How Narratives and Poetics Framed the Gaza War Yet Could Point to a Better Future

About

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has given rise to, and been shaped by a complex set of national and sub- national narratives. These conventions, tropes, and framing devices have played a crucial role in defining and legitimating the bloody struggle on both sides. At the same time, hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourses on all sides have continuously competed with, contrasted, and at times also reinforced, the ways in which Israelis and Palestinians have conceptualized themselves, each other and their fraught and highly contested encounter over the past century. This lecture will examine how such narratives helped to frame the October 7 attacks in southern Israel and the subsequent Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. It will also examine various contesting counter hegemonic narratives among both people's have challenged the dominant frameworks that tend to reinforce warfare and armed struggle, potentially creating spaces for both Israelis and Palestinians to rethink their relationship and the ways that the leaderships and national movements on both sides have contributed to a disastrous and toxic relationship that has led to the present frenzies of vengeance. Do these contrarian challenges to exclusionary and maximalist discourses of confrontation pose a significant threat to dominant narratives, and can they help Israelis and Palestinians – and their friends around the world – see past the binaries of rage and alienation that appear more toxic than ever? And if so, how might a poetics and politics of coexistence emerge from the rubble and embers of seemingly endless warfare, pointing towards a practicable and achievable future of coexistence with reciprocal respect and mutual self-determination?

Dr. Hussein Ibish

Dr. Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. He is a weekly columnist for The National (UAE), a weekly contributor to The Atlantic, a former columnist for Bloomberg, and regular contributor  to many other U.S. and Middle Eastern publications. He is the author of numerous books, chapters and monographs on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, international relations and US foreign policy in the Middle East, and hate crimes and discrimination against Arab and Muslim Americans. Ibish previously served as a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, executive director of the Foundation for Arab-American Leadership, and communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. He has a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Contact

For more information, please contact klachman@umass.edu

Presented By

This event is presented by the UMass Amherst Program in Comparative Literature and co-sponsored by the departments of LLC, English, History, and Judaic and Middle Eastern Studies, as well as by the Five College Faculty Seminar in Middle Eastern Studies.

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Departmental (co)sponsorship of various types of events does not constitute an endorsement of the views expressed by the presenters, either at the events in question or in other venues. Rather, sponsorship is an endorsement of the exploration of complex and sometimes difficult topics. The UMass History Department is committed to promoting the free and peaceful exchange of ideas, one of the most important functions of the university.