial networks, village clubs in the US, orsupra-national Arab networks, new media haveindividualized and atomized the agency of Pales-tinian diasporic actors, who now maintain variousforms of physical and virtual relationships bothwith the center (the Palestinian erritories),as well with other members of the Palestiniandiaspora (2005, p. 593). According to Hana,new media also contribute to the de-sanctica-tion and de-territorialization of the homeland,

as they are capable of facilitating a conciliationbetween the diverse cultural heritages represen-ted in the Palestinian diaspora by existing in thehost country while connecting to an inaccessible(and perhaps idealized) homeland (2005, p. 597).Tus although Hana claims that new mediacontribute to a simultaneous connection of dis-persed communities not only with their centerbut also between peripheral nodes, the absenceof a physical center of gravity results in torn andbroken networks, which do not eventually result

in a Palestinian diaspora, but in Palestiniansas partially diasporized people (2003, p. 157).Tat is, in the Palestinian case, although newmedia enable new geographies of connectednessbetween diaspora actors, unrelated to their physi-cal location, these new geographies and networkseventually result in new forms of de-territoriali-zation, both of the center (whether virtual, imagi-ned or physical), and of the periphery.

Method

In light of the above, the empirical questions thatguided the analysis attempted to examine variouslevels of institutionalization of the Palestiniandiaspora and the extent to which actors in theperiphery form comprehensive ties between them,as well as between them and the (weak) center

is also contested. Te various ocial and unocial nameshave political connotations and are often used exclusivelyby certain actors to make a political stand. For example, theUN refers to Occupied Palestinian erritory, Palestiniansources use Palestine, and the US administration refers toWest Bank and Gaza. In this article Palestinian errito-ries is used as an umbrella term in order to avoid ociallanguage employment by specic actors.


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of gravity. Terefore, the selected starting pointsfor crawling the corpus for the analysis representspecic forms of institutionalization and politicalorganization of Palestinian communities abroad websites of associations and organizations ofPalestinian communities that already representexisting structures and modes of organization,rather than individual actors. For each country,search-engine queries performed in the locallanguage as well as in Arabic attempted to ndthe top actors for keywords such as Palestiniancommunity and the name of the host country.Te collected websites of Palestinian commu-nities and diaspora organizations from dierentcountries were put together as the starting pointsof the analysis in order nd out whether actors inthe periphery form signicant ties between them.

o examine the extent to which these networksmaintain ties with the center of gravity, and theextent of its weakness in organizing transnatio-nal diaspora networks, actors based in the Pales-tinian erritories were not included in the initialstarting points (they emerged later on in theresulting hyperlinked network). Despite attemptsto include Palestinian diaspora associations andorganizations from countries in the Middle East,these were not found and thus not included in thestarting points for the analysis, and thus contri-

bute to its emphasis of actors from Europe andNorth America.

After the crawlers fetched and consolidated thecorpus of the hyperlink network, a classicationscheme was developed for analyzing the networkaccording to various parameters. o analyticallydistinguish between dierent actors who mayfunction as central hubs and authorities but arenot diaspora actors, the rst classication de-ned whether or not each actor in the network is adiaspora actor6. o capture the complexity of the

actors in relation to the diaspora, other catego-ries also relate to diasporic dimensions of theactors, such as whether or not the actors referto the Palestinian diaspora, whether or not theyrefer to their country of residence and whether or

6. Te guiding principles for classifying an actor as diasporawere the following: self-description of the actors as diaspora;when the majority of the members of associations are ofPalestinian origin; actors that are Palestinian refugees. Wi-thin these guiding principles, websites of Palestinian Israeliswere included as diaspora as well. Tis was in the attempt tocapture the widest category of diaspora actors, while beingaware of the political ramications (and contestation), of theinclusion of Palestinians living in Israel as diaspora.

not they refer to the Palestinian erritories. Tesecategories enable the analysis of the diaspora asan issue and the Palestinian erritories as a centerof gravity, addressed both by diaspora and non-diaspora actors. Further classications enable azoomed-in view on relationships between varioustypes of actors (publisher types), such as asso-ciations, media, individuals, governmental insti-tutions, inter-governmental organizations, foun-dations and campaigns. For a detailed analysis ofthe webspace of the network, each actor was alsoclassied according to its specic genre, thatis, whether it is a website, a blog, a portal or anonline news source. Te country of residence ofeach actor was inferred from the websites content(for example, a blogger who indicates that she isfrom Spain), as well as by the postal addresses

provided by the actors, especially in the contactus page. In addition, the languages used by eachactor were noted, and various methods were usedto derive each websites starting date. In terms ofthe content and activities of the actors, a distinc-tion is made between the actors main activity,and their primary and secondary causes. Activi-ties and causes may coincide, but are often timesdierent. Activity describes the eld in whichthe actor is operating, for example, solidarity,media, education, policy or academic. A

cause is the main issue an actor is dedicated to.Tis enables a ne-tuned analysis of the actorsnot only in relation to the types of the organiza-tions, but also in relation to the specic activitiesthat go along with specic causes. For example,an association can be classied as operating in theeld of media, but its primary cause is education.Tis may be very dierent from a research ins-titution, whose activity is academic, and its pri-mary cause is media justice. It should be notedthat diaspora can be listed either as an activity

or a primary cause so that non-diaspora actorstoo could be classied as dedicated to the Pales-tinian diaspora as a cause, or an issue. o sum up,the classication scheme enables the treatmentof diasporic elements in the network, either bydiaspora or non-diaspora actors, where diasporacan be the actors main activity, their primary orsecondary causes, or a reference.

FindingsTe network is comprised of a population of

actors that were crawled from websites of Pales-tinian communities in Germany, France, Italy,Austria, Australia, United States, Canada, Spain,


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Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. At rst sight, itis a dense transnational network with no dis-tinct clusters, although its density varies in dif-ferent areas of the network, which indicates someform of internal clusters (see gure 1)7. Tenetworks starting points Websites of Palesti-nian communities abroad are peripheral nodesin the network. As shall be further discussed, thenetworks main actors and causes are shifted fromorganizations of Palestinian communities abroadto a more general solidarity network focused onthe Palestinian cause and Palestinian rights, and

7. See general map overview on the e-Diasporas Atlas plat-form, http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=map&map=56&section=25

the boycott movement against Israeli commercialand cultural products. In that sense, the resul-ting network revolves around the center of gra-vity rather than representing the peripheral tiesbetween various communities of the Palestiniandiaspora. On the other hand, the dense transna-tional network, which includes close ties betweendiaspora and non-diaspora actors, indicates thatpart of the dynamics of Palestinian communitiesin North America, South America and Europe ismanifest not only between diaspora communitiesin dierent places, but also and primarily betweendiaspora communities and civil-society organiza-tions in their host societies.

Figure 1 General Network Overview.

URL http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=map&map=56&section=25


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Although organizations of Palestinian commu-nities outside the US are peripheral nodes inthe network, the network is organized around adominant star hub Electronic Intifada whichis classied here as a diaspora actor. ElectronicIntifada is a US-based online news source thatwas established by US Citizens of Palestinianorigin and is an authoritative and active source

providing news, opinion and analysis about Pales-tine in the English Language. Electronic Intifadais the top referenced actor by all publisher typesand all website types from all countries of resi-dence (see gure 2) 8.

8. See Actor Prole on the e-Diasporas Atlas platform,http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=node&graph=67&map=56&node=258&section=25.

Figure 2 - Electronic Intifada, the Networks Star-Hub.

http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=node&graph=67&map=56&node=258&section=25

Despite the networks dense structure, internalclusters and repeating patterns are revealed byoverlaying the networks graph according to dif-ferent classication categories: country of resi-dence, publisher type, type of activity and primarycause. Comparison of the categorized graphs ofthe entire network shows a repeating patterncoupling geographical location, primary causes,and main activity. After unfolding the networksrepeating patterns, I turn to a zoomed-in analysisof diaspora actors role in the network.

Network demographics

Country of residence

Te structure of the network is geographicallyoriented. Te largest group of actors is from theUnited States (29%, 101 nodes), which is alsoapparent in the centrality and density of USactors on the graph. Te second-largest countryof residence is the Palestinian erritories (9%),followed by Germany (6%), Israel and the UK(5%) and Canada (4%)9. Te distribution of theother countries is lower than 3% each (see gure3).

9. It should be noted that 22% of the actors did not specifya country of residence.


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Figure 3 General Network Overview, Distribution of Country of Residence.

URL http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=nodeattribute&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=13&section=25

Tere is specicity of issues and typesof actors, which determine the geo-graphical arrangement of the graph10.

While the US cluster is central and ismostly populated by media actors, theUK cluster is mainly dedicated to cam-paigns and to the boycott movement.Te local Palestinian/Israeli cluster isdedicated to advocacy of human rightsand to alternative media (see gure 4).

At the bottom left of the graph, theSpanish language cluster includesactors from Spain, Chile and Argen-tina, which are mostly diaspora actors.Similarly, the German-language clus-ter on the bottom right of the graph isalso diaspora oriented. Te countries ofresidence mainly t the starting pointsof the crawl, although Palestine/Israelwere not included in the starting points.In that sense, the network has broughtthe center of gravity back in.

10. See subgraph Country of Residence on the Ee-Diasporas Atlas platform, http://maps.e-dias-poras.fr/index.php?focus=nodeattribute&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=13&section=25

Figure 4 General Network Overview,Graph by country of residence



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General graph demographics

Te corpus is mostly comprised of associations(54%, 190 actors). Te second-largest category is

individual (14%, 51 nodes), and media (14%, 51nodes). It is thus a civic space, which mostly ope-rates in media spaces (see gure 5).

Figure 5 General Network Overview, Distribution of publisher types.


Te networks overview according to publishertypes reveals a coupling of publisher types andtheir primary cause. Te boycott movement on thetop right combines associations and campaigns11.On the top left, the blogosphere and media spacescombine individual and media publishers types.Te bottom right, which includes most diaspora

11. See subgraph Publisher ypes on the e-Diasporas At-las platform, http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=nodeattribute&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=4&section=25

actors, is characterized by institutional actors suchas the Human Rights Information and rainingCenter12 and Te Palestine Curriculum Develop-ment Center13. Te Inter-governmental space isadjacent to the institutional actors (see gure 6).

12. See Actors Prole on the e-Diasporas Atlas platform,http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=node&graph=67&map=56&node=165&section=25



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Palestinian rights are the primary cause of mostnetwork actors, across all publisher types (23%).Te second-largest cause is media (10%), fol-lowed by boycott, education and diaspora (5%each), and refugees (4%). Te distribution ofcauses reveals that, despite the specicity of thestarting points as diaspora communities, the ove-

rall network is more dedicated to solidarity with

the Palestinian cause than to issues related to thePalestinian diaspora14 (see gure 7). Te specicdiaspora-related issues will be further exploredbelow.

14. See subgraph Primary Cause on the e-Diasporas Atlasplatform, http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=nodeattribute&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=8&secti

on=25

Figure 6 General Network Overview, Graph by publisher types



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Figure 7 General Network Overview, Distribution of primary cause


Activity types are distributed among the largenumber of categories of activities employed bythe network15. Still, the majority of actors activity(both diaspora and non-diaspora actors) is cate-gorized as solidarity (34%). (See gures 8 and9.)

15. See subgraph Activity on the e-Diasporas Atlas plat-form, http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=nodeattribute&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=7&section=25


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Figure 8 General Network Overview, Distribution of activity types

URL http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=nodeattribute&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=7&s

ection=25

Figure 9 General Network Overview, Graph by activity types



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Te second-largest group is media, with 19%,and 6% for community, 4% for religion and3% for information, peace and social. Tereis only one actor whose activity is dened asdiaspora16.

16. Te blog Uprooted Palestinians is the only actor whoseactivity is dened as diaspora. See actors prole on the E-Diasporas Atlas platform, http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=node&graph=67&map=56&node=318&section=25

Te subgraph of solidarity as activity shows highdensity around the campaigns and boycott thema-tic areas, indicating close collaboration betweensolidarity and the boycott movement, and withrelated campaigns (see gure 10)17. By contrast,the Spanish and German spaces, which are morededicated to diaspora-related issues and actors,are peripheral to the larger solidarity cluster.

17. See subgraph Solidarity as Activity on the e-DiasporasAtlas platform, http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=value&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=7&section=25&value=Solidarity

Figure 10 Subsection Graph of Solidarity as Activity Type.

URL http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=value&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=7&section=25&value=Solidarity

The role of diaspora actorsin the networkAn overview of the network according to theclassication of actors as diaspora and non-dias-pora shows that diaspora actors are interwo-ven throughout the transnational network, and,

although the networks star-hub is dened as adiaspora actor, the majority of diaspora actors

pull the network from its center (see gure 11)18.Apart from the Spanish-language space, whichforms a separate cluster of diaspora actors, thedensity of links between diaspora actors is deter-mined mainly by geography and language.

18. See subgraph Diaspora? on the e-Diasporas Atlas plat-form, http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=nodeattribute&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=5&section=25


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Figure 11 General Network Overview, Graph by diaspora.


Diaspora actors

Considering the exclusivity of diaspora actors inthe starting points, the percentage of diasporaactors in the crawled population is rather low(22%, 78 nodes). Te percentage of edges is evensmaller only 4% of the networks edges are de-ned as diaspora (see gure 12). Compared to the

dense hyperlinked network the loose structure

of the diaspora actors may be in line with Hanasdenition of Palestinians as partially diasporizedpeople representing torn and partial networks(see gure 13)19.

19. See subgraph Diaspora?=yes on the e-Diasporas Atlasplatform, http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=value&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=5&section=25&valu

e=Yes

Figure 12 Connectivity Prole of Actors Dened as Diaspora.

URL http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=value&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=5&section=25&value=Yes


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Figure 13 Subsection Graph of Diaspora Actors.


Te practice of link-sharing is dierential amongdiaspora actors and is also geographically deter-

mined. Among diaspora actors, those receivingthe most edges are from the US, but those thatshare the most links are from other countries,

such as Germany, Canada and the UK. In otherwords, the US forms the core of the network also

in terms of the organization of diaspora actors(see gure 14).


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Figure 14 Diaspora Actors Distribution of country of residence.


Electronic Intifada, for example, which is themost cited source both by diaspora and non-diaspora actors, is not listed in the top diasporaactors that share the most links to either diasporaor non-diaspora actors. Te top-actors list doesnot include Palestinian refugees or organizationsrelated to them (see gure 15).


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Figure 15 List of Diaspora Top Actors.


Demographics of diaspora actors

Te typical demographic prole of the networksdiaspora actors are associations dedicated eitherto community or solidarity as activity, and either

to Palestinian rights or to diaspora as a primarycause. 59% (46 nodes) of all diaspora actors are

associations. 17% (13 nodes) are individual web-sites, and 6% (5 nodes) are dened as media(see gure 16). In terms of types of websites, themajority of diaspora actors are websites (68%, 53

nodes) and the second largest category is blogs(18%, 14 nodes). (See gure 17.)


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Figure 16 Diaspora Actors Distribution of publisher types.


Figure 17 Diaspora Actors Distribution of website types.



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Most diaspora actors (31%, 24 nodes) mentionthe US as their country of residence. Tat isa fth of all US actors in the corpus (24%). Bycontrast, there are 7 diaspora nodes from Ger-many (9% of diaspora actors), which equal a third

of all other actors from Germany20. Diasporaactors from Canada are closer to the center sincethey are more interlinked with US-based actors.(See gures 18-20.)

20. Websites of Palestinian communities in Berlin are loose-Websites of Palestinian communities in Berlin are loose-ly interlinked.

Figure 19 Diaspora Actors Graph Canadian cluster.


Figure 18 Diaspora Actors Graph German-language cluster.



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Figure 20 Diaspora Actors Graph US cluster.


While diaspora actors from the US, Germany andCanada share their hyperlinked space with non-diaspora actors from their countries of residence,the Spanish-language space stands out as a dias-poric space since 100% of the corpus actors fromChile (9 nodes) Uruguay (2 nodes) and Mexico(1 node) are diaspora actors (see gure 21).

Notably, among the diaspora actors that onlyshare links with non-diaspora actors (and are thus

seen as isolated nodes in the graph of diasporaactors) is the Palestinian Right of Return Coa-lition21, which highlights the tension concerningthe homogeneity of the Palestinian diaspora interms of refugees and non-refugee communities(see gure 22).



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Figure 21 Diaspora Actors Graph Spanish-language cluster.


Te type of activity characterizing diaspora actorsshows that community as an activity type isunique to diaspora actors compared to the entirecorpus. While the popular activity types amongdiaspora actors are evenly distributed betweencommunity and solidarity (24%, 19 nodeseach), diaspora actors activity as communitycomprises 95% of the entire corpus, comparedto 50% for solidarity. Similarly, diaspora actorswhose activity is dened as information (6

nodes) and culture (4 nodes) make up 50% ofthe entire corpus (see gure 23).


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Figure 22 Diaspora Actors Graph Isolated nodesthat do not share links with other diaspora actors.


Figure 23 Diaspora Actors Distribution of activity types.



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Tis alludes to the pattern of unique issues dealtwith by diaspora actors compared to non-dias-pora actors. Like non-diaspora actors, the largestgroup of diaspora actors is dedicated to Palesti-nian rights as a primary cause (27%, 21 nodes).But the second-largest primary cause among dias-pora actors is diaspora, which makes up 100% ofdiaspora as a primary cause in the entire corpus.

And while only 9% of diaspora actors (7 nodes)are categorized with refugees as their primarycause, they make up 54% of the entire corpus (seegure 24). In other words, the entire discussionabout diaspora and almost half of the discussionabout refugees as a primary cause is brought tothe network by diaspora actors.

Figure 24 Diaspora Actors Distribution of activity types.


In terms of references to the Palestinian errito-ries as a center of gravity, diaspora actors contri-bute 25% of the corpus references to the Pales-tinian erritories (88% of all diaspora actors, 69nodes). (See gure 25.) As with non-diasporaactors, most diaspora actors do not mention spe-cic places of origin in the Palestinian errito-

ries. Tat is, the network at large is dedicated tothe Palestinian erritories as its center of gravity,

but in ways that are more related to the networkscharacterizations as a transnational solidaritynetwork rather than as a diaspora network.

By contrast, diaspora actors dier from not-dias-pora actors by their high rates of references to thediaspora. 73% of all diaspora actors refer to thediaspora. Tat makes up 63% of references to thediaspora by the entire corpus (see gure 26).


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Figure 25 Diaspora Actors Distribution of reference to the Palestinian Territories.


Figure 26 Diaspora Actors Distribution of reference to the diaspora.



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Center of gravityTe Palestinian erritories function as thenetworks center of gravity for all network actors,but in a sense it brings together two types ofintertwined networks: diaspora actors, with their

related activities and issues, and solidarity actors,whose activities and issues are not diaspora rela-ted. Tis is especially evident when analyzing thenetworks subsections of community as an acti-vity type, and of the boycott of Israel as a primarycause.

Activity type community

Te networks subsection of community-as-acti-vity is a relatively small space (20 nodes, 6% of

all activity types), characterized by low density ofedges; but its analysis highlights the unique acti-vity and causes of the networks diaspora actors,which make up 95% of this subspace (see gure27)22. Te list of top actors (both in terms ofauthority and diusing hubs) include websitesfrom diaspora communities from around theworld, with a similar prole to the crawls startingpoints (see gure 28).

22. See Subgraph Community as Activity on the e-Diaspo-ras Atlas platform, http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=value&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=7&section=25&value=Community

Figure 27 Subsection Graph of Community as Activity Type.

URL http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=value&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=7&section=2

5&value=Community


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Figure 28 List of Top Nodes of Community as Activity Type..

URL http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=value&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=7&section=25&value=Community

Unlike other subsections of the network, theCommunity-as-Activity subsection is dedicatedto the diaspora as the largest category of primarycause (60%, 12 nodes). Tis makes 71% of allactors in the corpus dedicated to the diaspora asa primary cause. Unlike any other category, thecommunity activity type does not treat Palesti-nian rights as a primary cause only 5% (1 node),which is only 1% of the corpus of websites dedi-

cated to Palestinian rights23. Te second-largest

23. Te Palstinensische Vereinigung Hamburgs . See Ac-

categories of primary cause for community asactivity type are education and refugees allof which are diaspora-related issues (10% each).5% are dedicated to culture and activism. Bycontrast, 0% of the community-as-activity actorsare dedicated to boycott as a primary cause (seegure 29).

tors Prole on the e-Diasporas Atlas platform, http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=node&graph=67&map=56&node=277&section=25


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Figure 29 Community as Activity Type, Distribution of primary cause.

URL http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=value&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=7&section=25&value=Community

Boycott as a primary causeTe Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)movement brings together most organiza-tions in the world campaigning for the Palesti-nian cause. Te BDS network originates from

the Palestinian erritories and is steered by thePalestinian BDS National Committee, compri-sed of 19 Palestinian civil-society organizations.Te committees statement was issued in 2005,and has since been adopted by the Internatio-nal Coordination Network for Palestine, whichbrings together most Palestinian solidarity move-ments around the world, unied under the BDScause24. On the map, the BDS movement and

24. Te global BDS network has 59 ocial members from22 countries around the world, including Australia, the US,Canada, Europe (Belgium, France, Catalunya, Denmark,Greece, Italy, Ireland, UK, Netherlands, Norway, Spain,Sweden and Switzerland), Te Middle East (Syria, Pales-

the Palestinian diaspora reside in the network asside-by-side issues, but a closer inspection showsthat there is less thematic connection betweenthe two issues and their actors (see gure 30)25.A zoomed-in view of the actors dedicated toboycott as a primary cause shows a dense inter-

nal cluster (18.3% internal density, compared to3.3% inbound and 5.5% outbound), indicating anissue-network. Among boycott actors, most edgesexchanged with actors dedicated to Palestinianrights and media as a primary cause, indicatingboth the framing and the target activity of theboycott movement in the media space.

tinian Israelis, Egypt) and Asia (Malaysia). See the BDSmovement website, http://www.bdsmovement.net/. Tisumbrella site is not listed as an actor in the graph.

25. See subgraph Boycott as a Primary Cause on the e-Diasporas Atlas platform, http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=value&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=8&section=25&value=Boycott


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Figure 30 Subsection Graph of Boycott as a Primary Cause.

URL http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=value&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=8&section=25&value=Boycott

Notably, 100% of websites dedicated to boycottas a primary cause are not diaspora actors. Rather,the list of highly interlinked top actors indicatesa network of transnational organizations, with adistribution of publisher types between associa-tions (74%), individuals (11%) and campaigns(16%). Te activity of 95% of boycott actors isdened as solidarity, and their type of websites isdistributed between sites (68%) and blogs (32%),but there are no actors dened as news sources(see gure 31). Also in terms of the geographi-cal distribution of the actors, the prole of theBDS movement is somewhat dierent from thediaspora spaces described above. Te proportionof actors from the US (42%) and the UK (16%)

is relatively higher than elsewhere in the network,and other dominant countries are France, Spain,

Italy and Denmark (5%)26. (See gure 32.)Countries that are dominant in the diaspora andcommunity spaces such as the Palestinian erri-tories, Israel, Canada and Germany do not haveboycott actors27. Notably, 100% of BDS actorsrefer to the Palestinian erritories and 0% to thediaspora. Tus in terms of the center of gravity,while diaspora actors and the boycott movementhave a mutual center of gravity, they exclude oneanother in terms of activity, primary cause andgeographical distribution.

26. About a fth of all sites from Europe and 8% of all USactors are dedicated to the boycott as a primary cause.

27. It is an English-language space representing the leadingcountries of the boycott movement. Arabic is the fourth lan-guage, preceded by French and Spanish.


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Figure 31 Boycott as a Primary Cause, Distribution of publisher types.


Figure 32 Boycott as a Primary Cause, Distribution of country of residence.



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The Palestinian Territories as acountry of residence

Te role of the Palestinian erritories as thenetworks center of gravity, especially in relationto the bi-directional links between diaspora and

its center of gravity, is further highlighted in theanalysis of actors whose country of residence isthe Palestinian erritories28 29. (See gure 33.)

28. Te denition of actors residing in the Palestinian er-ritories includes actors from Gaza, the West Bank, and EastJerusalem.

29. See subgraph Palestinian erritories as a Country of

In terms of inbound links to actors residing inthe Palestinian erritories from actors residing inother countries, the most edges are received fromthe US, but the highest density of links is fromthe Netherlands (see gure 34)30.

Residenc in the e-Diasporas Atlas platform, http://maps.e-diasporas.fr/index.php?focus=value&graph=67&map=56&nodeattribute=13&section=25&value=Palestinian%2Berritories

30. Interestingly, Israel is third in the list of inbound links toactors in the Palestinian erritories, indicating perhaps thecollaboration between Palestinian and Israeli human rightsorganizations, as evident in the cluster of the general graph.

Figure 33 Subsection Graph of the Palestinian Territoriesas a Country of Residence.



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However, the participation of actors from thePalestinian erritories in the diaspora spaces israther low. Only 6% of actors from the Palesti-

nian erritories are dened as diaspora actors,and 25% (8 nodes) of them refer to the diaspora.While the primary cause of 28% of actors residing

in the Palestinian erritories is Palestinian rights,0% is dedicated to diaspora31.

31. Diaspora makes up 6% of the secondary causes in thePalestinian territories, which are 11% of the entire corpusdedicated to the diaspora as a secondary cause.

Figure 34 Palestinian Territories as a Country of Residence,Distribution of density.



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ConclusionsTe network crawled from starting points of

organizations of Palestinian communities indierent countries is characterized by its strongtransnational solidarity with the Palestinian causeand the Palestinian erritories as a center of gra-vity. Te network is dense and cohesive, and mostnetwork actors are dedicated to Palestinian rightsas either a primary or secondary cause. Howeverthe shift from the networks starting points asdiaspora actors to its resulting transnational soli-darity network is perhaps indicative of the lackof ties between diaspora actors among themselves

and in relation to the center of gravity. Rather,they are brought together by their strong ties tonon-diaspora civil-society organizations in their

host societies, which are dedicated to the Palesti-nian cause and less to issues related to the Pales-tinian diaspora.

Tus the network reveals dynamics of the Pales-tinian diaspora that emerge on the Web: it is nolonger dened around Palestine as a place of ori-gin, but is instead constructed around Palestine asapoint of reference; its organization is less arounda network of familial, social and transactional tiesbetween communities of Palestinians who havebeen dispersed to many places in the world, andmore around global advocacy networksthat trans-cend their immediate social networks; and its

members are no longer onlyPalestinians abroad,but also natives of the host countrieswho identifywith the Palestinian cause.

Figure 35 Palestinian Territories as a Country of Residence,Distribution of primary cause.



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Since most actors are dedicated to Palestinianrights and the Palestinian erritories, distin-guishing between diaspora and non-diasporaactors is mostly poignant=? in terms of type ofactivity and the specic issues related to geogra-phical location. In that sense, the geographic spe-cicity and arrangement of actors and causes reaf-rms the de-territorialization of the Palestiniandiaspora, as noted by Hana. On the other hand,the networks strong emphasis on the Palestinianerritories as a cause and as the networks centerof gravity may indicate re-territorialization of thePalestinian diaspora vis--vis the state-buildingprocess.

Te time of data collection is important in exa-mining the relationships between networks of

Palestinian diaspora communities, the Pales-tinian Authority as representing the center ofgravity and the boycott movement. Te data wascollected during the months that preceded thePalestinian UN bid for recognition as a sovereignstate in September 2011, and when the boycottmovement and campaigns were reaching interna-tional volume and success. It is noteworthy thatthe Palestinian Authority is hardly representedin the network, indicating the extent to whichthe Palestinian diaspora is not aligned with itspolicy and its tendency to prefer the settling of asovereign state demarcated by the 1967 borders,which compromises to various extents the ques-tion of Palestinian refugees right of return. Onthe other hand, the boycott movement, whichstarted in the Palestinian erritories and vastlyexpanded among transnational activists abroad,is very dominant in the network, showing a dif-ferent kind of transnational commitment to thecenter of gravity, one that is less aliated withpolitical movements and more with cultural andcivic modes of engagement.

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The Palestinian Diaspora on The Web: Between De-Territorialization and Re-Territorialization

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