New Article: Benski and Katz, Women’s Peace Activism and the Holocaust

Benski, Tova, and Ruth Katz. “Women’s Peace Activism and the Holocaust: Reversing the Hegemonic Holocaust Discourse in Israel.” In The Holocaust as Active Memory: The Past in the Present (ed. Marie Louise Seeberg, Irene Levine, and Claudia Lenz; Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2013, reprinted 2016): 93-112.

 

 

Extract

The present chapter focuses on Holocaust discourse among activists of the Coalition of Women for Peace, and is an unexpected outcome of a longitudinal study of women’s peace movements in Israel since the late 1980s. The chapter is divided into four parts: First, we present theoretical perspectives of collective memory and trauma. We then turn to the construction of cultural memory of the Holocaust in Israel. The third section examines the socio-political space of the Coalition of Women for Peace, offering a rich description of its constituent groups, their value orientations, and activities. The fourth part, which forms the core of the chapter, centers on the CWP and the Holocaust, and presents the somewhat ambivalent analogies made by the women activists between the Holocaust and the current phase of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while identifying the various themes that dominate the specific Holocaust discourse that has evolved among these women.

 

 

 

New Book: Daniele, Women, Reconciliation and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Daniele, Giulia. Women, Reconciliation and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. The Road Not Yet Taken. Abingdon: Routledge, 2014.

 

 

URL: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415722452/

 

Abstract

Women, Reconciliation and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict explores the most prominent instances of women’s political activism in the occupied Palestinian territories and in Israel, focussing primarily on the last decade. By taking account of the heterogeneous narrative identities existing in such a context, the author questions the effectiveness of the contributions of Palestinian and Israeli Jewish women activists towards a feasible renewal of the ‘peace process’, founded on mutual recognition and reconciliation.

Based on feminist literature and field research, this book re-problematises the controversial liaison between ethno-national narratives, feminist backgrounds and women’s activism in Palestine/Israel. In detail, the most relevant salience of this study is the provision of an additional contribution to the recent debate on the process of making Palestinian and Israeli women activists more visible, and the importance of this process as one of the most meaningful ways to open up areas of enquiry around major prospects for the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Tackling topical issues relating to alternative resolutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this book will be a valuable resource for both academics and activists with an interest in Middle East Politics, Gender Studies, and Conflict Resolution.

Table of Contents

Foreword Ilan Pappé

Introduction

 

Part I: Ethno-Nationalism and Women’s Activism From a Critical Viewpoint

1 Challenges to the intertwined narratives of Palestinian and Israeli Jewish Women

2 Palestinian Women and Deep-Rooted National Narrative Identity

3 Different perspectives of Narrative Identities Among Israeli Women Activists

 

Part II

4 Parallelism and Inextricability of Women’s Narratives in Palestine/Israel

5 Deconstructing Ethno-national Narrative Identities: Women’s Activism Within the Paralysis of Military Occupation

6 Women Activists Towards Political Criticism and Joint Actions

 

Conclusion