Palestine in Deleuze

Abstract

In the late 1970s and early 1980s French philosopher Gilles Deleuze authored a series of articles in which he reflected on the formation of the state of Israel and its subsequent dispossession and colonisation of Palestine and the Palestinian people. Naming the state of Israel as a colonial state, Deleuze’s under-discussed texts connect Israel’s programme of colonisation to that of the United States and the persisting dispossession of indigenous peoples. In so doing, this article argues, Deleuze offers an analysis of the development of capitalism that takes seriously its relation to colonial violence. Having called attention to Deleuze’s writings on Palestine, the conclusion of this article asks why these texts have been marginalised by Deleuze scholars. It asks how we might think of this marginalisation as contributing to the subjugation of Palestinian life, and as indicative of how relations of colonialism structure western social theory.

Transport geography, climate change and space: opportunity for new thinking

“…Bignall and Patton (2010, page 3) have claimed that "many of Deleuze's philosophical writings, both alone and with Guattari, develop concepts and frameworks of discussion that resonate with themes and issues pertinent to postcolonialism". They also document Deleuze's active involvement in decolonisation efforts in Algeria and Palestine (see also Medien, 2019). At the same time, his thinking, including that on concept creation, remains firmly entrenched in the Western-European philosophical tradition.…”

“…This call for spatial articulation and differentiation of the (re)invention of concepts also raises the question to what extent a Deleuze-inspired approach can be and should be adopted everywhere across the planet. Conversations between post-colonial and Deleuzian scholarship range from being critical (Spivak, 1988) to seeking rapprochement (Bignall and Patton, 2010;Burns and Kaiser, 2012;Dorries and Ruddick, 2018;Medien, 2019). Bignall and Patton (2010, page 3) have claimed that "many of Deleuze's philosophical writings, both alone and with Guattari, develop concepts and frameworks of discussion that resonate with themes and issues pertinent to postcolonialism".…”

Dromoelimination: Accelerating settler colonialism in Palestine

“…In addition to questions of space and land, we argue more focus should be paid on the rhythm, pace, and speed of settler colonial elimination. Secondly, there remains a need to further bridge research on settler colonialism with works focusing on capitalist logics and political economies of violence (e.g., Coulthard, 2014; Englert, 2020; Getzoff, 2020; Medien, 2019). As our own discussion shows, settler-capitalism is not merely an alliance, where elimination feeds the interests of capital and capital the needs of elimination.…”