Familiar Pixels: Imag(in)ing the Dead and the Political in Israel/Palestine

Abstract

On July 2, 2014, a Palestinian teenager, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, was brutally killed. Although his murderers eventually confessed, the month following Mohammed's death was full of indecision about the crime and its perpetrators. During this period, Israeli and Palestinian publics latched onto Mohammed's selfies as intimate touchstones for comprehending who he was, what led to his death, and what subsequent action should be taken. This archive of images, however, inspired different understandings of Mohammed; among Israelis and Palestinians, conflictual voices emerged from the same pictures, making incompatible testimonials about Mohammed's identity and his victimhood. Central to the politics surrounding Mohammed's death were how such personal modes of perception—hearing him, seeing him, sensing him—inspired and legitimated radically different political claims and ambitions. Pausing on the ways that individuals grasped Mohammed in his images, in this article I unravel the cultural genealogies and social affordances that affected Israeli and Palestinian forms of visual apprehension. I argue that the most seemingly mundane moments of individual encounter—when Israelis and Palestinians caught sight of Mohammed at everyday digital interfaces—substantially inflected political landscapes and the contours of social understanding, laying the groundwork for further conflicts, including Israel's 2014 invasion of Gaza that occurred a month after his death. [death and dying, mediation, visuality, sexuality, Israel/Palestine]

At home in my enemy's house: Israeli activists negotiating ethical values through ritualized Palestinian hospitality

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“…This project started from 14 September to December 2015 under the 2015 campaign. Other projects carried out by Aman Palestine include the construction of the as-Shafi'i mosque and houses of victims of war and assisting to help those who are underprivileged (Silver, 2021). The impression that the water was almost intoxicated by all the waste and the impression that the highway was in a bad state, Aman Palestine has already hit the jentolak project to destroy the ruins involved.…”

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