“Palestine Will Be Free”: What Slogans Mean to the Activists That Use Them

• In Event: Meaning, Identity, and Claim-Making in Palestine and Israel

Abstract

The Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on October 7, 2023 and the subsequent Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip have sparked unprecedented levels of protest and mobilization in the United States and around the world. The language, slogans, and discursive frames used by pro-Palestine protestors have elicited rhetorical and material responses and backlash from U.S. policymakers, academic and cultural institutions, and the private sector. While these interactions have fueled heated debates about free speech, racism, and security that get to the heart of democratic politics, they have largely overlooked how protesters themselves understand the terms and concepts that have been the subject of so much controversy. In this paper, we shed light on these understandings by drawing on an original survey of individual supporters of politically engaged organizations, who have participated in protest and other types of mobilization related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since October 7, 2023. Descriptive analysis of the data is used to generate an empirically informed understanding of the political beliefs and preferences of politically engaged individuals in both pro-Palestine and pro-Israel communities and their drivers, not only to better assess these specific episodes of mobilization but also to contribute to our broader understanding of the social psychology of protest and identity politics.

Authors

• Dana El Kurd, University of Richmond

• Yael Zeira, Syracuse University

• Diana Barbara Greenwald, City College of New York, CUNY