Organized Panel: The Contentious Politics of Palestine and Israel Solidarity in Germany: Protest Dynamics, Public Perceptions and Institutional Responses
Panel Organizers: Jannis Grimm, Lilian Mauthofer, Thaddäa Sixta & Elias Steinhilper
The October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and the subsequent on-going Israeli war on Gaza have sparked a wave of contention around the globe. In Germany, responses have been particularly polarized and contested. On the one hand, solidarity with Israel received widespread support by governmental bodies, public media and parts of civil society. On the other hand, the manyfold expressions of solidarity with Palestine by civil society organizations and migrant communities have been met with heavy repression. Protests have been banned, academic lectures and art performances cancelled and even citizenship laws tightened. Despite being one of the most contentious issues in German politics, social research and particularly social movements research on the issue remains scarce.
In our panel at this year’s conference of the Institute for Protest and Social Movement Studies (ipb) we thus aim to take stock of the state of empirical research on Palestine and Israel solidarity during a period of heightened contention in Germany.
We particularly invite contributions addressing the following issues:
- Spatial and temporal patterns of protest and other forms of solidarity
- Public perceptions and medial portrayals of protests and other forms of solidarity
- Policing and repression of protest
- Courts as contentious arenas and legal organizing
- Transnational links and differences of Palestine and/or Israel solidarity
- Contentious interactions and boundary-spanning of Palestine and Israel solidarity
- Cross-movement mobilization and alliance building within the context of the Gaza war
The deadline for submitting paper proposals to organized panels is May 15, 2025. Proposals can only be submitted via the online platform (http://unihb.eu/ipb_conference_2025). Please indicate the panel title and panel chairs in your submission.
We look forward to your proposals,
