Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the ambigious role of acts of solidarity in the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts and its transformative potential. Here, acts function both as a valve of catharsis for the participants themselves and overcome hegemonic discursive elements of the conflict.

Paper long abstract:

In each violent political conflict, a plethora of activities of solidarity and cooperation exist across “enemy” lines, tough they remain often overseen and have been rarely conceptualized adequately. Through two interconnected cases, different functions of acts are explored. The first case relates to the Israeli-Palestinian divide between the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) and what has been labeled as ‘proper’ Israel within the ‘Green Line’. The second case addresses episodes at the ‘internal frontier’ in the Israeli Negev desert where Arab-Palestinian Bedouin citizens and Jewish-Israeli citizens organized a so-called ‘peace march’ inspired by the methods of Mahatma Gandhi.

These cases show how writings on ruler-ruled relations in general and on Israeli-Palestinian relations in particular, can benefit from this detailed ethnographic perspective that moves beyond the obvious. In this specific case, pro-Bedouin activists’ reluctance to engage with what they perceive as the powerful and depraved “other”, in a certain sense, reinforces their own subalternity. In other words, the more indigenous and Pro-Bedouin activists invest in creating an essentialized image of the Neo-Zionist movement as a clear-cut enemy the more its power grows over its opponents, allowing to shape their agendas. In the cases explored here, acts function primarily as a valve of catharsis for the participants themselves, both overcoming and reproducing hegemonic discursive elements of the conflict. Paradoxically, acts of solidarity are often crucial in creating public knowledge about the conflict in more sectarian terms.