Johannes Hahn and Volker Menze, eds., The Wandering Holy Man: The Life of Barsauma, Christian Asceticism, and Religious Conflict in Late Antique Palestine (New Texts Out Now)

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Sep 16, 2020 Palestine
Johannes Hahn and Volker Menze, eds., The Wandering Holy Man: The Life of Barsauma, Christian Asceticism, and Religious Conflict in Late Antique Palestine (New Texts Out Now)

Johannes Hahn and Volker Menze, eds., The Wandering Holy Man: The Life of Barsauma, Christian Asceticism, and Religious Conflict in Late Antique Palestine (New Texts Out Now)

By : Johannes Hahn and Volker Menze

Johannes Hahn and Volker Menze (eds.), The Wandering Holy Man: The Life of Barsauma, Christian Asceticism, and Religious Conflict in Late Antique Palestine (California University Press, Oakland 2020).

Jadaliyya (J): What made you edit this book?

Johannes Hahn and Volker Menze (JH & VM): The Life of Barsauma belongs to the genre of Christian hagiography, that is saints’ lives—a genre that flourished during Late Antiquity (circa 300-600 CE). With Emperor Constantine (306-337), Christianity became a licit, and later in the fourth century also the dominating religion in the Later Roman Empire. Discrimination against non-Christian religions through imperial legislation started in and became more common during the fifth and sixth centuries. However, texts like the Life of Barsauma involuntarily show that non-Christian cults and religions nevertheless still flourished during these centuries. Barsauma was an acclaimed fifth-century Syrian ascetic, archimandrite, and leader of monks who supposedly worked numerous miracles as recorded in his very long Life. The nickname “the Roasted” he earned himself through a rather peculiar ascetic practice: “Now Barsauma wore an iron tunic next to his skin. He used to keep his face and his chest turned toward the sun as it traveled across the sky, so that his body became roasted by its rays, resembling a fish that is fried in a pan. It was scorched by the heat of the iron, like the skin of a lamb when it blisters in a fiery oven.

Barsauma was a rather “nasty” saint: he was not only violent against his own body but also and foremost against others, particularly Jews, pagans, and Christian “heretics,” as well as co-religionists if necessary. The hagiographer does not just depict a saint whose beliefs and virtues were opposed to those of heretics and Jews, for example, but also a hero who destroyed synagogues and temples and sought to subdue his enemies completely, even to kill them. The most prominent story of this kind in the Life is Barsauma’s famous “reconquest” of Jerusalem. According to the hagiographer, 103,000 Jews who had been allowed by the empress Eudocia to convene in the city for the Feast of Tabernacles attempted to take over Jerusalem assisted by imperial officials, clergy, and even the empress. Only Barsauma and his disciples resisted, and with the help of God—who killed many of the Jews—they ensured that Jerusalem would remain a Christian city. This dramatic episode covers almost one-tenth of the Life, and you find this story mentioned in every scholarly book on Late Antique Palestine or Judaism.

However, no scholar mentioning this episode was ever able to read the whole Life because only bits and pieces had been edited and translated into French by Francois Nau in 1913/14. Therefore, now around fifteen years ago, the idea was born that we wanted to make the whole text of this fascinating Life available to a broader audience and analyze the Life in its proper context. 
... the offensive violence in the Life of Barsauma is unparalleled.

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address?

JH & VM: As the title “The Wandering Holy Man” indicates, Barsauma was not subject to stabilitas loci: that is, in contrast to the monastic ideal in the Middle Ages, he was not bound to his monastery but vagabonded together with his disciples throughout the Near East, particularly through Palestine. This was a particular late antique type of “monasticism” that the Church soon afterwards attempted to suppress. The Life makes it impossible to estimate how much of his life he stayed in his monastery (probably around Melitene, today Malatya in eastern Turkey—to which he always returned and where he also died) and how much time he spent on the road. However, the focus of the Life is clearly on Barsauma’s travels, and several of our contributors have analyzed his journeys. This applies foremost, of course, to his several “pilgrimages” to Jerusalem, but he also travelled to the emperor in Constantinople. Considering that he was the only non-bishop in history who has ever been invited to sit in an ecumenical council (the Second Council of Ephesus in 449, later annulled at the Council of Chalcedon in 451), his influence at court should not be underestimated.

The contributions that analyze Barsauma’s pilgrimages to Jerusalem and the “Holy Land” also address the question of his violent anti-Judaism. Anti-Judaism is a common feature, particularly in Syriac texts from Late Antiquity, and it shows the fierce competition between established Judaism and the emerging Christian state religion. However, the offensive violence in the Life of Barsauma is unparalleled. In the second half of the Life, the focus switches from Jews, pagans, and Samaritans as Barsauma’s opponents, to Christian “heretics.” Here, the issue is the Christological controversy in Late Antiquity: since Cyril of Alexandria’s (bishop 412-444) clash with Nestorius of Constantinople (bishop 428-431) over the question of theotokos (is Mary the mother of God? Or should she be simply called Christotokos, mother of Christ?) and the question of the divine and human natures in Christ, theological controversies dominated domestic politics in the Later Roman Empire. Barsauma and his monks sided with the Christian groups from which later the Coptic and the Syrian Orthodox Churches would emerge, and which still exist today. 

The edited book is the result of a conference we had organized in 2013 in Münster/Germany. We had invited scholars from different fields and provided them with the text of the Life of Barsauma. 

J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

JH & VM: In many ways, both of us had worked on topics that are related to several of the issues in the Wandering Holy Man. Johannes Hahn has extensively worked on religious violence before, particularly in his Gewalt und religöser Konflikt: Studien zu den Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Christen, Heiden und Juden im Osten des Römischen Reiches (von Konstantin bis Theodosius II) (Berlin 2004). Volker Menze has studied the Christological controversies in the fifth and sixth centuries in his Justinian and the Making of the Syrian Orthodox Church, Oxford 2008 and The Legacy of a Syrian Orthodox Bishop: John of Tella and his Profession of Faith (Piscataway 2009). The many facets of the Life of Barsauma nevertheless offered more options to us than we could possibly explore, and we collaborated with several scholars in the preparation of this volume. We particularly struggled with the questions of dating and historicity, as the Life is in many ways unique and not much is known about the protagonist Barsauma outside of his Life.

J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

JH & VM: The volume presents the text of the Life in translation and through seven contributions by specialists (plus introduction and conclusion). It thereby offers an introduction to the Life of Barsauma, and it may even be considered as a first handbook to the archimandrite Barsauma and his vita. We hope to provide other scholars a solid basis to work with the newly available text and incorporate it for their own work and studies.

Barsauma and his Life are certainly of interests to students and scholars working on Late Antique religious history, in particular Church History and Conciliar Studies, as well as Jewish Studies. As it is a Syriac hagiography, it will be of interest to Syriacists and literary scholars as well. However, we hope that the book sparks interest with anyone who is intrigued by the fascinating world of Late Antiquity.

J: What other projects are you working on now?

JH & VM: Volker Menze is writing a monograph on The Last Pharaoh of Alexandria: Patriarch Dioscorus and Later Roman Ecclesiastical Politics. Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria (444-451), was deposed by the Council of Chalcedon (451) and became a villain and arch-heretic in western Church tradition, while the Coptic Church reveres him as a saint. Sources on him are therefore extremely biased, and Volker intends to offer a nuanced reading of the historical Dioscorus within the framework of late Roman ecclesiastical politics. 

Johannes Hahn is presently editing a volume on the expropriation and destruction of synagogues in Late Antiquity and preparing a monograph on challenges to Christian identities in the fourth century CE. 

 

Excerpt from the book (Chapter 6: Johannes Hahn, “It is not lawful for Samaritans to have dealings with Christians!” Samaritans in the Life of Barsauma, pp.131-34) 

It is helpful to take another, closer look at the Life and its treatment of Samaritans again. As mentioned above, the Samaritans are named in two programmatic entries in the course of the Life (§ 4.2 and § 34.1) as one of the three major religious groups competing with Christianity in Palestine and the Near East. And in the same context it is crisply expressed that the sacred infrastructure of these three groups was at the heart of Barsauma’s zeal when travelling the region. His agenda is outlined in § 34.1: “... he began to demolish the Sabbath houses of the Jews, destroy the Synagogues of the Samaritans, and to burn down the temples of the pagans.” 

However, contrary to this programmatic declaration, one looks in vain for an account of the destruction of a Samaritan synagogue in the Life. Has the author forgotten to narrate it, has it been lost, or has it been removed later? Not at all. On the contrary, it appears that Barsauma’s dealings with the Samaritans are indeed different. The level of conflict between the saint and this religious group is not to be compared with the polarization and anti-pagan and anti-Jewish fervour we encounter elsewhere. The destruction of a Samaritan synagogue or any other form of violence would not have been in accord with Barsauma’s or his hagiographer’s perception of Samaritanism. 

The very first episode, the healing of the Samaritan woman, already makes this quite clear: Although one could take the story as evidence for resistance – or rather initial resistance – against Barsauma’s missionary efforts, the reader is struck by the generally peaceful, almost dignified circumstances of Barsauma’s appearance and involvement with members of the Samaritan local population and their religion. The evidence of the other Samaritan episode is not different. Here, on a Sabbath day, “On his way home Barsauma again passed through Samaria. He happened to be in a certain village on the Sabbath Day and all the inhabitants came to see him. They disputed with him about the resurrection of the dead and the Son of God, both of which they denied, as they denied the existence of the Holy Spirit and the angels. Barsauma disputed with them on the basis of the Law of Moses, because the Samaritans do not accept any other scripture. He went through the Law word by word, from the beginning to the end, proving his point to them.” (§ 84. 2-3). All in all, the profile of these Samaritans and of Barsauma’s dealings with them in the Life is markedly moderate, the level of conflict spelled out limited, the dispute focused on theological matters, and hostility entirely lacking. Is it, then, perhaps possible to question the hagiographer’s initial programmatic claim in the light of other observations and more general considerations? Indeed, it can be shown that the Samaritans, unlike their Jewish and pagan neighbours in the Holy Land, apparently were not seen as the same kind of opposition or straightforward enemies by Barsauma (or by his hagiographer) as the pagans in general and the Jews in particular. 

The image of the Samaritans in the Life lacks any negative connotation beyond their initial resistance and disbelief. This is, cum grano salis, also true of their depiction in the remaining passages in the Life. The worst Barsauma’s hagiographer has to say about them is to be found in § 4.2 in a remark which shows strong signs of being a later addition since it tries to introduce a retrospective and abbreviated historical overview of the general situation, and the unhappy living conditions of Christians, in Palestine in former days. Here it says: “Now at that time pagans abounded in Palestine, Phoenicia and Arabia. Christians were as yet few in number in those countries. The Jews and the Samaritans, on the other hand, were rich. They persecuted the Christians of that region.” Otherwise, no bad word is wasted on the Samaritans by the hagiographer or a later editor. On the contrary, the Samaritans are described as serious believers, knowledgeable in their Bible, keen on debating and understanding their holy text – and eager to learn a better argument and message. Any stubbornness is alien to them. 

This observation is important because it stands in stark contrast to the image the Life draws of the other religious groups Barsauma and the Christians are confronted with in Palestine. The pagans fare relatively well, still: When Barsauma turns up they are filled with fear; they take to arms to battle the saint (§ 34.2); their priests are pretty stupid, obstinate and stubborn in their resistance (§ 35.4). When Barsauma tries to teach them he has to talk to them with “powerful and terrible words” (§ 34.9), but cannot take to subtle theological or philosophical arguments. They start jeering at him when a miracle he promised does not immediately materialize: “At this the pagans loudly vented their blasphemous contempt. There was laughter on all sides, when someone mocked, ‘Christians, your god is a liar, it would seem. He has no power to make it rain for us.’” (§ 34.15). Despite the eventual rich rainfall the chief priest refuses to give in. He has to be threatened and blackmailed by his fellows first. Furthermore, he needs an extra portion of terror – his two daughters are instantly befallen by demons – before in the end he breaks down and pleads for mercy (§ 35.4–36.5). Only after such strenuous efforts on the part of Barsauma do all the city’s inhabitants become Christians.

Even darker is the image the Jews earn in the Life. They also confront Barsauma hostilely but do in fact physically battle him, allegedly with 15,000 men (§ 38.3), shooting arrows and throwing stones at the saint (§ 39.1). Later, in their vain attempt to win official admission to visit and mourn their desolate temple in Jerusalem “the spirit of arrogance entered them” (§ 91.3). They write deceitful letters (§ 91.5), they scream in terror when a sudden celestial thunder is heard (§ 92.3), they try to stone Barsauma’s disciples (§ 93), they accuse the monks of murder, they oppress and persecute the Christians (§ 95.6), etc. Remarkably, and quite in contrast to his dealings with Samaritans, nowhere does Barsauma enter into any theological discussion with Jewish counterparts.

The anti-Judaic fervour of the narrative of the events in Jerusalem is all too evident. And it is equally clear that this rejection of and fury against Jews, which was familiar and popular in the fifth century, is owed to the Christian reproach that they were responsible for Jesus’ death, and indeed had to be regarded as the ultimate murderers of God’s son. The fervour had been fuelled only a few decades earlier by the emperor Julian and his abortive attempt to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem in order to restore the traditional Jewish cult and its sacrifices there. The plan, and the resulting wave of Jewish eschatological enthusiasm, meant a lasting traumatic experience for the Church as the temple’s permanent destruction had always been propagated as irrefutable proof of the New Covenant and the transfer of God’s grace to the Christian Church. 

One aspect of the two Samaritan episodes should strike the reader from the outset: Barsauma’s remarkable success in converting his Samaritan counterparts. Everywhere in the Life the saint works miracles but only a small number is said to have openly aimed at or actually accomplished conversions – much less than one would expect in a hagiographical text of that kind, filled with signs and miracles. The traditions regarding Symeon or Daniel Stylites are striking examples here. Compared to the low conversion rate Barsauma achieves in his dealings with pagans and, in particular, with Jews in the Life, his success in teaching and literally missionizing his Samaritan audience stands out. This is not a coincidence, but instead relates to historical reality, at least in the fifth century.

The readiness of Samaritans to submit to the prevailing political and religious conditions and pressures is repeatedly reported in our period. Samaritans entered, despite legal restrictions, the imperial administration, served for instance in large numbers in the office of the provincial governor in Caesarea, and in some cases acquired, with the embrace of Christianity, senatorial dignity. Procopius, a native of Caesarea himself, speaks of crypto-Samaritans, of superficial conversions for opportunistic motives: “The Samaritans, regarding it as a foolish thing to undergo any suffering in defence of a senseless dogma, adopted the name Christian in place of that which they bore.” One also finds considerable numbers of Samaritans serving in the Late Roman army, but no Jews. 

Rabbinic sources claim that Samaritans in the cities were willing to convert rather than risk their lives when put under pressure by the Christian government. Unlike in much of the Samaritan rural population, in these urban circles adaptability, so it seems, was not an empty word but rather often a strategy of compromise, advancement or well-chosen assimilation. The episodes in the Life of Barsauma thus mirror a specific contemporary phenomenon in some local Samaritan communities in Palestine. This phenomenon is characteristic for the dynamics of the province’s development under late Roman rule prior to the outbreak of the great Samaritan revolts which brutally ended this increasing assimilation of parts of the Samaritan population. The reality of Barsauma’s active ‘involvement’ in this process may be debatable and impossible to assess but the episodes’ compatibility with the historical back-ground lends them an authentic ring. 
Oct 16, 2016 Lebanon
Mandy Turner By :
Mandy Turner

New Texts Out Now: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein, guest eds. "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis." Special Issue of Conflict, Security & Development

Conflict, Security and Development, Volume 15, No. 5 (December 2015) Special issue: "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis," Guest Editors: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you compile this volume?

Mandy Turner (MT): Both the peace process and the two-state solution are dead. Despite more than twenty years of negotiations, Israel’s occupation, colonization and repression continue–and the political and geographical fragmentation of the Palestinian people is proceeding apace.

This is not news, nor is it surprising to any keen observer of the situation. But what is surprising–and thus requires explanation – is the resilience of the Oslo framework and paradigm: both objectively and subjectively. It operates objectively as a straitjacket by trapping Palestinians in economic and security arrangements that are designed to ensure stabilization and will not to lead to sovereignty or a just and sustainable solution. And it operates subjectively as a straitjacket by shutting out discussion of alternative ways of understanding the situation and ways out of the impasse. The persistence of this framework that is focused on conflict management and stabilization, is good for Israel but bad for Palestinians.

The Oslo peace paradigm–of a track-one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution–is therefore in crisis. And yet it is entirely possible that the current situation could continue for a while longer–particularly given the endorsement and support it enjoys from the major Western donors and the “international community,” as well as the fact that there has been no attempt to develop an alternative. The immediate short-term future is therefore bleak.

Guided by these observations, this special issue sought to undertake two tasks. The first task was to analyze the perceptions underpinning the Oslo framework and paradigm as well as some of the transformations instituted by its implementation: why is it so resilient, what has it created? The second task, which follows on from the first, was then to ask: how can we reframe our understanding of what is happening, what are some potential alternatives, and who is arguing and mobilizing for them?

These questions and themes grew out of a number of conversations with early-career scholars – some based at the Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem, and some based in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere. These conversations led to two interlinked panels at the International Studies Association annual convention in Toronto, Canada, in March 2014. To have two panels accepted on “conflict transformation and resistance in Palestine” at such a conventional international relations conference with (at the time unknown) early-career scholars is no mean feat. The large and engaged audience we received at these panels – with some very established names coming along (one of whom contributed to this special issue) – convinced us that this new stream of scholars and scholarship should have an outlet.  

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures do the articles address?

MT: The first half of the special issue analyzes how certain problematic assumptions shaped the Oslo framework, and how the Oslo framework in turn shaped the political, economic and territorial landscape.

Virginia Tilley’s article focuses on the paradigm of conflict resolution upon which the Oslo Accords were based, and calls for a re-evaluation of what she argues are the two interlinked central principles underpinning its worldview: internationally accepted notions of Israeli sovereignty; and the internationally accepted idea that the “conflict” is essentially one between two peoples–the “Palestinian people” and the “Jewish people”. Through her critical interrogation of these two “common sense” principles, Tilley proposes that the “conflict” be reinterpreted as an example of settler colonialism, and, as a result of this, recommends an alternative conflict resolution model based on a paradigm shift away from an ethno-nationalist division of the polity towards a civic model of the nation.

Tariq Dana unpacks another central plank of the Oslo paradigm–that of promoting economic relations between Israel and the OPT. He analyses this through the prism of “economic peace” (particularly the recent revival of theories of “capitalist peace”), whose underlying assumptions are predicated on the perceived superiority of economic approaches over political approaches to resolving conflict. Dana argues that there is a symbiosis between Israeli strategies of “economic peace” and recent Palestinian “statebuilding strategies” (referred to as Fayyadism), and that both operate as a form of pacification and control because economic cooperation leaves the colonial relationship unchallenged.

The political landscape in the OPT has been transformed by the Oslo paradigm, particularly by the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Alaa Tartir therefore analyses the basis, agenda and trajectory of the PA, particularly its post-2007 state building strategy. By focusing on the issue of local legitimacy and accountability, and based on fieldwork in two sites in the occupied West Bank (Balata and Jenin refugee camps), Tartir concludes that the main impact of the creation of the PA on ordinary people’s lives has been the strengthening of authoritarian control and the hijacking of any meaningful visions of Palestinian liberation.

The origin of the administrative division between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the focus of Tareq Baconi’s article. He charts how Hamas’s initial opposition to the Oslo Accords and the PA was transformed over time, leading to its participation (and success) in the 2006 legislative elections. Baconi argues that it was the perceived demise of the peace process following the collapse of the Camp David discussions that facilitated this change. But this set Hamas on a collision course with Israel and the international community, which ultimately led to the conflict between Hamas and Fateh, and the administrative division, which continues to exist.

The special issue thereafter focuses, in the second section, on alternatives and resistance to Oslo’s transformations.

Cherine Hussein’s article charts the re-emergence of the single-state idea in opposition to the processes of separation unleashed ideologically and practically that were codified in the Oslo Accords. Analysing it as both a movement of resistance and as a political alternative to Oslo, while recognizing that it is currently largely a movement of intellectuals (particularly of diaspora Palestinians and Israelis), Hussein takes seriously its claim to be a more just and liberating alternative to the two-state solution.

My article highlights the work of a small but dedicated group of anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli activists involved in two groups: Zochrot and Boycott from Within. Both groups emerged in the post-Second Intifada period, which was marked by deep disillusionment with the Oslo paradigm. This article unpacks the alternative – albeit marginalized – analysis, solution and route to peace proposed by these groups through the application of three concepts: hegemony, counter-hegemony and praxis. The solution, argue the activists, lies in Israel-Palestine going through a process of de-Zionization and decolonization, and the process of achieving this lies in actions in solidarity with Palestinians.

This type of solidarity action is the focus of the final article by Suzanne Morrison, who analyses the “We Divest” campaign, which is the largest divestment campaign in the US and forms part of the wider Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Through attention to their activities and language, Morrison shows how “We Divest”, with its networked, decentralized, grassroots and horizontal structure, represents a new way of challenging Israel’s occupation and the suppression of Palestinian rights.

The two parts of the special issue are symbiotic: the critique and alternative perspectives analyzed in part two are responses to the issues and problems identified in part one.

J: How does this volume connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

MT: My work focuses on the political economy of donor intervention (which falls under the rubric of “peacebuilding”) in the OPT, particularly a critique of the Oslo peace paradigm and framework. This is a product of my broader conceptual and historical interest in the sociology of intervention as a method of capitalist expansion and imperial control (as explored in “The Politics of International Intervention: the Tyranny of Peace”, co-edited with Florian Kuhn, Routledge, 2016), and how post-conflict peacebuilding and development agendas are part of this (as explored in “Whose Peace: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding”, co-edited with Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper (PalgraveMacmillan, 2008).  

My first book on Palestine (co-edited with Omar Shweiki), Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-development and Beyond (PalgraveMacmillan, 2014), was a collection of essays by experts in their field, of the political-economic experience of different sections of the Palestinian community. The book, however, aimed to reunite these individual experiences into one historical political-economy narrative of a people experiencing a common theme of dispossession, disenfranchisement and disarticulation. It was guided by the desire to critically assess the utility of the concept of de-development to different sectors and issues–and had a foreword by Sara Roy, the scholar who coined the term, and who was involved in the workshop from which the book emerged.

This co-edited special issue (with Cherine Hussein, who, at the time of the issue construction, was the deputy director of the Kenyon Institute) was therefore the next logical step in my research on Palestine, although my article on Jewish-Israeli anti-Zionists did constitute a slight departure from my usual focus.

J: Who do you hope will read this volume, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MT: I would imagine the main audience will be those whose research and political interests lie in Palestine Studies. It is difficult, given the structure of academic publishing – which has become ever more corporate and money grabbing – for research outputs such as this to be accessed by the general public. Only those with access to academic libraries are sure to be able to read it – and this is a travesty, in my opinion. To counteract this commodification of knowledge, we should all provide free access to our outputs through online open source websites such as academia.edu, etc. If academic research is going to have an impact beyond merely providing more material for teaching and background reading for yet more research (which is inaccessible to the general public) then this is essential. Websites such as Jadaliyya are therefore incredibly important.

Having said all that, I am under no illusions about the potential for ANY research on Israel-Palestine to contribute to changing the dynamics of the situation. However, as a collection of excellent analyses conducted by mostly early-career scholars in the field of Palestine studies, I am hopeful that their interesting and new perspectives will be read and digested. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MT: I am currently working on an edited volume provisionally entitled From the River to the Sea: Disintegration, Reintegration and Domination in Israel and Palestine. This book is the culmination of a two-year research project funded by the British Academy, which analyzed the impacts of the past twenty years of the Oslo peace framework and paradigm as processes of disintegration, reintegration and domination – and how they have created a new socio-economic and political landscape, which requires new agendas and frameworks. I am also working on a new research project with Tariq Dana at Birzeit University on capital and class in the occupied West Bank.

Excerpt from the Editor’s Note 

[Note: This issue was published in Dec. 2015]

Initially perceived to have inaugurated a new era of hope in the search for peace and justice in Palestine-Israel, the Oslo peace paradigm of a track one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution is in crisis today, if not completely at an end.

While the major Western donors and the ‘international community’ continue to publicly endorse the Oslo peace paradigm, Israeli and Palestinian political elites have both stepped away from it. The Israeli government has adopted what appears to be an outright rejection of the internationally-accepted end-goal of negotiations, i.e. the emergence of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. In March 2015, in the final days of his re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the Jewish settlement of Har Homa in Palestinian East Jerusalem, which is regarded as illegal under international law. Reminding its inhabitants that it was him and his Likud government that had established the settlement in 1997 as part of the Israeli state’s vision of a unified indivisible Jerusalem, he promised to expand the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem if re-elected. And in an interview with Israeli news site, NRG, Netanyahu vowed that the prospects of a Palestinian state were non-existent as long as he remained in office. Holding on to the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), he argued, was necessary to ensure Israel’s security in the context of regional instability and Islamic extremism. It is widely acknowledged that Netanyahu’s emphasis on Israel’s security—against both external and internal enemies—gave him a surprise win in an election he was widely expected to lose.

Despite attempts to backtrack under recognition that the US and European states are critical of this turn in official Israeli state policy, Netanyahu’s promise to bury the two-state solution in favour of a policy of further annexation has become the Israeli government’s official intent, and has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading ministers and key advisers.

[…]

The Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank also appears to have rejected a key principle of the Oslo peace paradigm—that of bilateral negotiations under the supervision of the US. Despite a herculean effort by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, to bring the two parties to the negotiating table, in response to the lack of movement towards final status issues and continued settlement expansion (amongst other issues), the Palestinian political elite have withdrawn from negotiations and resumed attempts to ‘internationalise the struggle’ by seeking membership of international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), and signing international treaties such as the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court. This change of direction is part of a rethink in the PA and PLO’s strategy rooted in wider discussions and debates. The publication of a document by the Palestine Strategy Study Group (PSSG) in August 2008, the production of which involved many members of the Palestinian political elite (and whose recommendations were studiously discussed at the highest levels of the PA and PLO), showed widespread discontent with the bilateral negotiations framework and suggested ways in which Palestinians could ‘regain the initiative’.

[…]

And yet despite these changes in official Palestinian and Israeli political strategies that signal a deepening of the crisis, donors and the ‘international community’ are reluctant to accept the failure of the Oslo peace paradigm. This political myopia has meant the persistence of a framework that is increasingly divorced from the possibility of a just and sustainable peace. It is also acting as an ideological straitjacket by shutting out alternative interpretations. This special issue seeks a way out of this political and intellectual dead end. In pursuit of this, our various contributions undertake what we regard to be two key tasks: first, to critically analyse the perceptions underpinning the Oslo paradigm and the transformations instituted by its implementation; and second, to assess some alternative ways of understanding the situation rooted in new strategies of resistance that have emerged in the context of these transformations in the post-Oslo landscape.

[…]

Taken as a whole, the articles in this special issue aim to ignite conversations on the conflict that are not based within abstracted debates that centre upon the peace process itself—but that begin from within the realities and geographies of both the continually transforming land of Palestine-Israel and the voices, struggles, worldviews and imaginings of the future of the people who presently inhabit it. For it is by highlighting these transformations, and from within these points of beginning, that we believe more hopeful pathways for alternative ways forward can be collectively imagined, articulated, debated and built.