The Islamic bloc in Palestinian universities: Student resistance, mobilization, and political opportunity structures

In this research, I aim to contribute to the analysis of the Palestinian student movement's transformation towards resistance, concentrating on the Islamic Bloc (IB), by answering the question: How does the relationship of the Palestinian student movement with the socio-political players (Universities administrative, Palestinian factions, Palestinian Authorities, and Israeli Authorities) affect the student movement's transformations towards resistance and its ability to mobilize adherents and lead collective actions? To answer the main research question, qualitative research methods are employed to collect and analyze primary sources and data from the organization's establishment through 2021. Unstructured interviews are conducted to collect important data, relying on the oral history methodology. These interviews are analyzed by using the positioning theory as explained by Harré and Langenhove. This study considers the period between 1980, the year in which the IB was officially established, and 2021 when the battle of Seif Al-Quds took place which established a new era of the Palestinian armed resistance. Driven by social movement theory, I intend to provide a view of the shifts in framing process for such a social movement. Keeping in mind that it is important to understand the relationship between the sources of social mobilization at key historic turning points, I shed the lights on the following periods: the first Intifada, the Oslo agreements, the Palestinian division, and the wars on Gaza, to explain the factors of continuity and change of the student movement in Palestinian territories.