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.

New Book: Snir, Who Needs Arab-Jewish Identity?

Snir, Reuven. Who Needs Arab-Jewish Identity? Interpellation, Exclusion, and Inessential Solidarities. Leiden: Brill, 2015.

 

In Who Needs Arab-Jewish Identity?: Interpellation, Exclusion, and Inessential Solidarities, Professor Reuven Snir, Dean of Humanities at Haifa University, presents a new approach to the study of Arab-Jewish identity and the subjectivities of Arabized Jews. Against the historical background of Arab-Jewish culture and in light of identity theory, Snir shows how the exclusion that the Arabized Jews had experienced, both in their mother countries and then in Israel, led to the fragmentation of their original identities and encouraged them to find refuge in inessential solidarities. Following double exclusion, intense globalization, and contemporary fluidity of identities, singularity, not identity, has become the major war cry among Arabized Jews during the last decade in our present liquid society.

Table of contents

Preface
Introduction
Chapter One: Identity: Between Creation and Recycling
Chapter Two: Arabized Jews: Historical Background
Chapter Three: Arabized Jews in Modern Times between Interpellation and Exclusion
Chapter Four: Globalization and the Search for Inessential Solidarities
Chapter Five: White Jews, Black Jews
Conclusion
Appendices
I. Iraqi-Jewish Intellectuals, Writers, and Artists
II. Sami Michael, “The Artist and the Falafel” (short story)
References
Index

Reuven Snir is a Professor of Arabic Literature and Dean of Humanities at Haifa University. He has published many books, articles, translations, and encyclopedia entries. His latest book is Baghdad – The City in Verse (Harvard University Press, 2013).

Reviews: Ghanem, Ethnic Politics in Israel

Ghanem, As’ad. Ethnic Politics in Israel. The Margins and the Ashkenazi Center. Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Politics 16. London: Routledge, 2009.

Reviews:

• Kaufman, Asher. “Review.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 43.3 (2011): 581-583.
• Prestel, Claudia. “Review.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 11.1 (2012): 142-144.

Reviews: Chetrit, Intra-Jewish Conflict in Israel

Sami Shalom Chetrit, Intra-Jewish Conflict in Israel. White Jews, Black Jews. Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Politics. London / New York: Routledge, 2009.

Reviews:

• Orit Bashkin, “Review.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 43.2 (2011): 331-333.

Cite: Hirschberg, A Comprehensive Model of Ideology and Practice in Israeli Art Music

Hirschberg, Jehoash. "The Vision of the East and the Heritage of the West: A Comprehensive Model of Ideology and Practice in Israeli Art Music."  Min-Ad: Israel Studies in Musicology Online 7,2 (2008-2009). 23 pp.

 

URL: http://www.biu.ac.il/06-Hirshberg_The%20Vision.pdf

 

Keywords: Israeli music, culture, popular culture,יהואש הירשברג, מוסיקה, Israel: Society, Ethnic Divide, Orientalism, Mizrahim / Ashkenazim Rift, Mizrahi Israelis, Ashkenazi Israelis