Palestine in the Air : A Cultural History of Palestinian Aviation

As the first cultural history of Palestinian aviation, Palestine in the Air reveals civil aviation’s role in the ‘question of Palestine’ over the past century.

How do Palestinians—as individuals, communities, and as a nascent state—engage with the air? How does their systemic exclusion from aerial agency inform dominant and counter-narratives of culture and modernity?

International civil aviation is a powerful tool for the disenfranchisement of Palestinian statehood, connectivity, and mobility. Yet, Palestinians have constantly sought to harness aviation as a legitimate component of modern state-building. They have also creatively appropriated aviation technologies including balloons, kites, and drones as instruments of resistance, exploiting flight’s symbolic qualities of escape and liberation to highlight the injustices of occupation.

Using an interdisciplinary approach that draws on media studies, cultural studies, critical theory, diplomacy, and history, Palestine in the Air examines civil aviation’s political, social, and cultural impact upon the Palestinian quest for sovereignty. The book makes use of an unprecedented range of aviation-related sources spanning unpublished memoirs, print and image archives, interviews, art, film, literature, poetry, and stand-up comedy.