New Book: Natanel, Sustaining Conflict

Natanel, Katherine. Sustaining Conflict. Apathy and Domination in Israel-Palestine. Oakland: University of California Press, 2016.

 

 

Sustaining Conflict develops a groundbreaking theory of political apathy, using a combination of ethnographic material, narrative, and political, cultural, and feminist theory. It examines how the status quo is maintained in Israel-Palestine, even by the activities of Jewish Israelis who are working against the occupation of Palestinian territories. The book shows how hierarchies and fault lines in Israeli politics lead to fragmentation, and how even oppositional power becomes routine over time. Most importantly, the book exposes how the occupation is sustained through a carefully crafted system that allows sympathetic Israelis to “knowingly not know,” further disconnecting them from the plight of Palestinians. While focusing on Israel, this is a book that has lessons for how any authoritarian regime is sustained through apathy.

 

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 The Everyday of Occupation
• 2 Bordered Communities
• 3 Normalcy, Ruptured and Repaired
• 4 Embedded (In)action
• 5 Protesting Politics
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

 

KATHERINE NATANEL is a Lecturer in Gender Studies at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter.

Syllabus: Greenberg, Sociology of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Greenberg, Lev. “Sociology of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” – Fall 2015 Syllabus.

URL: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/50b5/1f9d713efbc958e31d57775939bc70885e38.pdf (PDF)

New Article: Dana & Walker, The Effects of Israeli Occupation on Palestinian Gender Roles

Dana, Karam, and Hannah Walker. “Invisible Disasters: The Effects of Israeli Occupation on Palestinian Gender Roles.” Contemporary Arab Affairs 8.4 (2015): 488-504.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17550912.2015.1090100

 

Abstract

Women’s participation in the First Intifada allowed for increased gender equality in Palestine. However, the weakness of the Palestinian Authority, established by the Oslo Accords, created space for non-state actors (dominated by the Islamist political organization Hamas) to emerge and gain popularity. Likewise, during the post-Oslo period conservative positions on gender resurged. This paper re-examines the structural factors that facilitated increased gender inequality and argues that the nature of the occupation itself serves as the greatest force for gender inequality in Palestine. To develop and test our theory, we draw on original, large-n survey data and in-depth interviews.

 

 

New Book: Rodgers, Headlines from the Holy Land

Rodgers, James. Headlines from the Holy Land: Reporting the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

 

 

Tied by history, politics, and faith to all corners of the globe, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict fascinates and infuriates people across the world. Based on new archive research and original interviews with leading correspondents and diplomats, Headlines from the Holy Land explains why this fiercely contested region exerts such a pull over reporters: those who bring the story to the world. Despite decades of diplomacy, a just and lasting end to the conflict remains as difficult as ever to achieve. Inspired by the author’s own experience as the BBC’s correspondent in Gaza from 2002-2004, and subsequent research, this book draws on the insight of those who have spent years observing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Starting from a historical perspective, it identifies the challenges the conflict presents for contemporary journalism and diplomacy, and suggests new ways of approaching them.

 

Table of Contents

• Foreword by Rosemary Hollis
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Reporting from the Ruins: The End of the British Mandate and the Creation of the State of Israel
• 2 Six Days and Seventy-Three
• 3 Any Journalist Worth Their Salt
• 4 The Roadmap, Reporting, and Religion
• 5 Going Back Two Thousand Years All the Time
• 6 The Ambassador’s Eyes and Ears
• 7 Social Media: A Real Battleground
• 8 Holy Land
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

 

 

New Book: Gartman, Return to Zion

Gartman, Eric. Return to Zion. The History of Modern Israel. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015.

 

 

The history of modern Israel is a story of ambition, violence, and survival. Return to Zion traces how a scattered and stateless¬ people reconstituted themselves in their traditional homeland, only to face threats by those who, during the many years of the dispersion, had come to regard the land as their home. This is a story of the “ingathering of the exiles” from Europe to an outpost on the fringes of the Ottoman Empire, of courage and perseverance, and of reinvention and tragedy.

Eric Gartman focuses on two main themes of modern Israel: reconstitution and survival. Even as new settlers built their state they faced constant challenges from hostile neighbors and divided support from foreign governments, as well as being attacked by larger armies no fewer than three times during the first twenty-five years of Israel’s history. Focusing on a land torn by turmoil, Return to Zion is the story of Israel—the fight for independence through the Israeli Independence War in 1948, the Six-Day War of 1967, and the near-collapse of the Israeli Army during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Gartman examines the roles of the leading figures of modern Israel—Theodor Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, Yitzchak Rabin, and Ariel Sharon—alongside popular perceptions of events as they unfolded in the post–World War II decades. He presents declassified CIA, White House, and U.S. State Department documents that detail America’s involvement in the 1967 and 1973 wars, as well as proof that the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty was a case of mistaken identity. Return to Zion pulls together the myriad threads of this history from inside and out to create a seamless look into modern Israel’s truest self.

Eric Gartman is an intelligence analyst for the United States Department of Defense who has lived and studied in Israel and traveled extensively throughout the Middle East.

Reviews: Allen, The Rise and Fall of Human Rights

Allen, Lori. The Rise and Fall of Human Rights. Cynicism and Politics in Occupied Palestine, Stanford Studies in Human Rights. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013.

 

 

Reviews:

• Wright, Fiona. “Review.” Journal of Legal Anthropology 1.3 (2013): 396-398.
• Seidel, Timothy. “Review” H-Net Reviews, February 2014.
• Barbosa, Gustavo. “Review.” Critique of Anthropology 34.3 (2014): 372-374.
• Hurwitz, Deena R. “Review.” Middle East Journal 68.1 (2014): 173-175.
• Kelly, Tobias. “Review.” Allegra – A Virtual Lab of Legal Anthropology, August 11, 2014.
• Smith, Charles D. “Review.” American Historical Review 119.4 (2014): 1399-1400.
• Baruch, Pnina Sharvit. “Review.” Middle Eastern Studies 50.4 (2014): 679-682.
• Hajjar, Lisa. “Review.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 47.1 (2015): 175-176.

New Book: Zelkovitz, Students and Resistance in Palestine

Zelkovitz, Ido. Students and Resistance in Palestine. Books, Guns and Politics. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2015.

 

 

URL: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781138802971/

 

Exploring the Palestinian Student Movement from an historical and sociological perspective, this book demonstrates how Palestinian national identity has been built in the absence of national institutions, whilst emphasizing the role of higher education as an agent of social change, capable of crystallizing patterns of national identity.

Focussing on the political and social activities of Palestinian students in two arenas – the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian diaspora, Students & Resistance covers the period from 1952-2000. The book investigates the commonality of the goal of the respective movements in securing independence and the building of a sovereign Palestinian state, whilst simultaneously comparing their development, social tone and the differing challenges each movement faced.

Examining a plethora of sources including; Palestinian student magazines, PLO documents, Palestinian and Arabic news media, and archival records, to demonstrate how the Palestinian Student Movements became a major political player, this book is of interest to scholars and students of Palestinian History, Politics and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

1 The Rise of a New Generation: Palestinian Students and the Experience of Nakba

2 From Struggle to Accommodation: The General Union of Palestine Students and PLO

3 The Politics of Survival: The GUPS in Times of Crisis

4 Between Cairo and Beirut: The GUPS in the Aftermath of the 1973 War

5 The 1980s: Military Challenges and Paradigm Shift

6 The Emergence of the Palestinian Higher Education System

7 Between Academic Freedom and Military Supervision: The Palestinian Universities and the National Struggle

8 The Palestinian Student Movement in the West Bank and Gaza: A Sociopolitical Account

9 The Palestinian Student Movement Between Two Intifadas

New Book: Morag, Waltzing with Bashir: Perpetrator Trauma and Cinema

Morag, Raya. Waltzing with Bashir: Perpetrator Trauma and Cinema. London: Tauris, 2013.

 

Waltzing with Bashir proposes a new paradigm for cinema trauma studies – the trauma of the perpetrator. Recognizing a current shift in interest from the trauma suffered by victims to that suffered by perpetrators, the book seeks to theorize this still under-studied field thus breaking the repression of this concept and phenomenon in psychoanalysis and in cinema literature. Taking as a point of departure the distinction between testimony given by the victim and confession made by the perpetrator, this pioneering work ventures to define and analyze perpetrator trauma in scholarly, representational, literary, and societal contexts. In contrast to the twentieth-century definition of the perpetrator based on modern wars and totalitarian regimes,Morag defines the perpetrator in the context of the twenty-first century’s new wars and democratic regimes. The direct result of a drastic transformation in the very nature of war, made manifest by the lethal clash between soldier and civilian in a battlefield newly defined in bodily terms, the new trauma paradigm stages the trauma of the soldier turned perpetrator, thus offering a novel perspective on issues of responsibility and guilt.

Such theoretical insights demonstrate that the epistemology of the post-witness era requires breaking deep-seated psychological and psychiatric, as well as cultural and political, repression. Driven by the emergence of a new wave of Israeli documentary cinema, Waltzing with Bashir analyzes the Israeli film and literature produced in the aftermath of the second Intifada. As Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir and other new wave films demonstrate, Israeli cinema, attached on one side to the legacy of the Holocaust and on the other to the Israeli Occupation, is a highly relevant case for probing the limits of both victim and perpetrator traumas, and for revisiting and recontextualizing the crucial moment in which the victim/perpetrator cultural symbiosis is dismantled.

Raya Morag is an Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at the Department of Communication and Journalism, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

Table of Contents

Introduction
From Victim to Perpetrator Trauma

Part I: Victim Trauma
1. The Body as the Battlefield
2. Chronic Victim Trauma and Terror
3. Queerness, Ethnicity, and Terror

Part II: Perpetrator Trauma
4. The New Wave of Documentary Cinema: The Male Perpetrator
5. The New Wave of Documentary Cinema: The Female Perpetrator
6. The New Wave of Documentary Literature

Conclusion
The Perpetrator Complex

New Book: Peters and Newman, eds. The Routledge Handbook on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Peters, Joel and David Newman, eds. The Routledge Handbook on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. London and New York: Routledge, 2013.

 

URL: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415778626/

Abstract

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most prominent issues in world politics today. Few other issues have dominated the world’s headlines and have attracted such attention from policy makers, the academic community, political analysts, and the world’s media.

The Routledge Handbook on the Israeli- Palestinian Conflict offers a comprehensive and accessible overview of the most contentious and protracted political issue in the Middle East. Bringing together a range of top experts from Israel, Palestine, Europe and North America the Handbook tackles a range of topics including:

• The historical background to the conflict
• peace efforts
• domestic politics
• critical issues such as displacement, Jerusalem and settler movements
• the role of outside players such as the Arab states, the US and the EU

This Handbook provides the reader with an understanding of the complexity of the issues that need to be addressed in order to resolve the conflict, and a detailed examination of the varied interests of the actors involved. In-depth analysis of the conflict is supplemented by a chronology of the conflict, key documents and a range of maps.

The contributors are all leading authorities in their field and have published extensively on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict/peace process. Many have played a leading role in various Track II initiatives accompanying the peace process.

 

Table of Contents

Part 1: Competing Nationalisms

1. The Origins of Zionism Colin Schindler

2. The Palestinian National Movement: from self-rule to statehood Ahmad Samih Khalidi

Part 2:Narratives and Key Moments

3. Competing Israeli and Palestinan Narratives Paul Scham

4. The 1948 War: The Battle over History Kirsten E. Schulze

5. The First and Second Palestinian Intifadas Rami Nasrallah

6. The Camp David Summit: a Tale of Two Narratives Joel Peters

 

Part 3: Seeking Peace

7.The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process: 1967-1993 Laura Zittrain Eisenberg

8. Peace Plans: 1993-2012 Galia Golan

Part 4: Issues

9.Palestinian Refugees Rex Brynen

10. Jerusalem Michael Dumper

11. Territory and Borders David Newman

12. Water Julie Trottier

13. Terrorism Magnus Norell

14. Religion Yehezkel Landau

15. Economics Arie Arnon

16. Unilaterlaism and Separation Gerald M. Steinberg

17. Gaza Joel Peters

Part 5: Domestic Actors

18.The Palestine Liberation Organization Nigel Parsons

19. The Palestinian Authority Nigel Parsons

20. Hamas Khaled Hroub

21. Palestinian Civil Society Michael Schulz

22. Gush Emunim and the Israeli Settler Movement David Newman

23. The Israeli Peace Movements Naomi Chazan

Part 6: International Engagement

24. Palestinian Citizens of Israel Amal Jamal

25. The United States: 1948- 1993 Steven L. Spiegel

26. The United States: 1993-2010 Steven L. Spiegel

27. Russia Robert O. Freedman

28. Europe Rosemary Hollis

29. The Arab World P. R. Kumaraswamy

30. The Jewish Diaspora and the Pro-Israel Lobby Dov Waxman

Chronology Steve Lutes

New Article: Mendelson-Maoz, Borders, Territory, and Sovereignty in the Works of Contemporary Israeli Women Writers

Mendelson-Maoz, Adia. “Borders, Territory, and Sovereignty in the Works of Contemporary Israeli Women Writers.” Women’s Studies 43.6 (2014): 788-822.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00497878.2014.921511

 

 

Excerpt

The works of both Matalon and Govrin offer an unusual aesthetic, ethical, and female option, in regard to the questions of territory and sovereignty. In choosing the rhizome model, in which nomads create open spaces, throw bridges over borders, and enable flexibility in the subject’s never-ending becoming, both authors provide a revolutionary angle on representations of the Israeli society, the Occupation and the Intifada in Israeli literature. Because of the revolutionary nature of their gaze, and its implication, which threaten the core of political and gendered power, this option is doomed to failure. And so alongside the radical option, these works also propose a realistic view that portrays how the female and ethical alternative is crushed and threatened with violence. Ultimately, the release of sovereignty and possession cannot succeed in a place where men thirst for war, a place where weapons persist on assaulting Jerusalem again and again, rather than leave it fallow.

 

 

 

 

 

ToC: Israel Affairs 20,2 (2014): Special Issue, Politics and Poetry

Israel Affairs 20,2 (2014)

Special Issue: Politics and Poetry in Israel

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/fisa20/20/2

 

Articles

Poetry and poets in the public sphere

Assaf Meydani & Nadir Tsur; pages 141-160

• DOI:10.1080/13537121.2014.889889
• Published online: 01 Apr 2014

The leader as a poet: the political and ideological poetry of Ze’ev Jabotinsky

Arye Naor; pages 161-181

• DOI:10.1080/13537121.2014.889890
• Published online: 22 May 2014

The image of the ‘living-dead’ in Nathan Alterman’s poetry: from archetype to national symbol

Ortsion Bartana; pages 182-194

• DOI:10.1080/13537121.2014.889886
• Published online: 29 May 2014

The art of politics and poetry: the political poetry of Jacques Prevert and Aryeh Sivan

Samuel (Muli) Peleg; pages 195-213

• DOI:10.1080/13537121.2014.889892
• Published online: 07 May 2014

Hegemony inside and out: Nathan Alterman and the Israeli Arabs

Yochai Oppenheimer; pages 214-225

• DOI:10.1080/13537121.2014.889891
• Published online: 04 Apr 2014

‘Silent in white ink’: the motif of silence in Israeli-Palestinian women’s poetry translated from Arabic to Hebrew

Leah Baratz & Roni Reingold; pages 226-239

• DOI:10.1080/13537121.2014.889885
• Published online: 16 Apr 2014

Politics and poetry in the works of Shalom Shabazī

Yosef Tobi; pages 240-255

• DOI:10.1080/13537121.2014.889893
• Published online: 14 Apr 2014

Why did poetry and piyut disappear from the religious-Zionist High Holy Day prayer book, and what prompted their return?

Shimon Fogel; pages 256-270

• DOI:10.1080/13537121.2014.889887
• Published online: 04 Apr 2014

An Israeli Bob Dylan is yet to be born: the politics of Israeli protest music

Yitzhak Katz; pages 271-279

• DOI:10.1080/13537121.2014.889888
• Published online: 26 Mar 2014

New Publication: Harris and Omer-Sherman, eds., Narratives of Dissent

Harris, Rachel S. and Ranen Omer-Sherman. Narratives of Dissent. War in Contemporary Israeli Arts and Culture. Detroit : Wayne State University Press, 2012.

 

 

 

URL: http://wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/narratives-dissent

The year 1978 marked Israel’s entry into Lebanon, which led to the long-term military occupation of non-sovereign territory and the long, costly war in Lebanon. In the years that followed, many Israelis found themselves alienated from the idea that their country used force only when there was no alternative, and Israeli society eventually underwent a dramatic change in attitude toward militarization and the infallibility of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces). In Narratives of Dissent: War in Contemporary Israeli Arts and Culture editors Rachel S. Harris and Ranen Omer-Sherman collect nineteen essays that examine the impact of this cultural shift on Israeli visual art, music, literature, poetry, film, theatre, public broadcasting, and commemoration practices after 1978.

Divided into three thematic sections-Private and Public Spaces of Commemoration and Mourning, Poetry and Prose, and Cinema and Stage-this collection presents an exciting diversity of experiences, cultural interests, and disciplinary perspectives. From the earliest wartime writings of S. Yizhar to the global phenomenon of films such as Beaufort, Waltz with Bashir, and Lebanon, the Israeli artist’s imaginative and critical engagement with war and occupation has been informed by the catalysts of mourning, pain, and loss, often accompanied by a biting sense of irony. This book highlights many of the aesthetic narratives that have wielded the most profound impact on Israeli culture in the present day.

These works address both incremental and radical changes in individual and collective consciousness that have spread through Israeli culture in response to the persistent affliction of war. No other such volume exists in Hebrew or English. Students and teachers of Israeli studies will appreciate Narratives of Dissent.

 

 

Table of Contents (from Library of Congress)

Introduction: zionism and the culture of dissent / Ranen Omer-Sherman — Private and public spaces of commemoration and mourning — "Music of peace" at a time of war : Middle Eastern music amid the second intifada / Galeet Dardashti — Privatizing commemoration : the helicopter disaster monument and the absent state / Michael Feige — "Cyclic interruptions" : popular music on Israeli radio in times of emergency / Danny Kaplan — Consuming nostalgia : greetings cards and soldier-citizens / Noa Roei — The photographic memory of Asad Azi / Tal Ben Zvi — "We shall remember them all" : the culture of online mourning and commemoration of fallen soldiers in Israel / Liav Sade-Beck — Poetry and prose — Bereavement and breakdown : war and failed motherhood in Raya Harnik’s work / Esther Raizen — From IDF to .pdf : war poetry in the Israeli digital age / Adriana X. Jacobs — "Unveiling injustice" : Dahlia Ravikovitch’s poetry of witness / Ilana Szobel — War at home : literary engagements with the Israeli political crisis in two novels by Gabriela Avigur-Rotem / Shiri Goren — Forcing the end : apocalyptic Israeli fiction, 1971-2009 / Adam Rovner — Oh, my land, my birthplace : Lebanon war and intifada in Israeli fiction and poetry / Glenda Abramson — Vexing resistance, complicating occupation : a contrapuntal reading of Sahar Khalifeh’s wild thorns and David Grossman’s The smile of the lamb / Philip Metres — Gender, war, and zionist mythogynies : feminist trends in Israeli scholarship / Esther Fuchs — Cinema and stage — Representations of war in Israeli drama and theater / Dan Urian — From national heroes to postnational witnesses : a reconstruction of Israeli soldiers’ cinematic narratives as witnesses of history / Yael Munk — A woman’s war : The Gulf War and popular women’s culture in Israel / Rachel S. Harris — Beaufort the book, beaufort the film : Israeli militarism under attack / Yaron Peleg — Shifting manhood: masculinity and the Lebanon war in Beaufort and waltz with Bashir / Philip Hollander — List of contributors — Index.

ToC: Israel Affairs 19.1 (2013)

Israel Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 1, 01 Jan 2013 is now available on Taylor & Francis Online. Special Issue: The Israeli Palestinians Revisited This new issue contains the following articles: Preface Preface Alexander Bligh & Efraim Karsh Pages: 1-1 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.748284 Original Articles Israel’s Arabs: deprived or radicalized? Efraim Karsh Pages: 2-20 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.748285 Political trends in the Israeli Arab population and its vote in parliamentary elections Alexander Bligh Pages: 21-50 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.748286 Israel’s policy towards its Arab minority, 1947–1950 Yoav Gelber Pages: 51-81 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.748287 The Israeli Arab extended family and the inner courtyard: a historical portrait Kobi Peled Pages: 82-98 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.748288 The Israeli establishment and the Israeli Arabs during the First Intifada Alexander Bligh Pages: 99-120 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.748289 Israel’s Arab leadership in the decade attending the October 2000 events Gadi Hitman Pages: 121-138 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.748290 Israel and the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement Eyal Pascovich Pages: 139-153 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.748291 Another flew over the digital divide: internet usage in the Arab-Palestinian sector in Israel during municipal election campaigns, 2008 Azi Lev-On Pages: 154-169 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.748292 Israel’s 2003 Plan for the Unification of Local Authorities Rami Zeedan Pages: 170-190 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.748293 Police officers’ acceptance of community policing strategy in Israel and their attitudes towards the Arab minority Amikam Harpaz & Sergio Herzog Pages: 191-213 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.748294 Israel’s other Palestinian problem: the Future Vision Documents and the demands of the Palestinian minority in Israel Dov Waxman Pages: 214-229 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.748295 Erratum De-legitimization of Israel in Palestinian Authority Schoolbooks Arnon Groiss Pages: 230-230 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2012.717412 Miscellany Corrigendum Pages: 231-231 DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2013.778533