Tolerance Is a Wasteland: Palestine and the Culture of DenialHow denial sustains the liberal imagination of a progressive and democratic Israel. The question that this book aims to answer might seem simple: how can a violent project of dispossession and discrimination be imagined, felt, and profoundly believed in as though it were the exact opposite––an embodiment of sustainability, multicultural tolerance, and democratic idealism? Despite well-documented evidence of racism and human rights abuse, Israel has long been embraced by the most liberal sectors of European and American society as a manifestation of the progressive values of tolerance, plurality, inclusivity, and democracy, and hence a project that can be passionately defended for its lofty ideals. Tolerance Is a Wasteland argues that the key to this miraculous act of political alchemy is a very specific form of denial. Here the Palestinian presence in, and claim to, Palestine is not simply refused or covered up, but negated in such a way that the act of denial is itself denied. The effects of destruction and repression are reframed, inverted into affirmations of liberal virtues that can be passionately championed. In Tolerance Is a Wasteland, Saree Makdisi explores many such acts of affirmation and denial in a range of venues: from the haunted landscape of thickly planted forests covering the ruins of Palestinian villages forcibly depopulated in 1948; to the theater of "pinkwashing" as Israel presents itself to the world as a gay-friendly haven of cultural inclusion; to the so-called Museum of Tolerance being built on top of the ruins of a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem, which was methodically desecrated in order to clear the space for this monument to "human dignity." Tolerance Is a Wasteland reveals the system of emotional investments and curated perceptions that makes this massive project of cognitive dissonance possible. |
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actually affirmation American anti-semitism anti-Zionism Arabs i.e. argument Aviv Berman and Nelson boycott building chapter claim cleansing of Palestine Cohen colonial criticism culture democracy demolished denied East Jerusalem Eshchar ethnic cleansing European Eurovision forests forms of denial freedom gay rights Gaza Gehry Gehry's global Ha'aretz hasbara human rights identity indigenous institutions Israel Israeli army Israeli law Israeli policy Jerusalem Post Jewish and democratic Jewish National Fund Jews July Kamala Harris land landscape lesbian LGBTQ liberal Lucas Makdisi Mamilla Masalha Middle East Museum of Tolerance museum project Muslim Nakba Nelson and Berman non-Jews occlude organization Palestine Palestinian citizens Palestinian homes Palestinian presence Palestinian villages Photo by author pinkwashing political population queer Palestinians quoted racism repression scripted space settler settler-colonial Silwan South Africa specifically Tel Aviv tion towns tree planting United University values violence wall West Bank Zionist Zionist project