BETTINA PRATOtions in particular have often been regarded by liberals as problematic from a human
rights perspective, because doctrinal coherence may require giving precedence to divinely
sanctioned values over respect for individual rights such as freedom of thought, creed,
and conscience.^18 Although the issue has often been framed in terms of ‘‘compatibility’’
between human rights and religious discourses, what is generally at stake in these debates
is a very concrete political problem, namely, the possibility of anchoring what Western
liberalism understands as human rights in a universal and normatively binding ‘‘overlap-
ping consensus,’’ as Rawls would put it, that is, a consensus bridging ethical-philosophical
positions built on normative ‘‘foundations’’ supposedly beyond scrutiny. In the case of
substantive moral or religious traditions overlapping with ascriptive identities marked by
trauma, moreover, both the ‘‘compatibility’’ problem and the political problem of identi-
fying a terrain for such consensus may be particularly complex. In these cases, not only
different substantive values but also exceptional existential dangersandtestimonial obli-
gations may be invoked by certain groups or polities to justify selective definitions of who
is the proper bearer of human rights.
The problem of ‘‘compatibility’’ surrounding human rights discourse thus generally
appears as not primarily a theoretical or doctrinal problem but rather a political and
ethical one, and this is perhaps especially true of situations where collective identification
with certain substantive traditions and membership in ‘‘wounded’’ biopolitical communi-
ties overlap, at least discursively. For one thing, different authors, including Levinas, have
noted the virtual impossibility of a universal realization of human rights in the absence
of appropriate (notably liberal or democratic) political institutions, which nonetheless
tend to betray these rights by virtue of their perhaps inevitable incarnation in particular
(ascriptive, civic, and/or economic) identities. In addition, if we look at the context of
debates on the compatibility of human rights with foundationalist traditions in Israel/
Palestine, we find that even supposedly universal terms likehumanandrightare marked
by the power effects of nation-specific histories, practices, and affects, as well as by dis-
courses of trauma. Consequently, the key question concerning the role that human rights
discourse may play in Israel/Palestine today is not one of its abstract compatibility with
supposedly ‘‘foundationalist’’ discourses like Judaism or Islam. Rather, the question con-
cerns the contextual significance of affirming such compatibility or, more importantly, of
practically making room for it against exclusive, conditional, or humanitarian readings of
this discourse. It is in this sense that the discoursive strategies of RHR are a source of
insights into the possibility that human rights and trauma discourses may be engaged
together to mitigate both the disempowering effects of testimonial humanitarianism and
those of trauma-laden violence.
Human Rights Discourse in the Work of RHR
Founded in 1988 ‘‘in response to serious abuses of human rights by the Israeli military
authorities in the suppression of the Intifada,’’ as well as to the ‘‘indifference of much of
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