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America and Israel/Palestine: Critical Approaches

Submitted to Program Units
1: Theological, Pedagogical, and Ethical Approaches to Israel/Palestine Seminar

Balbinder Bhogal, Hofstra University, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

This session will examine the relationship between the US and Israel/Palestine from a variety of historical and contemporary perspectives. The papers will focus on Muslim and Jewish approaches to this connection.

Papers

  • Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Northwestern University

    “AmericaIsrael:” On the Boundaries of Political and Religious Dissent

    Abstract

    Discussions of the religious and affective elements of U.S. support for Israel often invoke dispensationalist theology, Christian and Jewish Zionisms, and Jewish American support for a Jewish state. All are important. Yet U.S. support for Israel is also more complex and conflicted. This paper takes the U.S. border as a heuristic to explore the boundaries of political and religious dissent involving U.S. support for Israel. I examine the curious affective politics of this support and its implications for the public policing of dissent. To develop this argument, I introduce the construct of “AmericaIsrael, " in which Israel and America act in concert as interwoven expressions of redemption. The border between the two states is both posited and suspended. For many Americans, Israel—both the State of Israel and the idea of U.S. support for Israel—represents a unique capacity for boundless collective self-realization. AmericaIsrael is a central figure in the US spiritual-political imagination.

  • Edward Curtis, Indiana University, Indianapolis

    Arab American Midwestern Inter-Religious Unity and Palestinian Liberation, 1936-1954

    Abstract

    This paper argues that Arab American Midwesterners, both Christians and Muslims, identified inter-religious unity as a foundation of Arab American solidarity with Palestine from the time of the Palestinian revolt in 1936 until a more confessional politics overtook Arab Midwestern civil society in the 1950s. Using the writings of many Arab American Midwesterners as well as news articles published in the Indianapolis-based Syrian Ark newspaper, I show how Palestinian liberation and anti-Zionism were presented as an inter-religious concern among Muslim, Orthodox, and Melkite leaders of the mainly Syrian-Lebanese Americans of the Midwest. In addition, this presentation asserts that a commitment to Palestine was not in tension with Arab Midwesterners' local, regional, and national identities but was in fact generative of communal solidarity and homemaking in all of these domains.

  • Iskander Abbasi, University of Johannesburg

    Redefining Apartheid in American and Global Palestine Solidarity Debates

    Abstract

    In the recent past, debates have popularized concerning the value and meaning of the term
    apartheid. Is it a term that is adequate for discerning Israel’s subjugation of Palestine, or not? In
    this paper, I provide a conceptual comparative framework for understanding the various
    dimensions of apartheid as it relates to settler-colonialism and racial capitalism. Through
    engaging in contemporary debates within Palestine Studies, I demonstrate that the term apartheid
    has always been used to describe the legal, political, economic and gendered ways in which
    apartheid was understood in South Africa and globally. With regards to the concepts of settler-
    colonialism and racial capitalism, I place them within debates emanating from Decolonial
    Theory which outline their varied dimensions as understood by the long-duree critique of
    coloniality and capitalism. In conclusion, I argue that approaching the definition of apartheid
    from within this comparative conceptual framework demonstrates that their meanings are co-
    constitutive and co-determinative.

  • Mitri Raheb, Dar al-Kalima University

    Theology after Gaza

    Abstract

    Gaza is a crucial litmus test for international morality and ethical standards in the twenty-first century. The Israeli onslaught on Gaza has exposed deep biases and blind spots in the West, as most of the Western establishment, political class, and churches have lined up to provide blanket support for Israel, politically, militarily, economically, legally, and theologically.  This paper will address questions to be considered at this crucial juncture regarding responsibilities that theologians and scholars of religion and different faith traditions have in this moment.

Responding
Atalia Omer, University of Notre Dame
Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen
Podium microphone

Comments

This paper responds to the Israel/Palestiine seminar's call for discussion of "Israel/Palestine: Academic Limits to Censorship and Free Speech." It would fit well with other papers dealing with the boundaries and parameters of dissent involving ethics, politics, and (US support for) violence in Gaza/Palestine.

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

90 Minutes
Schedule Info

Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Tags

interfaith
Palestine
Arab
Islam
#Christianity
Midwest
#United States
#Israel
Israel/Palestine
U.S. foreign policy
censorship
dissent
affect
Zionism
Christian Zionism

Session Identifier

A24-337