Abstract
This paper adopts an anthropological approach by looking at the role, work and influence of foreign NGOs—German political foundations and others—in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. It includes observations of all three major groups—Israelis, Palestinians as well as “internationals”—and their different perspectives and motivations. Nevertheless, the focus lies on the much-discussed Israeli perspective and its conflictual and multifaceted positions, which have been discussed at length both in Israel and in Europe.
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Notes
- 1.
In order to make this text more readable I will use NGO for NGOs and foundations.
- 2.
It needs to be noted that the right-wing AfD is still in the set up process (personal email, October 3, 2017).
- 3.
The definition of international in this paper is a non-Israeli, or non-Palestinian national or citizen, but a foreigner in the strictest legal sense.
- 4.
Breaking the Silences does not support BDS, but has been slandered with this allegation. The allegation puts it right in the ‘annihilation discourse’ outlined by Ian S. Lustick (2016).
- 5.
While it is beyond the scope of this paper, ‘right’ and ‘Jewish’ are concepts that would need to be unravelled carefully, as one can also be ‘left’ and ‘Jewish.’ Neither the extreme right, nor left, are known for their investments in plurality of opinion of democracy.
- 6.
The West is as much of a concept as the East, and these concepts would need as much unravelling as ‘right’, ‘left’ etc.
- 7.
This phenomenon can be observed concerning the debate between Israeli emigrants in Berlin, and Israelis who remained in Israel (Kranz 2016b).
- 8.
From my own experiences as an Israeli citizen abroad this notion holds regularly. To a fair amount of individuals it doesn’t matter what I say or do, I am judged by my categorical belonging. The same, ironically, holds for me being a German citizen. This to say while resentments towards Israelis are voiced candidly, any other categorical citizenship can be judged with as many prejudices; ‘Israeli’ and ‘German’ are by their mere history particularly charged.
- 9.
This is not to say that Europeans do not engage in similar strategies of keeping ‘their’ countries German, British, French, or Austrian, to name just a few examples. At the height of the so-called refugee crisis in the summer of 2015, chancellor Angela Merkel who had opened the German borders to refugees and announced “Wir schaffen das!” (We will succeed) in the Bundespressekonferenz (federal press conference) August 31, 2015. Under mounting political pressure, and in the light of an unprecedented rightward swing of the German electorate, she exclaimed September 7, 2016 “Deutschland wird Deutschland bleiben” (Germany will stay Germany). Nearly 13% of the German electorate felt she did not live up to his promise and voted for the AfD, which built its election campaign around migration and anti-Muslim/anti-Islam rhetoric. Aside from Merkel’s lines, in practical terms dual citizenship has become a very contentious issue, again underlining the desire for categorical clarity, and presumably allegiance. Historically this clarity went against Jews, at present it goes against Jews when citizenship restitution is rejected, but in most cases against Muslim immigrants and their descendants.
- 10.
The representative survey Generation Mitte (Generation Middle) depicts that the emotional state of Germans is not congruent with the actual state of the country (Allensbach 2016).
- 11.
I cannot over-emphasize the point that not all Israeli Jews or Jews abroad peer uncritically through this filter, that they are unaware of it, or subject to any kind of hegemonic discourses uncritically (Kranz forthcoming a). At the same time those foreigners who work in NGOs are specific as other foreigners might well feel in sync with the Israeli Jewish mainstream.
- 12.
The success of populist movements across Europe underlines this trend. Many of those dwell explicitly in Christianity as a marker of distinction between authentic Europeans and alien others (Kranz and Zubida forthcoming), singling out both Jews and Muslims (Yurdakul 2016).
- 13.
There are several places where my Palestinian friends and colleagues refuse to take me with them for safety reasons.
- 14.
ID cards in Israel and the Palestinians territories have distinct colours. Those of Israeli citizens and permanent residents are blue, residents of the West Bank have green ID cards.
- 15.
This notion directly relates to the unsettling issue of anti-Semitism existing regardless of what Jews or the State of Israel do. While both can and should be critically examined, it needs to be noted that anti-Semitism, like any other form of racism or hatred specific to social categories of human beings, exists regardless of deeds or facts about the object of resentment or hatred.
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Kranz, D. (2018). Foreign NGOs in Israel: An Anthropological Perspective. In: Abelmann, A., Konarek, K. (eds) The German Political Foundations' Work between Jerusalem, Ramallah and Tel Aviv . Edition ZfAS. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-20019-0_6
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