Visioning Israel-Palestine

This rich volume introduces the inspiring neologism “visioning” to make the hyphen between Israel-Palestine a sign of bonding and correlation instead of its common perception as a sign of distance and separation. Chapter-by-chapter it brilliantly demonstrates Gil Pasternak’s conviction that the arts matter to the future of Israelis and Palestinians – a conviction which I share. * Mieke Bal, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands *
This innovative volume draws on a wide range of aesthetic sources to show how cultural products can review and reframe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We can then see that visual art, broadly understood, not only engages past trauma but also opens up possibilities for a more peaceful future. * Roland Bleiker, University of Queensland, Australia *
The title of this remarkable collection telegraphs its fundamental message. A hyphenated “state” (in the sense of an actual condition rather than a political entity) already exists in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. This state is a fragmented jigsaw puzzle of cooperation and conflict, inequality and co-presence that eludes all one-sided nationalist narratives, most notably the long-imagined “two state solution” which now belongs in the dustbin of history. Focusing on “cultural products” (images, texts, exhibitions, films, and stories), Visioning Israel-Palestine provides an account of contemporary experiences and encounters that promise to assemble this puzzle as a compellingly legible mosaic. * W. J. T. Mitchell, University of Chicago, USA *
The refreshing premise of this volume is the recognition that there exists an interculturality within Israeli and Palestinian works of art based on the conflict they share. ... Visioning Israel-Palestine succeeds in making clear that art and culture will remain central in chipping away at the ossified dash that has bound ‘Israel’ and ‘Palestine’ in conflict for over half a century. * Burlington Contemporary *