Grief and rage: collective emotions in the politics of peace and the politics of gender in Israel

Abstract

Collective emotions of rage and grief dominate Israeli political discourses regarding the Middle East conflict. The weekly peace vigils of the Women in Black who protest the state's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the opposition which the vigils encounter, publicly display politicized collective emotions. In these weekly confrontations, grief and rage articulate intense contestations regarding the politics of peace as well as the politics of gender in Israel. Rage and grief unravel two drastically different visions of transcending national vulnerabilities and two disparate constructions of gender identity.