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1.1 The Relevance of "Yet Another Study" on Palestine

1.1 The Relevance of “Yet Another Study” on Palestine

I have encountered the remark or question, “Why another research on Palestine?” and “Palestine has been over-researched” plenty of times during my research. The reason is that I am missing answers to questions I pose myself: How does settler-colonialism affect Indigenous identity, agency, and episteme, particularly in long-term and structural ways? How do Indigenous peoples resist settler-colonial strategies such as restricting mobility, weaponising care, and using imprisonment and torture to erode identity, agency, and epistemes?

To provide an answer to these questions, I conceptualise slow erasure, which builds on the theory of genocide by attrition, to describe the range of technologies and strategies employed by settler-colonial projects to gradually erase Indigenous populations. At the heart of this concept is the belief that the settler-colonial state attacks the Indigenous body because it holds identity, agency, and episteme, aiming to gradually erase Indigenous people.

In my dissertation, I demonstrate how, in the context of Palestine, slow erasure represents the systematic efforts to undermine and erase Palestinian identity, agency and episteme. This process involves not only the physical displacement of Palestinians but also the destruction of their knowledge systems and cultural institutions, their connectedness to the land, the appropriation or destruction of their symbols and traditions, food and language, and the rewriting of history. These actions are part of a broader strategy aimed at erasing the Palestinian presence from the land and consolidating the settler state.

I hypothesise that one of the key elements of slow erasure is the targeting of Indigenous knowledge systems, which are vital to the survival and identity of Indigenous communities. In Palestine, this can be seen in the destruction of, for example, agricultural knowledge, the control over education, and the erasure of historical memory. The destruction of olive trees, for example, which are a symbol of Palestinian identity and a vital source of livelihood, represents not just an economic attack but also an attack on Palestinian culture and history. Similarly, the control over education and the rewriting of history in Israeli textbooks serve to erase Palestinian history and replace it with a narrative that legitimises the settler-colonial project.

In this work, I examine how the Zionist[^zionist] settler-colonial project strategically targets Palestinian identity, agency, and episteme through the lens of body politics and biopower, specifically by employing mechanisms such as the restriction of movement, necropolitics, torture, and imprisonment. I show how the restriction of movement, the checkpoints, the separation wall, and the blockade of Gaza serves not only as a physical constraint but also as a means of undermining Palestinian agency and identity, confining Palestinians within controlled spaces and limiting their capacity for resistance. Necropolitics (Mbembe 2003)1, or the use of power to dictate who may live and who must die, manifests in the form of targeted killings and other military actions that devalue Palestinian lives, reinforcing the settler state’s control over life and death. Additionally, the widespread use of torture and imprisonment of Palestinian prisoners is aimed at breaking the will of Palestinians, both individually and collectively, and disrupting the transmission of episteme and resistance. These forms of biopower work to dismantle Palestinian society from within. This systematic targeting of the body is central to the settler-colonial project’s broader goal of the slow erasure of Palestinian identity, agency and episteme.

My thesis investigates the impact of slow erasure on Palestinians. By targeting the foundations of Palestinian identity, I look at how the settler-colonial state seeks to weaken the Palestinian community and make it more vulnerable. This process is not immediate but unfolds over time, aimed at gradually erasing the cultural and social fabric of Palestinian society. I seek to show how, by recognising slow erasure as a form of structural violence, we can better understand the full extent of the challenges faced by Palestinians and their resistance.

At the same time, my work also explores how Palestinians resist the Zionist efforts of slow erasure by examining various forms of sumud or steadfastness, both in their daily lives and from behind prison bars. Sumud represents the Indigenous determination to remain on the land, preserve Palestinian identity, and resist displacement despite the genocidal tactics, whether fast or slow. Sumud manifests itself in everyday acts of resistance, whether through maintaining traditional agricultural practices, rebuilding homes after demolitions, or preserving Palestinian culture despite attempts at erasure. Additionally, even within the confines of Israeli prisons, Palestinians continue to resist. Prisoners engage in hunger strikes, education, and the cultivation of solidarity networks as means of asserting their agency and challenging the structures of oppression that seek to fragment their identity and spirit. This individual and collective resilience, both inside and outside the prison walls, becomes a powerful form of counteraction against the settler-colonial agenda, ensuring that Palestinian identity, agency, and episteme endure despite the forces of erasure they face.

References

  1. Mbembe, Achille. 2003. "Necropolitics." Translated by Libby Meintjes. Public Culture 15 (1): 11--40. ↩