Final Essay of Semiotics of Conflict

A Semiotic Analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Palestinian

Alienation Series by Hatem Ali and Walid Saif

Name: Dina Yousef Mohammad Aldasouqi

Matricola: 0001039747

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Contents
1. Introduction.......................................................................................................................................3
2. An overview of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict................................................................................3
3. The Palestinian Cause in Arab Drama.............................................................................................5
4. The Palestinian Alienation Series.....................................................................................................6
4.1. Episodes 1-15: Palestine and the British Mandate.......................................................................6
4.2. Episodes 16-31: Palestine and the Israeli Occupation:................................................................9
5. Analysis and Comments..................................................................................................................12
6. Conclusion............................................................................................................................................14

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 1. Introduction
Drama has accompanied Man since his first attempts to explore his surroundings
and his primitive adventures, because drama represented that instinct embedded
within him that yearns to simulate everything he sees in order to achieve his human
advantage over other beings. It developed with the development of human
civilization, becoming a means of learning, understanding, and communication
between individuals.
Directors use drama to describe various social, political, religious, and historical
issues. This article will discuss the Palestinian Alienation series presented by the
Syrian drama regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The series premiered in
2004, directed by Hatem Ali and written by Dr. Walid Saif.

2. An overview of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The Arab-Zionist conflict did not begin with the establishment of the state of the
Zionist entity on the Arab land of Palestine in 1948, but rather before that with the
first attempts of the Zionist movement to transfer the Jews to Palestine in order to
achieve a national home for them, which has not stopped since the emergence of
the Zionist movement at the end of the nineteenth century until the announcement
of the establishment of the state of the Israel in 1948.1
The Palestinian issue is one of the most important and dangerous political, cultural
and historical issues. Indeed, it is what some researchers call it (the conflict of the
century) with its historical roots, cultural repercussions, and economic and security
consequences. Since the beginnings of this issue and the convening of the Basel
Conference in Switzerland in 1897, the issue has evolved to reach what it is today,
as the Palestinian issue is considered the core of the Arab-Palestinian-Israeli
conflict, which resulted in various wars in the Middle East.
The Palestinian cause arose out of the conflict that took place over the Palestinian
territories from the beginning of the twenties of twentieth century, between three
forces: British colonialism, the Zionist movement, and the national liberation
movement of the Palestinian people. From the very beginnings of the emergence of
the global Zionist movement, that movement adopted the project of establishing
the Jewish national country on the land of Palestine, and it was not possible for that
movement to achieve that project except through three basic means, or three

1
Abeer Sheikh Haidar, German policy towards the Palestinian cause and its development 1949-2008, Publications
of the General Book Authority, Ministry of Culture, Damascus, Syria, 2012, p. 15.

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pivotal pillars upon which the Zionist/Israeli strategy was based in the various
stages, namely:
1- The continuous Jewish immigration and displacement movement to the land
of Palestine.
2- To seize the largest possible areas of the Palestinian Arab lands.
3- Forcing the Palestinian population to leave their lands and homes in various
ways and means.2
The problem of Palestine, which began many years ago and has not been resolved,
is not only a local and national quarrel between Arabs and Jews. Rather, some
major countries, if not all, have interests in Palestine. The best description of this
conflict is that it is a tragedy. The world's politicians forget how it arose, and they
are unable to find a solution to it. People out of the East do not know about that
conflict except that there is an indigenous people, the Palestinian Arab people, who
declare that they have been wronged and continue to be wronged.
The Palestinian cause has witnessed substantial and tangible development in recent
years, especially with the succession and continuity of the multiple political
victories achieved by the Palestinians in their battle with Israelis. The first of
which was embodied in Palestine obtaining full membership in the UNESCO of
the United Nations. In addition to the moral victory achieved by the Palestinian
resistance factions in the Gaza Strip, which represented its steadfastness,
resistance, against the deterrent force of the Zionist entity during the eight-day war
that it waged against the citizens of Gaza in late 2012. Then was followed by the
great victory achieved by the Palestinian Authority in the battle for the state, when
Palestine obtained the status of an observer state in the United Nations as the
General Assembly of the United Nations voted by majority, 138 countries, in favor
of the decision for the State of Palestine to obtain the status of an observer state in
the United Nations.3 Furthermore, the Palestinian cause receives varying attention
from the media at the local and international levels, after the bad Israeli deeds that
crossed all humanitarian and legal boundaries, especially after the beginning of
peace negotiations between the two sides when Israeli forces started to do brutal
massacres in the occupied Palestinian territories.4

2
Hatem Ali Mustafa Al-Asouli, The Role of the Arab Electronic Press in Marketing the Palestinian Cause, Master
Thesis, Sudan University of Science and Technology, 2013, p. 63.
3
As previous one, p. 77.
4
Aladdin Ayyash, Features of Palestinian Documentary Films, An Analytical Study, Dar Al-Ain, 1st edition, Cairo,
2011, p. 128

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The aim in extending this brief and quick overview of the Palestinian issue without
taking into account the considerations of the stages, events and developments that
the issue went through is not intended to trace the historical stages of the
developments of the issue nor to highlight its most important stages, because that
requires independent research on its own. Rather, the goal is to highlight the most
important argument in the issue, which is the suffering of Palestinians inside their
homeland under the Israeli occupation, and as refugees in the exiles in which they
emigrated after being expelled.
3. The Palestinian Cause in Arab Drama
Since its early beginnings, the Palestinian issue, as a central issue for every Arab,
has constituted an important topic in Arab dramatic work. Gradually, the
importance of increasing the interest of drama in this issue became clear with the
development of the events of the cause and the intensification of the Arab-Israeli
conflict.
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has started for seventy five years. Since the
beginning of that conflict, we can find several Syrian and Jordanian drama and
cinema works that discussed it from different points of view.
It is not possible in any way to talk about Arab television drama, without standing
long and deeply at the Syrian experience in this field. As it represents that
pioneering experience that has been developing year after year through its
productions that invaded Arab satellite channels, and drew a special place for itself
in the memory of the Arab viewer. This drama was able to create a special place
for itself thanks to the efforts of its creators, including directors, technicians, and
actors. It presented hundreds of television dramas that sought to discuss various
social, religious, historical, cultural, and political issues. Among the most
important topics addressed was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which preoccupied
and still preoccupies the creators of Syrian drama.

4. The Palestinian Alienation Series

The Syrian TV series, Palestinian
Alienation, in thirty-one episodes, with an
average of forty minutes per episode, deals

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with the story of a rural Palestinian family, the family of Abu Ahmad, by
observing its life and development from the thirties of the last century until the
beginning of the sixties. The series depicts the struggle of this family on its land
against poverty, deprivation, and the unfairness of traditional leaders on the one
hand, and on the other hand, the policies of the British Mandate.
Abu Ahmad Family

The story proceeds by tracing the successive generations in this family starting
from the initial family that consists of four young men and a girl in addition to the
parents. The work also monitors the march of the family members who live in a
situation of alienation within their homeland under the oppression of feudalism and
English colonialism, and later their alienation in exile through their dispersion
between Sabra and Shatila in Beirut and in Amman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and
Egypt.
The work presents the Palestinian tragedy through family and the village, focusing
on the Palestinians more than it focuses on the Palestinian issue across a time
period that extends from 1933 to 1969, by adopting a documented historical
political background. The episodes of the series can be divided into two parts, the
first discusses the Palestinians and English colonialism, and the second displays
the beginning of the war/Nakba.
4.1. Episodes 1-15: Palestine and the British Mandate
The first episode begins where the story ended, i.e. in reverse, through the return of
Ali, whose character was embodied by the Syrian actor Taim Hassan, to the camp,
and the scene of the death of the leader Abu Saleh, whose character was embodied
by the Syrian actor Jamal Suleiman. It seems clear that the director here links the
first episode and the last episode for the purpose of proving his special vision
towards the Palestinian cause, which is reflected in the idea of resistance to all
kinds of injustice, oppression and deprivation, and through the use of the narrator
technique or the external voice, which was performed by Taim Hassan, who
appears in the first episode. The events of the story are sequenced by going back to
its beginnings, where the Palestinian rural village, for which the writer did not give
a name to indicate the Palestinian country as a whole, and the story of the family
consisting of seven members begins in the search for proof of existence under
feudalism and traditional leaderships on the one hand, and the beginning of
migrations and Israeli settlement supported by the Mandate British on the other
hand.

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The first episodes presented many topics such as: the issue of land, the formation
of political consciousness, the countryside and the city, the English occupation and
the beginning of the embodiment of the Balfour Declaration and feudalism.
1- The issue of land:
The series starts in 1933, focusing on the relationship between a Palestinian and his
land. The director invests that relationship to form a dramatic conflict that is based
on the existing social structure at the time in a rural society whose people are
exposed to exploitation by other (more powerful) groups. The first episodes show
the difficulty of the peasant's life and the social stratification he suffers from based
on the rules practiced by leaders and notables, where a small group seizes most of
the land. Abu Ahmed (the head of the family), whose character was played by the
Syrian actor Khaled Taja, in the first episode says: "The land is the radix, and only
who has no origin or religion sell their land". Here is the will of the first generation
to the generations that will come later, and the Palestinian man's adherence to his
land.
2- Political awareness:
In these episodes, it was discussed how political awareness towards British
colonialism was formed in the city, for which the writer represented the Palestinian
city of Haifa through the character of Abu Akram, whose role was embodied by
the Syrian actor Salim Sabry, who represents the voice of the intellectual interested
in the cause of the Palestinian homeland. The name of Izz al-Din al-Qassam and
his resistance to the Israelis and his martyrdom were later mentioned, and this is
what made Abu Saleh being affected by him. In this context, the narrator recounts
the personality traits of Abu Saleh, which qualified him to later become a leader of
a faction in the resistance. Here, the dramatic line of struggle changes towards a
new stage, which is the stage of the Palestinian struggle against the colonialists at
the beginning of 1936, and the sequence of other historical events such as the great
strike and its transformation into civil disobedience and the beginning of the
revolution with peasants in the countryside and the accession of Abu Saleh as the
leader of the revolution.
3- Countryside and city:
The first part of the series discussed the issue of the encounter between the city and
the countryside as two different spaces in terms of the social formation, the
construction of the place, and the characteristics of the characters. The issue of the

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duality of the countryside and the city was dealt with, considering that one of them
represents an extension of the other or an origin for it. It was represented that the
countryside is linked to the direct resistance against the British occupation in its
unorganized form, where a group of village men goes to the city in order to
demonstrate and protest against the Israeli encroachments that seize Palestinian
lands day after day. While the city focused on indirect resistance by building social
and political awareness.
4- The British Mandate and the Great Palestinian Revolution:

Abu Saleh

The character of Abu Saleh, with his harsh facial features, his peasant costume,
and the rifle on his shoulder, formed almost the major part of all the scenes that
dealt with the issue of the British Mandate and the Palestinian revolution. The
episodes also dealt with the issue of the troubles between the revolutionaries and
the factions, in addition, the narrator touches on some historical points, such as the
statement issued by the revolution in the summer of 1938 about generalizing the
wearing of the keffiyeh and the headband, symbols of Palestinian costume.
The episodes draw new landmarks for the Palestinian cause in the year 1947. The
issue re-emerges globally with the beginning of the exit of the British Mandate
from the Palestinian territories. When the Second World War ended, the case was
presented to the United Nations, which will issue the partition resolution in
October of 1947. Thus, the struggle is renewed and extends throughout the country
with some revolutionary personalities mentioned in the episode, such as Abdul
Qadir Al-Husseini and Hassan Salama, and thus Abu Saleh returns to the
revolution and resistance with the emergence of the transformation in the
personality of Hassan, who will also join the resistance with his brother Abu Saleh.

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At the end of Episode 15, the director prepares to talk about the precursors of the
Nakba, prior to the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
4.2. Episodes 16-31: Palestine and the Israeli Occupation:

*The forced displacement, when Palestinians left their homes in 1948.5

These episodes and those that follow deal with the most important chapter in
Palestinian history, which is the beginning of the Nakba 1948. Which caused the
displacement of the Palestinian people from their homeland in exile after Britain's
mandate ended and the intensification of Israeli massacres against the Palestinians,
such as the Deir Yassin massacre. However, the episodes focus on resistance in the
symbolism of the legacy of the rifle.
In this context, the whole family pays dearly and psychologically in order to
retrieve a gun for their youngest son, Hassan, to use in combat. However, the
strength of the Israeli groups and their tight organization outweighed the
Palestinian resistance, and they could not continue for much.
In Episode 17, the real turning point in the story of the Abu Ahmed family and the
story of Palestine with the onset of the Nakba, when forced displacement was
discussed. As the entire village walked towards the unknown, away from the
scourge of war.
In the rest of the episodes, the director, Hatem Ali, portrayed the suffering of
Palestinians in the refugee camps inside and outside Palestine. The life of the
family is portrayed in its deepest phase with the beginning of the Nakba, the life in
the refugee camp, the narrator's conviction that the war has ended, and his belief in
the establishment of the State of Israel.

5
Real images of Palestinian immigrants that were shown in the Series.

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The personalities emphasized the importance of survival for the sake of the cause,
with Masoud, the second son of Abu Ahmad saying: "We must remain alive in
order for our cause to remain alive."
In these episodes, the director explains the psychological and living effects that the
Nakba caused to the Palestinian people inside the camps. Where he focuses on the
manifestations of homelessness, suffering, poverty and hunger in its harshest
forms, as most Palestinians surrender to their new reality after the armistice line
drawn by Britain, Israel and the United States of America in agreement with the
Arab armies.
Returning to the Abu Ahmed family, the news of the martyrdom of their son
Hassan reaches the camp, and the rifle is returned as a symbol of the survival of the
resistance, and Rushdi, their grandson, receives it as an inheritance that must be
employed one day.
In episode 21, the conversation moves to a new date, which is 1951, that is, before
the officers' revolution in Egypt. The Egyptian officers revolted in Egypt in 1952
and overthrew the king's rule, this resonates with the Palestinian cause, which will
undergo some changes during Gamal Abdel Nasser's rule. In the meantime, the
narrator continues to tell us about the refugees and the paradoxes of living among
the camp’s residents. The demand of going back and the dream of returning to the
motherland still haunt many people despite their internal belief that it is difficult to
achieve it, and despite all this, the new generations continue their path in search of
their legitimate dreams and ambitions.
With the passage of time, the refugees come to the realization that Palestine is no
more theirs, in light of the living conditions in the camp, which are getting worse
day by day, with the change of seasons and the changing of the atmosphere, which
leads to the difficulty of adaptation. This prompts many to think of emigrating
towards another exile, but it will be voluntary exile this time. Masoud, the second
son in the family after Ahmed (Abu Saleh), was among those who decided to
immigrate to Kuwait. On his way to Kuwait, Masoud accompanies two friends,
one of whom dies on the way as a result of extreme fatigue and exhaustion.
However, before he dies, he gives Masoud the key to his house in Palestine, as if
every Palestinian was destined to remain clinging to the dream of return that
accompanies him wherever he goes or travels.

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The series also discussed the events of 1956 when Egypt was subjected to tripartite
aggression and the extent of its impact on the Palestinian situation through the
benefits that Israel reaped from this war.
The miserable conditions of the camp contribute to a lot of stagnation in the lives
of the refugees so that their projects and sources of income stop, so they start to
search for a living in cities near them, among them Professor Ali, the youngest son
of Abu Ahmed, who is forced to work as a private teacher to the granddaughter of
Abu Akram, Salma ( Which will become his wife in the following episodes), so
that he can then think of emigrating to Beirut to complete his studies after
obtaining a scholarship.
Professor Ali's marriage to Salma revealed the impact of the war on Palestinian
society from a class point of view. Since Salma was living in an area that had not
been subject to war and had never lived in a refugee camp, this made her marriage
to Ali, the son of the refugee camp difficult, despite his knowledge and good looks.
The issue of education and its importance and usefulness to the modern
generations are discussed again. Later, this would lead to the emergence of a class
of intellectuals who would take up the Palestinian cause, whether they were
politicians, novelists, poets, etc. Ali says: "Education is more important than
drinking and eating. What is left for the Palestinians other than education?".
Education, despite the bad living conditions and lack of income, contributed to the
emergence of a new class of the Nakba generation of young intellectuals who
developed other methods of resistance, including poetry and various arts. Their
discussions went beyond the crisis of the camp and the Palestinian Man to the
crisis of the contemporary person, pointing to the responsibility of the West and
Arab submissiveness for the Palestinian tragedy.
The geographical separation did not only exist between the refugee camp and the
borders set by Israel, but also existed in some way between the refugee camp and
the nearby city, despite their belonging to the same homeland. This separation was
embodied in the social and class crisis that arose between the inhabitants of the
camp and the inhabitants of the city. The son of the camp was a person without an
identity that granted him rights like other people. The difference also appeared
between the human model in the refugee camp, which was represented by the
character of Attia, who resorted to deviation and theft to express the right taken
from him, and the human model in the city, which was represented by many
families that did not accept any kind of relationship with the camp residents.
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This social and class crisis left behind several problems, which Professor Ali
expressed by saying: "We (in Palestine he means) should know that we live in
more than one world".
Family members dispersed in exile across the world, such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia,
and Egypt, each according to his aspirations and needs. However, this did not
make them forget the hope of return, which was renewed with the outbreak of the
1967 war, which was later called the Naksa War.
The last episode was the episode of reality, not illusion, and the beginning of belief
in new reality by accepting the conditions of the new life of every Palestinian after
the war while maintaining at the same time, that he was not afraid of his enemy
because of his frequent contact with him. After that, the series ends with the scene
of Rushdie's return, whose role was embodied by the director himself, Hatem Ali,
to his legacy from his father represented in the rifle, to indicate the idea of
resistance that must continue to restore the lost rights land.

5. Analysis and Comments

The idea of Palestinian alienation is summed up in the human tragedy that the
Palestinian people experienced in the past period and still living it. There is no
doubt that the human aspect is what dominates the series, starting with the main
topic of the story, which is represented by the family whose stories and
disappointments are multiplied by the number of its members and personalities.
This family, which extends to successive generations throughout the episodes of
the series, summarizes a large part of the history of Palestinians in the most severe
stages of their crisis, which is the stage of the Nakba, displacement, exile, and the
dream of returning to the land.
The Israeli occupation impacted all aspects of the life of the Palestinian citizens
inside and outside Palestine. Every Palestinian was traumatized by the war, and
even if he wanted to live with the new reality, he does not have enough rights as a
(refugee) in any country he goes to.
The series was built on four main themes that showed the reality of Palestinians
during the war, namely:
1. The land: The land represents an important symbol and pivotal material in
the Palestinian alienation. Its overwhelming presence from the first episode
to the last is embodied in its closeness to the Palestinian and human
existence in general. It is not possible to talk about a people without talking

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 about a land that brings them together and thus establishes their relations and
their common destiny. When colonial Britain made a promise to the Jews -
who were displaced in parts of the world - to grant them land to establish
their state in Palestine, it deprived every Palestinian of his right to exist on
his land. The land is precious to the person who inhabits it, and this is what
the series wanted to confirm, as the land of Palestine is the right of the
Palestinians, and it must be retrieved from the hands of those who stole it,
whether they were colonialists or feudal lords. The family maintained its
relationship with the land and did not neglect it, not during the period of
feudalism, from which it suffered a lot, as it did not abandon it despite the
existence of material temptations.
2. Resistance: The resistance in the Palestinian alienation series plays an
important role in moving the dramatic conflict and crystallizing it towards
the climax. Resistance is present in all its meanings, details, and types. We
find resistance against oppression and deprivation, as we find resistance in
its highest manifestations against the occupier and colonizer. Resistance is
an expression of adherence to truth and life despite the tragedy and the
reality that may impose conditions on a person that make him reduce the
intensity of his resistance or settle down to servility and submission. In
addition, the resistance was also present in its symbolic form against the
prevailing beliefs, ideas, and opinions in the various aspects of life (social,
economic, and political).
3. The human being: The human is the most important element in the series, as
it is the engine of conflict and its main cause. In this context, we find that the
series has taken the Palestinian person - with its many positive and negative
models - as the main component to which the events related, and all episodes
revolved around its center. Here, we notice the absence of the other that
contradicts the Palestinian person, who is the Israeli person or individual as
a character who has a role in the series, except for what the context needs,
such as the military. Hence, it becomes clear that the vision of the series was
a historical vision of the state of the Palestinian tragedy, so there is no need
to evoke the other side, which is the primary cause of the tragedy
experienced by the Palestinians.
4. The Family: The story of the series is based, as mentioned earlier, on the
story of a Palestinian family. It has a large and important role that brings us
very close to understanding the series and interpreting its vision, which
resorted in a clever way to reduce the Palestinian issue to the suffering of

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 family members and the repercussions of the urgent developments of the
case on it. The family, which consists of seven members: a fighter, a martyr,
an intellectual, an immigrant looking for money, a father who lost his land
and went to the refugee camp, and a mother who lost her son in the war, is in
fact every Palestinian family.

6. Conclusion
The Palestinian cause was and still is a fertile and rich topic for dramatic treatment.
The series (Palestinian Alienation) dealt with the Palestinian issue in a way that
focuses on its human aspect, guided by the chronology of major historical events
away from political calculations. The human dimension was evident in the series'
treatment of the issue by making the family the focus of the event and conflict,
where the family represents the village community and the village represents the
Palestinian society as a whole. Here lies the peculiarity of the series in its brevity
of the Palestinian tragedy in the story of the members of this family and the
intersection of their destinies with the events of the Palestinian cause. From this
standpoint, the idea of projection emerges, which can be employed to understand
the situation of Palestinian society as a whole in those stages that the series dealt
with. Also, the peculiarity of Palestinian alienation lies specifically in its clear and
evident focus on the idea of resistance from its first episode to the last episode.
There is no doubt that other elements of drama such as decoration, soundtracks,
and make-up contributed greatly to making this series an important icon that dealt
with the Palestinian issue.

Bibliography
Abeer Sheikh Haidar, German policy towards the Palestinian cause and its development 1949-
2008, Publications of the General Book Authority, Ministry of Culture, Damascus, Syria, 2012,
p. 15.
Hatem Ali Mustafa Al-Asouli, The Role of the Arab Electronic Press in Marketing the
Palestinian Cause, Master Thesis, Sudan University of Science and Technology, 2013, p. 63.

Aladdin Ayyash, Features of Palestinian Documentary Films, An Analytical Study, Dar Al-Ain,
1st edition, Cairo, 2011, p. 128

14
Ali, H. (Director). (2004). Palestinian Alienation [Series].

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