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<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://josephdana.com/2011/01/the-occupation-it%e2%80%99s-about-controlling-land-and-space/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=the-occupation-it%25e2%2580%2599s-about-controlling-land-and-space"><img src='https://occupiedpalestine.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/logo3.png' alt='' /></a></p>
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<p>Jan 20, 2011 | | Joseph Dana</p>
<p><em><strong>True, there are no large-scale killings of civilians in   the West Bank. But that’s not what Israel’s control of the West Bank is   about</strong></em></p>
<p>It is often mentioned that Israel’s war against the Palestinian   people does not fall under the rubric of truly violent crime because of   the absence of large scale killing of Palestinian civilians. Indeed,   this point does have weight and the absence of rape as a tool of war in   Israel’s arensel strengthens the argument. However, the core aim of   Israel’s onslaught on the Palestinians is the control of space. Since   the beginning of the Zionist colonization project, Israel has   deliberately sought to control space. Beginning with the 1948 war,   Israel liquidated Palestinian villages in order to take over their space   and not necessarily to kill their inhabitants. Since the 1967 conquest   of the West Bank and Gaza, the Zionist mantra of “a land without a   people for a people without a land” has proven to be a guiding principle   of Israeli conquest of the land.</p>
<p>Israel’s  unwillingness to set fixed borders contributes to its  ability to  control Palestinian space. The separation barrier and recent  Israeli  land acquisition projects, such as settlement expansion,  represent the  current method of Israeli space control in the West Bank.  The renowned  Israeli sociologist Adi Ophir has coined the term ‘camps’  for built up  Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank. The  barrier and myriad  of checkpoints have isolated Palestinian areas  leaving them in  disjointed camps. Every minute, Israel pumps resources  into  institutionalizing this system of disconnection which makes a  two-state  solution virtually impossible, and ingrains permanent Israeli  control.  As a result, Palestinian institutions and centralization  function like  organs without a body. The absence of borders allows  Israel to extend  its power in the Palestinian territories unchecked,  which Palestinians  are now challenging with the drive to fix borders  and declare statehood.</p>
<p>Just as Palestinians are excluded from representation in the Israeli   military law they are subject to, Israel exerts sovereign control over   space in the West Bank. The creation of settlements, therefore, is not   as much of a problem as their continued maintenance which necessarily   involves the unequal distribution of resources to Palestinians who, at   least in Area C of the West Bank, are completely beholden to Israel.   Even underground space and its resources such as wells and aquifers are   controlled by Israeli occupation authorities. Sociologist Sair Hanafi   has referred to Israel’s control of Palestinian space as ’spaciocide’   because it forms an attack on a people with the absence of full scale   slaughter.</p>
<p>Frantz Fanon wrote of the differences between the settler town and   that of the native in his landmark book The Wretched of the Earth. He   describes how clean and kept settler towns are while the town of the   native are ‘uneven’ and dirty. A recent evening in the West Bank village   of Nabi Saleh reminded me of this passage in reference to Israel’s   ability to decide what is visible and invisible in the West Bank. After a   long demonstration in which <a href="http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=204255" target="_blank">extremely violent</a> crowd control measures were used, the people of Nabi Saleh invited the   Israeli and international supporters in the village for a large meal.   The traditional meat-based Palestinian kitchen was transformed to   respect the veganism of  the many Israelis. We ate together and then   took much needed downtime over coffee and tea.</p>
<p>As I emerged from the dinner for the long ride home to Tel Aviv, I   was struck by the darkness. The village was pitch black as if it was on   the moon. I looked off across the valley to see the Jewish-only   settlement of Halamish bathing in light. The settlement looked like a   lighthouse in the pitch black sea of surrounding Palestinian villages. I   asked one of the villages for an explanation for the darkness. He told   me that every time they install proper road lights, Israeli soldiers   destroy them due to ‘lack of permits.’ Of course, the permits required   to build light posts are virtually impossible for Palestinians to   acquire.</p>
<p><a href="http://josephdana.com/2011/01/the-occupation-it%e2%80%99s-about-controlling-land-and-space/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=the-occupation-it%25e2%2580%2599s-about-controlling-land-and-space">The occupation: it’s about controlling land and space | Joseph Dana</a>.</p>
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