I'm Hopeless but I Still Have Hope

Abstract

Mannheim observed that generational memory is shaped by the prominent public events an age cohort experienced for the first time as young adults. For Jewish-Israeli millennials, born 1980–1995, their political coming of age was shaped by the failure of Oslo, cyclical violence, and Israel's pursuit of policies of population separation from Palestinians. This article draws on a wider, phenomenological study (2014–20) of post-Oslo generational memory of self-described hiloni (‘secular’ in Hebrew) millennials across the political spectrum from left to right. More richly theorizing and nuancing what is popularly assumed about this demographic, it argues that Oslo's legacy is hope-as-waiting behavior. It introduces Rengger's concept of the anti-Pelagian imaginary to discussions of attitudes to Occupation, making a case for more carefully specifying this sensibility by Jewish-Israeli demographic subgroup. To comparatively research hope amid intractable conflict calls for deeper analysis of hope-as-waiting as a category of action.