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Partners for Peace: Cooperative Nonviolent Resistance Networks among Palestinian, Israeli and International Activists
Abstract
The struggle between the Israeli and Palestinian nations has persisted for nearly a century and has engulfed them, as well as regional and global communities, in prolonged conflict and turmoil. Too often Israeli and Palestinian communities have sought to redress their grievances, both perceived and real, through violence; ranging from state-sponsored military strikes to non-state assaults on civilians to individual acts of personal violence. Despite the long and widely publicized history of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, there is also an historic and ever growing commitment towards nonviolent resistance as a means of attaining a fair, equitable and negotiated settlement to the conflict. Yet these nonviolent movements have not received the same level of attention and study as violent forms of resistance. Since the first Palestinian intifada in 1987, anthropologists, sociologists, and peace and conflict scholars have increasingly broadened the study of resistance in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by examining the social, cultural and economic factors that influence the various forms of resistance activities. Initially, this scholarship often framed the nonviolent resistance in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a strictly Palestinian activity; however, later research would expand to include the actions of Israeli and international activists. Yet despite the increased scope of research, there is a tendency in these studies to isolate the nonviolent resistance participants into discrete, compartmentalized units that act independently. As a result, there is a major gap in the knowledge base in terms of understanding the full phenomenon of nonviolent resistance – one that in part has propagated a narrative that resistance is either an exclusively Palestinian activity or one that involves little or no intentional cooperation and coordination across Palestinian, Israeli and international activist groups. Based on anthropological fieldwork conducted between 2004 and 2009, this paper will use social movement theory to challenge the compartmentalized theorization of resistance that posits Palestinian, Israeli and international activists are separate agents of resistance. By introducing the concept of cooperative nonviolent resistance networks into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this paper will demonstrate how social movements cut across ethnic, religious and national identities and are becoming powerful agents of conflict resolution. Specifically, the paper will address the 1) organization and execution of actions by cooperative nonviolent resistance networks; 2) impact of cooperative nonviolent resistance on the political discourses surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and 3) potential utilization of cooperative nonviolent resistance networks in improving the peace-building capacity in Palestinian, Israeli and international communities.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
Israel
Palestine
Sub Area
None