Ran Greenstein | The Gaza Solidarity Debates
Tuesday, 5 November, 2024 - 12:30
WISER and the Wits Sociology Department invite you to join us for a lunchtime seminar by Ran Greenstein
This will be a hybrid event. Please join us in the WISER seminar room (6th floor of the South Wing of the Richard Ward Building) or on Zoom.
This presentation looks at debates surrounding the events of October 2023 and subsequent developments in Israel/Palestine. It examines different perspectives on the Hamas attack and the Israeli military campaign against Gaza, with a focus on the role that notions of historical context, colonial rule, indigenous resistance, and the South African model, played in them. It does not deal with the military campaign itself, except as a background to intellectual and activist attempts to place developments in a proper context. These attempts mostly fall on the liberal-left side of the political spectrum, leaving aside mainstream Israeli and Palestinian perspectives. The presentation highlights arguments and positions that share some common - even if vague - foundation in progressive politics, despite their differences.
Ran Greenstein is a research associate in the School of Social Sciences at Wits University. His recent publications include Anti-Colonial Resistance in South Africa and Israel/Palestine: Identity, Nationalism, and Race (Routledge, 2023), and Confronting Colonialism and Race: Between Social Theory and Political Practice (forthcoming).
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