Transcending enclosures by bus: Public transit protests, frame mobility, and the many facets of colonial occupation

In this article, I investigate three public transit-centered Palestinian political actions in the West Bank and argue that the activists’ framing choices facilitate particular forms of global solidarity. The bus-centered political actions I examine are the Palestinian Freedom Rides of 2011, the Freedom Bus of 2014, and the bus sabotage of 2013. I demonstrate that the activists and participants in each of these cases dexterously move among a collection of terminological frames, invoking racial segregation, racism, and apartheid alongside occupation and colonialism. This rhetorical movement parallels the physical movement that the bus enables and represents. In turn, both forms of movement carry Palestinian political messages beyond the Israeli enclosures in order to connect with diverse solidarity audiences and educate them about Palestinian experiences of im/mobilization.

Download Full-text

THE IMPACT OF WEST BANK SETTLEMENTS ON ISRAELI NATIONAL SECURITY

Przegląd Strategiczny ◽

10.14746/ps.2017.1.8 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 157-172

Author(s):

Itai Kohavi ◽

Wojciech Nowiak

Keyword(s):

National Security ◽

West Bank ◽

The West ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Internal Security ◽

Intelligence Agency ◽

Political Messages ◽

Face To Face ◽

The Military ◽

The Impact

Since the 1967 war in the Middle East, The Israeli settlements in the West Bank have always been one of the most controversial topics in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This article deals with the question: What is the impact of the West Bank settlements on the national security of Israel? The approach used to explore these issues is face-to-face in-depth interviews, during 2016, with 27 high-ranking Israeli Generals from the Military Intelligence (Aman), the National Intelligence Agency (Mossad), the Internal Security Agency (Shabak), the National Security Council (Malal), the Planning Branch of the General Staff (Agat), and the Prime Minister’s close circle of advisors. The interviews revealed three perspectives on the importance of the settlements for the Israeli national security. The first, views the settlements as a contribution to the national security of Israel, the second, views the settlements as a heavy national security liability, and the third, views the question as an irrelevant one, explaining that no one asks if Tel Aviv is important for the national security of Israel. As securitization of political messages is arguably at least as common in Israel as in other countries, with immediate national security challenges, the detailed perspectives of the Israeli National Security Elite (INSE) helps to extract the professional security rationales from the misleading political clatter. The article can be of interest to policy makers and researchers who deal with national security in general and in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular.

Download Full-text