Signs of Visual Resistance in Palestine: Unsettling the Settler-Colonial Matrix

Abstract

This article contrasts historical and contemporary discourses and visualizations of the notions of Homeland, the Other and the Self that have been applied in the Zionist/Israeli project to colonize Palestine and displace its indigenous inhabitants. It actively connects theories of visual sociology and cultural studies (postmodern critical theory) with (1) various Israeli and Palestinian political discourses of Belonging (nationhood) while also (2) providing the reader with clear-cut, material examples of both exclusivist Zionist technologies of power and subaltern Palestinian techniques of counter-discourse, ultimately retracing historical continuity and unveiling resonant dialectics of modern nationalist doctrine across the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries throughout both Europe and the Middle East. Critically tracing and decoding the altering semiotic identity of a set of politicized posters highlights the key importance and the ongoing use of abstract power (discourse) within Israeli strategies of occupation and siege while simultaneously disclosing innovative Palestinian forms of visual resistance that advocate ‘existence’ in an asymmetric configuration of ‘conflict’. In order to interpret the selected visuals fully, one needs foremost to be acquainted with the interwoven ‘migration’ of populations, ideas, and praxes through both time and space.

Key Words:

• Discourse
• Floating signifier
• Israel
• migration
• Palestine
• Settler-colonialism
• Visual resistance

Notes

1. K. Pfeifer (2003) The Material Basis of Palestinian Society: A Long-Term Perspective, Critique, 12(2), pp. 103–130.

2. S. Avineri (1981) The Making of Modern Zionism: Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State (New York: Basic Books), pp. 88–100, 112–124, 139–216; and I. Pappé (2006) The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oxford: Oneworld).

3. E. Rogan (2009) The Arabs: A History, pp. 245–259, 338–340 (London: Penguin Books).

4. O. Jabary Salamanca, M. Qato, K. Rabie & S. Samour (2012) Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine, Settler Colonial Studies, 2(1), pp. 1–8.

5. N. Glick-Schiller, A. Çağlar & T. Guldbrandsen (2006) Beyond the Ethnic Lens: Locality, Globality, and Born-Again Incorporation, American Ethnologist 33(4), pp. 612–633; and A. Wimmer & N. Glick-Schiller (2003) Methodological Nationalism, the Social Sciences, and the Study of Migration: An Essay in Historical Epistemology, International Migration Review, 37(3), pp. 576–610.

6. One Jewish intellectual about whom there is debate concerning the extent to which he appreciated the aims or value of Zionism is Franz Kafka (1883–1924). He certainly could be considered as a Jewish man who was well integrated into the intellectual and socio-economic fabric of his heterogeneous native city, Prague. Zionist discourse, in an a-posterio fashion, has tried to recuperate his intellectual persona in their nationalist continuum; see further J. Butler (2011) Who Owns Kafka, London Review of Books, 33(5), pp. 3–8.

7. Material for this paragraph is based on the following sources: B. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths & H. Tiffin (2007) Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts (New York: Taylor & Francis e-Library), pp. 210–212; S. Avineri, The Making of Modern Zionism, pp. 88–100, 112–124, 139–216; R. Dolphin (2006) The West Bank Wall: Unmaking Palestine, p. 3 (London: Pluto Press); R. Khalidi (1997) Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, p. 94 (New York: Columbia University Press); W. Laqueur (1972) A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to Establishment of the State of Israel (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson), p. 591; I. Pappé, Ethnic Cleansing, pp. 10–11; idem (1992) The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (London: I. B. Tauris), p. 47; E. Rogan, The Arabs, pp. 311–312; A. Shlaim (2001) The Iron Wall, Israel and the Arab World (New York: W. W. Norton & Company), pp. 5–14; and O. Yiftachel & H. Tacobi (2003) Urban Ethnocracy: Ethnicization and the Production of Space in an Israeli ‘Mixed’ City, in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 21(6), p. 679.

8. Theodor Herzl resided in nineteenth-century Europe (Budapest, Paris, Vienna) and was influenced by the gradual re-emergence of anti-Semitism and narrow notions of nationalism in Europe, symbolized by the Dreyfus affair in France, for instance. He advocated in his key 1896 work, Der Judenstaat, that Jews create their own state; see S. Avineri, Modern Zionism, pp. 92–94; and C. Schindler (2008) A History of Modern Israel (New York: Cambridge University Press), pp. 10–37.

9. The mandates were approved in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres. The partition of the Ottoman Empire, however, already had been decided in the secret 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement among Britain, France and Russia. Subsequent to the 1917 Revolution in Russia, the Bolsheviks revealed this and other secret agreements to the public, although this revelation did not dissuade Britain and France from dividing the former Ottoman territories among themselves.

10. Transjordan was entirely to the east of the Jordan River, which divided it from Palestine. After the 1948 War, the Transjordanian army occupied southeastern Palestine, including the Old City of Jerusalem, and this area eventually became known as the West Bank (of the Jordan River); it was annexed in 1949, and Transjordan officially changed its name to Jordan. Israel occupied the West Bank during the 1967 War, and still continues to do so.

11. R. Dolphin, The West Bank Wall, p. 2; A. Handel (2009) Where, Where to, and when in the Occupied Territories: An Introduction to Geography of Disaster, in A. Ophir, M. Givoni & S. Hanafi (eds) The Power of Inclusive Exclusion: Anatomy of Israeli Rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (New York: Zone Books), pp. 179–222; I. Pappé, Ethnic Cleansing, pp. 10–11; idem, Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 47; E. Rogan, The Arabs, pp. 245–259, 311–320; A. Shlaim, The Iron Wall, pp. 5–14; O. Yiftachel & H. Tacobi (2003) Urban Ethnocracy, pp. 677–680.

12. The early Zionist movement wanted to secularize, nationalize and empower ‘Judaism.’

13. E.g., water wells, fertile plains & strategic hilltops; see further R. Dolphin, The West Bank Wall, pp. 74–78.

14. The law stipulates that anyone able to ‘prove’ Jewish ancestry (along with their spouses and converts to Orthodox Judaism) has a right to Israeli citizenship and to settle permanently in Israel and (by design) its military-controlled OT (West Bank). Many critics have dubbed this policy as a ‘herrenvolk law,’ which deliberately aims at ethnic discrimination and engineering demographic (‘racial’) supremacy on the ground, i.e., securing Israel as a ‘Jewish state’ as a key Zionist principle; see further: R. Dolphin, The West Bank Wall, pp. 17, 20, 23; O. Yiftachel & H. Tacobi (2003) Urban Ethnocracy, pp. 673–676.

15. Ariel Sharon famously stated in 1998: ‘Everybody has to move; run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements, because everything we take now will stay ours. Everything we don’t grab will go to them.’ Quoted in R. Khalidi (2011) No Chance of Peace, The New York Times, May 18, 1998. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/09/01/negotiating-with-the-israeli-settlers/no-chance-of-peace-with-settlements-around, accessed September 18, 2012.

16. B. Ashcroft et al. (2007) Post-Colonial Studies, pp. 31–33, 175–176; S. Avineri, The Making of Modern Zionism, pp. 92–94, 110; J. Cook (2008) Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (London: Zed Books), p. 98; M. Bishara (2001) Palestine/Israel: Peace or Apartheid, Prospects for Resolving the Conflict. (London: Zed Books), p. 45; R. Dolphin, The West Bank Wall, pp. 5–7, 16–18, 22, 71, 86–87, 97, 145–146, 149–150, 152–163; J. Halper (2000) The 94 Percent Solution: A Matrix of Control, Middle East Report, 216, pp. 14–19; A. Handel, Where, Where To, pp. 179–222; W. Laqueur, A History of Zionism, pp. 591–593; I. Pappé, The Making of the Arab-Israel Conflict, pp. 90–93; UNOCHA (2011) Barrier Update – Seven years after the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Barrier: The Impact of the Barrier in the Jerusalem area. UNOCHA Special Focus, pp. 1, 2, 6, 8, 20. Available at: http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_barrier_update_july_2011_english.pdf, accessed January 20, 2012; O. Yiftachel & H. Tacobi (2003) Urban Ethnocracy, pp. 677–678, 680, 689–690.

17. Many of them sold their lands to Zionist funds, without much knowledge of those working on and inhabiting the land.

18. Interestingly, the revolt was put down in a joint collaboration of the British colonial troops and Zionist militias, such as the Haganah (predecessor of the ‘Israel Defense Forces’ or IDF).

19. C. Schindler, A Modern History, pp. 38–77.

20. It is this fluid context that emboldened former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir to state in 1969: ‘There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.’ Cited in: A. Marquardt (2011) Newt Gingrich ‘Ignorant’, ‘Racist’ Say Palestinians. ABC News, December 10, 2011. Available at: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/newt-gingrich-ignorant-racist-say-palestinians/, accessed February 10, 2015.

21. D. S. Bernstein (1998) Strategies of Equalization, a Neglected Aspect of the Split Labour Market Theory: Jews and Arabs in the Split Labour Market of Mandatory Palestine, Ethnic and Racial Studies 21(3), pp. 449–475; M. Campos (2010) Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine (Stanford University Press), pp. 166–223; M. Kramer (1993) Arab Nationalism: Mistaken Identity, Daedalus 122(3), p. 175; I. Lustick (1997) The Absence of Middle Eastern Great Powers: Political ‘Backwardness’ in Historical Perspective, International Organization 51(4), pp. 665–666; I. Pappé, The Making of, p. 21; J. Peteet (2005) Landscape of Hope and Despair: Palestinian Refugee Camps (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), pp. 71–74; E. Rogan, The Arabs, pp. 108–114, 120–121, 250–259 & 311–320; R. Sayigh (1979) Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries (London: Zed Books), pp. 14–15, 39; and Z. N. Zeine (1981) Arab-Turkish Relations and the Emergence of Arab Nationalism (Greenwood Press Reprint), pp. 83–115.

22. Although the relationship between the Jewish settler population and the British authorities was not one-dimensional (e.g., tension surrounding Irgun, Stern Gang, British ‘Passfield White Paper’ etc.), there was a positive modus vivendi, which significantly favored the Zionist movement over the native Arab population. This was certainly the case towards the end of the mandate period. A good example can be found in the fact that the British ultimately left all their military material to the disposal of the Zionist militias after their evacuation on May 14, 1948, just before the Arab-Israeli War; thus deconstructing the ‘David vs. Goliath’ myth present in Israeli military discourse that accompanies its foundational myths—they were militarily superior vis-à-vis the Arab armies [cf. I. Pappé (1992), The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 57; and E. Rogan, The Arabs, pp. 311–320, 322, 330–337 & 369].

23. I. Pappé, The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, pp. 21, 47; Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, p. 94; Sayigh, Palestinians, p. 55; O. Yiftachel & H. Tacobi (2003) Urban Ethnocracy, pp. 278–279; N. Yuval-Davis (1997) Gender & Nation (London: Sage Publications), pp. 11–21, 26–31, 40–60, 66–67, 199–120; and Zeine, Arab-Turkish Relations, pp. 83–115.

24. R. Dolphin, The West Bank Wall, p. 165.

25. S. Hall, ed. (1997) The Spectacle of the Other, in: Representations: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (London: Thousand Oaks), pp. 234–235.

26. Cf. UNRWA’s webpage. Available at: http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=47, accessed September 15, 2013. This jargon is legitimized through reference to the UN Partition Plan of 1947, which was adopted by the General Assembly as Resolution 181(II); Available at: http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/7f0af2bd897689b785256c330061d253, accessed September 15, 2013.

27. This primary observation is based on my stay in Israel and the OT in 2010 and 2012, when I resided in both Ramallah and Jerusalem for academic studies at Birzeit University and subsequently for an internship with UNRWA’s BMU research office. Examples can be found in documented travel accounts (blogs) online, e.g., G. Cimarosti (2012) I’m in Israel, Travel Reportage. Available at: http://www.travelreportage.com/2012/07/15/im-in-israel/, accessed February 20, 2015; Anonymous author (2013) In the Heart of the Holy Land – Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Wanderfull. Available at: http://wanderfull.us/in-the-heart-of-the-holy-land-bethlehem-and-jerusalem/, accessed February 20, 2015.

28. S. Hall (1980 [1973]) Encoding/Decoding, in S. Hall (ed.) Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972–79 (London: Hutchinson), pp. 128–138; Idem. (1997) The Spectacle, pp. 226, 228; and B. Latour (1990) Drawing Things Together, in: M. Lynch & S. Woolgar (eds) Representation in Scientific Practice (London: MIT Press), pp. 26, 31–35, 42, 44–45, 51–52.

29. Referencing the Dayr Yasin Massacre, which generated a mass exodus of Arab-Palestinians, often makes up for an important counter-argument. (cf. E. Rogan, The Arabs, pp. 326–327).

30. B. Ashcroft et al. (2007) Post-Colonial Studies, pp. 32, 97, 176; and A. Haddour (2001) Colonial Myths: History and Narrative (Manchester University Press), pp. 24–41.

31. E. Said intelligently dubbed his 1984 article related to power-discourse as ‘Permission to Narrate?’, Journal for Palestine Studies, 13(3), pp. 27–48; G. Spivak named her key 1988 essay ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, in: C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (1988) Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (Chicago: University of Illinois Press), pp. 271–313; William Blake stated: “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite,” quoted in Aldous Huxley (2004) The Doors of Perception (London: Vintage Books), p. 1.

32. M. Sturken & L. Cartwright (2001) Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (New York: New York University Press), pp. 1, 14–15, 18–19, 29.

33. S. Hall, Encoding/Decoding, pp. 128–138; Sturken and Cartwright, Practices of Looking, pp. 1, 14–15, 18–19, 29.

34. The relevant poster (Figure 1) can today be seen hanging in the historical city center of contemporary Jerusalem—still home to a sizable Palestinian community—as witnessed by myself on site in 2010 and 2012. See, for instance: Palestine Poster Project Archives. Available at: http://www.palestineposterproject.org/poster/visit-palestine-unauthorized-reprinting-3, accessed February 10, 2015.

35. V. Dudouet (2008) Nonviolent Resistance and Conflict Transformation in Power Asymmetries (Berlin: Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management), p. 7; S. Hall, The Spectacle, pp. 226, 228; Q. Hoare and G. Smith (eds) (2003) Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (London: Lawrence and Wishart), pp. 3—10; B. Latour, Drawing Things Together, pp. 26, 31–35, 42, 44–45, 51–52; J. Proctor (2004) Stuart Hall (London: Routledge), pp. 60, 63–64; R. Simon (1991) Gramsci’s Political Thought: An Introduction (London: Lawrence & Wishart), pp. 23–27; Sturken and Cartwright, Practices, pp. 1, 14–15, 18–19, 29; E. Said (2002) The Public Role of Writers and Intellectuals. In: H. Small (ed.) The Public Intellectual (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing), pp. 20–21.

36. S. Hall, The Spectacle, pp. 223–290.

37. A. Haddour, Colonial Myths, pp. 24–112, 155–174.

38. J. Massad (1995) Conceiving the Masculine: Gender and Palestinian Nationalism, The Middle East Journal 49(3), p. 471.

39. U. Hannerz (1993) Cultural Complexity: Studies in the Social Organization of Meaning. (NY: Columbia University Press).

40. I. Blumi (2012) Foundations of Modernity: Human Agency and the Imperial State (New York: Routledge).

41. Zionist Socialism represented a strong current within the Zionist movement from the early to mid-twentieth century. It is amplified visually, for instance, in historical Zionist posters celebrating ‘Red Army Day’ on June 22. See: Palestine Poster Project Archives. Available at: http://www.palestineposterproject.org/poster/long-live-the-red-army-long-live-the-ussr-long-live-socialist-zionism, accessed February 10, 2015.

42. J. Black (1997) Maps and Politics (London: Reaktion Books Ltd), pp. 11–12, 18–21, 26, 113–114, 119–120.

43. A. Haddour, Colonial Myths, pp. 155–174.

44. H. S. Becker (2007) Telling About Society (Chicago: Chicago University Press), pp. 5–9, 11–13; S. Chaturvedi (2002) Process of Othering in the Case of India and Pakistan, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG (Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie) 93(2), p. 1; E. Abrahamian (2003) The US Media, Huntington and September 11, Third World Quarterly 24(3), pp. 529–530; S. Hall ‘The Spectacle,’ pp. 228–229, 232, 234–235, 263–264, 268, 270, 274; Latour, Drawing Things Together, pp. 28, 38–39, 42–43, 48–49, 52–60; E. Said (2000) Traveling Theory, in M. Bayoumi & A. Rubin (eds) The Edward Said Reader (New York: Vintage), pp. 195–217; T. Seaton (2009) Purposeful Otherness: Approaches to the Management of Thanatourism, in: R. Sharpley & P. R. Stone (eds) The Darker Side of Travel: The Theory and Practice of Dark Tourism (Bristol: Short Run Press), pp. 77–82.

45. D. Gregory (2004) The Colonial Present (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers), pp. 62–71.

46. L. Stampnitzky (2013) Toward a Sociology of ‘Security, in: Sociological Forum 28(3), pp. 631–633.

47. See: The Jewish Agency. Available at: http://www.jewishagency.org/JewishAgency/English/Jewish+Education/Compelling+Content/Eye+on+Israel/Maps/25.+missile+and+artillery.htm, accessed September 19, 2012; See also: UNOCHA (2011) Restrictions of Palestinian Access in the West Bank, Map December 2011. Available at: http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ochaopt_atlas_westbank_december2011.pdf, accessed September 15, 2012.

48. The Israeli national army bears the name in relation to this idea: The Israel ‘Defense’ Forces or IDF.

49. Cf. D. Gregory, The Colonial Present, pp. 76–106; J. Halper (2007), ‘The 94 Percent Solution,’ pp. 14–19.

50. D. Gregory, The Colonial Present, pp. 47–75.

51. I. Maly (2001) Over Rascisme en Beeldvorming in het Israëlisch-Palestijns Conflict’ [About racism and representation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict], MA thesis, University of Ghent, Belgium; Published online on Centrum voor Islam in Europa [Center for Islam in Europe]; see online sections 1.2.1, 1.3.4 & 1.3.5. Available at: http://www.flw.ugent.be/cie/imaly/index.htm, accessed September 19, 2012; and N. Yuval-Davis, Gender & Nation, pp. 11–21, 26–31, 40–60, 66–67, 199–200.

52. Shipler, quoted in Maly (2001) online section 1.2.4.

53. N. Yuval-Davis, Gender & Nation, p. 30.

54. E. Abrahamian, The US Media, pp. 529–544; O Jabary Salamanca et al. (2012) Past is Present, pp. 1–8; S. Zizek (2008) Tolerance as an Ideological Category, Critical Inquiry 34(4), p. 660; N. Yuval-Davis, Gender & Nation, pp. 11–21, 26–31, 40–60, 66–67, 199–200; and S. Zubaida (2011) Beyond Islam: A New Understanding of the Middle East (London: I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd), pp. 120–130.

55. D. Ronen, quoted by Maly (2001), online section 1.3.4.

56. S. Roy (2000) The Crisis Within: The Struggle for Palestinian Society, Critique 9(17), p. 9.

57. Another prominent strategy is the law-based ‘Call for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions’ (BDS) movement, which has now gained global dimensions. For more on the ‘Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel’ (PACBI, 2004) and the ensuing ‘Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions’ movement (BDS, 2005), see O. Barghouti (2001) Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights (Chicago: Haymarket Books), pp. 6–61.

58. Cf. M. Qumsiyeh (2011) Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 95–120.

59. M. Foucault (1977) Discipline and Punish (London: Penguin); M. Foucault (1983) The Subject and Power, in: Dreyfus, H. & Rabinow, P. (eds) Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. 2nd edn. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), pp. 208–222.

61. E. Said, Permission to Narrate, pp. 27–48; and N. Yuval-Davis, Gender & Nation, pp. 11–21, 26–31, 40–60, 66–67, 199–120.

62. J. Halper (2007) The 94 Percent Solution, pp.14–19.

63. See, for instance, Figure 6 featuring in a blog post example: Anonymous (2011) On International Women’s Day: Remember Palestinian Female Prisoners. My Palestine Blog. Available at: https://avoicefrompalestine.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/on-international-women’s-day-remember-palestinian-female-prisoners/, accessed February 15, 2015.

64. J. Massad (1995) Conceiving the Masculine, pp. 470–473.

65. Ibid, p. 471.

66. Ibid, pp. 471–473.

67. Yassir Arafat, quoted in E. Rogan (2009), p. 521.

68. Marcel Khalife, Lyric Translation Jawaz Safar. Available at: http://lyricmusicarabic.blogspot.de/2010/06/lyric-jawaz-safar-marcel-khalifa.html, accessed September 22, 2014.

60. ‘Wiz’ (2013). Available at: http://www.palestineposterproject.org/poster/visit-palestine-banksy-tribute, accessed September 16, 2014.