Watch Palestine

Study day proposed by the Maghreb Middle East (MaMo) area and CESSMA's Axis 1 "Mobilities".
Vue d'un paysage d'habitations en Palestine avec en premier plan un mur
Regarder la Palestine © Damien Simonneau‎

The Maghreb Middle East area (MaMo) and CESSMA's Axis 1 "Mobilities" are joining forces to organize a study day on the ongoing tragedy in Palestinian and Israeli spaces, accentuated since October 7, 2023 by the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians, followed by Israel's war in the Gaza Strip.

The idea is not to draw up any kind of balance sheet (military, political, societal, regional) one year after this major event in the history of the confrontation between Palestinians and Israelis. On the contrary, the aim is rather to return to three central themes structuring this conflict, in order to consider the continuities and ruptures induced by October 7:

  • The first concerns the reception and resonance of what is unfolding in Gaza in other parts of the world to better consider why the Palestinian cause continues to be a central political demand elsewhere, the object of multiple politicizations and a test for the international legal system and multilateralism.
  • The second focuses on an inescapable political configuration of the conflict, namely control of the land and colonization of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It will consider the contours of this phenomenon, its actors and their penetration of the Israeli state, as well as opposing resistance.
  • The third addresses the multiple forms of dehumanization of the Other at work, including those of the Palestinian populations and particularly that of Gaza with a focus on its traumas, their dictability and recognizability as well as possible projections of rehumanization and coexistence in the future.

The aim of this one-day event is to take advantage of the specialists on the subject available at Inalco, CESSMA and universities and research centers in Paris and elsewhere, to bring them into dialogue, drawing on a variety of disciplinary and methodological anchors: such as the literary and cinematographic gaze, the sociology of social movements or the analysis of international relations. The format of the panels is that of 3-4 interventions, a moderation and an exchange with the room.

Program

  • 9h-9h30: welcome of participants.es and the public over coffee/tea
  • 9:30-10am: welcome and introductory remarks by the organizers
  • 10am-12pm: panel 1 - Palestine seen from elsewhere

How are other societies/movements seizing on this confrontation? Why does this war resonate so strongly in distant cultures and political systems? What does it say about international power relations and our relationship to armed violence?

Speakers:

  • Keiko SAKAI (Chiba University, Japan, online)
  • Kevin PARTHENAY (University of Tours, on Latin America)
  • Laetitia BUCAILLE (Inalco, Islamism and the Palestinian cause)
  • Ahmet INSEL (Galatasaray University and Paris 1 University on Turkey)

Moderation : Mériam CHEIKH (INALCO)

  • 12pm-1:30pm: lunch break
  • 1:30pm-3:30pm : panel 2 - An inescapable political configuration: Israeli colonization in political acts

In order not to situate the discussion solely on the type of colonialism in place in this space or its consequences, the panel intends to return with the sociology of social movements, society-state relations or the history of territoriality to the Israeli settler movement and its penetration of the state.

Intervenants:

  • Elsa GRUGEON (EHESS)
  • Caterina BANDINI (Université de Lille)
  • Youssef MNAILI (WiSER Institute, Wits University
  • Nitzan PERELMAN (Université Paris Cité)

Moderation: Damien SIMONNEAU (Inalco)

  • 3:30pm-3:45pm: coffee break
  • 3:45pm-5:45pm: panel 3 - DehumanizationS

To address the traumas experienced, particularly by the inhabitants of Gaza, the narration, demonstration and visibility of these, the fear of disappearing, the dehumanization of the Other, confinement and the impossible coexistence and projection into the future?

Intervenants:

  • Véronique BONTEMPS (EHESS)
  • Karim KATTAN (writer, PhD in comparative literature)
  • Francesco SEBREGONDI (Index)
  • Asja ZAINO (Inalco)

Moderation: Laetitia BUCAILLE (Inalco)

  • 5:45-6:00pm: break
  • 6:00-7:00pm: closing remarks by Didier FASSIN (Collège de France & Princeton University)
  • 7:00-7:45pm: aperitif

Provisional program subject to change.