A tutorial on how to use Gaza in Context.
Gaza in Context is a project of the Arab Studies Institute (ASI)
In practice, Israel has adopted intermittent, counterinsurgency campaigns aimed at diminishing the capacity of the captive Palestinian population to militarily resist Israel’s structural violence. Conceptually, it has set Gaza apart from the rest of the Palestinian-Israel conflict so that there is no continuity between Israel’s wars waged upon it and its treatment of Palestinians throughout Israel as well as the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Together, the practice of systematic war and the framework of unique distinction have set the Gaza Strip apart from the question of Palestine and transformed it into a national security question. By emphasizing the role of Hamas and diminishing the question of Palestine, Israel has collapsed conditions in Gaza with asymmetric conflicts, or what has come to be known as the “global war on terror,” thus eliding the consequential distinctions between Palestinians and other non-state actors. This pedagogical project is an attempt to re-frame the issue in order to place greater emphasis on the broader question of Palestine and to explain Israel’s policy towards the Gaza Strip in that context. This effort is not finite, it is part of a larger research project on Palestine headed by the Forum on Arab and Muslim Affairs at the Arab Studies Institute.
Operation Protective Edge, and any past or future Israeli onslaughts, should be read within this framework in order to highlight the abnormality of the Palestinian condition and to realize a viable and just alternative.
Together, the practice of systematic war and the framework of unique distinction have set the Gaza Strip apart from the question of Palestine and transformed it into a national security question. By emphasizing the role of Hamas and diminishing the question of Palestine, Israel has collapsed conditions in Gaza with asymmetric conflicts, or what has come to be known as the “global war on terror,” thus eliding the consequential distinctions between Palestinians and other non-state actors. This pedagogical project is an attempt to re-frame the issue in order to place greater emphasis on the broader question of Palestine and to explain Israel’s policy towards the Gaza Strip in that context. This effort is not finite, it is part of a larger research project on Palestine headed by the Forum on Arab and Muslim Affairs at the Arab Studies Institute.
Operation Protective Edge, and any past or future Israeli onslaughts, should be read within this framework in order to highlight the abnormality of the Palestinian condition and to realize a viable and just alternative.
Who We Are. |
We are a group of academics, activists, and artists seeking to shift the narrative around the Gaza Strip and Palestine, in general. This is an Arab Studies Institute project and is one component of its Palestine Project housed by the Forum on Muslim and Arab Affairs.
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Who We Want to Reach. |
As a pedagogical project we hope that educators, in high school and college classrooms, as well as organizers and activists use these resources to interrogate the conditions in Gaza and use them as a point of departure for understanding the question of Palestine.
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The History of the Project. |
The idea for Gaza in Context emerged during the summer of 2014 when Israel launched its most devastating offensive on the besieged Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip to date. Despite the immense destruction wrought upon a captive population Israel successfully claimed victimhood in western media as it launched 6,000 airstrikes and 50,000 artillery shells in an air and ground offensive that lasted for 51-days. The course of the media cycle made evident the need for an assertive framework to explain Israel’s systematic wars. Specifically, to counter its defensive claims and situate its aggression within a broader settler-colonial project in Palestine.
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