‘It’s Nothing Personal’: The Globalisation of Justice, the Transferability of Protest, and the Case of the Palestine Solidarity Movement

By Atalia Omer

Volume 9, Issue 3, pages 497-518

Introduction

The distinction that liberal western Palestine solidarity groups draw between their critique of Israel and otherwise unproblematic relation with Judaism or Jewish people, as well as their frequent disclaimer that they resist all forms of racism including anti‐Semitism, is supported by their application of a universal framework of norms that equates their critique of Israel with their critique of Apartheid in South Africa. In other words, it is ‘nothing personal’ about Judaism. This indeed may be the case, but to what degree is it important to recognise the particular Jewish story and experience central to the dynamics of the Israel‐Palestine conflict and its root causes and thus also integral to any attempt to think constructively about holistic peacebuilding or conflict transformation? The human rights talk and especially the framing of Israeli policies as amounting to an apartheid configuration position the critics of Israel in a supposedly neutral and objective moral position. The problem is that the conversation ends there in the act of condemning Israel’s violation of human rights. What are the assumptions inherent in this exclusive reliance on the human rights talk as a mode of engaging Israel and the Jewish people? To this extent, I demonstrate that the global civil society protest in support of Palestine replicates many of the problems integral to global Islamist rhetoric and especially in positing Israel as a proxy for the ‘farther enemy’ (i.e. the U.S., the ‘west’, imperialism, colonialism, etc.). […]

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