Repeated attempts by activists and aid volunteers to break Israel's unilaterally recognized borders around Gaza have been most often met with violent resistance from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In this paper, I argue that “Freedom Flotilla”, the ninth attempt at challenging Israel's blockade of Gaza by sea, has been challenged through a delegitimization campaign leveled on the behalf of powerful Christian Zionists. This campaign of discursive dispossession has taken at least three strategic forms: (1) the performance of the doctrine of terra nullius; (2) a culture jamming counter-media project; and (3) a biblically based racialized division of the world. These Christian Zionist discourses are important to consider in understanding the conflict because they have effects that influence how the conflict is to be framed, as well as material effects, and because they resonate with Israel's increasingly powerful religious settler movement and culturally conservative Americans.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AbunimahA. (2010) “The Day the World became Gaza.”Al Jazeera English, 3 June.
2.
AgnewJ. (2005) “No Borders, No Nations: Making Greece in Macedonia.”Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 97(2) (2007), pp. 398–422.
3.
ShevaArutz (2010) “Helsinki Principles: Israel Was in the Right.”Arutz Sheva, 2 June.
4.
BarkunM. (2003) Culture of conspiracy: Apocalyptic visions in contemporary America.Berkeley: University of California Press.
5.
BarkunM. (2010) “The New World Order and American Exceptionalism.” In DittmerJ., SturmT. (eds.) Mapping the end times: American evangelical Christians and apocalyptic visions, pp. 119–132. Farnham: Ashgate.
6.
BayoumiM. (2010) “Introduction.” In BayoumiM. (eds.) Midnight on the Mavi Marmara: The attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and how it changed the course of the Israel/Palestine conflict, pp. 1–15. New York: O/R Books.
7.
Ben GurionD. (1964) The rebirth and destiny of Israel.New York: Philosophical Library.
8.
BernsteinD., and StraussJ. (2010) “An interview with Richard Falk: UN Human Rights Rapporteur blasts Israel.”Counterpunch, 3 June.
9.
BoyarinD. (1994) “Introduction.” In BoyarinD. (ed.) Remapping memory: The politics of timespace.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
10.
BrubakerR. (1996) Nationalism reframed: Nationhood and the national question in the new Europe.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
11.
BraunK. (2010) “Angels in uniform.”Israel Today, March, pp. 16–17.
12.
DayJ. (1968) International nationalism: The extra-territorial relations of Southern Rhodesian African nationalists.London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
13.
DukeM. E. (2009) “Pastor Hagee Donates $9 Million Dollars toward Humanitarian Causes in Israel.”Jewish Herald Voice, October 29.
14.
FiskR. (2010a) “The truth behind the Israeli propaganda.”The Independent, 5 June.
15.
FiskR. (2010b) “Fighting talk: The new propaganda.”The Independent, 21 June.
16.
GoldmanS. (2010a) “Clueless in Gaza: Why the Israeli voices of Dissent are just reaching us now?”Religion Dispatches, 6 June.
17.
GoldmanS. (2010b) Zeal for Zion: Christians, Jews, and the idea of the Promised Land.Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
18.
GregoryD. (2004) The colonial present: Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq.Malden: Blackwell.
19.
HeddingM. (2010) “The world's shameful response to the Mavi Marmara.”ICEJ News, 4 June.
20.
HermanD. (2001) “Globalism's ‘Siren Song’: The United Nations and international law in Christian Right thought and prophecy.”Sociological Review, 49(1), pp. 56–77.
21.
HitchcockM. (2009) The late great United States: What Bible prophecy reveals about America's last days.Colorado Springs: Multnomah
22.
HuntingtonS. (1993) “If Not Civilizations, What?”Foreign Affairs, Nov/Dec.
23.
ICEJ News (2010) “Duped Again by the Gaza Flotilla.”ICEJ News, 4 June.
24.
Israel Today (2010a) “Gaza aid flotilla an ‘ambush for Israeli soldiers”’Israel Today, 31 May.
25.
Israel Today (2010b) “Palestinians admit Gaza not starving, Hamas steals aid.”Israel Today, 7 June.
26.
KallaiZ. (1997) “The Patriarchal Boundaries, Canaan and the Land of Israel: Patterns and Application in Biblical Historiography.”Israel Exploration Journal, 47(1-2), pp. 69–82.
27.
KalmanM. (2009) “Huckabee's First 2012 Campaign Stop: Israel.”Time.com. 19 Aug.
28.
KhalidiR. (1997) Palestinian identity: The construction of modern national consciousness.New York: Columbia University Press.
29.
KoenigW. R. (2006) Eye to eye: Facing the consequences of dividing Israel.Phoenix, AR: About Him.
30.
KrishnaS. (1996) “Cartographic Anxiety: Mapping the Body Politic.” In AlkerH.Jr., and ShapiroM. (eds.), Challenging Boundaries: Global Flows, Territorial Identities.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 193–215.
31.
LevyA. (2010) “Prodigal Son: Is the wayward Republican Mike Huckabee now his party's best hope?”The New Yorker, 28 June.
32.
LiebermanJ. (2010) “Lieberman statement on the Gaza Flotilla incident.”Lieberman.senate.gov 3 June.
McCarthyJ. (1990) The population of Palestine: Population history and statistics of the late Ottoman period and the Mandate.New York: Columbia University Press.
35.
MedziniR. (2009) “Barak: No doubt IDF is most moral army in the world.”Ynetnews, 25 March.
36.
MerkleyP. (2001) Christian attitudes toward the State of Israel.Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
RaghavanS. (1995) “Richard J. Goldstone – A South African jurist takes on Balkan and Rwanda conflicts, seeking to punish war criminals”.Los Angeles Times, 14 March.
46.
RosenbergJ. (2006) Epicenter: Why the current rumbling in the Middle East will change your future.Carol Stream: Tyndale.
47.
RossingB. (2004) The rapture exposed: The message of hope in the Book of Revelation.New York: Basic Books
48.
RutenbergJ., McintireM., and BronnerE. (2010) “Tax-Exempt Funds Aid Settlements in West Bank.”New York Times, July 6.
49.
RyanJ. (2010) “Mike Huckabee on Israel: The Land and Peace.”Israel Today, March 2010, p. 6.
50.
SaidE. W. (1979) The question of Palestine.New York: Times Books.
51.
SchneiderA., and MordechaiS. (2010) “Peace activists of terrorists: The world's condemnation of Israel's deadly flotilla raid points to a distortion of reality.”Israel Today, July, pp. 3–5.
52.
SidawayJ. (2006) “On the nature of the beast: Re-charting political geographies of the European Union.”Geografiska Annaler B, 88(1), pp. 1–14.
53.
SmithB. (2010) “Biden solidifies defense of Israel.”Politico, 2 June.
54.
SojaE. (2010) Seeking spatial justice.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 40–41.
55.
SprinzakE. (1991) The ascendance of Israel's radical right.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
56.
SturmT. (2010) “Imagining apocalyptic geopolitics: American evangelical citationality of evil others.” In DittmerJ., SturmT. (eds.), Mapping the end times: American evangelical geopolitics and apocalyptic visions, pp. 133–154. Farnham, UK: Ashgate.
57.
SutterB. (2010) “Statement on Israel-Flotilla crisis.”Friends of Israel, 4 June.
58.
WeberT. P. (2004) On the road to Armageddon: How evangelicals became Israel's best friend.Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.
59.
World Food Program (2010) “Emergency Food Assistance for Operation Lifeline Gaza.”World Food Program.
