Papers by Nora L E S T E R Murad
Public Library Quarterly, Jun 4, 2024
The 215+ day war on Gaza has brought new visibility and interest in the history, politics, and ex... more The 215+ day war on Gaza has brought new visibility and interest in the history, politics, and experiences of Palestinians–including by children. Teachers and librarians say there are not enough children's books that center Palestinians, but do they not exist or are they only difficult to find? Written for professionals in the publishing industry, this article based on original research explores trends in the publication of English-language children's books featuring Palestinian narratives. It delves into the difficulty teachers and librarians face when trying to find Palestinian children's books.
Public Library Quarterly, 2024
The 215+ day war on Gaza has brought new visibility and interest in the history, politics, and ex... more The 215+ day war on Gaza has brought new visibility and interest in the history, politics, and experiences of Palestinians–including by children. Teachers and librarians say there are not enough children's books that center Palestinians, but do they not exist or are they only difficult to find?
Written for professionals in the publishing industry, this article based on original research explores trends in the publication of English-language children's books featuring Palestinian narratives. It delves into the difficulty teachers and librarians face when trying to find Palestinian children's books.
Decolonial Subversions, 2023
The abolitionist thinking, proliferated particularly by U.S. Black feminist radicals in the wake ... more The abolitionist thinking, proliferated particularly by U.S. Black feminist radicals in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, exposed police reformism as liberal subterfuge facilitating the expansion of the carceral state. This article utilizes the relationship between police reform and abolition as a prism through which to look at international development aid. If international aid is thought of as a reform effort serving the interests of colonialism, what is the abolitionist approach to international development? This commentary suggests that abolitionist logic grounded in the US-based movement for Black lives can expose international aid reform as a neoliberal tool and simultaneously unmask the potential for a radical vision of development based in a commitment to liberation rather than white/western/northern supremacy.
Forced Migration Review, 2006
Palestinian refugees should be allowed to choose anddecide, based on informed opinions, whether o... more Palestinian refugees should be allowed to choose anddecide, based on informed opinions, whether or not theywish to return to their homes. This is their legal and moralright. Is it also their right to participate in discussionsabout their future? If so, how should they participate?
Smart Risks: How Small Grants are Helping Solve Some of the World's Biggest Problems. Edited by Tanya Cothran and Jennifer Lentfer., 2017
Smart Risks: How Small Grants Are Helping Solve Some of the World's Biggest Problems. Edited by Tanya Cothran and Jennifer Lentfer., 2017
What if international funders and local, grassroots organizations shared their real perspectives ... more What if international funders and local, grassroots organizations shared their real perspectives about one another?
Since the Hamas parliamentary victory in January 2006, international aid to the Palestinian Autho... more Since the Hamas parliamentary victory in January 2006, international aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) has virtually halted, and funds to civil society have been severely reduced and constrained. Israel also halted transfers of tax funds collected on behalf of the PA (International Monetary Fund 2006). The collapse of the Palestinian economy, combined with the escalating threat of all-out civil war, has
American Journal of Nursing, 1998
American Journal of Nursing, 1998
The American Journal of Nursing, 1998
Current Anthropology, 2017
This study explores how nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) at the recipient end of the foreign ... more This study explores how nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) at the recipient end of the foreign aid relationship perceive partnership and cooperation with donors. Empirical research in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has revealed that relations established by foreign aid resemble archaic gift exchange in the extent to which both foreign aid and gift exchange evoke concepts of solidarity, equality, reciprocity, and related power dynamics. The results of the research indicate that return-gifts exist even in financially unreciprocated foreign aid relations. Recipients return the " contemporary gifts " by providing a special material (documenting and sharing stories of suffering or poverty) to the donor, which leads to the constant circulation of the gift (" aid for pain " and " pain for aid, " to put it bluntly). The study draws attention to the complex social and political factors that local NGOs need to navigate to secure contemporary gifts, while it may also strengthen the validity of critical theories concerning the missing rationale behind the official aims of foreign aid.
Journal of Palestinian Refugee Studies, 2015
Overview Donors at the recent conference on the reconstruction of Gaza pledged an unprecedented $... more Overview Donors at the recent conference on the reconstruction of Gaza pledged an unprecedented $5.4 billion. At the same time, it can be argued that violations of Palestinian rights in Gaza – and throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) – would not be possible without international aid policies that, at least since the 1980s, have actively supported Israel and offered Palestinians development projects in exchange for rights. In this policy brief, Al-Shabaka Policy Member Nora Lester Murad examines aid through the lens of " complicity " and exposes shortcomings in current legal frameworks. She argues that regardless of the limitations of applicable law, international aid actors are fundamentally responsible to those they seek to assist and must be held accountable for the harm they cause or enable. She identifies the areas in which questions need to be asked and concludes with some of the steps that Palestinian civil society and the international solidarity movement should take. Eight Questions Regarding Aid to Palestinians Palestinians have a right to request international aid, and donors have an obligation to provide it. The manner in which this aid has been provided, however, may actually facilitate violations of Palestinian rights under international humanitarian law (IHL). The failure of international actors to act in line with their obligations as third-state and non-state actors enables the status quo to continue, incriminating aid actors in ongoing violations. In fact, several factors that are actually under the control of the international aid system coalesce into an aid regime that facilitates violations of Palestinian rights. These include: 1) Donor categorization of the situation of Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation as an " emergency " year after year as leads to short-term interventions that perpetuate need by focusing on symptoms rather than causes; 2) The policy of non-confrontation with Israel regardless of its actions conveys international acquiescence and contributes to Israeli impunity; and 3) The lack of accountability of the aid system itself has enabled it to marginalize Palestinians and become self-serving.
Nora Lester Murad uses her own experience to expose the incompatibility of the common ‘developmen... more Nora Lester Murad uses her own experience to expose the incompatibility of the common ‘development’ worldview with political realities in Palestine; and she critiques the development community for playing along with the charade that Palestine is ‘post-conflict’. Using the findings of research with grassroots civil society organizations, she shows how dependence on development cooperation often contributes to the denial of Palestinians’ right to self-determination. She argues for honest self-reflection by the international development community, the Palestinian Authority, and Palestinian civil society to end complicity with efforts that maintain structural inequality rather than challenge it.
Identities, 2005
... The Politics of Mothering in a Mixed Family: An Autoethnographic Exploration ... of mixed... more ... The Politics of Mothering in a Mixed Family: An Autoethnographic Exploration ... of mixed people to consider how the identity of otherwise monoracial/ monocultural ... Key Words: mixed race, interfaith, bicultural, identity, mothering/parenting, autoethnography, personal politics ...
Policy Papers by Nora L E S T E R Murad
Rethinking Schools, 2024
The Anti Defamation League is widely and deeply entrenched in K-12 schools in the U.S. This artic... more The Anti Defamation League is widely and deeply entrenched in K-12 schools in the U.S. This article argues that the ADL's watered down pedagogy, alignment with right-wing anti-education forces, and attacks on schools and educators using reputational slander and lawfare, disqualify it as a social justice partner in schools. The article was launched in coordination with the campaign to Drop the ADL from Schools (www.DropTheADLfromSchools.org).
The framing of ‘Jewish and Palestinian philanthropy,’ as if they are two sides of the same coin, ... more The framing of ‘Jewish and Palestinian philanthropy,’ as if they are two sides of the same coin, distorts reality. They are linked, but not parallel in their intent or content. The philanthropy sector denies this, quite literally, at the cost of Palestinian lives.
Empowering Palestinians means equipping
them with the tools to resist Israeli settler colonial
ru... more Empowering Palestinians means equipping
them with the tools to resist Israeli settler colonial
rule and enhancing their capacities for solidarity,
resilience and steadfastness. International aid actors
must recognize and accept that development under
military occupation and colonization means first and
foremost a process of confrontation to realize rights,
including the right to self-determination.
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Papers by Nora L E S T E R Murad
Written for professionals in the publishing industry, this article based on original research explores trends in the publication of English-language children's books featuring Palestinian narratives. It delves into the difficulty teachers and librarians face when trying to find Palestinian children's books.
Policy Papers by Nora L E S T E R Murad
them with the tools to resist Israeli settler colonial
rule and enhancing their capacities for solidarity,
resilience and steadfastness. International aid actors
must recognize and accept that development under
military occupation and colonization means first and
foremost a process of confrontation to realize rights,
including the right to self-determination.
Written for professionals in the publishing industry, this article based on original research explores trends in the publication of English-language children's books featuring Palestinian narratives. It delves into the difficulty teachers and librarians face when trying to find Palestinian children's books.
them with the tools to resist Israeli settler colonial
rule and enhancing their capacities for solidarity,
resilience and steadfastness. International aid actors
must recognize and accept that development under
military occupation and colonization means first and
foremost a process of confrontation to realize rights,
including the right to self-determination.
identify and critically use children’s books involving Palestine? An analysis of 56 children’s books resulted in two articles. The first article, previously published, revealed four categories of erasure of Palestinians from children’s books: omission, dehumanization, distortion, and
disinformation. The current article surfaces nine criteria to help educators and librarians use an antiracist and anticolonial approach to identify and critically use children’s books involving Palestine. Exposing the dynamics, content, and impact of the erasure of Palestinians from children’s books can help Palestinian and non-Palestinian readers and parents more actively and intentionally highlight Palestinian representation that builds identity, pride, and agency. Similarly, the criteria grounded in an antiracist, anticolonial approach identified in this article can help libraries and schools—sites where early knowledge about Palestinians is formed—
choose better books and use books more critically.
Representation, misrepresentation, Palestine, Palestinian, erasure, children’s literature, diverse books, antiracism, anticolonial, libraries, educators, critical multicultural analysis
Keywords: Representation, misrepresentation, Palestine, Palestinian, erasure, children’s literature, diverse books, antiracism, libraries, educators, critical multicultural analysis
This aid has failed the Palestinian people miserably. It has failed to make them feel more secure, it has failed to reverse the cycles of de-development, it has entrenched the status of a captive Palestinian economy that is unproductive and aid-reliant, it has created structural deficiencies in the governance realm, and it has sustained and subsidized the Israeli military occupation. It also sustains the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), which is a heavy burden on the Palestinian people, and has resulted in major negative transformations in the Palestinian civil society, creating an “NGO republic” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Around 10% of aid is received by the highly aid-reliant Palestinian NGOs (DeVoir and Tartir 2009).