Summary
Movement that, in Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine, began asking internationals to come to the West Bank and Gaza to serve as a protective presence for Palestinians under siege — the model of international presence from which contemporary solidarity tour organizers deliberately turn away, toward educational itineraries that educate internationals and then ask them to leave (Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine, PDF p.25-26).
Details
- Kelly contrasts ISM-style protective presence and direct action with solidarity tourism’s disciplined disruption of white savior narratives: guides rarely schedule Friday demonstrations and repeatedly remind tourists that Palestinians pay the price for confrontational activism (PDF p.25).
- Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins’s analysis of the ISM’s digital archives, as read by Kelly: ISM workers’ identification with Palestinians is a “prosthetic engagement” in which they see their own experience as an extension of Palestinians’ experience, identifying as “experiencing” occupation rather than acknowledging an identification with Israelis based on complicity in the occupation as US citizens; this allows them to deny their own privilege in their capacity to leave Palestine (PDF p.25).
- The 2003 murders of Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall made Israeli impunity against internationals clear and, in Kelly’s account, called for a reassessment of the role of internationals in Palestinian resistance movements (PDF p.26).
Related pages
Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine, Solidarity Tourism, Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall, Voluntourism