British Jewish opposition to Israel : the relationship between local and distant fields of contention in a social movement

This thesis examines the recent Jewish Israel-critical movement in the UK, asking how it enables and directs Jewish criticism of Israel, and how the distant and local objects of activism are constructed and affected in this process.I also ask whether the interaction I outline between local contestation and distant issue activism pertains to other distant issue movements (DIMs).The thesis is situated within the field of social movement studies, using a movement-relevant theory paradigm, which involves directing my research towards the concerns of the social movement I am studying.My methods followed from the grounded theory framework I used and involved a multiple process of data gathering -interviews, participant observation, and documentary analysis.I analysed the data to understand the processes of meaning-making of participants, as well as the empirical events people in this movement are involved in.My methodology also involves feedback to participants within the movement.This thesis offers a descriptive analysis of this movement, its intellectual roots and routes, situates it within the British Jewish field and examines the problems it faces.I use this what's this got to do with Palestine?'This is the crucial question -not simply of this event or of this group, but of the whole movement of Israel-critical Jewish activists in Britainhow does the identity contestation of these networked individuals, which I describe as a movement, affect Israel/Palestine. 1 This question is the pivot of the dissertation.It is how the Israel-critical Jewish movement in the UK enables and directs Jewish criticism of Israel, and how the distant and local objects of activism are constructed and affected in this process.I also ask whether the interaction I outline between local contestation and distant issue activism pertains to other distant issue movements (DIMs) (Rucht 2000).In this chapter I outline my approach to this thesis.I first discuss why I chose to study this particular movement and describe it.Then I ask what is at stake both on the local Jewish field and in relation to Israel/Palestine.I next describe how I study this movement with reference to Bourdieu's theory of practice, using his models of habitus and field to explain how DIMs operate.I conceptualise DIMs as existing within the triangular tension between local fields, actor habitus, and the habitus of objects of activism.In addition, I present my idea of how field interaction operating through the persona of the social movement actor provides a mechanism for change from below.After discussing my research questions I outline the dissertation structure. Movement descriptionMost diaspora Jews are supporters of Israel, even if that support is more muted of late (Cohen and Kelman 2007;Kosmin, Lerman, and Goldberg 1997;Liphshiz 2007).By 'diaspora' I refer to Jews living outside Israel.The majority of diaspora Jews now live in long established communities in English speaking countries in the Westthe USA, UK, Canada, Australia and South Africa, though there are also large concentrations in continental Europe and South America.Support for Israel is certainly hegemonic among the 270,000 Jews in Britain, with all the main communal institutions professing Zionism, or support of Israel.Nevertheless, ever since Israel's establishment in 1948, there have been diaspora Jews who have opposed 1 I use the term Israel/Palestine for the territory under Israeli state control.Israel is the term for the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders (referred to as the Green Line) and thus excluding the Golan Heights, Gaza Strip and West Bank which it occupied following the 1967 war.'Palestine' indicates the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.The term 'Israel' is also a territorial imaginary, which for most Israelis and Zionists include major areas of Jewish settlement in Israel/Palestine, particularly around Jerusalem.It may also refer to all of Israel/Palestine.Likewise, among Palestinians and their supporters the term 'Palestine' may encompass all the land under Israeli control, excluding the Golan Heights.While I attempt to stick with the geographical terms, the imaginary role of these terms should be kept in mind when discussing the intentions of actors.the state, whether from an ideological anti-Zionist standpoint or simply reacting to its treatment of Palestinians.Recently though, this has been transformed from a 'not in my name' individual opposition to and withdrawal of support from Israel to 'not in our name'; a collective attempt to withdraw legitimacy from Israel's claim to represent Jews and to forge a specifically Jewish collectivity that opposes Israel's policies.In this dissertation I argue that we can speak for the first time of a diaspora Jewish social movement criticising Israel, using the case of the Anglo-Jewish Israel-critical movement as a significant instance of this trend.Certainly in Britain, there is a networked group of Jews engaged in political contention with a common and very clearly delineated enemy -Zionists more so than Israel.This network is seeking to re-cognise the Israel/Palestine conflict for Jews and others (Eyerman and Jamison 1991), 2 and there is a commonality of purpose which allows for major disagreements over tactics, such as the boycott campaign.The underlying aim is to challenge Zionist hegemony among their fellow Jews and to challenge Israel, speaking as Jews.The latter is directed at both mainstream and Jewish audiences, and provides support to Palestinians and the Palestine DIM.It is also partly directed towards the Palestine DIM, particularly the Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM)informing them and (to a lesser extent) Palestinian people that there are Jews who oppose Israel and demanding they do not conflate the two. 3Thus these groups operate in two fields, the specific Jewish field and the wider political field.It is this dual process of field contention, I argue in chapter three, that demarcates them as a discrete movement separate both from the Palestine DIM and from purely identitarian Jewish groups.Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon was the first time a strong diaspora Jewish disenchantment with Israel was articulated, a disenchantment that has grown with each successive war.Since the second intifada (Palestinian uprising) in 2000, diaspora Jewish groups that oppose Israel have sprung up in Canada, Australia, France, Italy, Belgium and even in Germany, and of course many organisations in the US (EJJP 2009; JFP 2007).In England, there is an alphabet soup of groups -Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JfJfP), Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), Jews Against Zionism (JAZ), Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG), Just Peace UK (JPUK), not to mention the older Jewish Socialist Group (JSG).The profusion of groups should not obscure the networked and decentred nature of this activism.Groups undertake 2 Eyerman and Jamison (1991) talk of social movements as engaged in cognitive praxis, with a prime aim being to advance an alternative cognition of existing practices, or to re-cognise them. 3By Palestine DIM I mean British groups supporting Palestinians.I use the term PSM or Palestine Solidarity Movement when talking of groups offering political solidarity.The difficulty of treading this line were illustrated by an article I wrote about study trips to Palestine (Landy 2008).While I wished to offer critical support to study trips and sent my article to organisers and some participants, some (although not all) of the organisers saw the article as being excessively critical.This might not have been a case of thin-skinned activists, but a genuine fault of the article that they recognised.

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