Richard James
ISS 301
Lesson 9: Social Movements
The Israeli-Palestinian Protests
Ever present in the media today are the Israeli-Palestinian protests occurring at college campuses across the country. The protests emerged following the response of the Netanyahu Government in Israel, to the Hamas attacks in October of 2023. The protests exist due to the statistics continually reported by the United Nations, and other groups (AJLabs), that the Israeli response to the Hamas attacks has been to cause unmitigated suffering against the Palestinian people. In addition to the suffering inflicted on the Palestinian people, the growing body of evidence of war crimes committed by both Hamas, and the Israeli Government (UNNews), further exacerbate the negative views of the Netanyahu Government response to Hamas toward innocent Palestinians, and institutional bodies in America which support it. The protesters have targeted colleges and universities, with ties to Israel, as the location of civil disobedience. The protests, in my opinion, represent the start of a social movement, with its ultimate goal to bring peaceful resolution between Netanyahu’s Government and Hamas, and to end the suffering in Palestine. By protesting and bringing awareness to college and university investment-relations with Israel, they hope to bring about divestiture away from Israel, to pressure the federal government to discontinue their support of Netanyahu’s Government’s policies and, ultimately, end the Netanyahu-Government’s occupation of Gaza, be accountable for its war crimes against the Palestinian people, and broker peace with Hamas.
Tilly defines a social movement as the “righting of a wrong, most often a wrong suffered by a well-specified population”. I believe the Israeli-Palestinian protests are a social movement, as Tilly describes, because protests are working toward the “righting of wrongs” of the subsequent actions of Netanyahu’s Government toward the Palestinian people, in response to the Hamas attacks in October of last year. The innocent Israeli and Palestinian people are the “well-specified population” the protesters have defined, and ending the war and occupation of Gaza is making things right for all of them. The resources for fueling the movement are the sheer number of protesters. In regards to Tilly’s acronym of WUNC, the protesters are worthy as their cause is to bring about the end of suffering, they are unified as the language and purpose of their protests are similar across the country, they are numerous as there are dozens of protests happening across America with thousands and thousands of protesters, and they have commitment because they are willing to suffer consequences for their civil disobedience. Their aim appears to be to disrupt graduation ceremonies at college and university campuses, disrupt higher learning, to bring about the awareness of college and university relations with Israel and sway American public opinion toward the plight of innocent people in Palestine. With the swaying of American public opinion, the hope would be to affect US Foreign Policy toward Netanyahu’s Government, to ultimately bring about peace and justice for innocents in Palestine.
In parallel to Gilio-Whitaker’s “As long as grass grows : the indigenous fight for environmental justice, from colonization to Standing Rock”, the Islamic Palestinian people in Gaza, much like the Native American people living in America, are a marginalized non-white and non-Christian group, living in an area, contested by an ally of western European nations, Israel. Similar to how Native Americans were seen as inferior to white Europeans, Palestinians are being seen through a similar lens. As Gilio-Whitaker highlights from Muir’s commentary, where Muir labels the Yosemite people in California as “digger Indians” who were “found dirty, lazy, ugly, and altogether disappointing”, to further justify commandeering their land for the Yosemite National Park, Palestinians have been viewed by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as “human animals” (Goldenberg), to justify their actions against Palestinians and their long-running occupation of Gaza. It is through these parallels the Palestinian people, like the Native Americans, can be seen as less human to justify acts of barbarism, justify theft of land and justify their ongoing persecution.
In summary, it is clear to me the Israeli-Palestinian student protests and civil disobedience is a social movement, as it meets the criteria of WUNC set forth by Tilly, and also because it seeks to right the wrongs of Hamas and the Netanyahu Government toward the Palestinian people, through swaying public opinion and pressuring the US government to pressure the Israelis to bring peace to Palestinians. In addition, the occupation of Gaza is also similar to the commandeering of lands from Native Americans for national parks, as the Palestinian people are losing their land to the Israeli occupiers, on the justification they, like Gilio-Whitaker highlights about Native Americans in her piece, are seen as the “others” and less than human.
Works Cited
AJLabs. “Israel-Gaza War in Maps and Charts: Live Tracker.” Al Jazeera, 26 May 2024,
www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker.
UN News. “All Parties to Gaza Crisis May Have Committed War Crimes: UN Rights Chief.” UN News,
28 Feb. 2024, news.un.org/en/story/2024/02/1147007.
Goldenberg, Tia. “ICJ Genocide Case: Israeli Rhetoric Against Palestinians Central to South Africa’s
Case | AP News.” AP News, 18 Jan. 2024, apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-south-africa-genocide-hate-speech-97a9e4a84a3a6bebeddfb80f8a030724.