Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation, by Eyal Weizman London: Verso, 2007 318 pp $3495 Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation examines how "the different forms of Israeli rule" over the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 "inscribed themselves in space" (p 5) To accomplish this purpose, Eyal Weizman uses the term architecture in two ways In its first meaning, he describes in detail the planning, construction, physical, and political attributes of several of the built structures of the occupation and the roles of the Israeli architects who designed them The structures analyzed include the Jewish Quarter of the old city of Jerusalem, the settlements, the separation barrier, the checkpoint at Qalandia, the border crossing at the Allenby Bridge, and the Rafah Terminal The separation barrier is arguably Israel's most egregious violation of international law in the course of over forty years of occupation, since an International Court of Justice ruling determined that it is illegal Yet Israeli architects protested against being excluded from participating in the design process Weizman also employs architecture "as a conceptual way of understanding political issues as constructed realities" (p 6) Each of the chapters examines a structure or related set of structures and the way they enforce Israel's domination of the Palestinians through the control of physical space The chapters are self-contained essays; most of them contain fascinating detail that is little known outside Israel Among the best is the chapter on Israel's targeted assassinations in the Gaza Strip beginning in 2003 It is an incisive, albeit depressing, discussion of the politics and technology of what Weizman terms "the airborne occupation" and the extension of the occupation along a vertical axis Underscoring the relevance of this issue to current developments beyond Israel/Palestine, Weizman traces the use of aerial bombardment of rebellious "natives" to the tenure of Winston Churchill as Britain's Minister of War and Air in the 1920s Churchill enthusiastically promoted "aerially enforced colonization" in Somaliland and Iraq The structure of Hollow Land does not permit Weizman to offer a comprehensive history of the occupation, and he acknowledges that this is not his objective Surprisingly, there is still no fully satisfactory narrative of this kind Gershom Gorenberg's, The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 (New York: Times Books, 2006), while based on good historical research on the first decade of the settlement project, is ultimately flawed and problematic (for my review see "When Doves Cry," The Nation, April 17, 2006) Weizman, although he is a more consistent critic of the Israeli occupation than Gorenberg, adopts the same fundamental thesis: that there was no "master plan" guiding the settlement project in its early years Rather, "the colonization of the mountain district of the West Bank  …

Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation

The paper draws on critical urban theories (CUT) to trace the working of oppressive power and the emergence of new subjectivities through the production of space. Within such settings, it analyzes the struggle of Bedouin Arabs in the Beersheba metropolitan region, Israel/Palestine. The paper invokes the concept of ‘gray spacing’ as the practice of indefinitely positioning populations between the ‘lightness’ of legality, safety and full membership, and the ‘darkness’ of eviction, destruction and death. The amplification of gray space illuminates the emergence of urban colonial relations in a vast number of contemporary city regions. In the Israeli context, the ethnocratic state has forced the indigenous Bedouins into impoverished and criminalized gray space, in an attempt to hasten their forced urbanization and Israelization. This created a process of ‘creeping apartheid’, causing the transformation of Bedouin struggle from agonistic to antagonistic; and their mobilization from democratic to radical. The p...

Critical theory and ‘gray space’: Mobilization of the colonized

Constructions of Neoliberal Reason

In the last two decades, the Arab–Israeli conflict has been considered a ‘low intensity’ conflict, based on a typology which simply takes into account the number of casualties. This typology is misleading, since despite relatively low numbers of casualties, on other counts the conflict may be seen to be in the process of intensification. In particular, a key area that has been gaining relevance is related to space and land: dispossession, occupation and destruction of Palestinian living space and what the author calls spacio‐cide. In this paper, it is argued that the Israeli colonial project is ‘spacio‐cidal’ (as opposed to genocidal), in that it targets land for the purpose of rendering inevitable the ‘voluntary’ transfer of the Palestinian population, primarily by targeting the space upon which the Palestinian people live. This systematic destruction of the Palestinian living space becomes possible by exercising the state of exception and deploying bio‐politics to categorize Palestinians into different ...

Spacio‐cide: colonial politics, invisibility and rezoning in Palestinian territory

The economic values of global forest ecosystem services: A meta-analysis

The identity of any nation-state is inextricably linked with its borders and frontiers. Borders connect nations and sustain notions of social cohesion. Yet they are also the sites of division, fragmentation and political conflict. This ambitious study encompasses North Africa, the Middle East, and South and South East Europe to examine the emergence of state borders and polarised identities in the Mediterranean. The authors look at the impact of political boundaries upon the region, along with pressures from European and economic integration, the resurgence of nationalism, and refugee and security concerns. The authors explore the politics of memory, and ask whether echoes from the imperial past - Ottoman and colonial - could provide the basis for conflict resolution, region-building and economic integration.

Mediterranean Frontiers: Borders, Conflict and Memory in a Transnational World

Between Embodied Cosmopolitism and Sexual Humanitarianism. The Fractal Mobilities and Subjectivities of Migrants Working in the Sex Industry (Nick Mai)

IntroductionNon-timber forest products (NTFP), whether consumed ormarketed, represent a substantial value (Pimentel et al.1997; Kusters and Belcher 2004). NTFP are believedcapable of alleviating poverty or at least helping maintainconsumption levels while averting impoverishment (Vedeldet al. 2007; Mahapatra and Tewari 2005). Communitiesfind in forests edible and medicinal plants, meat, honey,fodder, and fuel. Studies (Arnold 2001; Neuman and Hirsch2000) have shown that NTFP extraction can serve the pooras a safety-net. NTFPs may be utilized on a regular basis toprovide food to some households and income to thosepursuing more intensive extraction strategies. However, theextent to which the rural poor rely on the forest for theirlivelihood depends on the measure of their access toalternative opportunities (Arnold 2001).The share of natural resources in the income of the ruralpoor is higher than in that of wealthier households. Threestudies out of four (in India, Himalayan villages, Zimbabweand Nepal) reviewed by Narain et al.(2005) suggest adecreasing dependency on natural resources as incomeincreases. Escobal and Aldana (2003) observed the samerelationship among collectors of Brazil nuts in southeasternPeru.In a survey of 537 households in India, Narain et al.(2005) found a more complex relationship: a U-shape effectof income on natural resource dependence, which decreaseswith increasing income, while in the higher income groupsit increases again. In sum, the rich collect no naturalresources, or collect a lot, while the poor collect a sizableamount for subsistence purposes. NTFP extraction will playdifferent roles in diverse economic environments. It can bea major source of subsistence, part of a diversified portfolioof rural community activities or compensate for incomeshortfalls.In drylands, planted forests often take over grazing landpreviously used by the underprivileged. Mediterraneandrylandforestsareoftensmallandrecentlyplanted,providinglimited resources. In Israel, afforestation has served, amongother purposes, as a tool for land control, sometimes overdisputed territories. Nevertheless, and despite warfare con-straints in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, fringecommunities have informally been allowed to make useof Israeli-planted forests inside the Green Line.

http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/Dryland%20Afforestation%20and%20Poverty%20Alleviation.pdf

Dryland Afforestation and Poverty Alleviation: Bedouin and Palestinian Non-timber Forest Product Collectors in Contrasting Economic Environments

In Israel, the Negev Bedouins are often presented and perceived both by Jews and Arabs alike as a group of “loyal and obedient” citizens of the State. Like the Druze, they are viewed as being completely different from the rest of the Palestinians of Israel. Their relationships to the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are considered inexistent. This commonly held opinion is often buttressed by reference to their “cultural specificities” and in particular to their “nomadic cultur...

/pdf/gaza-beersheba-dhahriyya-another-approach-to-the-negev-oftdke01y4.pdf

Gaza, Beersheba, Dhahriyya: Another Approach to the Negev Bedouins in the Israeli-Palestinian Space

The Israeli separation policy that has been implemented since the early 1990s has not divided territorially Israelis and Palestinians. Rather, it has reorganized their trajectories and submitted these two populations to distinct time regimes. Through an ethnographic study of spatial practices of Israeli Jews, Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians from the West Bank, this article shows to what extent these time regimes have contributed to shape distinct perceptions of space among these groups. Through a process of foliation (feuilletage), these space construct are superposed as many anthropological space/times within a same place or along the same paths. This foliation process underscores that the separation regime does not merely reinforce the gaps between Israelis and Palestinians by creating asymmetrical use and perceptions of space, but that it also strengthen or introduce divisions within these populations. Furthermore, the study of subjectivities reveals the processes by which these actors contribute to construct discontinuity and distinction within their respective spaces while they remain in a highly interconnected context. Finally, this foliation process is significant as it leads to reconsider the conditions within which are constructed representations, discourses and analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Through their daily practices, Israelis, Palestinians and internationals elaborate and construct radically different perceptions of the limits, the Other and the conflict as these construct result from specific time/space experiences.

/pdf/temporalities-and-perceptions-of-the-separation-between-1kfea26ai0.pdf

Temporalities and perceptions of the separation between Israelis and Palestinians

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