Organizing heterodoxies : the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition and the Israeli radical left, 1997-2000

• Main Author: Goldberg, Avrum
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: McGill University 2005
• Subjects: Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions; Peace movements > Israel; Israel > Politics and government > 1993-
• Online Access: http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=85164

Based on nineteen months of ethnographic field research in Israel/Palestine (including participant observation and in-depth interviews), this study presents an analysis of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD). First formed in 1997, it is a coalition of social movement organizations (SMOs) in the Israeli radical left peace and human rights movement. This project traces significant organizational, and wider movement, dynamics from the time of ICAHD's inception until the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada in September 2000. === While countless scholars investigate historical and contemporary aspects of the political conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, relatively little research attention is directed towards the efforts of Israeli and Palestinian activists towards conflict resolution. Following a brief description of the development of the Israeli peace movement, this study identifies and analyzes several mobilization issues relevant to organized activist forces in the Israeli radical movement in the final years of the Oslo peace process. === Building on recent collective action theories, this dissertation endorses analytical openness to the structuralist, rationalist, and culturalist dynamics of contentious politics. ICAHD members, as well as its organizational constituencies, are characterized by wide ideological and strategic heterogeneity, and in the first three years of its existence, this informal movement organization faced several overlapping strategic dilemmas. Investigating the historical and day-to-day dynamics of the committee, this study analyses various factors that influenced the strategic choices individual, and teams of, activists made during multiple types of mobilizations. By examining the impact of ICAHD's constituencies on how core leaders and activists engaged with dilemmas of organizational structure, strategic vision, inter-organizational alliances, mobilizing and funding opportunities, and overall goal selection, this dissertation identifies mechanisms (structural, organizational and cultural) that affected strategic decisions regarding mobilization, and outcomes of contentious politics. === The study concludes with a discussion of the relevance of its findings for the sociological study of collective protest. It suggests the extension of future research on these themes in more transnational and macro-theoretical directions.