Changing strategic priorities of the Palestinian youth movement in the age of conflict transformation : critical appraisal

This research aims at shedding light on the defined strategic tasks handled by the youth movement in occupied Palestine between 2007-2013. The political and geographical division between Fatah and Hamas happened in the summer of 2007 paralyzing the overall social and political institutions in the country with farther reaching implications for the social movements and the civil society in general. The ongoing battle with the Israeli occupation and the internal Palestinian skirmishes and political cracks pushed the youth movement to reshuffle and reschedule its priorities along three demarcated zones of intervention in the Palestinian life: student democracy in the universities, initiations for political reconciliation and participation in the daily routine activities of the popular resistance. Activating student democracy in the Palestinian universities is one viable option for the student movement, as a social movement, to guarantee full participation of all student blocs and factions in the annual elections for the student council. This research further covers the intellectual and empirical endeavors exerted by the youth movement to bring internal political and social reconciliation. In other related context , one can say that the lack of political achievements of the second militarized intifada has actually motivated the youth movement to redefine its national agenda according to popular resistance means, using peaceful offensive, defensive, symbolic and accumulative means of resisting the occupation. At a methodological level, this research is going to benefit heavily from the empirical data collected by the researchers from student activists and popular resistance field workers.