The Palestinian struggle, South Africans and Jewish Israelis

Crosslines between solidarity, faith, spirituality and agnosticism

Abstract

What role does religion play (or not play) in transnational activism in the context of prolonged violence? The narrow strip of land known as Palestine and Israel has special significance to three of the world's largest faith traditions - Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. The motivations of 21 South African and Jewish Israeli activists in support of the Palestinian struggle offer an inductive, contextual perspective on the interplay between differences in religiosity and shared aims and values in this context. These respondents to a case study in empirical ethics hold tensions of difference and yet navigate between religious and other existential orientations in their praxis of solidarity with the marginalised. The article discusses how and why the activists, despite their different convictions, share similar views of the positive and negative roles played by religion in the Palestinian struggle.