Palestine – Page 6 – Free Radikal

Arab-Jewish Activism in Israel-Palestine. Marcelo Svirsky. Farnham: Ashgate. 2012. 211 pp.

ISBN 978 40942297

Since the onset of ‘the Arab Spring’ social scientists have been moving from analysing oppressive political regimes to analyses of acts of resistance. This is particularly relevant in the case of Israel-Palestine, where, since the turning point events of October 2000, when 13 Palestinian citizens of Israel who protested in solidarity with the Al Aqsa Intifada were shot by the Israeli police, acts of resistance are becoming widespread. Several social scientists are beginning to grapple with acts of resistance not only in the OPT, where non violent protestors confront the Israeli security forces on a weekly basis, but also within the state of Israel, where protestors (mostly Jewish) take to the streets to campaign for social justice.
That the two campaigns rarely meet, even though many of the protestors are active on both fronts, has been addressed by bloggers and contributors to social networks and is a point Marcelo Svirsky’s new book may have addressed. Continue reading “Review of Arab-Israeli Activism in Israel-Palestine by Marcelo Svirsky”

End administrative detention of Palestinians by Israel

Palestine

Ronit LentinFebruary 22, 2012February 23, 2012

I was expecting that the subject of this article, Palestinian hunger striker Khader Adnan, would not be alive by the time this article was published. Adnan, a 33- year old baker and father of two daughters living in the occupied West Bank, is a political activist and spokesman for Islamic Jihad, who was hunger striking against the Israeli practice of administrative detention. His 66-days strike was the longest in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr Adnan was hospitalised and lay shackled to his hospital bed, despite the Israeli authorities’ commitment to unshackle him. However, as I was preparing to write this, Mr Adnan agreed to end his hunger strike in return for the state of Israel releasing him on 17 April. Continue reading “End administrative detention of Palestinians by Israel”

David Landy, Jewish Identity and Palestinian Rights: Diaspora Jewish Opposition to Israel

Palestine

Ronit LentinNovember 14, 2011November 14, 2011

David Landy seems to have been curious about the construction of Jewish identity for a long time… when I first met him in 2004 he wanted to do a PhD on Ireland’s Jews… I deterred him, as this small and curious minority (‘who has ever heard of an Irish Jew?’) has been researched and written about disproportionately to its number and significance. I invited him to apply to the MPhil in Ethnic and Racial Studies, for which he wrote a dissertation on Zionism and Irish Jews.

Linking his interest in Jewish identities to his passion about Palestinian rights, it was no surprise that when he did research his PhD he focused on diaspora Jews opposed to Israel. I loved working with him as his supervisor on both dissertations; he also worked for me on a research project on Israeli memory networks – I learnt a lot from him and admire his wry sense of humour… I particularly enjoyed his thinking about the complexities of researching something he is part of – being both ethnically Jewish and a central member of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a tightrope act which he performs admirably, evincing his commitment to both sociology and the social movement he studied.
His research field is English groups of Jewish people engaged in opposing Israeli policies. In the course of writing this book he expanded his theoretical understanding – as one does – particularly to examining diaspora opposition to Israel in terms of being a social movement – the focus of this well researched book. Continue reading “David Landy, Jewish Identity and Palestinian Rights: Diaspora Jewish Opposition to Israel”