The mirror stage of movement intellectuals? Jewish criticism of Israel and its relationship to a developing social movement

Abstract

This article explores the strengths and limitations of movement intellectuals? theorisation of their movement and its terrain of activism. It looks at four published collections of Jewish writers critical of Israel and Zionism and asks how these books represent and defend a developing diaspora Jewish Israel-critical movement, and whether they manage to effectively theorise its terrain of activism. I argue that although these books offer some important purchase on the issues surrounding Israel/Palestine, through promoting the subjectivity of Jewish activists, and by being constrained by what is acceptable among mainstream Jewish thought, they efface the voice and presence of Palestinians, producing a partial understanding of the issue and the movement. I suggest that this may be due to the particular phase of this movement getting to know itself and its terrain of activism, which I characterise as its `mirror stage?.