Chronicles of Resistance: Key Historical Moments and the Rise of the Islamic Student Movement in Palestine

Abstract

This study challenges simplistic narratives that reduce the mobilization of Palestine’s Islamic student movement (the Islamic Bloc) to either cultural criticisms or structural aspects. Instead, it argues that the evaluation of transformation from its establishment in 1980 to the 2021 Seif Al-Quds uprising has been shaped by the interplay of cultural agency and structural dynamics. These include basic historical moments (such as the First Intifada, Oslo Accords, and Gaza wars), spatial-institutional contexts, alliances with political factions, and university administrations’ autonomy. Based on qualitative analysis of oral histories and primary sources (1980–2021), the paper examines the extent to which political opportunity structures and the Islamic Bloc’s links to socio-political institutions (e.g., Palestinian factions, universities, Israeli/Palestinian authorities) form its patterns of resistance strategies and collective mobilization. Integrating insights from social movement theory and positioning theory, this analysis bridges cultural narratives such as anti-colonial resistance and collective grievances with structural forces, including institutional autonomy and factional alliances. Findings reveal that successful mobilization required a grievance-driven agency and structural enablers, such as universities’ political independence and strategic adaptation to shifting power dynamics. The study proposes a holistic structure for analyzing student-led conflict in challenged countries, signifying how cultural sense creation and structural opportunity mutually combine action construct these dimensions.