Morality and Normalcy in A-Symmetrical Conflict : Distancing, Denial and Moral Numbing among Israeli Conscripts in Everyday Practices of Occupation

Abbink, G.J. [Promotor

Performing politics at the Israeli security fair

Fairs, markets and bazaars are primarily commercial activities. Historically, however, through the accumulation of wealth they enable and due to their often strategic locations, they have also been sites at which political alliances are made and empires founded. Surprisingly, most debates on the politics of markets are consumer-oriented and rarely focus on their geopolitical importance. In this article, I analyse the Israeli security fair as a political event. Israel’s security industry is booming; its global export is worth billions, and it attracts thousands of potential international clients. To show how politics are conducted and constructed at the security fair, I will look beyond the neoliberal idea that gives ‘the market’ powers of its own and implies that market forces are neutral and non-political. By expanding the operationalisation of politics to include discursive, visual and material performances, I will not only argue that the fair is inherently political but also present a novel way in which to see such politics. Importantly, while exploring politics through the ways in which they are performed, I will emphasise the embeddedness of the fair and its politics in orientalist and colonialist logics

Securitized volunteerism and neo-nationalism in Israel’s rural periphery

Contemporary volunteering is often considered a neoliberal phenomenon that has become prevalent in an era of post-national sentiments and individualism. Although it is frequently depicted as non-political, it may serve the promotion of political agendas, such as neo-nationalism, outside the traditional frame of the state and its institutions. This becomes particularly salient when non-governmental organizations practice volunteering in ways that undermine the state’s monopoly in the realms of security and public order. We conceptualize this tendency as securitized volunteering – instances of volunteering work that is promoted by, in this case non-state, organizations who are involved in voluntary security activities that are violent (or potentially violent). Drawing on an ethnographic study of the Israeli organization HaShomer HaChadash (The New Guard), this article demonstrates how agricultural and security volunteering is used to advance a neo-nationalist agenda that circumvents the state, and at the same time maintains an apolitical stance. This is achieved through the implementation of two corresponding forms of securitized volunteering – civilianization of security volunteerism and securitization of civilian volunteerism. Blurring the distinction between both forms enables the organization to attract supporters and volunteers that come from various social sectors and to reinforce its seemingly apolitical position and nationalist agenda