Jerusalem - the third holiest city in Islam - is home to some 300,000 Muslims. But due to Israel’s occupation, they live difficult and disrupted lives. What might it mean for Muslims to practice their faith - on the ground, day by day - in such a conflicted place? One way religion becomes a meaningful category in people’s lives is through ritual. Scholars of Muslim religious practice have been attuned to this insight and observed it in various contexts. But their analyses have often been predicated on an implicit and unquestioned assumption - that people who desire to perform rituals have the means to act on their intention in regular and routine ways. Scholars have also shown that when societies are in rapid transition - be they weakened or threatened - their rituals often evolve with them. In this project, therefore, I ask: what happens in Jerusalem when Muslims live under the existential threat of occupation and their ability to routinely perform religious rituals cannot be assumed? I argue that when rituals are disrupted, Muslims are forced to improvise. Religious rituals - like the performances of skilled jazz musicians - are spontaneous and dynamic but also practiced and deliberate. Rituals are spontaneous in that they respond to the occupation’s disruptions, making physical and discursive adjustments. They are practiced in that Muslims draw from an established repertoire of themes that includes Islam and sacred space, nationalism and resistance, local culture and geography. I term the coalescence of these dynamics the “improvisation thesis” and explore three case studies where specific improvisations have different levels of resonance. The Naqshbandi improvise rituals to make peace, but they are discordant with other established themes; Ramadan rituals have resonance that define specific moments; and the improvisations of the Murabitat are deeply resonant, influencing Muslim rituals throughout the city.

This study offers a look at the ways in which discourse shaped by the contemporary Israel-Palestine conflict serves as a framework for modern historiography on Palestine. It focuses specifically on the variety of historical narratives proffered as to the “truth” of the Crusade period in Palestine, roughly the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries, and their mobilization in political agendas through the Zionist-Crusader analogy. This comparison, a historical analogy likening Zionists to Frankish Crusaders or the State of Israel to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, appears frequently in contemporary dialogue on the Israel-Palestine conflict; it comes from a diverse range of sources and for a variety of political ends, showing that the politicization of history of the contested land is a widespread phenomenon that is limited neither to academic nor political circles. Furthermore, this study argues that common national, religious, or ethnic identities do not guarantee common political conclusions or agreement on the “facts” of the Crusader past. On a broader level, this study investigates the theoretical underpinnings of national histories and their employment as political devices in nationalist movements, as well as explores the role of individual agency in creating and deploying nationalist historical narratives within the framework of the Zionist-Crusader analogy. In the specific context of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the modern State of Israel, this theoretical component focuses primarily on applications of Crusade history to supporting or challenging contemporary political-religious claims to the land of Israel-Palestine.

Submitted by Noeme Timbo (noeme.timbo@metodista.br) on 2016-08-09T19:21:18Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tamires Silva Pereira Prazeres.pdf: 910375 bytes, checksum: 982d55415ff4191b071ad2ff48020523 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-09T19:21:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tamires Silva Pereira Prazeres.pdf: 910375 bytes, checksum: 982d55415ff4191b071ad2ff48020523 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-03-17 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This search examines the religion in the conflict between Israel and Palestine, especially in the context of implementation of the State of Israel in 1948. The analysis takes as historical definition of conflict the period 1896-1948, when the inmigration of the first groups of Jews to the Palestinian territories. The initial question is how Jews and Muslims were related in the early years of inmigration to the creation of the State of Israel. The main issue to be clarified is how Western cultural building toward the Palestinians interfered in the conflict, especially with regard to the taking of the land and the construction of a new country within an existing, socially, religiously and culturally. Finally, the search asks about the effect of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in the Protestant religious space, especially among conservative groups and fundamentalists of this branch of christianity. The research is fully literature and refers to postcolonial theories to discuss the history of the territory, with regard to the religious aspects of the conflict / O presente trabalho analisa o papel da religião no conflito entre Israel e Palestina, principalmente no contexto da implantação do Estado de Israel, em 1948. A análise toma como delimitação histórica do conflito o período de 1896 a 1948, quando ocorre a migração das primeiras levas de judeus para os territórios palestinos. A pergunta inicial é sobre como judeus e muçulmanos se relacionavam nos primeiros anos de imigração até a criação do Estado de Israel. O problema principal a ser esclarecido é como a construção cultural ocidental em relação aos palestinos interferiu no conflito, principalmente no que tange à tomada da terra e à construção de um novo país dentro de um já existente, socialmente, religiosamente e culturalmente. Finalmente a pesquisa pergunta pela repercussão do conflito entre israelenses e palestinos no campo religioso protestante, principalmente entre grupos conservadores e fundamentalistas deste ramo do cristianismo. A pesquisa é totalmente bibliográfica e toma como referência as teorias pós-coloniais para debater a história do território, no que se refere aos aspectos religiosos do conflito.

This study is an attempt to comprehend how Palestinians and Israelis perceive the conflict and the peace process. It identifies the channels and dynamics related to the shaping of their perceptions on the individual, community, and political levels. The main objectives of this study are to probe the degree of homogeneity between these levels for both Palestinians and Israelis as well as the degree of discord between them on the same levels and to pinpoint intervening factors that contribute to carving out the ultimate perceptions that individuals hold. Unlike previous work, this study employs a multi-method approach to measure and benchmark of the topic at hand. To bridge further gaps, a developed matrix extends the analyses on temporalspatial dimensions of individuals’ cognitions, affections, and behaviors pertaining to the conflict. This study falls within the descriptive research that seeks probing the effect of macro-level factors (the media, and political parties/leaders) on microlevel ones (the audience cognitive processing), and is involved in describing and identifying its elements and components through the collection and analysis of data. Interpretation of data is based on a combination of content analysis for eight major newspapers, two public opinion surveys and a document analysis affiliated to the main four political parties. The analysis of the Palestinians and Israelis’ perspective of the conflict and the peace process revealed that the actual conflict has three main dimensions: First, the struggle between individuals, which is full of self-contradictions, as each party describes a conflict in a way different than the other. It is a conflict, in which the past and present of the two sides of the conflict are different - the bitter past itself with different narratives, yet the motives are the same but conducive to different results. Whereas each party is blaming the other on these three levels, the conflict is rooted in different forms, but intertwined with one another. Both nations differ entirely in prioritizing the core issues of the conflict. For example, the study reveals that for Palestinians the issue of Jerusalem ranks first, followed by the issue of releasing of prisoners. The issue of the refugees ranks third, and paradoxically recognizing Israel as a Jewish state ranks last according to Palestinians. As for the Israelis, the issue of security and safety ranks first, the recognition of the Jewishness of their state ranks second, followed by the issue of Jerusalem that comes in the third place, whereas and at loggerheads with the Palestinians’ aspirations, the establishing of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders ranks last on their part. The same applies to the proposed solutions of the conflict. The future is fuzzy, and everyone sees the most appropriate solutions that fit their own interest, as a part of the zero-sum game. Both peoples yearn for peace, and both peoples are tired and bored of the conflict, but the majority in both sides, however, are not willing to make concessions towards this end and consequently are not optimistic in reaching peace in the near future. Furthermore, each party does not view the political leadership of the other party as a partner for peace. Secondly, a media conflict, where the analysis illustrates a similarity in the issues raised in the Palestinian and Israeli newspapers, but there were distinct statistical differences in the extent of coverage and in the display of those issues and their interpretation between the Israeli and Palestinian media, the matter which is clearly reflects on the individuals’ view on the causes of the conflict, its consequences and solutions. Regarding the third level of the conflict i.e. the conflict between political leaders and parties, a strong statistical relationship has been established between political affiliation to a particular party and the perspective of both, the Palestinian and Israeli peoples, on the most significant issues of the conflict. This is reflected in the homogeneity degree of the priorities of the parties and political leaders in the analysis of documents and media, in the analysis of the content with the order of priorities in the Palestinian and Israeli mindset. The statistical results have particularly shown a strong reciprocal correlation between the angles of this triangle. The relationship boosts wrong inherited notions and beliefs, which necessitates their eradication and adoption of new strategies on the part of political stakeholders. In that case, the media will publish them in a positive way that serves the peace process and bring the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to an end. Finally, on the basis of the results and conclusions of this dissertation a model was developed that illustrated how these interactions frame realities into new realities that let the peace process sink even more day by day.

This dissertation poses a set of six questions about one of the Israel Lobby’s particular components, a Potential Christian Jewish coalition (PCJc) within American politics that advocates for Israeli sovereignty over “Judea and Samaria” (“the West Bank”). The study addresses: the profiles of the individuals of the PCJc; its policy positions, the issues that have divided it, and what has prevented, and continues to prevent, the coalition from being absorbed into one or more of the more formally organized components of the Israel Lobby; the resources and methods this coalition has used to attempt to influence U.S. policy on (a) the Middle East, and (b) the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular; the successes or failures of this coalition’s advocacy and why it has not organized; and what this case reveals about interest group politics and social movements in the United States. This dissertation follows the descriptive-analytic case-study tradition that comprises a detailed analysis of a specific interest group and one policy issue, which conforms to my interest in the potential Christian Jewish coalition that supports a Jewish Judea and Samaria. I have employed participant observation, interviewing, content analysis and documentary research. The findings suggest: The PCJc consists of Christian Zionists and mostly Jews of the center religious denominations. Orthodox Jewish traditions of separation from Christians inhibit like-minded Christians and Jews from organizing. The PCJc opposes an Arab state in Judea and Samaria, and is not absorbed into more formally organized interest groups that support that policy. The PCJc’s resources consist of support and funding from conservatives. Methods include use of education, debates and media. Members of the PCJc are successful because they persist in their support for a Jewish Judea and Samaria and meet through other organizations around Judeo-Christian values. The PCJc is deterred from advocacy and organization by a mobilization of bias from a subgovernment in Washington, D.C. comprising Congress, the Executive branch and lobby organizations. The study’s results raise questions about interest group politics in America and the degree to which the U.S. political system is pluralistic, suggesting that executive power constrains the agenda to “safe” positions it favors.

Under våren 2021 trappades spänningarna mellan Israel och Palestina ännu en gång upp och sociala medier frodades av politiska budskap. Israel-Palestina-konflikten är ett omdebatterat ämne men det saknas ofta ett religionsvetenskapligt perspektiv för att öka förståelsen för konflikten, specifikt synen på Israel och judar/judendomen. Syftet med denna studie är att kritiskt undersöka vilka inlägg som delas på Instagram av två muslimska influensers (Bella Hadid och Isabella Podesta) och hur de använder sina plattformar för att sprida information och uppmana till aktivism kring Israel-Palestina-konflikten. Metoden som användes var kvalitativ innehållsanalys och ett kodschema infogades för att granska de termer som förekom iinfluensernas Instagramstorys samt i vilken utsträckning. Teorin som applicerades på resultatet och i diskussion var religiopolitik. Sammanfattningsvis kan man se att Instagraminläggen som de muslimska influenserna Hadid och Podesta sprider på Instagram kring termerna apartheid, folkmord och antisionism i förhållande till Israel-Palestina-konflikten främst bidrar med avhumanisering och ett onyanserat perspektiv. Genom avhumaniseringen bidrar man med en negativ syn på Israel och i längden en negativ syn på judar och judendomen.Termerna apartheid, antisionism och folkmord användes okritiskt och med en ovetenskaplig grund vilket kan resultera i att förståelse kring konflikten snarare minskar än ökar. Andra termer som ofta förekom var ´Free Palestine´ och inlägg som berörde barns lidande vilket kan vara en grund till framtida forskning kring Israel-Palestina-konflikten. / In the spring of 2021, tensions between Israel and Palestine escalated once again and social media flourished with political messages. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a controversial topic and there is often a lack of a religious perspectives to increase understanding of the conflict, specifically the view of Israel and Jews/Judaism. The purpose of this study is to critically examine the posts shared on Instagram by two Muslim influencers (Bella Hadid and Isabella Podesta) and how they use their platforms to spread information and encourage activism surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The method used was qualitative content analysis and a code-schema was inserted to examine the terms that appeared in the influencers' Instagram stories as well as to what extent. Religiopolitical theory was applied to the results and the discussion. In summary, the Instagram posts that the Muslim influencers Hadid and Podesta spread on Instagram surrounding the terms apartheid, genocide and anti-Zionism in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, mainly contribute to dehumanization and a lessernuanced perspective. Dehumanization contributes to a negative view of Israel and, in the long run, a negative view of Jews and Judaism as well as Zionists. The terms apartheid, anti-Zionism and genocide were used uncritically and with an unscientific basis, which may result in a decreased understanding of the conflict rather than an increased understanding. Other terms that often occurred, as per the code-schema, were ´Free Palestine´ and posts that concerned children's suffering, which may be a basis for future research regarding the Israeli-Palestinianconflict.

Autoscopy is a poetry collection that constellates together the speaker's ancestral experience of Jewish diaspora and genocide, the ongoing oppression and genocide of Palestinians, and the anti-Black racism that led to the police-murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In all, the speaker is at once close and far from what they witness, both personally impacted and implicated by their witnessing. In documentary, translation, prayer, elegiac, confessional, and experimental modes, these poems locate the possibility and need for a reimagined mode of kinship, using diasporic and queer desire as a means of reparation. / Master of Fine Arts / Autoscopy is a poetry collection.

This study politicizes the mixed relationship in Israeli-Palestinian literature. I examine Arab-Jewish and interethnic Jewish intimacy in works by Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish, canonical Israeli novelist A. B. Yehoshua, select anthologized Anglophone and translated Palestinian and Israeli poetry, and Israeli feminist writer Orly Castel-Bloom. I also examine the material cultural discourses issuing from Israel’s textile industry, in which Arabs and Jews interact. Drawing from the methodology of twentieth-century Brazilian miscegenation theorist Gilberto Freyre, I argue that mixed intimacies in the Israeli-Palestinian imaginary represent a desire to restructure a hegemonic public sphere in the same way Freyre’s Brazilian mestizo was meant to rhetorically undermine what he deemed a Western cult of uniformity. This project constitutes a threefold contribution. I offer one of the few postcolonial perspectives on Israeli literature, as it remains underrepresented in the field in comparison to its Palestinian counterparts. I also present the first sustained critique of the hetero relationship and the figure of the hybrid in Israeli-Palestinian literature, especially as I focus on its representation for political options rather than its aesthetic intrigue. Finally, I reexamine and apply Gilberto Freyre in a way that excavates him from critical interment and advocates for his global relevance.

This essay focuses on analyzing the rhetoric concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in opinion pieces in the Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter in 1988. This is done using a qualitative analysis method. The theoretical basis for the essay is primarily founded on postcolonial theory and in particular on Edward Said’s claim that Israel is a new example of European colonialism. The aim is to determine how the authors of the opinion pieces, using certain rhetoric, portray Israel and the Palestinians/PLO in relation to their position of power. The justification and condemnation of violence between the parties will also be examined. The results show that the pro-Israeli authors tend to use the Jews’ history of persecution and suffering as a justification for the existence of Israel. Also, they argue that Israeli violence is a form of self-defense as a result of Arab intransigence and violence. The more pro-Palestinian authors tend to portray Israel as a violent and oppressing regime, and in some cases adhere to the view on the state as an example of European colonialism.

Il primo secolo di storia della Franciscan Printing Press, tipografia francescana nata a Gerusalemme nel Convento di San Salvatore nel 1847, è stato suddiviso in quattro fasi, corrispondenti alle quattro parti della tesi di dottorato "Comunicare la fede: il fondamentale contributo della tipografia francescana di Gerusalemme (1847-1947). Un secolo di storia". La parte iniziale (che copre il triennio 1847-1850) è dedicata alle intricate vicende che hanno portato alla fondazione della stamperia, dal ristabilimento del Commissariato Generale di Vienna fino alla pubblicazione del primo vero volume, un Catechismo in arabo ed in italiano ad uso dei fedeli di Terra Santa del 1847. La seconda sezione si concentra su un periodo enormemente innovativo (1850-1879) e, al tempo stesso, gravemente critico. Dopo una ricognizione circa i nuovi strumenti in uso nell’officina (dal torchio d’accidente a quello litografico, passando per la creazione di un laboratorio per la fusione di caratteri tipografici), sono stati analizzati i nove anni (1865- 1874) più incerti della stamperia, in cui i francescani rischiarono a più riprese di perdere il possesso dell’officina. La terza sezione racconta una fase, quella tra 1879 e 1898, più tranquilla e stabile della precedente, ma non meno ricca di avvenimenti: tanti sono stati gli sforzi, in questo tempo, per disciplinare la FPP, uniformandola alle officine europee. I dati raccolti su questo periodo consentono anche una indagine della struttura sociale-culturale della Palestina di fine Ottocento. La quarta e ultima parte documenta, in fine, un periodo decisamente più lungo dei precedenti, che ha avuto inizio nel 1899 e si è concluso dopo la Seconda Guerra Mondiale, con la nascita dello Stato d’Israele. Cinquanta anni (o quasi), segnati da grandi e gravi sconvolgimenti politici, in cui la tipografia francescana è riuscita sempre a configurarsi come istituzione pacifica e costruttiva, mai polemica. Nel ricostruire i primi cento anni di attività di una tipografia che è casa editrice e insieme opera missionaria, e che ha anche il merito di essere stata la prima a stampare in arabo in tutta la Palestina, si può facilmente scadere nel racconto agiografico, nell’estremizzazione del lato sociologico. Contro il rischio di una lettura ideologica delle fonti si è quindi operata una scelta storiografica particolare, dettata dalla volontà di far parlare in prima persona gli attori che hanno vissuto concretamente tutte le fasi della stamperia francescano-gerosolimitana nel suo primo secolo di attività. Per questo motivo, all’interno della tesi, viene dato ampio spazio a due tipi di documenti, librari e archivistici (che occupano pure un’appendice dedicata in fine di ogni sezione). Per rendere più agevole la fruizione degli argomenti trattati, che coniugano la ricerca storica secondo il proprium della storia del libro, si poi è scelto di accompagnare il testo con fotografie inedite di libri, documenti d’archivio e attrezzi di stampa originali della Franciscan Press, ritrovati (tanto fortunatamente quanto fortuitamente) in un deposito sotterraneo del Convento di San Salvatore. / The first century of history of the Franciscan Printing Press, a Franciscan printing house established in Jerusalem at St. Saviour's Convent in 1847, has been divided into four phases, corresponding to the four parts of the doctoral dissertation “Communicating the Faith: the fundamental contribution of the Franciscan Printing Press in Jerusalem (1847-1947). A Century of History”. The initial part (that covers the three-year period 1847-1850) is dedicated to the intricate events that led to the founding of the printing house, from the re-establishment of the General Commissariat in Vienna to the publication of the first volume, a Catechism in Arabic and Italian for the use of the worshippers of the Holy Land in 1847. The second section focuses on an enormously innovative and critical period (1850-1879). After a survey of new and old tools used in the typography, the section focuses on nine years (1865-1874), in which the Franciscans risked several times to lose the possession of their Franciscan Printing Press. The third section covers a less complicated period, between 1879 and 1898: many efforts were made during this time to discipline the FPP, bringing it into line with European workshops. The data collected also allow an investigation of the social-cultural structure of Palestine at the end of the Nineteenth Century. The fourth and last part is focused on a longer period, started in 1899 and ended after the Second World War, with the birth of the State of Israel. Fifty years marked by great political upheavals, in which the Franciscan printing house always managed to configure itself as a peaceful and constructive institution.