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When Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, restrictions on Palestinian movement were gradually put in place. Today an intricate 'architecture of occupation' has been establishedmade up of numerous material barriers, the continuous expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and the establishment of an elaborate checkpoint system. For most inhabitants of the West Bank, passing through an Israeli checkpoint is a daily ritual they cannot avoid. In this article, I analyse two car checkpoints in the Bethlehem area: The Tunnels and Al Walaja, and the experiences of the Palestinian and Jewish Israeli commuters subjected to them. I argue that these checkpoints are spaces where two different, but inherently connected, mobility regimes meet: providing Jewish settlers swift and seamless passage, while controlling and hindering Palestinian commuters. I indicate how the existence of these two mobility regimes is only possible due to the low-tech design of the checkpoints, as well as the implementation of numerous biopolitical categories by the checkpoints managers. The implementation of these biopolitical categories was experienced by my interviewees as highly arbitrary as it allows the Israeli soldiers to act 'biopolitically on the spot', reinstating over and over again the asymmetrical relationship between the occupier and occupied. Moreover, I analyse how Palestinian commuters employ their 'checkpoint knowledge' in response to this arbitrariness to try to positively influence their passages: incorporating the rules and regulations as much as possible or trying to manipulate and twist the checkpoints' practices and biopolitical categories.
When Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, restrictions on Palestinian movement were gradually put in place. Today an intricate 'architecture of occupation' has been establishedmade up of numerous material barriers, the continuous expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and the establishment of an elaborate checkpoint system. For most inhabitants of the West Bank, passing through an Israeli checkpoint is a daily ritual they cannot avoid. In this article, I analyse two car checkpoints in the Bethlehem area: The Tunnels and Al Walaja, and the experiences of the Palestinian and Jewish Israeli commuters subjected to them. I argue that these checkpoints are spaces where two different, but inherently connected, mobility regimes meet: providing Jewish settlers swift and seamless passage, while controlling and hindering Palestinian commuters. I indicate how the existence of these two mobility regimes is only possible due to the low-tech design of the checkpoints, as well as the implementation of numerous biopolitical categories by the checkpoints managers. The implementation of these biopolitical categories was experienced by my interviewees as highly arbitrary as it allows the Israeli soldiers to act 'biopolitically on the spot', reinstating over and over again the asymmetrical relationship between the occupier and occupied. Moreover, I analyse how Palestinian commuters employ their 'checkpoint knowledge' in response to this arbitrariness to try to positively influence their passages: incorporating the rules and regulations as much as possible or trying to manipulate and twist the checkpoints' practices and biopolitical categories.
Recent decades have seen a major political shift in many nations, manifested in democratic regression, rise of populist non-liberal democracies, resurgence of extreme right, infractions against democratic watchdogs, and increasing nationalism and unilateralism. A central manifestation of this process is the active encroachment by governments on civil society, and particularly on its liberal elements. These manifestations allegedly emanate from resistance to the liberal world order and to threats from pressures imported by national NGOs, and are made possible by changing political opportunity structures. We explore the case of Israel, through an analysis of the New Israel Fund (NIF), as a particular yet demonstrative example of these dynamics. The manifestations of civil society encroachment in Israel include concerted and coordinated actions meant to weaken and delegitimize left-wing civil society actors and their supporters and donors, by Israel’s right-wing governments and their NGO allies, through legislation and rhetorical assaults; attempts to curb international funding of human rights organizations; and differential treatment of civil society organizations according to political stance. Interviews with former and current leaders of the NIF show that the attacks have galvanized liberal civil society actors to counteract, and drove them from passive response to active and strategic engagement, professionalization of media work and program evaluation, adjustment of public relations and legal strategies, and even adjustment of programmatic choice, shifting focus to supporting the infrastructure of civil society and democracy. The discussion stresses pressures by international illiberal forces, alongside the backlash to liberal world society, as causes for encroachment, and highlights the less explored reactions of civil society actors to such encroachment.
Ten years ago, a seemingly titanic wave of contention swept the globe. This article reflects on how the impact of a wave of contentious political action that is now a full decade old manifests today. These “legacies of contention”—the historically contingent impact of contentious episodes—can variably re-enforce, undermine, or depart substantially from the original focus of a given contentious episode, a sign of how difficult it can be to extrapolate from the causal impact of contentious politics in the near-run. Herein we discuss the fates of some of the 2011 contentious episodes, including Syria, Greece, Israel, England, and the United States.
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