Explosive: Scenes from Israel's gay occupation

GLQ

Volumn 16, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 517-536

  Stein, Rebecca L ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 78449292364     PISSN: 10642684     EISSN: 15279375     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/10642684-2010-002     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. Kyle Buchanan, "The Boys in the Bubble", Advocate, June 1, 2008, www.advocate.com/currentstory1-w-ektid48298.asp.
2. Daniel Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
3. Raz Yosef proposes that Fox's work has even gained the support of the mainstream Israeli establishment for precisely this reason ("The Politics of Normal: Gender and Nation in Gay Israeli Cinema" [in Hebrew], Teoriyah u-vikoret 30 [2007], 162).
4. Alisa Solomon, "Viva La Diva Citizenship: Post-Zionism and Gay Rights", in Queer Theory and the Jewish Question, ed. Daniel Boyarin, Daniel Itzkovitz, and Ann Pellegrini (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003).
5. Raz Yosef, Beyond Flesh: Queer Masculinities and Nationalisms in Israeli Cinema (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004), chap. 4.
6. Ella Shohat, Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987), 237-38.
7. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1978).
8. See also Shohat, Israeli Cinema, for a path-breaking analysis of the ways that Arab others, both Jews and Palestinians, are represented in Israeli cinema.
9. I have elaborated on the relationship between popular culture and politics in the Israeli and Palestinian contexts in Rebecca L. Stein, "Introduction: Popular Culture, Transnationality, and Radical History", in Palestine, Israel, and the Politics of Popular Culture, ed. Rebecca L. Stein and Ted Swedenburg (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), 1-26.
10. On symptomatic reading, see Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981). Jameson suggests that the critic's task is to pay attention to "terms or nodal points implicit in the ideological system which have, however, remained unrealized in the surface of the text" (48).
11. This essay is in dialogue with a growing literature on the relationship between sexuality and the nation-state in the context of Israel and Palestine. See Amal Amireh, "Between Complicity and Subversion: Body Politics in Palestinian National Narrative", South Atlantic Quarterly 102 (2003):747-72;
12. Daniel Boyarin, Daniel Itzkovitz, and Ann Pellegrini, Queer Theory and the Jewish Question (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003);
13. Adi Kuntsman, "Between Gulags and Pride Parades: Sexuality, Nation, and Haunted Speech Acts", GLQ 14 (2008):263-87;
14. Yaron Peleg, "Heroic Conduct: Homoeroticism and the Creation of Modern, Jewish Masculinities", Jewish Social Studies 13 (2006):31-58;
15. Ted Swedenburg, "Sa'ida Sultan/Danna International: Transgender Pop and the Polysemiotics of Sex, Nation, and Ethnicity on the Israeli-Egyptian Border", Musical Quarterly 81 (1997):81-108;
16. Yosef, Beyond Flesh. For a more general consideration of this terrain, see Andrew Parker, Mary Russo, Doris Sommer, and Patricia Yaeger, eds., Nationalisms and Sexualities (New York: Routledge, 1992).
17. For discussion of gay rights in the 1990s, see Alon Harel, "The Rise and Fall of the Gay Legal Revolution", Columbia Human Rights Legal Review 31 (2000):443-71;
18. Lee Walzer, Between Sodom and Eden: A Gay Journey through Today's Changing Israel (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000);
19. Aeyal Gross, "Challenges to Compulsory Heterosexuality: Recognition and Non-Recognition of Same-Sex Couples in Israeli Law", in Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Partnerships: A Study of National, European, and International Law, ed. Robert Wintemute and Mads Andenas (Oxford: Hart, 2001), 391-414.
20. Gross, "Challenges to Compulsory Heterosexuality."
21. Aaron Belkin and Melissa Levitt, "Homosexuality and the Israel Deflense Forces: Did Lifting the Gay Ban Undermine Military Performance?" Armed Forces and Society 27 (2001):543.
22. Not all scholars agree with this assessment. Reuven Gal argues that the "1983 regulation prohibiting the assignment of homosexuals to 'sensitive' positions was never fully implemented" ("Gays in the Military: Policy and Practice in the Israeli Deflense Forces", in Gays and Lesbians in the Military: Issues, Concerns, and Contrasts, ed. W. J. Scott and S. C. Stanley [New York: de Bruyter, 1994], 186).
23. Danny Kaplan, Brothers and Others in Arms: The Making of Love and War in Israeli Combat Units (New York: Harrington Park, 2003), 118.
24. For an English translation of the 1993 amendments, see Walzer, Between Sodom and Eden, 118-19.
25. Alon Harel, "Gay Rights in Israel: A New Era?" International Journal of Discrimination and the Law 1 (1996):261-78. The case was eventually heard in a Tel Aviv district court, acting as an IDF appeals committee. For more discussion of the case
26. see Walzer, Between Sodom and Eden, 136-40.
27. For further discussion, see Amit Kama, "From Terra Incognito to Terra Firma: The Logbook of the Voyage of Gay Men's Community into the Israeli Public Sphere", in Gay Community Survival in the New Millennium, ed. Michael R. Botnick (New York: Harrington Park, 2000), 133-62.
28. On gay soldiers in the Israeli army, see Eyal Gross, "Sexuality, Masculinity, Military, and Citizenship: Gay Military Service in the I. D. F. in Comparative View" (in Hebrew), Pelilim (2000):95-183.
29. On the gendered conditions of citizenship within the context of army service, see Dafina Izraeli, "Gendering Military Service in the Israel Deflense Forces", in A Soldier and a Woman: Sexual Integration in the Military, ed. Gerard J. De Groot and C. M. Peniston-Bird (New York: Pearson, 2000), 256-74.
30. Gershon Shafr and Yoav Peled, The New Israel: Peacemaking and Liberalization, (Boulder: Westview, 2000), 265-78.
31. Amila Hass, Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land under Seige (New York: Holt, 1996).
32. Maya Rosenfeld, Confronting the Occupation: Work, Education, and Political Activism of Palestinian Families in a Refugee Camp (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004);
33. Neve Gordon, Israel's Occupation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008).
34. Adrianna Kemp and Rebecca Raijman, Migrants and Workers: The Political Economy of Labor Migration in Israel (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ha-kibuts ha-meuhad, 2008).
35. On the status of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship within mainstream Israeli imaginations of this moment, see Rebecca L. Stein, Itineraries in Conflict: Israelis, Palestinians, and the Political Lives of Tourism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008).
36. At the time of its founding, Florentin lay within the municipal borders of Jaffa and contained a mixed population of Jews and Palestinian Arabs. Its eventual annexation by the municipality of Tel Aviv was the subject of considerable controversy. See Mark LeVine, Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel Aviv, and the Struggle for Palestine, 1880-1948 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 202-11.
37. For an account of the gentrification projects of the 1990s, see Daniel Sekel and Danielle Haas, "Florentin Flavor", Jerusalem Report (1998), 36-37.
38. During the 1990s, a group of community activists from Florentin, Kvutzat Peilim Florentin, organized to present their demands to the municipality.
39. Fox stopped directing Florentin in 1998, yet the series continued for a third and fourth season.
40. On the interplay between private and public in Fox's work, see Shai Ginsburg, "Between Sex and Country", Tikkun, May-June 2005, 73-77.
41. In interviews with the media, Fox has been clear about his support for military service: "Every Israeli man has his war.... Because it's an army of the people, everybody has to go. They [the army] will say, 'We don't care if you're gay. It's your duty.' Which I think is good. I don't think armies or the war situation is good, but if that's the case, everyone should participate"
42. (Sylvie Simmons, "Eytan Fox's 'The Bubble': A Gay Love Story in Israel", SF Gate, September 2, 2007, articles.sfgate.com/2007-0 9-02/enter tainm ent/17260 4 08-1-eytan-fox-tel-aviv-film-festival) F or a critica l reading of how lesbian and gay organizations in Israel have aligned themselves with the state
43. see Yael Benzvi, "Zionist Lesbianism and Transsexual Transgression: Two Representations of Queer Israel", Middle East Report 28 (1998):26-37.
44. For a history of the postarmy ritual of travel to India, see Darya Maoz, "The Conquerors and the Settlers: Two Groups of Young Israeli Backpackers in India", in The Global Nomad: Backpacker Travel in Theory and Practice, ed. Greg Richards and Julie Wilson (Buffalo, NY: Channel View, 2004), 109-22.
45. For greater discussion of the politics of Rabin memorial culture in Israel, see Stein, Itineraries in Conflict, 97-128.
46. The possibility of such an exemption did not conform with Israeli legal norms, but with de facto army practice. By law, "suspected homosexuals" could neither be barred from service nor be banned from the military's upper ranks during the 1990s.
47. Amnesty International, International Secretariat, Israel, the Price of Principles: Imprisonment of Conscientious Objectors (London: Amnesty International, International Secretariat, 1999).
48. Avram S. Bornstein, Crossing the Green Line between the West Bank and Israel (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002).
49. This theme of love across enemy lines was anticipated by Fox's Walk on Water (2004) with its depiction of a relationship between a Mossad agent and the German grandchildren of an ex-Nazi offcer, Axel and Pia. Save Axel's romantic interest in a resident of the occupied territories, Palestinians play no role in this film.
50. On racial passing in Israeli cinema, see Carol Bardenstein, "Cross/Cast: Passing in Israeli and Palestinian Cinema", in Stein and Swedenburg, Palestine, Israel, and the Politics of Popular Culture, 99-125;
51. Dorit Naaman, "Orientalism as Alterity in Israeli Cinema", Cinema Journal 40, no. 4 (2001):36-54. The Bubble's satire of Tel Aviv's insular café and club culture is the film's most successful political critique. This is the "bubble" to which the title of the film reflers-that is, Tel Aviv as a place seemingly insulated from politics.
52. Kobi Nahshoni, "Most Israelis Would Accept a Gay Child", Ynet, July 7, 2007, www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0, 7340, L-3420964, 00.html.
53. For one instance of this narrative, see Tovah Lazaroff, "Foreign Ministry Promoting Gay Israel", Jerusalem Post, October 26, 2006.
54. In rare instances, Israel has granted temporary residency permits to Palestinians seeking to join gay Israeli lovers. See "Israel Grants Permission for Gay Palestinian to Join Lover in Tel Aviv", Reuters, March 23, 2008.
55. This portrait of the Arab is relatively frequent in Israeli cinema. See Yosef, Beyond Flesh, 118-41.
56. The film was not shot in the occupied territories; rather, scenes of Palestinian life in Nablus were filmed in a Palestinian village within Israel where requisite permits were easier to acquire.
57. For an example of one such review, see Simmons, "Eytan Fox's 'The Bubble.' " Fox envisioned The Bubble as a tribute to his deceased mother, Sarah Kaminker, a leftwing city planner and elected member of the Jerusalem city council, who was in charge of planning Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and on whom the character of Noam's mother is modeled.
58. On the political context surrounding the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising, see Joel Beinin and Rebecca Stein, "Histories and Futures of a Failed Peace", in The Struggle for Sovereignty: Palestine and Israel, 1993-2005, ed. Joel Beinin and Rebecca L. Stein (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 1-26;
59. Sara Roy, "Why Peace Failed: An Oslo Autopsy", Current History: A Journal of Contemporary World Affairs 101 (2002):8-16.
60. For detailed discussion of how Israelis conceptualized the attacks of this moment, particularly those targeting cafés, see Stein, Itineraries in Conflict, 129-48.
61. The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem has published numerous studies of the separation barrier, with particular attention to human rights violations that have attended its construction and route. See B'Tselem, Under the Guise of Security: Routing the Separation Barrier to Enable the Expansion of Israeli Settlements in the West Bank (Jerusalem: B'Tselem/Bimkom, 2005).
62. Barak's campaign slogan drew on a spatial ideology on which Israel would capitalize in the next decade. There is a large geographic literature that discusses links between geography and power in the context of the occupation. See, for example, Eyal Weizman, Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation (London: Verso, 2007);
63. Oren Yiftachel, Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).
64. B'Tselem, Ground to a Halt: Denial of Palestinians' Freedom of Movement in the West Bank (Jerusalem: B'Tselem, 2007).
65. The barrier's effects were contradictory in this regard. See Dina Kraft, "Arabs Moving to Jewish Jerusalem", Jewish Telegraphic Agency, January 24, 2008, jta.org/news/article/2008/01/24/106587/jerusalem.
66. Even as the barrier blocked Palestinian movement into Israeli territory, it also obstructed Israeli views of the occupied territories in some places along its route. Alternative landscapes painted on the Israeli side of the barrier helped advance the fction of national geography liberated from territorial contiguity with its Palestinian neighbor.
67. See, for example, Yizhar Be'er, "The City and the Dogs: A Psychedelic Tour through Jerusalem's More Peculiar Districts", Huffington Post, July 30, 2009, www huffingtonpost com/ir-am im/the-city-and-the-dogs-a-p- b-247583htm l
68. Ayelet Shachar, "Whose Republic? Citizenship and Membership in the Israeli Polit y", Georgetown Immigration Law Journal 13 (1999):233-72.