Panel: Confession and Testimony As Repertoires of Contention in Conflict Zones (Vienna, July 12, 2016)

Confession and Testimony As Repertoires of Contention in Conflict Zones

Tuesday, 12 July 2016: 10:45-12:15

Room: Hörsaal 21

RC48 Social Movements, Collective Actions and Social Change (host committee)

Language: English

Confession and testimony are central repertoires of contention in the disclosure of “ugly pasts.” Solidarity movements mobilize testimony to diffuse human rights violations condoned and supported by their own societies. Less attention has been paid to the deployment of testimony and confession by anti-denial movements, movements that demand that the members of their own societies acknowledge the “problematic present” in situations of ongoing ethno-national conflict, and take responsibility for it and action against it.
This session invites research that engage in the analysis of confession and testimony in contemporary conflicts by members of the perpetrator nation amongst them:

• Are these repertoires gendered and how?
• What are the groups that engage in testimony and confession?
• How states and civil societies in perpetrator nations react to anti-denial movements?
• Anti-denial movements and national identity.

Session Organizer:

Sara HELMAN, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Oral Presentations:

Challenging the Israeli Occupation through Testimony and Confession: The Case of Anti-Denial Movements Machsom Watch and Breaking the Silence
Sara HELMAN, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Dis/Acknowledging Military Violence: Women Soldiers Testify Against the Occupation
Edna LOMSKY-FEDER, Department of Sociology and Anthropology and School of Education, Israel; Orna SASSON-LEVY, Department of Sociology and Anthroplogy Bar Ilan University, Israel

New Article: Wiseman, Dahlia Ravikovitch’s ‘Egla ‘Arufa

Wiseman, Laura. “Voice of Responsibility: Dahlia Ravikovitch’s ‘Egla ‘Arufa (Felled Heifer).” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 15.2 (2016): 301-17.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2015.1133178

 

Abstract

In a cycle of poems, Sugeyot beyahadut bat zemanenu, “Issues in Contemporary Judaism,” Dahlia Ravikovitch protests against human suffering and fatalities that occur during war and conflicts of attrition involving Israel’s indigenous peoples and contiguous populations. Among the poetry, ‘Egla ‘arufa, with its cryptic title and densely encoded contents, requires textual “demystification” for its central message to be heard. First, this article identifies the most crucial pair of Hebrew sources underlying this poem and discusses their intertextual influence and the transition between them for an enriched reading. Second, through textual analysis this study applies a postmodern literary poetic – a “hermeneutic lag” – to a unique dynamic in the dimensions of the writing. In general, I relate to selected poems by Dahlia Ravikovitch as self-portraits, and regard “Felled Heifer” as an abstract figuration of the voice of the speaker: the voice of responsibility.

 

 

 

New Article: Natanel, Militarisation and the Micro-Geographies of Violence in Israel–Palestine

Natanel, Katherine. “Border Collapse and Boundary Maintenance: Militarisation and the Micro-Geographies of Violence in Israel–Palestine.” Gender, Place & Culture 23.6 (2016): 897-911.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2015.1136807

 

Abstract

Drawing upon subaltern geopolitics and feminist geography, this article explores how militarisation shapes micro-geographies of violence and occupation in Israel–Palestine. While accounts of spectacular and large-scale political violence dominate popular imaginaries and academic analyses in/of the region, a shift to the micro-scale foregrounds the relationship between power, politics and space at the level of everyday life. In the context of Israel–Palestine, micro-geographies have revealed dynamic strategies for ‘getting by’ or ‘dealing with’ the occupation, as practiced by Palestinian populations in the face of spatialised violence. However, this article considers how Jewish Israelis actively shape the spatial micro-politics of power within and along the borders of the Israeli state. Based on 12 months of ethnographic research in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem during 2010–2011, an analysis of everyday narratives illustrates how relations of violence, occupation and domination rely upon gendered dynamics of border collapse and boundary maintenance. Here, the borders between home front and battlefield break down at the same time as communal boundaries are reproduced, generating conditions of ‘total militarism’ wherein military interests and agendas are both actively and passively diffused. Through gendering the militarised micro-geographies of violence among Jewish Israelis, this article reveals how individuals construct, navigate and regulate the everyday spaces of occupation, detailing more precisely how macro political power endures.

 

 

 

Report: Cohen & Mimran, A Reexamination of Israel’s Home Demolition Policy (Hebrew)

Cohen, Amichai, and Tal Mimran. Cost without Benefit: A Reexamination of Israel’s Home Demolition Policy, Policy Studies 112. Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute, 2015 (in Hebrew).

URL: http://www.idi.org.il/cost_with_no_benefit/

 

Abstract

Under a policy that was in force from 1967 until 2005, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) demolished the homes of the perpetrators of terrorist acts and various security offenses, as well as their accomplices. In 2005, a commission of experts, headed by Maj. Gen. Ehud Shani, expressed its doubts as to the policy’s legality and efficacy and recommended that it be abandoned. Notwithstanding, the home demolition policy was revived three years later, in 2008.

The demolition of homes is an extreme measure. The arguments against it include that it is a disproportional infringement of private property rights, constitutes collective punishment, and that there are no evident gains that can justify its use. Nevertheless, over the years, decision-makers in the IDF insisted that the deterrent effect outweighs other considerations and justifies the infringement of rights. The Supreme Court of Israel, almost without exception, has given its full backing to that position. The underlying assumption about the deterrent effect of home demolition is based on the intensity of the sanction against the terrorist and his family as well as the rapidity with which it is implemented.

This study is a three-part examination of how the IDF reached the conclusion that home demolition is an effective policy and employed it for so many years without ever conducting an empirical study. We also consider what caused the decision-makers to revive the policy only three years after it was decided to abandon it.

 

 

 

New Book: Sharvit & Halperin, A Social Psychology Perspective on The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Sharvit, Keren, and Eran Halperin, eds. A Social Psychology Perspective on The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Celebrating the Legacy of Daniel Bar-Tal, volume 2. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2016.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been waging for decades, resulting in mass losses, destruction, and suffering with profound effects on the members of the involved societies. Furthermore, its effects reach beyond the involved societies and influence regional and global stability. Many attempts have been made to bring this conflict to peaceful resolution, but so far without success. Due to its intensity and extensive effects, this conflict has drawn the attention of scholars from numerous disciplines, who attempted to explain the causes of the conflict and the reasons for the difficulties in resolving it. Among these one can find historians, geographers, political scientists, sociologists, and others. Social and political psychologists have also addressed this conflict, and one of the most influential among them has been Daniel Bar-Tal.

This is the second of two volumes intended to pay tribute to Daniel Bar-Tal’s scholarly contribution upon his retirement from his position at Tel Aviv University. While the first volume was devoted to Bar-Tal’s general theory of the sociopsychological foundations of intractable conflict and the theory’s relation to other prominent theoretical frameworks, this volume is devoted to applying Bar-Tal’s theory to the specific case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In his most recent book, published in 2013, Bar-Tal acknowledges the immense effects that living in Israel, being exposed to this conflict, and taking part in it have had on his thinking, theorizing, and empirical research regarding intractable conflicts. We too, as his former students, have been inspired by living in Israel and by Bar-Tal’s work to continue to investigate the sociopsychological dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and through them to advance the understandings of intractable conflicts in general.

 

Table of Contents

• Sociopsychological Foundations of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Applying Daniel Bar-Tal’s Theorizing
  Keren Sharvit
• Stereotypes and Prejudice in Conflict: A Developmental Perspective
  Yona Teichman
• Young Children’s Experiences and Learning in Intractable Conflicts
  Meytal Nasie
• The Israeli Collective Memory of the Israeli-Arab/Palestinian Conflict: Its Characteristics and Relation to the Conflict
  Rafi Nets-Zehngut
• The “Silenced” Narrative of 1948 War Events Among Young Palestinians in Israel
  Eman Nahhas
• Perceptions of Collective Narratives Among Arab and Jewish Adolescents in Israel: A Decade of Intractable Conflict
  Anan Srour
• “Seeing Through a Glass Darkly”: Israeli and Egyptian Images of the Other During the Nasserite Period (1952–1970)
  Elie Podeh
• The Jewish–Israeli Ethos of Conflict
  Neta Oren
• Ethos of Conflict of the Palestinian Society
  Ronni Shaked
• Harmed by Our Protection: Exposure to Political Violence and Political Preferences in the Range of Fire
  Daphna Canetti
• Emotions and Emotion Regulation in Intractable Conflict and Their Relation to the Ethos of Conflict in Israeli Society
  Ruthie Pliskin
• When Jewish and Zionist Identities Encounter Otherness: Educational Case Study
  David Ohad
• Peace Education Between Theory and Practice: The Israeli Case
  Soli Vered
• Containing the Duality: Leadership in the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process
  Nimrod Rosler
• The Role of Peace Organizations During Peacemaking Processes: The Case of the Jewish-Israeli Society
  Tamir Magal
• The Road to Peace: The Potential of Structured Encounters Between Israeli Jews and Palestinians in Promoting Peace
  Ifat Maoz
• Addressing Israelis’ and Palestinians’ Basic Needs for Agency and Positive Moral Identity Facilitates Mutual Prosociality
  Ilanit SimanTov-Nachlieli
• Transitional Justice in Societies Emerging from Intractable Conflicts: Between the Right to Truth and Collective Memory
  Ofer Shinar Levanon
• Index
• About the Authors

 

Dissertation: Harel, “The eternal nation does not fear a long road”: An Ethnography of Jewish Settlers in Israel/Palestine

Harel, Assaf. “The eternal nation does not fear a long road”: An Ethnography of Jewish Settlers in Israel/Palestine, PhD thesis, Rutgers University, 2015.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3VD71FW

 

Abstract

This is an ethnography of Jewish settlers in Israel/Palestine. Studies of religiously motivated settlers in the occupied territories indicate the intricate ties between settlement practices and a Jewish theology about the advent of redemption. This messianic theology binds future redemption with the maintenance of a physical union between Jews and the “Land of Israel.” However, among settlers themselves, the dominance of this messianic theology has been undermined by postmodernity and most notably by a series of Israeli territorial withdrawals that have contradicted the promise of redemption. These days, the religiously motivated settler population is divided among theological and ideological lines that pertain, among others issues, to the meaning of redemption and its relation to the state of Israel. This dissertation begins with an investigation of the impact of the 2005 Israeli unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip upon settlers and proceeds to compare three groups of religiously motivated settlers in the West Bank: an elite Religious Zionist settlement, settlers who engage in peacemaking activities with Palestinians, and settlers who act violently against Palestinians. Through a comparison of these different groups, this dissertation demonstrates that while messianism remains a central force in the realities of Jewish settlements and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it exists these days in more diversified forms than before. In addition, this ethnography illustrates how religion both underlies and undermines differences between Israelis and Palestinians and argues that local communities and religious leaders should be included in peace processes. Finally, by examining how messianic conceptions of time among different groups of Jewish settlers connect to their settlement practices, this study reveals the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be as much about time as it is about space. Accordingly, this dissertation has broader implications for understanding the contemporary role of religion and time within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the political struggles of the Middle East.

 

 

New Article: Tenenboim-Weinblatt et al, Conflict Narratives in the Israeli News Media

Tenenboim-Weinblatt, Keren, Thomas Hanitzsch, and Rotem Nagar. “Beyond Peace Journalism. Reclassifying Conflict Narratives in the Israeli News Media.” Journal of Peace Research (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022343315609091

 

Abstract

This article presents a general framework for deconstructing and classifying conflict news narratives. This framework, based on a nuanced and contextual approach to analyzing media representations of conflict actors and events, addresses some of the weaknesses of existing classification schemes, focusing in particular on the dualistic approach of the peace journalism model. Using quantitative content analysis, the proposed framework is then applied to the journalistic coverage in the Israeli media of three Middle-Eastern conflicts: the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the conflict surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, and the Syrian civil war. The coverage is examined in three leading news outlets – Haaretz, Israel Hayom, and Ynet – over a six-month period. Based on hierarchical cluster analysis, the article identifies four characteristic types of narratives in the examined coverage. These include two journalistic narratives of violence: one inward-looking, ethnocentric narrative, and one outward-looking narrative focusing on outgroup actors and victims; and two political-diplomatic narratives: one interactional, and one outward-looking. In addition to highlighting different constellations of points of view and conflict measures in news stories, the identified clusters also challenge several assumptions underlying existing models, such as the postulated alignment between elite/official actors and violence frames.

 

 

 

New Book: Kotef, Movement and the Ordering of Freedom

Kotef, Hagar. Movement and the Ordering of Freedom: On Liberal Governances of Mobility. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015.

 

We live within political systems that increasingly seek to control movement, organized around both the desire and ability to determine who is permitted to enter what sorts of spaces, from gated communities to nation-states. In Movement and the Ordering of Freedom, Hagar Kotef examines the roles of mobility and immobility in the history of political thought and the structuring of political spaces. Ranging from the writings of Locke, Hobbes, and Mill to the sophisticated technologies of control that circumscribe the lives of Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank, this book shows how concepts of freedom, security, and violence take form and find justification via “regimes of movement.” Kotef traces contemporary structures of global (im)mobility and resistance to the schism in liberal political theory, which embodied the idea of “liberty” in movement while simultaneously regulating mobility according to a racial, classed, and gendered matrix of exclusions.

 

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements

• Introduction
• 1. Between Imaginary Lines: Violence and Its Justifications at the Military Checkpoints in Occupied Palestine / Hagar Kotef and Merav Amir
• 2. An Interlude: A Tale of Two Roads—On Freedom and Movement
• 3. The Fence That “Ill Deserves the Name of Confinement”: Locomotion and the Liberal Body
• 4. The Problem of “Excessive” Movement
• 5. The “Substance and Meaning of All Things Political”: On Other Bodies
• Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index

 

HAGAR KOTEF is based at the Minerva Humanities Center at Tel Aviv University.

 

 

New Article: Segalo et al, Engaging Memory and Imagination Within Decolonizing Frameworks

Segalo, Puleng, Einat Manoff, Michelle Fine. “Working With Embroideries and Counter-Maps: Engaging Memory and Imagination Within Decolonizing Frameworks.” Journal of Social and Political Psychology 3.1 (2015).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v3i1.145

 

Abstract

As people around the world continue to have their voices, desires, and movements restricted, and their pasts and futures told on their behalf, we are interested in the critical project of decolonizing, which involves contesting dominant narratives and hegemonic representations. Ignacio Martín-Baró called these the “collective lies” told about people and politics. This essay reflects within and across two sites of injustice, located in Israel/Palestine and in South Africa, to excavate the circuits of structural violence, internalized colonization and possible reworking of those toward resistance that can be revealed within the stubborn particulars of place, history, and culture. The projects presented here are locally rooted, site-specific inquiries into contexts that bear the brunt of colonialism, dispossession, and occupation. Using visual research methodologies such as embroideries that produce counter-narratives and counter-maps that divulge the complexity of land-struggles, we search for fitting research practices that amplify unheard voices and excavate the social psychological soil that grows critical analysis and resistance. We discuss here the practices and dilemmas of doing decolonial research and highlight the need for research that excavates the specifics of a historical material context and produces evidence of previously silenced narratives.

 

 

New Article: Slone and Mayer, Gender Differences in Mental Health Consequences of Exposure to Political Violence

Slone, Michelle, and Yael Mayer. “Gender Differences in Mental Health Consequences of Exposure to Political Violence among Israeli Adolescents.” Children and Youth Services Review 58 (2015): 170-178.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.09.013

 

Abstract

This study examined the role played by gender differences in the relation between political violence exposure and mental health during adolescence. Understanding these differences is particularly pertinent during the period of adolescence characterized as it is by processes of identity formation and gender role consolidation. Participants were 154 high school students recruited from two high schools in central Israel (78 males, 76 females; average age 16.54), who completed the Political Life Events Scale for measurement of political violence exposure, the Brief Symptom Inventory-18 for assessment of psychological symptoms and disorders, a risk-taking behavior scale, and the Posttraumatic Stress Symptom Scale — Interview (PSS-I) for assessment of posttraumatic stress symptoms. Results reflected high levels on many psychological indicators. The dose–response hypothesis was partially confirmed with adolescents’ higher reported political violence exposure related only to higher levels of somatization and greater severity of posttraumatic stress symptoms. Contrary to the literature, only a few gender differences emerged and these showed mixed patterns. Females showed higher levels of anxiety than males, and males showed higher levels of risk-taking behavior. Females exposed to low political violence exposure showed significantly less substance abuse than males but those with high exposure reported significantly higher levels of substance abuse, equivalent to those of males. Findings show a complex constellation of gender effects on relations between political violence exposure and different psychopathological outcomes. Findings of this study indicate the necessity for more refined examination of gender differences in psychological processes in reaction to living in conditions of protracted conflict and war.

 

 

Reviews: de Búrca, Preventing Political Violence Against Civilians

de Búrca, Aoibhín. Preventing Political Violence Against Civilians. Nationalist Militant Conflict in Northern Ireland, Israel And Palestine. Basingstoke, UK and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Reviews

• McGrattan, Cillian.”Review.” Democracy and Security 11.3 (2015): 326-7.
• Jarrett, Henry. “Review.” Nations and Nationalism 22.1 (2016): 186-199.

 

 

New Book: Kuntsman and Stein, Digital Militarism

Kuntsman, Adi, and Rebecca L. Stein. Digital Militarism. Israel’s Occupation in the Social Media Age, Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015.

 

 

Israel’s occupation has been transformed in the social media age. Over the last decade, military rule in the Palestinian territories grew more bloody and entrenched. In the same period, Israelis became some of the world’s most active social media users. In Israel today, violent politics are interwoven with global networking practices, protocols, and aesthetics. Israeli soldiers carry smartphones into the field of military operations, sharing mobile uploads in real-time. Official Israeli military spokesmen announce wars on Twitter. And civilians encounter state violence first on their newsfeeds and mobile screens.

Across the globe, the ordinary tools of social networking have become indispensable instruments of warfare and violent conflict. This book traces the rise of Israeli digital militarism in this global context—both the reach of social media into Israeli military theaters and the occupation’s impact on everyday Israeli social media culture. Today, social media functions as a crucial theater in which the Israeli military occupation is supported and sustained.

 

Table of Contents

Preface

1 When Instagram Went to War: Israel’s Occupation in the Social Media Age
2 “Another War Zone”: The Development of Digital Militarism
3 Anatomy of a Facebook Scandal: Social Media as Alibi
4 Palestinians Who Never Die: The Politics of Digital Suspicion
5 Selfie Militarism: The Normalization of Digital Militarism

Afterword: #Revenge

Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Adi Kuntsman is Lecturer in Information and Communications at Manchester Metropolitan University, and author of Figurations of Violence and Belonging: Queerness, Migranthood and Nationalism in Cyberspace and Beyond (2009).

Rebecca L. Stein is the Nicholas J. & Theresa M. Leonardy Associate Professor of Anthropology at Duke University, and author of Itineraries in Conflict: Israelis, Palestinians, and the Political Lives of Tourism (2008).

 

 

New Article: Dan et al, Differences in State Anxiety Responses to Combat Pictures between Young Adult Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinian Arabs

Dan, Orrie,  Yona Moshe David, Michal Abraham, and Dorit Hadar Souval. “Differences in State Anxiety Responses to Combat Pictures between Young Adult Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinian Arabs.” Psychology 6 (2015): 1136-43.

 

URL: http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=58194
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/psych.2015.69111 (PDF)

 

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to investigate whether the different political realities of Israeli Jewish citizens and of Israeli Palestinian Arab citizens had differential impacts on the situational anxiety elicited by video clips of military operations. The pictures were taken during the November 2012 Pillar of Defense military operation in Gaza and southern Israel. Participants included 75 (49 female) students at an Israeli college. Of these, 39 were Israeli Jews and 36 were Israeli Arabs. Participants completed the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, 1983) and then watched a video clip containing combat pictures. After that they completed the State Anxiety Inventory again. The results showed no differences between Israeli Jewish participants and Israeli Palestinian Arab participants on trait anxiety. Analysis revealed a significant group (Israeli Jews/ Israeli Palestinian Arabs) X condition (before/after watching the video clip pictures) interaction effect. Before watching the video clip, the groups exhibited no difference in state anxiety. After watching the clip, the Israeli Palestinian Arab participants showed greater state anxiety compared with the Israeli Jews.

New Article: Canetti et al, Exposure to Violence and Support for Compromise

Canetti, Daphna, Julia Elad-Strenger, Iris Lavi, Dana Guy, and Daniel Bar-Tal. “Exposure to Violence, Ethos of Conflict, and Support for Compromise. Surveys in Israel, East Jerusalem, West Bank, and Gaza.” Journal of Conflict Resolution (early view; online first).

 
 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022002715569771

 

Abstract

Does ongoing exposure to political violence prompt subject groups to support or oppose compromise in situations of intractable conflict? If so, what is the mechanism underlying these processes? Political scholarship neither offers conclusive arguments nor sufficiently addresses individual-level forms of exposure to violence in the context of political conflict, particularly the factors mediating political outcomes. We address this by looking at the impact of exposure to political violence, psychological distress, perceived threat, and ethos of conflict on support for political compromise. A mediated model is hypothesized whereby exposure to political violence provokes support for the ethos of conflict and hinders support for compromise through perceived psychological distress and perceived national threat. We examined representative samples of two parties to the same conflict: Israelis (N = 781) and Palestinians from Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank (N = 1,196). The study’s main conclusion is that ethos of conflict serves as a mediating variable in the relationship between exposure to violence and attitudes toward peaceful settlement of the conflict.

 
 
 

New Article: Lavi et al, Therapeutic Intervention in a Continuous Shared Traumatic Reality

Lavi, Tamar, Orit Nuttman-Shwartz, and Rachel Dekel. “Therapeutic Intervention in a Continuous Shared Traumatic Reality: An Example from the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict.” British Journal of Social Work (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcv127

 

Abstract

Growing political instability around the world has exposed an increasing number of communities to military conflict. Social workers and other mental health professionals who work as trauma workers, and who both live and practise within these communities, are doubly exposed: directly and indirectly, personally and professionally. The present study examined the consequences on trauma workers and on the therapeutic process itself of working in a continuous Shared Traumatic Reality. The study was based on content analysis of three focus groups conducted among thirty trauma workers, between the ages of thirty and sixty, who were trained in a variety of therapeutic professions, mainly social work. Findings suggest that a high level of exposure to life threats and emotional distress can coexist with high levels of professional functioning and resilience. Results further point to complex implications associated with therapeutic relationships and settings that include: diminution of the transitional space, strengthened sense of identification between workers and clients, and acceleration of the therapeutic process. The discussion reviews the variables that facilitate and impede the professionals’ functioning and highlights the unique effects of continuous exposure.

 

 

New Article: Gazit, Jewish Settlers’ Violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Gazit, Nir. “State-sponsored Vigilantism: Jewish Settlers’ Violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” Sociology 49.3 (2015): 438-54.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0038038514526648

 

Abstract

This article examines the patterns and political implications of Jewish settler violence and vigilantism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Rather than viewing these attacks as deviant social behaviour and a by-product of the political chaos in the West Bank, this article sees settler violence as an informal political mechanism that structures and reproduces political control in the service of the state. The analysis presents the structural and agential dimensions of this mechanism, and evaluates its political significance in the overall Israeli control system in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It concludes that the informal cooperation between the settlers and the Israeli soldiers represents a unique instance of state collusion and vigilantism, wherein the very same structural forces that undermine state authority also generate casual mechanisms that compensate it.

New Article: Jaeger et al, Violence and Public Support: Evidence from the Second Intifada

Jaeger, David A., Esteban F. Klor, Sami H. Miaari, and M. Daniele Paserman. “Can Militants Use Violence to Win Public Support? Evidence from the Second Intifada.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59.3 (2015): 528-49.

 

URL: http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/59/3/528.abstract

 

Abstract

This article investigates whether attacks against Israeli targets help Palestinian factions gain public support. We link individual-level survey data to the full list of Israeli and Palestinian fatalities during the period of the Second Intifada (2000–2005) and estimate a flexible discrete choice model for faction supported. We find some support for the “outbidding” hypothesis, the notion that Palestinian factions use violence to gain prestige and influence public opinion within the community. In particular, the two leading Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, gain in popularity following successful attacks against Israeli targets. Our results suggest, however, that most movement occurs within either the secular groups or the Islamist groups, but not between them. That is, Fatah’s gains come at the expense of smaller secular factions, while Hamas’s gains come at the expense of smaller Islamic factions and the disaffected. In contrast, attacks by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad lower support for that faction.

New Article: Veronese and Castiglioni, Palestinian Children Living amidst Military and Political Violence

Veronese, Guido and Marco Castiglioni. “‘When the doors of Hell close’: Dimensions of Well-Being and Positive Adjustment in a Group of Palestinian Children Living amidst Military and Political Violence.” Childhood 22.1 (2015): 6-22.

 

URL: http://chd.sagepub.com/content/22/1/6

 

Abstract

Palestinian children living amidst political and military violence are often labeled as affected by post-traumatic stress syndromes. Some researchers report that a majority of Palestinian children suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and other stress-related psychiatric impairments in the wake of military incursions and bombings. On the other hand, data from field research and clinical experience show that these children continue to display positive functioning in terms of adjustment to trauma, despite the adverse environmental conditions. This article reports on qualitative research with children from two refugee camps in the West Bank, Occupied Palestinian Territories: Nur Shams and Tulkarm. Thematic content analysis was applied to narratives and written materials produced by 74 school-age children during two summer camps held in the Tulkarm region in 2010 and 2011. The aims of the study were: (a) to explore the domains of well-being that help children cope with violence and insecurity and (b) to investigate whether experiential activities focused on emotional and relational competences influenced children’s self-perceived well-being. Personal, environmental, micro- and macro-social factors were identified as playing a role in well-being. The article discusses the limitations of the study and its implications for clinical and community work with children exposed to political and military threat.

New Article: Niwa et al, Negative Stereotypes of Ethnic Outgroups: Palestinian, Israeli Jewish, and Israeli Arab Youth

Niwa, Erika Y., Paul Boxer, Eric F. Dubow, L. Rowell Huesmann, Simha Landau, Khalil Shikaki, and Shira Dvir Gvirsman. “Negative Stereotypes of Ethnic Outgroups: A Longitudinal Examination Among Palestinian, Israeli Jewish, and Israeli Arab Youth.” Journal of Research on Adolescence (Early View; Online Version of Record published before inclusion in an issue).

URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jora.12180/abstract

Abstract

Ethno-political conflict impacts thousands of youth globally and has been associated with a number of negative psychological outcomes. Extant literature has mostly addressed the adverse emotional and behavioral outcomes of exposure while failing to examine change over time in social cognitive factors in contexts of ethno-political conflict. Using cohort sequential longitudinal data, this study examines ethnic variation in the development of negative stereotypes about ethnic outgroups among Palestinian (n = 600), Israeli Jewish (n = 451), and Israeli Arab (n = 450) youth over 3 years. Age and exposure to ethno-political violence were included as covariates for these trajectories. Findings indicate important ethnic differences in trajectories of negative stereotypes about ethnic outgroups, as well as variation in how such trajectories are shaped by prolonged ethno-political conflict.

Dissertation: Cohen, Israeli State Violence/Mizrahi Resilience: An Ethnography of Mizrahi Experiences of War and Eviction and Their Intersection with Palestinian Experiences

Cohen, Ilise Benshushan. Israeli State Violence/Mizrahi Resilience: An Ethnography of Mizrahi Experiences of War and Eviction and Their Intersection with Palestinian Experiences. California Institute of Integral Studies, 2013.

 

URL: http://search.proquest.com/docview/1461742758

 

Abstract

Mizrahi Jews have historically been marginalized in Israeli society despite the fact that they make up the majority of Israel’s Jewish population. Through ethnographic research, this study highlights the experiences of Mizrahi Jews around two Mizrahi communities that continue to experience marginalization: Kfar Shalem, a neighborhood in south Tel Aviv that was the site of evictions without compensation in 2007, and Kiryat Shemona, a development town on Israel’s northern border that was directly affected by the second Lebanon war in 2006. Areas of focus of the research include the process of eviction without compensation for Kfar Shalem, the lasting effects of cross-border military conflict in Kiryat Shemona, and the violence produced by these experiences. The research methods utilized included ethnographic interviews, participant observation, archival research, and advocacy. The research participants in Kfar Shalem included Mizrahi families evicted from their homes, lawyers who represented the residents, and Mizrahi activists involved with the community. The research participants in Kiryat Shemona consisted of Mizrahi families who maintained a presence during the war and those who were displaced, and mental health professionals dealing with the effects of the war on residents. I also interviewed two Palestinian citizens of Israel who were able to speak to complex issues of displacement and citizenship. The dissertation frames the ethnographic research in a historical context that includes the U.N. partition of Palestine, Palestinian expulsion/ethnic cleansing, Mizrahi immigration to Israel, and the instrumentalization of Mizrahi Jews being settled in former Palestinian areas. It draws on comparisons between the struggles and ongoing activism of Mizrahi Jews and Palestinians in Israel/Palestine. The findings reveal the complex struggles of Mizrahi identity, discourses of discrimination and internalized oppression, and Mizrahi exposure to physical violence, loss of economic status, and instrumentalization by the state. The findings also highlight meaningful similarities and differences between Mizrahi and Palestinian experiences of state violence and about Mizrahi resilience and agency.

Subject: Cultural anthropology; Middle Eastern Studies; Judaic studies

Classification: 0326: Cultural anthropology; 0555: Middle Eastern Studies; 0751: Judaic studies

Identifier / keyword: Social sciences, State violence, Israel, Discrimination, Mizrahim, Mizrahi-Palestinian alliance, Mizrahi resistance

Number of pages: 567

Publication year: 2013

Degree date: 2013

School code: 0392

Source: DAI-A 75/02(E), Aug 2014

Place of publication: Ann Arbor

Country of publication: United States

ISBN: 9781303480928

Advisor: M’Panya, Mutombo

Committee member: Simons, Shoshana; Shubeli, Rafi

University/institution: California Institute of Integral Studies

Department: Social and Cultural Anthropology

University location: United States — California

Degree: Ph.D.

Source type: Dissertations & Theses

Language: English

Document type: Dissertation/Thesis

Dissertation/thesis number: 3598997

ProQuest document ID: 1461742758