Social movement scholars have described activist burnout-when the stressors of activism become so overwhelming they debilitate activists' abilities to remain engaged-as a formidable threat to the sustainability of social movements. However, studies designed to map the causes of burnout have failed to account for ways burnout might operate differently for privileged-identity activists such as white antiracism activists and marginalized-identity activists such as antiracism activists of color. Building on previous studies of activist burnout in racial justice activists and examinations of the roles of white activists in antiracism movements, this study represents one attempt to fill this gap. We analyzed data from interviews with racial justice activists of color in the United States who have experienced burnout to identify the ways they attributed their burnout to the attitudes and behaviors-the racism-of white activists. These included (1) harboring unevolved or racist views, (2) undermining or invalidating the racial justice work of activists of color, (3) being unwilling to step up and take action when needed,

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This introductory essay outlines the context for this special issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies on Black-Palestinian transnational solidarity (BPTS). Through the analytic of “renewal,” the authors point to the recent increase in individual and collective energies directed toward developing effective, reciprocal, and transformative political relationships within various African-descendant and Palestinian communities around the world. Drawing from the extant BPTS literature, this essay examines the prominent intellectual currents in the field and points to new methodologies and analytics that are required to move the field forward. With this essay, the authors aim not only to contextualize the field and to frame this special issue, but also to chart new directions for future intellectual and political work.

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In the Gaza Strip, Israel’s military used lethal force against civilian protestors engaged in the ‘Great Return March’ of 2018. In its late May 2018 ruling, the Israeli Supreme Court held this use of force as legitimate self-defense. This article challenges Israel’s security response to these protests in an attempt to both unsettle a warfare discourse and to urge for a distinct ontological approach. The article argues that an ongoing settler-colonial project has racialised the Palestinian body as a security threat, and historicises Israel’s shoot-to-kill policy as merely one contemporary mode of dispossessing the native body. This includes a novel framework of armed conflict that has diminished the category of the civilian and expanded the scope of legitimate targets permitting the killing of greater numbers of Palestinians in the language of law; the article calls this legal technology the ‘shrinking civilian’.