Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This event was organised by the UCL Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism.
Speaker: Dr. Manal Totry-Jubran (GCDC Visiting Academic, Bar Ilan University)
Commentators: Dr Julie Norman (UCL) , Prof Jeff King (UCL Laws)
Chair: Dr Ewan Smith (UCL Laws)
About the seminar
This seminar examines how solidarity operates as a mechanism of exclusion in deeply divided societies, focusing on the treatment of Palestinian citizens of Israel after October 7, 2023. It argues that solidarity and enemization are mutually constitutive processes: calls for national unity are often predicated on the construction of an internal enemy. Drawing on theories of ethnic boundary-making and security-oriented criminal law, the seminar shows how expressions of grief, humanitarian concern, or solidarity with civilians in Gaza were reclassified as criminal acts of incitement or identification with terrorism. Through analysis of emergency directives, protest restrictions, and enforcement data, it demonstrates how criminal law was used to police political belonging along ethnonational lines. The Israeli case reveals solidarity’s darker side: not as a democratic practice of mutual recognition, but as a coercive, legally mediated instrument that redraws the boundaries of citizenship under conditions of crisis.
This seminar was part of the Public Law Seminar Series.
This event was organised by the UCL Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism.
Speaker: Dr. Manal Totry-Jubran (GCDC Visiting Academic, Bar Ilan University)
Commentators: Dr Julie Norman (UCL) , Prof Jeff King (UCL Laws)
Chair: Dr Ewan Smith (UCL Laws)
About the seminar
This seminar examines how solidarity operates as a mechanism of exclusion in deeply divided societies, focusing on the treatment of Palestinian citizens of Israel after October 7, 2023. It argues that solidarity and enemization are mutually constitutive processes: calls for national unity are often predicated on the construction of an internal enemy. Drawing on theories of ethnic boundary-making and security-oriented criminal law, the seminar shows how expressions of grief, humanitarian concern, or solidarity with civilians in Gaza were reclassified as criminal acts of incitement or identification with terrorism. Through analysis of emergency directives, protest restrictions, and enforcement data, it demonstrates how criminal law was used to police political belonging along ethnonational lines. The Israeli case reveals solidarity’s darker side: not as a democratic practice of mutual recognition, but as a coercive, legally mediated instrument that redraws the boundaries of citizenship under conditions of crisis.
This seminar was part of the Public Law Seminar Series.
