The boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement against the Israeli occupation has been framed alternatively as a nonviolent transnational social movement based on the principles of international law, and as a form of “war by other means” that seeks to delegitimize the state of Israel. These rival framings of the BDS movement reflect different conceptions of the conflict at hand and the best tools for “resolving” it. Arguments for and against BDS, as well as the organized campaigns to promote or contain BDS, also illustrate a range of deployed ‘Jewish’, ‘Israeli’, and ‘Palestinian’ identities. Drawing on interviews with activists (for and against BDS) as well as organizational websites, campaign materials, and recent Israeli legislation against boycotts, the paper uses social movement theory, peace and conflict studies frameworks, and discourse analysis to investigate how identity is constructed and deployed in the context of BDS movements and how activists (for and against BDS) envisage a ‘resolution’ to the conflict. In particular, the paper draws on Galtung’s conflict triangle (direct-strategic-cultural violence) and Ramsbotham’s concept of “linguistic intractability” to analyze how more than simply a contest between rival narratives, the contestations between opponents and supporters of BDS tactics reflect competing worldviews and perspectives not only regarding how identity is classified, but also orientations to concepts such as “violence”, “peace” and “human rights”. The paper will draw on cases such as Code Pink’s “Stolen Beauty” campaign, the Olympia food co-op boycott, and the Presbyterian Church USA’s debates over “moral investment” to illustrate rival conceptions of the core conflict issues and the particular role of Jewish identity in defining the scope of “acceptable” activism vis-à-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The paper will discuss the implications of these constructs for efforts to achieve a “just and lasting peace” in the region

Palestinians were emigrating at a fairly consistent rate in the pre-1948 period. Due mainly to worsening economic and political conditions at the turn of the 20th century, and most urgently, the onset of the First World War, Palestinians joined other communities from Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere in an outmigration that has not been understudied. Yet when it comes to those who left towns and villages that would later be brought under British sovereignty in the Mandate over Palestine, their stories have not been told. Using letters between family members and friends oceans and continents apart, personal diaries from residents of Jerusalem, and petitions and appeals for citizenship status written by Palestinian immigrants in Central America to British Field Commissioners in Palestine, this essay will argue that emigration, return, and the different processes of affiliation and/or alienation that naturally resulted were central for these people's lived experiences. The Palestinian-Mexican authors of the petitions and appeals of the mid-1920s, for example, were well versed in the new languages of international law, equality, and nationalism upon being denied Palestinian citizenship due to prolonged absence, a recent British regulatory law. As a work in micro-history, the essay will thus contribute to a larger appreciation of the processes of identity formation among individuals who were often unwillingly implicated in the politics of post-imperial, nation-centric dogmas. To be sure, emigrant narratives suggest the unique experience of Palestinians in the age of imperial transition, self-determined nation-states, Mandatory tutelage, and Zionism. The sources present the tales of individuals who left their homes as Ottoman subjects from the province of Palestine, who returned (if they could) as foreigners or British subjects, and then who grew increasingly disenfranchised as Palestinians. The range of reactions to these realities was wide: some were anxious about the creation of a nation-state that would be Palestinian (the religious and political implications were, for them, unsettling). Others longed for Ottoman-style rule and even welcomed the British Crown. Then there were those who demanded equality and recognition as Palestinian citizens from their homes in Mexico and Cuba. Unsurprisingly, many were ambivalent toward the ideas of nations, empires, or motherlands. In a time of continuous and unpredictable change, these emigrant stories evince the complexity and subjectivity of individual experience, raising compelling questions on the rise of nationalism, citizenship, political modernity, and transnational identity.

Colonial legal (dis)continuities in Palestine: The Negev lands On the 16th of February 1921 the British civil administration in Palestine enacted what seemed to be a minor amendment, known as the mawat Land Ordinance, to the 1858 Ottoman Land Code (OLC), which the British had officially maintained with their occupation of Palestine. More than 90 years later, on January 2012, the Israeli authorities demolished the Arab Palestinian village of Al-Araqib in the Negev for the 30th time, for being “illegal.” The “illegality” of the village is directly linked to 1921 British ordinance, as well as to the 1858 OLC. Israeli authorities argue that the land, where the village is built, is mawat land (dead land: remote, uncultivated and unoccupied lands), thus it is a state land. Under this legal claim, the very existence of the Bedouin-Arab citizens in Al-Araqib, and by extension in 45 other villages in the Negev, has been outlawed and its residents have been labeled trespassers. Through a legal and historical approach, the paper attempts to study the origins and the emergence of the Israeli mawat discourse, and its use of the Ottoman and British laws. The analysis utilizes both sources from the British Mandate as well as Israeli periods. I relay primarily on the Palestine Supreme Court case law on mawat land and on land disputes in the Negev, and then explore the Israeli case law on the same issues. As appear from the historical and legal evidence, the constructed Israeli legal framework does not suit the Negev legal and historical narrative that existed for centuries, and is flawed and rather manipulative. The Negev case serves as a good case study to illustrate the impact of the transformation of Palestine’s land law under the British and later its reinterpretation and use by the Israeli government. The legal continuum between the three regimes (Ottoman, British and Israeli), which exists in our case, provides a good opportunity to explore the use and application of land laws in different historical contexts. It also blurs the dichotomy between colonial and non- or post-colonial laws, and challenges the tendency to separate Ottoman, British and Israeli periods and their respective legal histories from each other. The Negev case further complicates our understanding of British legal policies in Palestine, the dynamics between the formal law and customary tribal law, and contributes to a better understanding of contemporary Israeli policies in the Negev.

Through the lens of maintenance cases initiated by women, this paper examines strategies that Palestinian women used to gain benefits in the 1930s Jerusalem Shari’a Court. While men had significant legal advantages in Muslim family law, many women not only claimed their rights in court, but sometimes also obtained further benefits. For example, at times women initiated maintenance lawsuits, but they were actually able to obtain divorces. However, the most common outcome of my cases was the judge’s refusal of the wife’s request because her husband was already providing a house. But even if there was housing, a woman could still win in situations in which she was compelled to live with her husband’s family, she had children in need, she had a lawyer, or the husband failed to appear in court. But if the probability was minimal for a woman to win payments when she already had housing and there were none of these extenuating factors, why did women bother to sue for maintenance? It may have been a way for a woman to admonish her husband, which may or may not have been related to his role as a provider. Suing one’s husband in court was conducted in a public venue, and it was a statement that could bring some degree of dishonor to the entire family. By going to court, and compelling her husband to appear in court, a woman was in effect announcing that her husband was not providing adequately or there was another problem in the marriage. One contentious issue that arose was the husband’s family living with the couple, as several maintenance claims indicated. Other women who requested maintenance actually seem to have been seeking a divorce, and it was not unusual for a maintenance case to shift into a wife-initiated divorce case. Expanding on the scholarship that demonstrates Palestinian women were historically active participants in the shari’a courts, this paper analyzes women’s strategic negotiations and the circumstances under which they tended to succeed in maintenance cases in the Mandate period. The cases also convey some ways in which Palestinians felt and thought about family law during this period. In particular, they provide glimpses of how people perceived their roles and obligations within the family and their gendered rights. Women certainly were well-informed about their maintenance rights, and they exploited this right as a pretext to come to court for a variety of reasons.