Main description:

This book explores the meaning of life for Israelis from communities bordering the Gaza Strip, whose lives are bound to the intractable conflict between Israel and the Hamas regime. Based on a psychosocial qualitative study of narrative interviews, photographs, YouTube videos, and Facebook posts created by residents, the book presents the life stories of ordinary people, their perspectives of patriotism and Zionism, and their perceptions of the Gazan Palestinians. Routine Emergency captures these perspectives through analyses of residents' interviews and photographs, the social media materials and poems fashioned from interviewees' words. The results challenge simplistic notions of what it means to live in this warzone, offering a multi-layered analysis of life in this region, which alternates between being Heaven and Hell. Written in a reader-friendly format, Routine Emergency, offers new theoretical insights into societal beliefs connected to living in an intractable warzone on the personal, family, community and national levels.

Contents:

Part 1: Introduction to the Study, History of the Region and Methodology.- Chapter 1. Otef Aza, the Israeli-Arab/PalestinianConflict and the War Relations with the Hamas Regime in the Gaza Strip.- Chapter 2. Methodology.- Part 2: Psycho-social Aspects of Living with the War and the Meaning of this Life for Otef Aza Residents.- Chapter 3.Psycho-social Aspects of Living with the War.- Chapter 4. Routine Emergency, Emergency Routine and War.- Chapter 5. I Am My Others' Keeper: Mutual Concern, Belonging, Volunteerism and Creation in the Otef.- Chapter 6. The State of the Western Negev versus the State of Israel.- Chapter 7. Life in the Otef - It's Complicated, Conflictual, Paradoxical.- Part 3: Patriotism, Zionism, and Interviewees' Perceptions of Self and Gazan Other.- Chapter 8. Patriotism and Zionism: A Review of the Literature.- Chapter 9. Otef Aza Residents' Understandings of Patriotism and Zionism.- Chapter 10. Otef Aza Residents Talk about the Gazans.- Part 4: Summary and Conclusions - Implications for Living with Intractable Conflicts and Thoughts about the Future.- Chapter 11. Summary, Discussion, and Conclusions.- Epilogue.