Atalia Omer

This article examines a decolonial approach to teaching a course on Palestine/Israel involving experiential travel to the region. A decolonial syllabus studies absences, erasures, the multiple intersecting mechanisms and matrices of violence, and alternative futures as they inhabit subordinated pasts (histories) and the present in various activist spaces. We expand on other decolonial learning-in-context by underscoring the need for religious literacy. This is especially urgent because the land is a destination for apocalyptic, messianic, and birthright tourism designed to confirm and reinforce people’s redemptive scripts and fantasies about the land. The objective of the decolonial approach is not “metaphorical.” It is to dismantle the oppression of Palestinians, institute mechanisms for restorative justice, and draw ethical political maps. It is also hermeneutical, denoting the urgent need to dezionize Jewish consciousness. This article centers on those dimensions of our work that engage with pathways for decolonial Jewish political ethics in Palestine.

Jewish critique of Zionism is not an abstract exercise, but one that is also, and necessarily, about Palestinians and sociopolitical realities in Palestine/Israel, where Zionist sovereignty defines the space in its entirety. This article traces sites of Jewish Israeli decolonial restorative justice potential and argues that some interventions that appear restorative, in effect, obscure and normalize historical injustices. Accordingly, a spectrum of Jewish critics posit Zionism as a form of Jewish "moral exile" or "moral transgression," and they seek Jewish authenticity to return "home" ethically. I argue that, to the degree that restorative justice practices are missing from ethical Jewish reflections on Zionism and Israelism, the sources of such Jewish critiques of Zionism remain diasporic. Focusing on the potentials of Jewish Israeli restorative justice, including those articulated by the feminist organization Zochrot and the petition of Jewish Israelis against Israeli apartheid propelled by the escalation of violence in May 2021, offers a pathway for unsettling and troubling the diasporic as the primary Jewish source of an ethical critique of Israelism as the idolatry of the Jewish State and as Zionism's imbrication in a settler colonial paradigm.

Religion can be good and bad. For too long, the field of religion and peace has repeated this argument, cogently articulated by R. Scott Appleby in his field shaping The Ambivalence of the Sacred. It is time to examine whether there are other arguments to be made. The field of religion and peace is multifaceted and has grown exponentially in recent decades, primarily by enhancing various sites of policy making to mobilize “good” religion more effectively for its utility while devising more complex mechanisms to contain “bad” religion. This is not a bad development in and of itself and many actors populating the religion and peace spaces of practice do a lot of good in the world. However, without also subjecting the field to critique of its basic operative categories of analysis, the field in its various nodes will remain just that: practice, without reflection to recall Paolo Freire’s critical pedagogical approach to transforming the world.

Religion can be good and bad. For too long, the field of religion and peace has repeated this argument, cogently articulated by R. Scott Appleby in his field-shaping The Ambivalence of the Sacred. It is time to examine whether there are other arguments to be made. The field of religion and peace is multifaceted and has grown exponentially in recent decades, primarily by enhancing various sites of policy making to mobilize “good” religion more effectively for its utility while devising more complex mechanisms to contain “bad” religion. This is not a bad development in and of itself and many actors populating the religion and peace spaces of practice do a lot of good in the world. However, without also subjecting the field to critique of its basic operative categories of analysis, the field in its various nodes will remain just that: practice, without reflection to recall Paolo Freire’s critical pedagogical approach to transforming the world.

This book tackles the assumptions behind common understandings of religious nationalism, exploring the complex connections between religion, nationalism, conflict, and conflict transformation. * Speeches of political and religious leaders * Chronologies of conflicts in such places as Israel-Palestine, Sri Lanka, and the former Yugoslavia

In this article, I contend that exploring the divergences between "homeland" and "diasporas" could facilitate the proliferation of loci of analysis and foci of peacebuilding efforts which are yet underexplored both in Peace Studies and specific scholarship on diasporas and conflict. I therefore suggest that imagining, identifying, cultivating, and mobilizing alternative conceptions of a national identity could (1) serve to enrich the scope of diplomacy (especially as it relates to the engagement of religious, cultural, and national communities as highlighted in the Task Force on the role of religion in world affairs), (2) expand the scope of peacebuilding, and (3) connect the study of immigration and multiculturalism to international relations.

Abstract The article interrogates the assumptions and arguments proposed by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd in Beyond Religious Freedom and her contribution in the present issue of the JRPP. Hurd destabilizes and historicizes the universal claims of the discourse of religious freedom, rendering it an instrument of domination and manipulation. The article critiques this approach for its power reductionism toward religion as a category. Engaging Hurd’s heuristic formulations of ‘governed’, ‘expert’ and ‘lived’ religion, as well as Hurd’s ‘two faces of faith’ framework, the article offers counter-arguments developed from the perspective of religious peacebuilding and broader constructive approaches to change processes and conflict transformation. It is argued that Hurd’s analysis of the instrumentalization of religion in ‘expert’ and ‘governed’ policy domains lacks a recognition of the hermeneutical contestation extant in religious traditions and motivations, and the internal pluralities of religion that this contestation involves. Hurd’s critique offers a prism through which to elucidate our examination of some discursive traps underpinning the language of the promotion of religious freedom. However, the practices, actors, and meanings understood in the praxis of interfaith peacebuilding stand as tangible examples of constructive religious agency that challenge the assumptions underpinning Hurd’s project as a whole.

Through developing of the concept of hitmazrehut, the article highlights avenues for decolonializing and de-orientalizing sociopolitical theory and practice in Israel/Palestine. Hitmazrehut (literally ‘becoming of the East’) is understood as the transformation of relations between space, identity, and narrative through an intersectionality framework of social movement activism and intellectual counter-discourse. Exposing the intersections among sites of marginality as well as cultivating localized interpretations of identity (delinked from the orientalist positing of Israel in the ‘West’) would contribute to the possibility of the formation of transformative coalition building across national boundaries. Hitmazrehut is both an outcome and a necessary process for enabling geopolitical reframing. The article begins with the ahistorical and orientalist biases of sociological inquiry into the region. It continues with an analysis of efforts to localize and re-orient Jewish identity as w...

This collection of articles contributes to the growing body of research on how technology is affecting peacebuilding, peace and conflict studies, and research methodologies in the field. Assumptions about the use of technology for peace are interrogated, such as the purported deepening of inclusivity and widening of participation that technology provides to peacebuilders and communities. It frames the discussion from a peace-focused perspective, providing a response to the work done by others who have focused on the ways technology makes violence more likely. This supports a holistic discussion of the ways that technology can have an impact on contentious social and political processes. By expanding the base of knowledge about how technology can be used for peace and violence, we hope this collection increases the understanding of the circumstances under which technology amplifies peace.

Preface Atalia Omer Part One: Mapping the Field 1. Atalia Omer, "Religious Peacebuilding: The Exotic, the Good, and the Theatrical" 2. R. Scott Appleby, "Religious Violence: The Strong, the Weak, and the Pathological" Part Two: The Historical and the Historicist 3. David Little, "Religion, Peace, and the Origins of Nationalism" 4. Scott Hibbard, "Religion, Nationalism, and the Politics of Secularism" 5. Slavica Jakelic, "Secular-Religious Encounters as Peacebuilding" 6. Jason Springs, "Structural and Cultural Violence in Religion and Peacebuilding" Part Three: Contested Issues 7. R. Scott Appleby, "The New Name for Peace? Religion and Development as Partners in Strategic Peacebuilding" 8. Patrick Mason, "Violent and Nonviolent Religious Militancy" 9. Rashied Omar, "Religious Violence and State Violence" 10. John Kelsay, "Peacebuilding and the Comparative Study of Ethics" 11. W. Cole Durham, Jr. and Elizabeth A. Clark, "The Place of Religious Freedom in the Structure of Peacebuilding" 12. Susan Hayward, "Women, Religion, and Peacebuilding" Part Four: Peacebuilding in Practice: Strategies, Resources, Critique 13. Daniel Philpott, "Reconciliation, Politics, and Transitional Justice" 14. Marc Gopin, "Negotiating Secular and Religious Contributions to Social Change and Peacebuilding" 15. Tim Shah, "Secular Militancy as an Obstacle to Peacebuilding" 16. Peter van der Veer, Tam Ngo, and Dan Smyer Yu, "Religion and Peace in Asia" 17. S. Ayse Kadayifci-Orellana, "Peacebuilding in the Muslim World" 18. Eboo Patel and Cassie Meyer, "Youth and Interfaith Conflict Transformation" 19. Peter Ochs, "The Possibilities and Limits of Interreligious Dialogue" 20. Lisa Schirch, "Ritual, Religion, and Peacebuilding" 21. John Paul Lederach, "Spirituality and Religious Peacebuilding" 22. Heather M. DuBois and Janna Hunter-Bowman, "The Intersection of Christian Theology and Peacebuilding" 23. Cecilia Lynch, "Religious Communities and Possibilities for Justpeace" 24. Atalia Omer, "Religion, Nationalism, and Solidarity Activism" Part Five: The Growing Edge of the Conversation 25. Atalia Omer "Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding: Synthetic Remarks" Index

Israel’s Palestinians: The Conflict Within by Ilan Peleg and Dov Waxman constitutes an important intervention in the generally overlooked discussion of the critical relations between the question of the status of the Palestinian citizens of Israel and the broader conflict with the Palestinians. The authors resist entirely separating the two fronts of contestations, illuminating cultural, historical, and national continuities between the Palestinians within and without the 1948 borders and thus indicating potentially detrimental ramifications for any negotiated settlement of the broader Palestinian–Israeli conflict on majority–minority relations within the Israeli nation-state. On the other hand, the authors underscore the distinctness of the struggles of Israeli and non-Israeli Palestinians, prescriptively insisting on retaining these fronts as distinct from one another. Indeed, Peleg and Waxman go as far as proposing a plan to relinquish Jewish hegemony over Israel within its 1948 borders in order to differentiate the internal and external fronts of Israel’s conflicts with the Palestinians. Merging the two battles would entail a “‘nightmare scenario,”’ they conclude (230). This conclusion informs the book, both its descriptive and prescriptive parts. Therefore, what may appear as a radical proposal to redefine Israel in non-hegemonic terms is, in effect, a pragmatic conservative move, reinforcing Jewish-Zionist agenda in otherwise dynamically changing political, social, cultural, and geopolitical topographies.

The state of Israel is often spoken of as a haven for the Jewish people, a place rooted in the story of a nation dispersed, wandering the earth in search of its homeland. Born in adversity but purportedly nurtured by liberal ideals, Israel has never known peace, experiencing instead a state of constant war that has divided its population along the stark and seemingly unbreachable lines of dissent around the relationship between unrestricted citizenship and Jewish identity. By focusing on the perceptions and histories of Israel's most marginalized stakeholders - Palestinian Israelis; Arab Jews, and non-Israeli Jews - Atalia Omer cuts to the heart of the Israeli-Arab conflict, demonstrating how these voices provide urgently needed resources for conflict analysis and peace building. Navigating a complex set of arguments about ethnicity, boundaries, and peace and offering a different approach to the renegotiation and reimagination of national identity and citizenship, Omer pushes the conversation beyond the bounds of the single narrative and toward a new and dynamic concept of justice - one that offers the prospect of building a lasting peace.

This essay rejoins Merinda Simmons’s protection of Russell McCutcheon’s critic vs. caretaker dichotomy in her response to my “Can a Critic be a Caretaker Too? Religion, Conflict and Conflict Transformation” (JAAR 2011). While Simmons aims to preserve McCutcheon’s binary as a purportedly benignly unavoidable opposition, I expose the perils of epistemic anti-realism at the heart of that dichotomy, as well as the fetishizing of discourse analysis and ignorance of real world cases which hold this would-be field defining dogma in place.

Abstract
Based on extensive field work focused on interreligious peacebuilding practices in Kenya and the
Philippines, this article argues that decolonial accounts of peacebuilding, in line with decolonial
interventions in the study of religion, remain captive to the task of epistemological undoing and
thus insufficiently relevant to the precarious lives of many invisibalized people in the global South.
The question is whether decolonial thinking in the study of religion and theology should concern
itself with such pertinence. I first examine the colonial legacy of “peace” and key features of
decolonial interventions in the modernist, civilizational, and developmentalist discourses within
which “peace” is embedded. Next, I analyze how interreligious peacebuilding practices both
entrench coloniality while improving the lives of people who engage in such practices and how
such practices rely on thin or “sticky notes” religiosity, deeply inconsistent with decolonial theologies and religiosity. Finally, I show how, on the ground, mere existence and overcoming hate
reside along a spectrum of decolonial politics

If the enduring takeaway from Scott Appleby’s Ambivalence of the Sacred  is that religion can be good and bad, it is unfortunately a diminished lesson. This binary misses the more robust potential of Appleby’s legacy, which encompasses peace studies, policy, the global engagement with religion, and development theory. The bureaucratization of religion and the emergence of a sphere of “religioncrats” point to a failure to appreciate Appleby’s engagement with prophetic religiosity and religious action. Revisiting the theoretical foundations of Appleby illuminates this potential for expanding the scope of theory and practice of religion and global politics.

This essay examines the relations between religion and nationalism by highlighting the existing scholarly approaches as well as the ways in which they might be further expanded into deeper engagements with the legacies of colonialism and race. The argument is that cross-fertilizing the religion and nationalist literature with critical race theories and the study of coloniality will provide explanatory frames and analytic tools to interpret the waves of right-wing populist nationalisms in Euro-America in the twenty-first century. In particular, the ways in which appeals to Christianity, Judeo-Christianity, or " civilizational " values participate in patterns of exclusion and inclusion through the mechanisms of sexual politics and human rights' instruments are studied as an opportunity to interrogate the interrelation between anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim rhetoric to the histories of colonialism and how they have under-girded the patterns of interactions between religion and the production, reproduction , and subversion of political national identities.