In the wake of continuing violence in Israel-Palestine, Sustaining Conflict examines how occupation, colonization, and domination are maintained not only through social sanction and popular support but also through the production of political apathy. Exploring the attitudes and experiences of self-defined leftist Jewish Israelis living in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem, Katherine Natanel reveals how political depression, disengagement, and inaction serve to normalize the reality of violence and control. However, rather than signaling a state of passivity or an absence of care, here apathy takes s ... More

In the wake of continuing violence in Israel-Palestine, Sustaining Conflict examines how occupation, colonization, and domination are maintained not only through social sanction and popular support but also through the production of political apathy. Exploring the attitudes and experiences of self-defined leftist Jewish Israelis living in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem, Katherine Natanel reveals how political depression, disengagement, and inaction serve to normalize the reality of violence and control. However, rather than signaling a state of passivity or an absence of care, here apathy takes shape as a form of active disengagement—a kind of hoping, trying, building, believing, knowing, relating, engaging, and acting oriented toward self-preservation. By shifting focus from violence to normalcy, Sustaining Conflict highlights how micro-political logics and social mechanisms maintain macro-political power in Israel-Palestine. Importantly, Natanel’s account argues that gender uniquely structures the expression and practice of apathy among leftist Jewish Israelis, sewing conflict deep into everyday life and shaping political action. Through a combination of ethnographic material, narrative, and political, cultural, and feminist theory, Natanel develops a groundbreaking theory that opens a new conversation about Israel-Palestine, one in which political apathy is taken seriously and regarded as significant to the future of the region.