Erik Skare

Books

Skare, Erik. A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Faith, Awareness, and Revolution in the Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.

Skare, Erik. Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Islamist Writings on Religion and Resistance. London: I.B.Tauris, 2021.

Skare, Erik (2016). Digital Jihad: Palestinian Resistance in the Digital Era. London: Zed Books.

Articles

Skare, Erik. “La Palestine s’est-elle islamisée?” In Araborama. Ce que la Palestine apporte au monde. Edited by Bertrand Badie, Christophe Ayad & Leyla Dakhli. Paris: Éditions du Seuil [forthcoming March 2023].

Skare, Erik & Stéphane Lacroix. "Les 4 R de la Déradicalisation.” In Politiques de Deradicalisation. Edited by Juliette Galonnier, Stéphane Lacroix & Nadia Marzouki. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po [forthcoming September 2022].

Skare, Erik. "Affluent and Well-Educated? Analyzing the Socio-Economic Backgrounds of Fallen Palestinian Islamist Militants." The Middle East Journal 76, no. 1 (2022): 72-92.

Skare, Erik. "Controlling the State in the Political Theory of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad." Religions 12, no. 1010 (2021): 1-12.

Skare, Erik. "Insulated Eruptions of Discontent: Palestinian Protests in the Absence of Trusted Organisations." Contemporary Levant (2021). Online first: 09.09.21.

Skare, Erik (2018). "Digital Surveillance/Militant Resistance: Categorizing the “Proto-state Hacker.” Television and New Media 20, no. 7 (2018): 670-685.

• (2022). Affluent and Well-Educated? Analyzing the Socio-Economic Backgrounds of Fallen Palestinian Islamist Militants. The Middle East Journal. ISSN 0026-3141. 76(1), p. 72–92. doi: 10.3751/76.1.14. Show summary

  Existing literature argues that the militants and suicide bombers of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) come from relatively advantaged socioeconomic and educational backgrounds compared to the average Palestinian in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Analyzing 2,448 martyr biographies from Hamas's military wing and PIJ from 1992 to 2012, I argue that these militants reflect Palestinian labor divisions and educational enrollment rates. There is thus little to suggest that Palestinian Islamist militants are recruited from any particular socioeconomic stratum within the wider population. I demonstrate that, instead, kinship and geographic clusters are more significant variables.

• (2021). Controlling the State in the Political Theory of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad . Religions. ISSN 2077-1444. 12(11), p. 1–12. doi: 10.3390/rel12111010. Show summary

  Existing scholarship has largely focused on the violence of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) when analyzing their response to the Oslo Agreement and the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority (PA) in the 1990s. The Islamist opposition’s contribution to Palestinian political thought has largely been ignored, however, although the prospects of Palestinian self-rule confronted the two movements with fundamental questions about social organization, governance, and the permissibility of democracy. I offer an analysis of key Hamas and PIJ texts from this period to demonstrate that Hamas and PIJ fundamentally differ in their analysis of the state and the organization of just society. While Hamas outlines a state-centric approach to governance through which Islamic values are enforced from above, PIJ perceives the state to be the greatest threat to the just organization of society. This article consequently dispels the myth that the two Palestinian Islamist movements had no significant ideological differences in the 1990s. View Full-Text

• (2021). Insulated eruptions of discontent: Palestinian protests in the absence of trusted organisations. Contemporary Levant. ISSN 2058-1831. doi: 10.1080/20581831.2021.1972571. Show summary

  In this article, I argue that the so-called ‘intifada of knives’ in 2015–2016 was not a new phenomenon in the Palestinian resistance. Instead, it paralleled the situation in Gaza in the mid-1980s when Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) members engaged in similar attacks. What both periods share is the absence of efficient organisational vehicles facilitating a more durable form of collective resistance. This was the case in the mid-1980s because PIJ was yet to develop the effective organisational structures required to facilitate the resistance its members desired, and this was also the case in 2015–2016 because Palestinian youth are largely disillusioned with Palestinian political factions and traditional party politics as arenas to implement change. As these and similar outbursts of violence offer few, or no, principles for political organising for those who follow, what marked the wave of stabbings in the mid-2010s was not the fury with which they were carried out, but rather the rapidity of their collapse. I thus argue that certain organisational principles are required to sustain and prolong any popular protests for a sufficient period.

• (2018). Digital Surveillance/Militant Resistance: Categorizing the “Proto-state Hacker” . Television & New Media. ISSN 1527-4764. 20(7), p. 670–685. doi: 10.1177/1527476418793509. Show summary

  Rapid developments in digital infrastructure have made all-encompassing surveillance all too possible. However, the same infrastructure has simultaneously enabled the use of new possibility spaces that react to, shape, and resist these structures of control and surveillance. The Israel/Palestine conflict is no different, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has created an electronic unit with hackers to circumvent and resist the Israeli matrix of control and its surveillance. I argue that out of this dialectical relationship in Palestine, between new possibility spaces of resistance and structures of control, new phenomena arise in the gray area between the nation state hacker and the hacktivist as PIJ emulates the features of a modern state army. To understand the nature of its electronic unit, one must take this dialectic into account by introducing the category, “proto-state hacker.”

• Anderson, Jedidiah; Skare, Erik & Dorroll, Courtney (2018). Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Fear? Tools and Suggestions for Digital Data Protection. The Qualitative Report (TQR). ISSN 1052-0147. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The developing cyber-infrastructure has provided new tools, methods, and opportunities to conduct research. However, the Snowden leaks and subsequent developments proved that the same infrastructure has made all-encompassing surveillance possible – posing new challenges for researchers when engaging with those they are obligated to protect. As the cyber-infrastructure simultaneously opens up new possibility-spaces for circumventing structures of surveillance, while drawing on the authors’ own experiences, this article presents a number of tools and suggestions that will aid the researcher to engage more responsibly and safely with the research subject digitally.

• (2015). "Du har blitt hacket av Gaza Hacker Team". Babylon - Nordisk tidsskrift for Midtøstenstudier. ISSN 1503-5727. 13(1/2), p. 46–56. doi: 10.5617/ba.4184. Full text in Research Archive

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• (2021). Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Islamist Writings on Resistance and Religion. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 9780755635924. 256 p. Show summary

  Founded in 1981, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is one of the most important yet least understood Palestinian armed factions, both in terms of its history and ideology. Yet no in-depth translation of its ideological corpus exists. This book is the first to provide a comprehensive account of the ideology of PIJ in the movement's own words. Based on the author's extensive fieldwork and archival research in the occupied Palestinian territories and Lebanon, the book comprises the PIJ's written texts produced since 1979, translated here into English for the first time. In addition to the primary texts, the book includes expert commentary from the author for each source to help explain the context and the broader significance of the documents. The key contention of the book is that although PIJ employs Islamic signifiers and symbolism, its ideology is strikingly similar to the anti-colonialism of the PLO in the 1960s, and in stark contrast to Hamas. A comprehensive resource on the PIJ, it covers: · PIJ beliefs about the Palestinian problem · what type of Islamism the PIJ espouses · how the PIJ regards Shiites and Iran · how it can be understood as an Islamist organization · what it envisions for Palestinian society in the future This is the only sourcebook available on the PIJ.

• (2021). A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Faith, Awareness, and Revolution in the Middle East. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108845069. 334 p. Show summary

  Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is one of the most important yet least understood Palestinian armed factions, both in terms of its history and ideology. Labelled a terrorist organization by the US and the EU, it has grown to become the second largest armed movement in the Gaza Strip and the third largest in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Using a wealth of primary sources, this book traces the history of PIJ from its origins in the early 1980s to today. By looking at how the group was established, how it has developed in theory and practice, and how it understands religion and politics, Skare seeks to answer the key question of why the PIJ still exist despite the presence of its more powerful sister movement Hamas. In doing so, he fills an important empirical gap in the literature on Palestinian Islamism.

• (2018). الجهاد الرقمي: المقوامة الفلسطينية في العصر الرَّقْمي. Almutawassit Books. ISBN 978-88-85771-71-0. 236 p.
• (2016). Digital Jihad: Palestinian Resistance in the Digital Era. Zed Books. ISBN 9781783607846. 240 p.

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• (2021). Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Balancing Act. Lawfare Blog.
• (2021). Gjengjeldelsen volder død og ødeleggelse på Gaza. Hvorfor støtter folk fortsatt Hamas? [Newspaper]. Aftenposten.
• (2021). Jubel og død i Gaza. [Newspaper]. VG.
• (2021). Arrestert Hamas-topp til VG: – Vi betaler prisen for å hjelpe palestinerne. [Newspaper]. VG.
• Maktabi, Rania; Skare, Erik & Sogge, Erling Lorentzen (2018). Forord som redaktør for spesialnummer av Babylon - Nordisk tidsskrift for Midtøstenstudier: "Stat, statsborgerskap og territorialitet" - Festskrift for Nils A. Butenschøn 70 år. Babylon - Nordisk tidsskrift for Midtøstenstudier. ISSN 1503-5727.
• (2018). Comment le Hamas tente de jouer dans la cybercour israélienne. [Newspaper]. L'Orient le Journal. Show summary

  L’opération de cyberespionnage lancée par des hackers gazaouis sur des cellulaires de soldats israéliens est rustique d’un point de vue purement technique. C’est davantage par leur connaissance fine de l’ennemi que les opérateurs du mouvement islamique palestinien ont « brillé ».

• (2018). Påfallende mange palestinske kvinner deltok i Gaza-opprøret. Nå frykter Israel at opprøret sprer seg. [Newspaper]. Aftenposten. Show summary

  Står Hamas bak? Og gir folkeretten Israel lov til å skyte demonstranter? Her er fem svar om de blodige sammenstøtene på Gazastripen.

• (2018). Krig og Fred. Gaza: Den store marsjen hjem. [Radio]. NRK. Show summary

  Nesten 50 palestinere er drept og tusenvis er skadet så langt i demonstrasjonene langs grensegjerde i Gaza. En norsk fotograf har gått tett på og tatt et dramatisk bilde av en ung palestiner innhyllet av røyk og flammer. Dette er historien om hvordan bildet ble til og hva demonstrasjonene sier om situasjonen i Gaza. Gjester: Harald Henden, VG og Erik Skare, doktorgradsstipendiat ved Universitetet i Oslo Programleder: Sigurd Falkenberg Mikkelsen

• (2017). A New Hamas? The New Middle East Blog.
• (2017). Motstandskampen er blitt digital: Unge palestinere hacker israelske nettsider. [Business/trade/industry journal]. Apollon.
• (2017). Digital jihad: Palestinian resistance in the information age. The New Arab. Show summary

  How do Palestinian hacktivists operate, and how does hacktivism form part of the Palestinian resistance?

• (2016). Hacking and Social Banditry in Gaza. The New Middle East Blog.
• (2016). De palestinske hackerne er her. NRK Ytring.
• (2016). Skadeverk og informasjonskrig. Ny Tid. ISSN 0809-9049.
• (2016). Jihadi Document Repository. Show summary

  The Jihadi Document Repository was created in 2015 by the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) in cooperation with the University of Oslo. The sole purpose of the Repository is to encourage academic research on militant Islamism, by making available a large collection of jihadist primary sources gathered by the FFI’s Terrorism Research Group since 1999.

• (2016). Kald front mellom USA og Russland i cyberspace. [Radio]. P2 Ytring.
• (2020). Faith, Awareness, and Revolution: A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Oslo 07-Media. Show summary

  This study seeks to provide the history of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the second largest faction in the Gaza Strip today. Undertaking its first armed operations against the Israeli occupation in 1984, five years before Hamas, violence was what distinguished the two. Yet, when Hamas also engaged in violence in 1989, the two movements were, in principle, almost identical. This raises the question why PIJ survived as a separate organization with a justification of existence. In short, why PIJ? Existing research shares an analysis of a categorical movement bereft of pragmatism. PIJ is simply more militant than Hamas; it rejects political participation and diplomatic dialogue; and it has adopted an unequivocal Palestinian identity. Through the reading and analysis of PIJ texts and archival material, as well as the conducting of interviews with its leaders and members, this study of PIJ’s history seeks to go beyond the conceptualization of the movement as an issue of radicalism, fundamentalism, or a degree of militarism. Instead, the central argument is that PIJ never constituted an absolute rupture with the secular-nationalist currents in the PLO of the late 1960s, as represented primarily by Fatah. As the majority of PIJ’s founding fathers were affiliated with these secular-nationalist currents, they were swayed by the belief in religion’s transformative potential in the 1960s and 1970s. More important, in the process, they preserved their secular, activist political ethos and logic, although it was now framed through religious symbolism. The establishment of PIJ did thus not entail the formation of a new characteristic ideology, but rather the re-articulation of already existing ones. Because this was an ethos distinctively different from that of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, the latter was unable to absorb these activists into its ranks. Consequently, PIJ and Hamas derive their thought and practice from two distinct political traditions

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