Conflict & Narratives
This Sunday's journeys: Conflict & Narratives | Tali Shapiro’s Facebook Updates | Democrats embrace a tougher tack toward Israel as violence flares | The One-State Condition: Occupation and Democracy
High Five, It’s Sunday!
Grab a drink, turn on the speaker, and settle in, we’re going on a stroll.
🔊 Zone In: My Analog Journal’s Oud Masters on Vinyl
01 - Conflict & Narratives
I grew up in Israel, but I tend to shy away from casual conversations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not because I don’t have much to say, but because I don’t think enough can be said in most settings.
From the outside, the current events seem isolated, triggered by a specific event (depending on which narrative you come across, that event and following consequences are described differently).
But this event fits into broader narratives, that have been revised over and over throughout the past 70+ years (The state of Israel was formed in 1948, and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories had started in 1967).
The narrative that had been widely accepted and repeated in the U.S. speaks of a state that is constantly battling terrorist groups. This argument makes any action that the Israeli government takes justifiable.
The rising trend in the U.S. of amplifying the stories of oppressed groups is now turning its spotlight towards the stories of the Palestinians, and more voices are questioning the reigning narrative and the blanket backing and support that the government of Israel had been traditionally receiving from the U.S. government (which is another complex topic, but in short, as most power structures in the U.S. have been shaped, “follow the money” is the main thread to understand this support).
There’s no short way to have a more nuanced understanding of the conflict, but if the events of the past week had raised some new questions for you, what I am sharing today can serve as breadcrumbs (of different sizes) towards that goal.
In solidarity, and until next week,
- Disco
02 - Tali Shapiro’s Facebook Updates
Tali, an “anarchist in Palestine”, is collecting updates about the events in Gaza that are not shared by mainstream media outlets. She is currently updating this Facebook posts regularly, as well as retweeting her sources on Twitter.
Read it here | follow her here
03 - Democrats embrace a tougher tack toward Israel as violence flares
Andrew Desiderioa on politico.com
Some of the voices in the U.S. political scene questioning the backing and support of Israel throughout this outbreak of violence
04 - The One-State Condition: Occupation and Democracy in Israel/Palestine
Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir
For a more thorough read and understanding of how the conflict has evolved, and more interestingly: how has the narrative around it had been shaped throughout the decades, I HIGHLY recommend this book. Adi Ophir was a professor of mine, teaching the class “Intro to Critical Theory”. The worldviews I now hold are a direct result of his teachings, and this book is a fascinating - and eye-opening - example of his methodology at work. At the core of the book stands the question: how is the state of Israel maintaining its status as a democracy, while actively maintaining an occupational regimen over a part of its population?
🌳 That's all for today.