[Bar-Ilan University] Hagar Kotef: What Gender Studies Have to do With It? 1.1.15 Editorial Note Hagar Kotef (Gender Studies, Bar Ilan University), a veteran activist whose rather modest academic output was essentially in line with her a radical political agenda. As IAM noted, for most of her career she was preoccupied with writing about Machsom Watch, a group that monitors border checkpoints. After years of holding part-time positions, Kotef landed a tenure-track position at Bar Ilan’s Gender Studies. But her resolve to promote a political platform in the guise of academic work has not changed. Indeed, in an article co-authored with Merav Amir (an activist from Hebrew University, now at Queens University, Belfast), Kotef analyzes the Anarchists against the Wall. Her explanation for the link between gender studies and Anarchists against the Wall is beyond ingenious. Kotef claims that the Anarchists are “queers”- a term used by gays and lesbians who do not accept traditional gender identities. In the Israeli context, the queer community is identified with advanced pro-Palestinian positions. IAM reported on Kvisa Shchora (Black Laundry), the original queer group of Aeyal Gross, now professor of law at Tel Aviv University. However, the Anarchists against the Wall have never identified themselves as a queer group and neither did Kobi Snitz, one of their leaders. Beyond the question whether the Anarchists against the Wall are queer or not, there is a more serious problem. Kotef is part of a growing phenomenon of liberal arts scholars who use their positions to further a political agenda. The International Committee that evaluated the Department of Politics and Government at Ben Gurion University stated these academics tend to publish on marginal issues in non-mainstream outlets. The Committee recommended the Department hire mainstream scholars to avoid being closed down. The Bar-Ilan Gender Studies Program should have considered this recommendation before hiring Kotef. onlinelibrary.wiley/doi/10.1111/anti.12130/abstract Limits of Dissent, Perils of Activism: Spaces of Resistance and the New Security Logic Merav Amir1 and Hagar Kotef2,3 Author Information 1 School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queens University Belfast, Belfast, UK 2 Minerva Humanities Center, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel 3 Gender Studies Program, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel Email: Merav Amir ([email protected]), Hagar Kotef (hagarko@gmail) Article first published online: 2 DEC 2014 DOI: 10.1111/anti.12130 © 2014 The Author. Antipode © 2014 Antipode Foundation Ltd. Keywords: activism; Israel/Palestine; Anarchists Against the Wall; queer theory; critical security studies Abstract On 26 December 2003 an Israeli activist was shot by the Israeli Army while he was participating in a demonstration organized by Anarchists Against the Wall (AAtW) in the West Bank. This was the first time Israeli Soldiers have deliberately shot live bullets at a Jewish-Israeli activist. This paper is an attempt to understand the set of conditions, the enveloping frameworks, and the new discourses that have made this event, and similar shootings that soon followed, possible. Situating the actions of AAtW within a much wider context of securitization—of identities, movements, and bodies—we examine strategies of resistance which are deployed in highly securitized public spaces. We claim that an unexpected matrix of identity in which abnormality is configured as security threat render the bodies of activists especially precarious. The paper thus provides an account of the new rationales of security technologies and tactics which increasingly govern public spaces. On 26 December 2003, Gil Naamati, an Israeli citizen, was deliberately shot by the Israeli army while participating in a demonstration. Together with Anarchists Against the Wall—a Jewish-Israeli political action group working in solidarity and collaboration with Palestinians living along the route of the Separation Barrier—he was protesting against the construction of the barrier on the lands of the West Bank village of Masha. As a result of the shooting, Naamati was critically injured and almost died. It is not rare for civilians to be shot in the West Bank by the Israeli army, particularly if they are participating in acts of resistance.1 Dozens of unarmed civilians are shot every week by the Israeli army in the occupied Palestinian territories, and between October 2000 and June 2014 more than 1880 were killed in the West Bank alone.2 However, the vast majority of these casualties are not Israeli citizens, but Palestinians living in the occupied territory. More rare, but still occurring, are incidences in which Israeli citizens are shot and killed, yet these are Palestinians as well (the Arab citizens of the Jewish state) (see, for example, Farish and Tuema 2002; Globes 2002; Levinson 2010). Naamati, however, was an Israeli Jew, and moreover, a young, Ashkenazi man, freshly out of the army, a member of... ====================================================== gender.biu.ac.il/node/932 שנה א – יום שני סמסטר א שעה שם קורס מס קורס מרצה מקום 14-16 הגוף הפוליטי בחירה למסלול המחקרי 27-935-01 דר הגר קוטף בנין 902 חדר102 סמסטר ב שעה שם קורס מס קורס מרצה מקום 14-16 מתודולוגיות בפרשנות פמיניסטית קורס בחירה למסלול מחקרי 27-904-01 דר הגר קוטף בנין 604 חדר 13 מתודולוגיות בפרשנות פמיניסטית סמינריון למסלול מחקרי 27-904-02
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 18:50:15 +0000
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