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ABSTRACT
Revisiting politicide: state annihilation in Israel/Palestine. Territory, Politics, Governance. State annihilation is a persistent concern in Israel/Palestine. While the spectre of Israel’s destruction increasingly haunts Israeli public political debates, the actual materialization of Palestinian statehood seems to be permanently suspended, caught in an ever-protracted process of state-building. The current paper claims that to understand the unfolding of the discursive formations, as well as the spatial dimensions of conflict and control in Israel/Palestine, we should explicate the workings of the processes of politicide. Politicide, in this regard, denotes the eradication of the political existence of a group and sabotaging the turning of a community of people into a polity. This analysis suggests that the insistence that the State of Israel is under threat of extinction should be understood as a speech act, a performative reiteration, which allows for the securitization of Israeli rule in the occupied Palestinian territory, a securitization which then serves to rationalize the ongoing concrete politicide of the Palestinians. Elaborating on the concept of politicide, and diverging from defining it solely through the use of brute violence, this examination suggests that what is often overlooked in discussions of politicide are the seemingly more benign means of its implementation, the micro-power mechanisms of spatial control, prohibitions and regulations.
摘要
重探政治谋杀：以色列／巴勒斯坦的国家灭绝. Territory, Politics, Governance. 国家灭绝是以色列／巴勒斯持续存在的担忧。当以色列毁灭的幽灵逐渐萦绕着以色列的公共政治辩论时，巴勒斯坦国家状态的真正实现却似乎受到永久悬置，陷入一个永恆的建国过程。我们的论文主张，为了理解展开的论述形成，以及以色列／巴勒斯坦中的冲突与控制的空间面向，应阐明政治谋杀过程的作用。政治谋杀于此意味着歼灭一个群体的政治存在，并且妨碍一个社群的人们转变成政体。此一分析主张，以色列国家受到歼灭的威胁之坚称，应该被理解为一种言语行为，以及一个展演性的重述，让以色列对其所佔领的巴勒斯坦领土的支配得以进行安全化，该安全化并随之用来合理化对巴勒斯坦人持续进行的具体政治谋杀。本检视阐明政治谋杀的概念，以及不纯粹从使用残忍暴行来定义政治谋杀，藉此主张在政治谋杀的讨论中经常受到忽略的，似乎是其较为仁慈的施行方式，空间控制的微观权力机制，禁止与规范。
RÉSUMÉ
Réexaminer le politicide: l’anéantissement en Israël et en Palestine. Territory, Politics, Governance. L’anéantissement des États reste une préoccupation de première importance en Israël et en Palestine. Tandis que la cauchemar de la destruction d’Israël revient de plus en plus à hanter les débats politiques publics en Israël, la véritable création d’un État palestinien semble définitivement mise de côté, prise dans un processus interminable de la création d’un État. Ce présent article prétend que pour comprendre l’éxposé des formations discursives, ainsi que les limites spatiales du conflit et du contrôle en Israël et en Palestine, il faut expliquer le déroulement des processus de politicide. À cet égard, le politicide veut dire l’élimination de la présence politique d’un groupe et le sabotage du développement d’une communauté en régime politique. Cette analyse laisse supposer que l’on devrait interpréter le fait que l’État d’Israël est menacé d’extinction comme acte de parole, une réaffirmation performative, qui permet la sécurisation du régime israélien dans le territoire palestinien occupé, une sécurisation qui sert dans un deuxième temps à rationaliser le politicide concret en cours des Palestiniens. Élaborant la notion de politicide, et s’écartant d’une définition qui ne porte que sur la violence sauvage, cet examen laisse supposer que souvent on laisse passer dans les discussions à propos du politicide les moyens apparemment plus bénéfiques de sa mise en oeuvre, les mécanismes de micro-pouvoir du contrôle spatial, les interdictions et la réglementation.
RESUMEN
Revisión del politicidio: aniquilación estatal en Israel/Palestina. Territory, Politics, Governance. La aniquilación estatal es una constante preocupación en Israel y Palestina. Mientras que el espectro de la destrucción de Israel es una creciente obsesión en los debates políticos públicos en Israel, la materialización real del Estado palestino parece estar suspendida de modo permanente, atrapada en el siempre prolongado proceso de la construcción del Estado. En este artículo se constata que para entender el desarrollo de las formaciones discursivas, así como las dimensiones espaciales del conflicto y control en Israel/Palestina, deberíamos explicar el funcionamiento de los procesos de politicidio. A este respecto, el politicidio denota la erradicación de la existencia política de un grupo y el sabotaje para impedir que una comunidad de personas se convierta en un sistema de gobierno. En este análisis se indica que la insistencia de que el Estado de Israel está en peligro de extinción debería entenderse como un acto discursivo, una reiteración performativa que permite la titulización del dominio israelí en el territorio ocupado de Palestina, una titulización que entonces sirve para racionalizar el continuo politicidio concreto de los palestinos. Analizando el concepto de politicidio y desviándose de definirlo únicamente mediante el uso de la violencia, este examen sugiere que lo que con frecuencia se ignora en los debates sobre politicidio son los medios aparentemente más benignos de su aplicación: los mecanismos de micro poder de control espacial, las prohibiciones y las regulaciones.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the TPG editors, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and invaluable suggestions on this paper. This paper was completed during my time as a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Conflict Transformation and Social Justice (now the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice) at Queen’s University Belfast. I would like to thank the Institute staff and, in particular, the Institute director, Professor Hastings Donnan, for their support.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Maintaining Israel's strategic advantage over all other armies in the Middle East has been underlying US–Israel relations in general, and US military assistance to Israel in particular, since the early 1980s (Hadar, Citation1991).
2 For instance, in response to the UN Secretary-General criticism of yet another expansion of the settlements by Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated in January 2016 that ‘The words of the secretary-general only bolster terrorism. There is no justification for terrorism, period. The Palestinian murderers do not want to build a state. They want to destroy a state. And they declare it publicly’ (Goodman, Citation2016).
3 As a highly charged political issue, reliable demographic data accurately reflecting the number of Jews and Palestinians living in historical Palestine is hard to come by. Without trying to resolve this dispute, the figures provided by the geo-demographer Arnon Soffer dominate the Israeli discourse and are also almost unanimously accepted among the mainstream Israeli political elite. Soffer, who draws his figures from the research of Sergio della Pergola claim that as of 2014 the population of historical Palestine was composed of 51% Jews and 49% Muslims, and that given the higher birthrates of the Palestinians, these proportions will tip in favour of the Muslims by the end of the decade (Canetti, Citation2015)
4 Famously, to overcome this almost hermetic spatial control the Gazans have developed an elaborated system of tunnels mainly for commercial usages, but some also for military purposes. For a full analysis of the role of these tunnels in sustaining the Israeli-dictated status quo, see Amir (Citationin press).
5 Very generally, Israel has been exercising a policy of politicide also through the defragmentation of the Palestinian political community. These policies dissect the Palestinian people into five major groups. This separation is not only enforced geographically (by borders, walls, checkpoints and limitations on movement), but also by differentiations in the civic statuses. Thus, effectively, the Palestinians are divided into the West Bankers (who are subject of Israeli military rule and of the PA), the Gazans (who are subjects of Israeli military rule and the Hamas), East Jerusalemites (who are holders of an Israeli residency), the Palestinians living inside the 1949 borders of Israel (who have Israeli citizenship) and the Palestinian diaspora (who have none of the above). Israeli control of Palestinian registry fixates these categories, as Israel makes any attempt to transition between these different categories, which sometimes even divide nuclear families, either extremely difficult or completely impossible (Amir, Citation2011; HRW, Citation2012; Jamal, Citation2002; Nikfar, Citation2005; Loewenstein, Citation2006).