1 There are, however, other analysts who argue for a trichotomized structure: a large center (60%) and two smaller radical camps at the left (20%) and the right (20%) sides of the political map; e.g. Arian (1999).
Abstract. This article reviews four different advocacies of bi‐nationalism in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Despite the differences in their context, content and style, let alone in motivations and implications, the four advocacies – the ‘old school’ and the ‘new school’ of Jewish bi‐nationalism, contemporary Palestinian bi‐nationalism, and bi‐nationalist advocacy that comes from outside observers – present certain similarities which reduce their chances of becoming a mainstream option: (a) in all cases bi‐nationalism is not the most desirable option; (b) they all gained momentum on both sides in periods of instability – due to transformations in the power relations between them or when the conflict reaches a point where the violence seems to become unbearable; (c) all these bi‐nationalisms present a rather uneasy mixture of moralistic arguments and pragmatic ones; (d) in all cases the people who embrace the bi‐national model are intellectuals. This gives their recommendations a touch of ‘ivory tower’ overrationalisation, further reducing thier public appeal.
In the late 1960s, and especially after the 1973 war, peace and conflict‐resolution organizations (P/CROs) concerned to resolving the Arab–Israeli conflict, peacefully began to emerge in Israel, and in the 1980s, P/CROs became an integral, although mainly unpopular part of Israeli political life. P/CROs’ activities included consciousness raising and protest, dialog promotion, some professional service provision, and the articulation of propeace arguments. Discord amongst P/CROs over the Oslo Accords of 1993, and the conservative turn taken by the Israeli government and society after Rabin's assassination, left Israeli P/CROs weak and ineffectual by the mid 1990s. Furthermore, they had always been hamstrung by the public's perception of the P/CRO political agenda as naïve and idealistic, by their extraparliamentary status in a country that prioritized parliamentary politics, and by their homogeneous membership – older, middle class, highly educated, urban, secular Ashkenazi Jews, many of them born in the USA. While the Israeli government ultimately took advantage of the propeace attitude fostered by the P/CROs and adopted much of the program advocated by P/CROs, it consistently denied them any credit for or role in the peace process.
This article identifies several theoretical approaches to the role of culture in the construction of national identity. Embedded in the presently emerging approach, which emphasises the relations between popular culture/consumerism and national identity, this study focuses on a specific consumer good manufactured in Israel in the early 2000s, the height of the second Palestinian Intifada (uprising): small sugar packets bearing portraits of the patriarchs of Zionism. The analysis of this product, employing semiotic analysis, interviews and focus groups, locates it in the five 'moments' of du Gay's 'circuit of culture' (i.e. identity, representation, production, consumption and regulation). Three main general arguments were stated, empirically examined and largely sustained: (1) Consumer goods are used not only for constructing national identity but also as a means for 'healing' it; (2) in their 'healing' capacity, representations of nationalism on consumer goods do not add new elements to representations offered by the 'high' official version of nationalism but replicate them in a simplified way; (3) while trivialising the insights and concepts that originated in 'high' culture, consumer goods expose the prejudices, stereotypes and rules of inclusion and exclusion that in 'high' culture are often hidden in a sophisticated manner.
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