Transactions, space and Otherness: borders and boundaries in Palestine-Israel
Abstract
In the context of conflict narratives, boundaries, borders and borderlanders serve as
facilitators or inhibitors of peace. In Palestine-Israel, demarcation is enacted through
the separation wall, the Green Line and the smart fence along the Gaza Strip. To the
established boundaries, informal demarcations are added, running through the land
and communities physically, in the case of Firing Zone 918, and ideologically through
Othering and transactions in the zones of transition. This article considers Othering
and the negotiation of space in the context of (un)official boundaries in the West Bank
and deconstructs the intersection of culture, politics and place, as well as the boundary
practices enacted by the state, community and the individual. First, the article
distinguishes between the types of borders and boundaries in the West Bank, before
considering the manner in which Otherness is practiced in the context of movement
and the separation wall, as residents negotiate the transition through and around the
barrier. From Othering in the transition zone, the study questions how far the
experiences of Palestinians and Israelis correlate with the broader border/boundary
discourse, the extent to which negative reciprocity is practiced at the checkpoints, and
whether subliminal boundaries and (re)naming influences stability in the region.
Keywords: borders; otherness; conflict; politics; culture; Palestine-Israel.
1
Borders?
I have never seen one.
But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.1
—Thor Heyerdahl
The negotiation of borders, boundaries and transition zones is ambiguous, whether explored
academically, legislatively, or as a resident travelling through the border region. The
experience of moving through the borderland is marked by the actors engaged in the
contested space, as the creation of borders prompts questions of “borders for whom?” and
“Who benefits and who loses?” (Newman 2003, p. 22). While the separation wall in
Palestine-Israel is a tangible partition, subtler divisions occur in the realms of education,
memory, maps and commemoration, transforming the boundaries into “manifestations of
social practice and discourse” (Paasi 1998, p. 75). In territorial discourse the naming of the
lines shifts as “borders” and “boundaries” interchange with “border zones”, “frontiers”,
“borderlands” and “transition zones”. In the case of Palestine-Israel, the names applied to the
barriers and the border communities are a linguistic site of contestation through which
Otherness is fostered and in such instances, the border becomes mobile as the speaker’s
origin is revealed through the words chosen and a difference or sameness is acknowledged by
the interlocutors. Yet while “borders” and “boundaries” can be perceived as semantically
fluid, the two must be disentangled and identified as separate concepts. This is particularly
necessary in the context of Othering in Palestine-Israel, where divisions are tangible, as well
as psychological.
Responding to the ambiguity of the border/boundary discourse, this article defines
“borders” as static demarcations, including the separation wall, the Green Line and Firing
Zone 918 in the West Bank, while “boundaries” denotes the delineation produced by
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(re)naming in and around the borders, as well as the unofficial checkpoints, such as “flying”
checkpoints. As of April 2015, the West Bank holds 361 flying checkpoints (B’Tselem
2015), also known as “random checkpoints”, which include concrete blocks, 4x4 armored
vehicles and collapsible stop signs, all of which can be mobilized to different locations at
short notice. Since the study of boundaries and borders requires a reflection on their capacity
to act as “viable dividers” through the gathering of data from the region (Minghi 1963, p.
428), this study incorporates data gathered over the course of two years of research and
interviews conducted in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Jenin, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Haifa and Acre as
part of two broader, ongoing projects looking at the impact of settlements on Palestinian daily
life in the West Bank, and the role of cultural activism in peace-building in the region.
Participants were drawn from advocacy organizations and contacts were established with
local community members through faith-based and cultural organizations, who were asked to
reflect on issues of freedom of movement, access to land and displacement. The interviews
cited here are augmented by secondary sources which provide insights into the military
aspects of the occupation, in particular, the experiences of those who have served in the West
Bank and subsequently shared their experiences through Breaking the Silence, an
organization of Israeli veterans who gather and share the testimonies of former combatants.
The first section of this article considers the nature of borders and boundaries in the
West Bank and the role of sovereignty and unequal power distribution therein. Practices of
exclusion are not restricted to the Wall or the checkpoints. Extending beyond the bifurcation,
selective exclusion is both a symptom and an enabler of Othering, as well as the perpetuation
of negative stereotypes, the practices and implications of which will be discussed in the
second part of this article. Subsequently, the study will consider the implications of formal
and informal separation boundaries and the dynamic of transactions at the checkpoints and
around existing and pending settlements, before concluding with subliminal boundaries and
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the significance of naming, re-naming and the establishment of self-boundaries. In turn, this
paper builds on the work of Paasi, Newman and Van Houtum by questioning whether the
experiences of power (im)balances at the borders and boundaries in Palestine-Israel can be
located within existing theories of b/order practices, as well as the extent to which the process
of traversing the transition zone correlates with Sahlin’s concept of negative reciprocity.
Borders, boundaries and power
The West Bank wall functions on two levels: as a physical barrier it regulates the passage of
travelers and the ways in which they enter and exit the West Bank, the speed, method and
location determined by documents that distinguish between commuters and, at an elementary
level, asserts Otherness in the transition zone. The Wall equally operates as an etymological
nexus: in Hebrew it is known as Geder HaHafrada and Tohmat HaHafrada or “the
separation fence” and “the separation/defensive wall”; in Arabic, it is jidar al-fasl al-‘unsuri,
“the Apartheid Wall”. Still under construction, the Wall will be 709–kilometers long once
completed, twice as long as the Green Line that it is said to follow, while 85 percent of the
amended route is within the West Bank itself (Figure 1: West Bank Area C, 2011, UN
OCHA). Over ten years on, the Wall varies in structure, in some parts concrete, at others
barbed-wire, trenches, tracks leading to “no access” signs and a smart fence (OCHA 2003, p.
3). The impact of the Wall is broad: curtailing and/or preventing “movement between
Palestinian towns and villages, splitting and isolating Palestinian communities, separating
Palestinians from their agricultural land, hampering access to work, schools, health facilities
and relatives, and destroying the Palestinian economy” (B’Tselem 2011; OHCHR 2010;
Amnesty International 2007; B’Tselem 2003, p. 10). Prior to work commencing in 2002,
tensions were already perceptible and the impact of Othering was realized through fits of
unrest that were either sporadic outbursts, protracted conflicts, such as the first Intifada
(1987-1993) and the second Intifada (2000-2005), or a sustained punitive reaction through
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house demolitions and administrative detention of men, women and children in Israeli
detention centers.
Figure 1. This map shows the West Bank Wall in relation to Palestinian and Israelicontrolled areas. Source: Based on UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs, West Bank Area C, February 2011.
The construction of the Wall adds to the tensions in four ways. First, it is physically
imposing: standing eight meters high and 60 meters wide, it consolidates the distinction
between the Self and the Other by impeding physical movement on selective grounds.
Second, the selective grounds on which the individual passes – or is prohibited from passing
5
– depends on whether they possess the documents that attest to the degree of their belonging
to the State of Israel. Third, although presented as a “non-violent defensive measure” (Israeli
Ministry of Defense 2004), the Wall perpetuates discrimination as the restrictions “target
Palestinians – because they are Palestinians […] [and] they are imposed on all Palestinians
and not on specific individuals who are reasonably considered to pose a security threat”
(Amnesty International 2004, p. 7; Human Rights Watch 2010, p. 14). The impact of the
Wall’s presence is not limited to human movement however, as the incorporation of major
water sources, including the Western Aquifer, within the Wall’s boundaries (Tamimi 2011 p.
560) warrants further consideration from a hydropolitical perspective. Water, in turn, presents
a catalyst for land loss, rendering the resource as much sought after as a weapon as it is a lifesustaining resource. As Tamimi suggests, the environmental and economic impact of water
shortages on the Palestinian communities often result in the loss of livelihoods and,
ultimately, re-location to areas with easier access to water (2011, p. 562). In recent years the
settlers have increasingly contributed an additional pressure, as N. Kadman of B’Tselem
(personal interview, 3 September 2013) observes,
daily encounters [that] are sometimes violent or blocking access for Palestinians to the
fields. This is how the authorities divide the resources and how they allocate them to
the settlements, which means that certain Palestinians lose their lands.
Once empty, the lands are designated as “uncultivated” and available for confiscation by the
Israeli state, adding a fourth dimension to the tensions through the strategic carving of the
landscape and its resources to meet the needs of inhabitants in manner that serves some, but
not all of its inhabitants.
The impact of the Wall is, of course, not limited to cement blocks and wire fences, for
equally significant are the psychological nuances that drive the desire to build, as well as the
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rationale behind who belongs where, how different groups move, and how (and to whom)
protection is provided. In turn, the bifurcation works on two levels: first, through an ideology
of survival that is couched in the national narrative, and second through physical separation
that realizes the ideology on the ground. To survive, one must defend and Israel’s quest to do
so through varied means evokes Van Houtum’s suggestion that borders transcend military
impulses to realize “the Objectification/Verdinglichung/Exclusion of the Outside, the Other”
and issue “a big NO against the death of the nation” (2010, p. 290). However, in the case of
Palestine-Israel the quest for eternal life (or at least a long, safe one) is one-sided, for the
Wall serves only one mistress. As a border, the Wall represents the point at which
sovereignty and power intersect, and selective passage is practiced: as Israeli commuters
move freely, Palestinians wait in sites that can prove fatal, whether due to live-fire (The
Observer, 9 January, 2011), cramped conditions (The Times of Israel, 31 December 2014) or
the untimely arrival of medical assistance (Human Rights Watch 2015). The ideology of
survival is driven by a nuanced process that discerns who should be protected and how the
protection is provided, and the responses to these questions are shaped by collective
perceptions of the Other, who is defined by stereotypic qualities attributed by the in-group
(Bar-Tal 1997 pp. 493; 498). In turn, the Wall becomes a “meaning-making and meaningcarrying entit[y]” (Donnan and Wilson 1999, p. 4) that makes the border and boundary
discourse as much about the mind as it is about cartography.
Discerning between borders and boundaries is then, an exercise in subjectivity as the
interchange of terms is balanced by attempts at distinction. Donnan and Wilson (1999, p. 22)
locate boundaries within borders that are socially or culturally responsive in a manner that
evokes Wallman’s “permeable teabag” (1978, p. 205) that perceives the boundary as a
reaction between two oppositional sides. At the same time, the land is spatially actant as its
contestation “brings about a certain effect in a certain situation or place” (Kärrholm 2007, p.
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440). At their most elemental, however, boundaries are not marked physically, but
symbolically, though they remain “no less ‘real’ […] since they are clearly real in their
consequences” (Donnan and Wilson 1999, p. 26), results that arise through social and
political unrest. Borders and boundaries are not divided between the abstract and the tangible,
or the wall versus the mind, however. As Newman observes, psychological borders manifest
through a fear of the Other that is articulated physically as well as verbally through the need
to “stay on our side of the border in the ‘here’” (2003, p. 20), thereby realizing the separation
from within the individual to the collective and, in certain cases, the territorial space. The
result is “an ongoing strategic effort to make a difference in space” (Van Houtum and Van
Naerssen 2002, p. 126) that speaks not only to divisions on the ground, but also among
people, identities and the impact this bears on spatial behavioral activity (Minghi 1963, p.
428).
At the border, interactions are subjected to uneven distributions of power and in a
region where conflict is recurrent, each interaction holds the potential to end fatally and/or
catalyze further unrest. While the responses of individuals at the checkpoints depend on the
situation at hand, the security climate and the disposition of the soldiers and commuters, there
remain a number of practices that shape general border interactions. For Kärrholm, border
practices are rooted in territorial tactics and strategies, the former denoting a personal link
between the land and the group that claims it as their own, which results in territorial
appropriation. The former comprises mediated control that is planned and enacted from a
distance and is produced through territorial association (Kärrholm 2007, p. 441). That the
territorial claims in Palestine-Israel are bound in historical and religious narratives that
heighten personal attachment to the land, lends “territorial tactics” greater relevance as the
territories are appropriated through the construction of illegal settlements and the re-drawing
of boundaries. While Kärrholm’s strategies are applicable in this case, Novak’s interpretation
8
of “territorial strategies” remains of equal relevance, as “the boundary is both the product of,
and an enabling resource for, a variety of […] social groups, each attempting to assert their
own territorial strategies” (2011, p. 748). Although Novak uses the term “boundary” in his
analysis, in the context of this study his understanding of territorial strategies can be applied
to the border, as the Wall, in its various guises, facilitates the practice of Israeli sovereignty in
the West Bank through the restrictions placed on those entering and exiting the territories
(Figure 2, New Movement Restrictions in East Jerusalem, UN OCHA, October 2015).
Figure 2. Various border practices. Source: Based on UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs, New Movement Restrictions in East Jerusalem, October 2015.
9
The exercise of sovereignty in the West Bank is not limited to the border, that is, the
Wall. Advancing into the West Bank, borders become boundaries that are mobile, unofficial,
and at times rudimentary. In addition to the flying checkpoints, 96 “fixed” checkpoints are
located around the West Bank and while the Wall marks a clear division between the West
Bank and Israel, only 40 percent of the fixed checkpoints lead to Israel, the remainder
regulating passage between and around Palestinian towns and villages. In addition, as of
March 2015, Palestinian commuters were forbidden to travel on 60.92 kilometers of roads in
the West Bank, which are reserved for Israelis and settlers (B’Tselem 2015). The arbitrary
nature of the checkpoints connotes a loosening of the strictures that shape border regulation,
for as Amir suggests, the inequality practiced at the border is rooted in citizenship, in contrast
the checkpoints around the West Bank that practice marginalization, rather than total
exclusion (2013, p. 235). However, while the exclusion might not be total, it remains
omnipresent and fickle, since the reservation of certain roads and locales for Israelis, and
particularly settlers, preserves the illegal status quo by prioritizing the free movement of
some, over that of others. In turn, the restrictions placed on Palestinian travelers in the West
Bank are a reminder of the close links between movement, power and sovereignty, for just as
the Palestinian Authority holds jurisdiction in the West Bank, the presence of Israeli forces
allows Palestinian daily life to be “controlled by proxy”, countering “any grip any other rule
could have over the same group of people” (Amir 2013, p. 231). The result is the steady
sustenance of a “spacio-cidal project” (Hanafi 2006, p. 95) that enables proxy pockets of
sovereignty to carry the territorial tactics of the border to other sites in the West Bank.
Dimensions of Otherness
The construction of the Wall and the mobilization of checkpoints are guided by the ideology
of security. At its core, security includes an element of fear and most commonly fear of
another, or, the Other. At its core, Othering enacts a fear of that which is known – or
10
unknown – and manifests on a larger scale through open conflict, as well as through the
nuanced, yet pervasive, acts of differentiation, such as the promulgation of negative
stereotypes, discrimination and racism. As Balibar notes, Otherness “[p]rojects the imaginary
figure of an alien or external collective ‘other’, who […] becomes ‘fantastic’ as a threatening
double, or an essential enemy” (2005, p. 25), a trope that has been explored to great effect by
Bar-Tal (1997).2 As a means to augment the sense of self, the Other functions not just on an
individual level, but a national one, too, as Triandafyllidou suggests, “the identity of a nation
is defined and/or re-defined through the influence of ‘significant others’ […] that are
perceived to threaten the nation, its distinctiveness, authenticity and/or independence” (1998,
p. 594). If the collective self is defined according to what it is not, enforced separation
reinforces the “unknown” and raises the question of how the counter-image of the Other is
sustained once contact diminishes. As noted by Debby Farber, of the Israeli organization
Zochrot, an Israeli can pass decades without meeting a Palestinian, and in turn, suspicion of
the unknown Other remains (Farber 2014). In such cases, Newman’s claim that perceptions
of the Other are positively challenged by “bottom-up” approaches is pertinent, since
increased interaction between individuals establishes new frameworks of understanding,
while ideological and physical barriers consolidate difference (2003, p. 20). The zones
between the borders and boundaries assume another layer when traversed: while it would be
optimistic to posit that enhanced contact guarantees good relations, it would be realistic to
reflect that barriers facilitate Othering, which in turn foster a negative dynamic. Just as
Otherness is enabled by reduced contact, so too is this perpetuated on a State level, as “a
perceived otherness, a sufficient degree of alienation” is practiced between both the
governing apparatuses and their representatives on the ground (Amir 2013, p. 233). In turn,
while the boundaries constructed within individuals can be established over the course of
years, their dismantlement can be more difficult and protracted.
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However, Othering is not purely contingent on boundaries that promote the unknown
through the absence of interaction: at other times, seeing, hearing and moving in close
proximity to another community substantiates the line of difference. For Newman, the first
time meeting could exacerbate old tensions by reminding the individuals of the “fear,
suspicion and distrust [that] heighten the mutual feelings of animosity” (2006, p. 151), but to
this can be added the long-term exposure: the aesthetic and functional duality of the
separation wall, as noted in Busbridge’s account of the performativity of power through the
visual impact of the wall (2013, p. 660). On the side facing Israel, the structure is
camouflaged to ensure limited visual disruption; for West Bank residents, the vista is less
considered, as it cuts through communities and over homes, interrupting movement and
access. In the West Bank village of al-Walajah, the wall carves through the community,
shifting the Palestinian families into Israel and circling residences with fences, cement walls,
gates and tunnels. For the Hajajleh family, once the wall has been completed so too will their
transition from an accessible residence on the edge of the town to one that is subject to an
arcane process of gates, doors, tunnels and regulations as to who can enter and when. Should
the process of entry be abrogated the key to the main gate will be removed from the family
and control of the entrance passed to a third party who will open and close the gate three
times daily for an hour each time (B’Tselem 2013). In turn, what is deemed as “security” for
some, presents “prison-lite” for those who call the plot of land home and is representative of
Smith’s broader carceral geographies in the region (2011, p. 319). Al-Walajah is one of a
number of villages that have been, and continue to be, disrupted by the course of the Wall:
Abu Dis, Jayus, Qalqiliyah and Bir Nabala (B’Tselem 2012, p. 5) are a few more. What
emerges is a wider picture of power at play: lines redrawn, gates erected, stipulations
enforced and personal freedoms that are sacrificed at the altar of security.
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Living in the shadow of the wall presents one dimension of the spatial power
dynamic: circumventing the wall provides an additional site, for as Pullan observes, the
tunnels spare Israeli commuters a view of those passing in the opposite or same direction
(2013, p. 139), blocked, caged and awaiting scrutinization, often for hours at a time
(Mondoweiss, 2014). When regarded from the side of the border forces, the act of waiting
becomes synonymous with discipline of a different kind: one that is cultivated through
training and is an enactment of power (Van Houtum 2010, p. 287). For the soldiers serving in
the West Bank, the enactment of power seems to be the only reason that they are there, as the
Israeli artist and activist, M. Rozanov (personal interview, 7 December, 2014) noted while
reflecting on his service,
It was a checkpoint dividing two sides of the same village, an established one with
concrete cubes. I was trying to understand what the hell we were doing there, because
we couldn’t understand it. We were just there to make these people’s lives a bit
harder, because they needed to cross this road every time, twice a day, mothers with
children going to kindergarten and kids going to school. When we stood there, we
were in full equipment, with helmets and loaded guns – because that’s what you need
to do.
In each case, movement flows in both directions, but the transition zone is one of limited
exchange, despite the shared (albeit different) experience of waiting: the Other is to be seen
as little as possible, while the mechanism by which this is ensured is also to be concealed.
The result, in the case of the West Bank, is an adjustment of Newman’s “transition zone”,
originally defined as the site in which “the person in transit […] undergoes a process of
acclimatization and acculturation as he/she moves through the zone of transition, so that the
shock of meeting the ‘other’ is not as great as he/she feared” (2006, p. 151), to one in which
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the “process of acclimatization and acculturation” is consciously limited and interaction
restricted to a minimum.
Central to the act of conscious limitation are the subjects who are concealed, yet still
engaged, in the power struggle in the transition zone as they become the protagonists in the
narrative of the Other, as well as embodiments of the stereotypes and representations in the
wider conflict discourse. As individual experiences and identities become separated and lost,
to be replaced by glances from car windows, the narrative becomes both a casualty and
protagonist in the construction of subliminal boundaries between the two communities. For
Anderson, frontier narratives contribute “indispensable elements of the construction of
national culture” (1996, pp. 1-3), while on a tangible level, “national narratives of belonging
and identity […] are continually reproduced in the processes of spatial socialization” (Paasi
2012, p. 2306) and are co-opted to promote sentiments of belonging and identity. However,
this is for a select audience, as Palestinians and Israelis invoke claims to the land and the land
shapes their respective identities. The result is a perpetuation of Shalit’s concept of the
schism between ‘“I” and “Him” or “Us” and “Them”’ (1987, p. 369) that is realised through
the physicality of the Wall and the bodies of the protagonists, as the boundaries rise and shift,
and the community, family and individual is relocated, paused, diverted and spatially
redefined according to political and cartographical developments.
At the same time, bodies become the contributors, recipients and conduits through and
on which regulation, representation and identity are inscribed, as the borderland intensifies
Othering through the reduction of the individual to a subject of objectification on an identity
document (Foucault 1979, p. 191; Pullan 2013, p. 139), while an area is characterized as
perilously lawless. In the latter instance, the West Bank is mythologised by those who have
not yet ventured over the boundary and the sense of uncertainty that awaits the Israeli traveler
is perceptible: upon discovering that I had come from the West Bank to Tel Aviv, the
14
respondents would ask “what was it like?”, before expressing the wish to visit in future, while
acknowledging that it would be unlikely to happen. Perceptions of the West Bank as a site of
peril are bolstered in the transition zones through cautionary signs and legislative reminders:
on the approach to the Qalandiya checkpoint a red sign reminds Israelis that to enter Area A
is “forbidden [and] dangerous to your lives”, a sentiment that is carried both west and east of
the checkpoint as Israeli travellers entering the West Bank by other routes sustain a level of
caution that limits the degree to which “acclimatization and acculturation” can occur in the
aftermath of the transition.
The “Wild West Bank”
It happens. A truckload of chickens gone and the guy won't have bread to feed his
family. It happens. Yeah, bro, it happens. Okay. It's not in my own home, great. If it’s
not in my own home, what do I care. And at some point, no matter how much you
sympathize with that population, with the Palestinians, you also get into that mode of
“it happens”. What can you do. It happens. (Breaking the Silence 2005)
The degree to which an individual or community exercises mobility indicates their position in
the power hierarchy, between those who pass freely, those who monitor the passage—both in
terms of the passage as a static construct and an action—and those who are subject to
scrutinization, the gaze, queues and the ambiguity that marks the endeavor to successfully
pass through the border. The checkpoints in the West Bank embody the fluctuating definition
of a border: at times mobile and arbitrary, at others unmoving and purposeful, they interpose
the power dynamic into the Palestinian and Israeli every day. In this manner, Otherness is
reinforced through the passage of time: swiftness for Israelis, varying degrees of slowness for
Palestinians, while restrictions alter in confluence with the level of stability as highways cater
for both parties at certain times, and for one community at others. As Tawil-Souri notes, the
15
evolution of checkpoints in the West Bank reflects the growing military presence: from the
tank that relocates as it checks identity documents to the metal cages and control towers
(2010, pp. 28-29), their enhanced presence evoking the Foucauldian disciplinary mechanism,
in which the individual is located in an “enclosed segmented space, observed at every point
[…] in which the slightest movements are supervised […] in which power is exercised
without division, according to a continuous hierarchical figure, in which each individual is
constantly located, examined and distributed” (1979, p. 197).
In the case of Nabi Samuel, the removal of the majority of villagers in 1971 reflects
the influence of the power hierarchy over 43 years of supervision, (re)location and the
distribution of residents by loading families onto trucks, demolishing homes, or by impeding
access to gas, flour and livestock (+972, 18 May 2014). Once more, the dynamic at the
checkpoint is determined by the military, a power disparity that has led to the term “the Wild
West” being applied to military actions in the West Bank. An example of this can be found in
the case of official permits being arbitrarily denied, “We get a permit, we arrive at the
checkpoint, and they tell us we have no permit.” When coupled with “[t]hat whole checkpoint
is the Wild West. Everyone does whatever he wants” and “It’s the yeshiva students’ favorite
spot, that Wild West, because they know they can do whatever they want, beat people up as
much as they want, just go wild” (Breaking the Silence 2012, p. 133). This vignette is
replayed, both in the accounts of soldiers and in the reports of advocacy organizations, both
local and international.
While arbitrary, the decision-making at the checkpoint determines the balance (or
imbalance) of power in the borderlands and to the disciplinary mechanism can be added the
exercise of power and the counter-law that unofficially governs spatial transactions.
Transactions can be defined within the power hierarchy that sets apart the soldiers who hold
the power to decide who passes and when, and the civilians engaged in the process. At other
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times, the transaction is physical: the seizing of personal effects and official documents to be
held indefinitely or for a period until the objective has been met. Lastly, as Hammami
observes, the transaction of time is a valued commodity for those passing through the zones
of transition to conduct business, seek medical treatment or attend school. The distinction
between “Palestinian time [that] is ‘cheap’ and infinite” and “Israeli time [that] is a valuable,
finite resource” (Hammami 2001, p. 14) reinforces the negative exchange that occurs on the
border, as the hierarchy enacts a “negative reciprocity” that seeks “something for nothing
with impunity” (Sahlins 1968, p. 148) with the resources flowing in one direction only.
Sahlins locates “negative reciprocity” within an ethnographic framework that ranges from
“haggling” and “chicanery” to “theft”, though the process of “negative reciprocity” is defined
as closer to “haggling” than “theft”. While he observes the range of tactics, from “guile” to
“the finesse of a well-conducted horse-raid”, there remains the capacity for an (albeit
imbalanced at times) exchange between both parties:
The participants confront each other as opposed interests, each looking to maximize
utility at the other's expense [...] The “reciprocity” is, of course, conditional again, a
matter of defense of self-interest [...] the flow may be one-way once more, reciprocation
contingent upon mustering countervailing pressure or guile. (p. 149)
Adopting the characteristics of negative reciprocity (“opposed interests”, the conditionality of
the transaction and the imbalanced flow) parallels can be drawn from the accounts of former
soldiers who worked the checkpoints. As Palestinian civilians approach the transition zone
anticipating mobility, the result is mixed: a successful transit, a process of negotiation
resulting in passage or the loss of time, goods or livelihood, and/or failure to transit. Mobility
is the primary commodity in the transaction, since freedom of movement determines access
to employment, education, healthcare and family. However, the “flow” becomes one-way as
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the hierarchy is reinforced through the queue, as “those in the queue [become] ethnically
homogenous […] based on the fundamental categorical distinction at work: Israeli versus
Palestinian” (Hammami 2001, p. 11). The queue perpetuates not only the distinction between
“us” and “them”, but also the objectification of those engaged in the act of queuing, resulting
in “the subjection of those who are perceived as objects and the objectification of those who
are subjected” (Foucault 1979, pp. 184-185). In turn, another level of border transaction
emerges, willingly enacted or otherwise, comprising the gathering of trinkets, the collection
of expired ID cards or the offering of packets of cigarettes, bottles of soda and miscellaneous
souvenirs, as discussed by former soldiers who served in Jenin and West Bank in 2002:
There was a norm of using your power to take all kinds of trinkets as souvenirs. [...]
one of the more aggressive guys had a collection of prayer-bead strings with the
names of Allah. Obviously if the driver gave it to the soldier, he could pass the
inspection smoothly. If not, his car would be literally taken apart [...] Often they
simply gave in. […] [S]o it was worth the Palestinians’ while to just give it to the
soldier in return for their time. (Breaking the Silence 2002)
[T]hey pay you with their masbahas (prayer beads), packs of cigarettes, chocolate,
whatever you want – they give you. [...] [T]he same people cross them [the
checkpoints] almost every day, it was acceptable so there wouldn’t be too much of a
mess, they knew that we were a bunch of kids so they bribed us with all kinds of
rubbish. [...] I also heard about guys who got DVDs in Ramallah. It’s all souvenirs
from the Territories. (Breaking the Silence 2002)
The concept of giving “in return for their time” highlights the uneasy confluence of the
Maussian gift mitigated by Sahlins’ “negative reciprocity”, as, for the soldiers, trinkets serve
as mementos from a youth passed in the danger zone. For those passing through however, it
18
is a means to ease the daily process of transitioning from one area to another and one that has
no determined end.
At the checkpoint, the concept of “transaction”, “gifting” and “exchanges” becomes
problematic, the terms gaining legitimacy through the giving, anticipation and granting of
commodities and favors. “The purpose of the transaction,” Kopytoff notes, “is not [...] to
open the way for some other kind of transaction,” while “gifts are given in order to evoke an
obligation to give back a gift, which in turn will evoke a similar obligation – a never-ending
chain of gifts and obligations” (1986, p. 69). Power and (in)equality dominate the discourse
of exchange and transactions at the West Bank checkpoints and, in turn, influence the
dynamic between the Palestinians moving through the checkpoint and the Israeli soldiers
managing the border. Addressing the abrogation of terms of passage through the separation
wall is akin to spotting fissures in a badly cracked teapot, since they are as frequent and
numerous. From the outset, the Wall drew censure led by the International Court of Justice
which advised that its construction violated international law, and that Israel must remove it
and compensate the Palestinians affected by its presence (HaMoked 2014). In the ten years
that have passed, the wall has grown and a modus operandi has emerged from the IDF Code
of Conduct, a mélange of “international law, Israeli law, and the IDF's own traditional ethical
code - ruach tzahal, ‘the spirit of the IDF’” (Guiora 2003). Of the eleven rules of conduct,
number six, “[s]oldiers must accord dignity and respect to the Palestinian population and
those arrested” (Guiora 2003) stands out, for at checkpoints such as Qalandiya, the control
towers, barriers, fences, cages, guns, turnstiles, scanners and the mercurial approach to time
combine to compromise dignity and respect through the reinforcement of inequality through
the waiting process (Hammami 2001, p. 9). The ability to discern how quickly this process
could pass is believed, in part, to rest with the soldiers. While travelling to Ramallah from
East Jerusalem, I asked a colleague how long it would take to cross before midday; the
19
response, “It depends on who is on the checkpoint, what mood he is in, what he had for
breakfast and what he feels like doing,” demonstrates the power imbalance that speaks not of
a rigid mechanism, but one that can be amended at will. Whether the compromise is enacted
by the soldiers themselves (Amnesty International 2014) or through the physical juxtaposed
with the aesthetic, the result is a division between those in control and those receiving the
commands.
The experience of crossing is further divided between the territory entered and exited.
Transitioning into the West Bank is a relatively smooth process and depending on the volume
of traffic, can be completed at a timely pace. Re-entering Israel reinforces the dichotomy of
inequality, as commuters disembark, enter the cage, wait for the greenlight to allow a number
(usually three or four) to pass through the turnstile, pass their goods through the scanner,
enter the detector, have the ID documents checked, then cross to the bus-park, where another
vehicle resumes the journey. For Israeli settlers in the West Bank, however, the checkpoint is
bypassed by custom-made roads that demonstrate “a clear hierarchy between two types of
resident in the territories, in which the Israelis were privileged and connected to the urban
centers of Israel” (Grinberg 2010, p. 76; Human Rights Watch 2010, pp. 14-15). The
checkpoint therefore affords a glimpse at the micro and macro levels at which control is
performed. In the former, it is the act of physically transitioning through the border-zone that
places the individual under the gaze of the authority; in the latter case, territorial delineation
through the checkpoints and bypass roads creates an enduring sense of Otherness: those who
have access to Israeli cities, freedom of movement and self-determination, and those who
confront the possibility that work may be reached, it might be quick or it may be denied
altogether.
Boundaries of the mind
20
Just as the border mechanisms fan out from the Wall to the territories through the
checkpoints, flying and fixed, so too do boundaries manifest in different guises. Central to the
semantic practice of bordering is naming and, as note earlier, the preference of certain names
over others can be tied to an individual’s identity. In Salman Natour’s short story, Farewell,
the protagonist, an elderly Sheikh, overhears a group of tourists discussing Yaffo. After a few
moments, he interrupts the conversation to scream, “This is Jaffa! Jaffa was. Jaffa became.
Jaffa died. But Jaffa—Jaffa remains [emphasis in the original]” (Natour 2014). The renaming of streets, towns and regions denotes a process of semantic bordering and the creation
(and in certain cases, the realization) of boundaries of the mind. While not marked by
concrete or metal, they are committed through the imposition of self-boundaries rooted in
geographies of fear and anger, Othering through territorial exclusion, and the utilization of
security as a means to impede freedom of movement and expression. In the first instance, renaming is an act of erasure and replacement: the boundary that is traversed is one of language
and narrative. The street, the trees, buildings and residents remain, but the name must be relearned and in the process, a boundary is crossed into that which is separate from the identity
of the place and its inhabitants (should they remain).
In the case of Haifa, the renaming of streets heralded the overlaying of a new Israeli
identity on the Palestinian community: the street that presently is called Sderot Hatsiyonut
(Zionism Street) was once known as Share’a al-Jabal (Mountain Street), while others that
were named after writers, landmarks (stairs, hills) and fruits (olives) have been similarly renamed after politicians (Sderot Ben Gurion), historic events (Masada Street) and figures
(Lokhamei ha-Geta’ot Street).3 The result is a layering of names that sets boundaries between
local identity and present nomenclature, as well as acting as a public claim, as Peteet
observes, “Repeating a name, standardizing it, and displacing former names normalizes it
[…] [and] are often ideological invocations, part and parcel of an imaginative, often violent
21
geography, that are standardized by the state and often the academy” (2005, p. 157). The
overlaying of street names in Haifa reflects Peteet’s observation, as names that were once
concerned with the immediate surroundings were replaced with those of a deeper, though less
immediate, significance, as S. Natour observes (personal interview, 4 December, 2014),
If there is a street with the name “al-Jabal”, which means “the mountain,” why should it
be changed? […] Before 1948, Masada Street was called Ma’saada which means “a place
that you go up”, because before 1948 it was a street that you climbed via stairs. They
called it “Masada”, which is a memory of death.4
During the interview with Natour, it was evident that the original names had not been
forgotten. However, when asked whether they were still applied, as opposed to recalled, by
the Palestinian community, he stated that they were not in daily practice (S. Natour, personal
interview, 4 December, 2014). Nevertheless, while practicality consolidates the switch, the
significance of memory and identity ensures that though gone, the names that served the
Palestinian community in the past remain in a memorialized topography to be negotiated by
some and not others. In turn, the renaming of streets and places, such as Jerusalem
(“Yerushalayim” in Hebrew, “Al-Quds” in Arabic) and the West Bank (“ad-Daffah IGarbiyyah” in Arabic, “Yehuda ve-Shomron”5 in Hebrew) is indicative of the toponymic
performativity of the formal and informal boundaries of identity that, as observed in the
introduction to this article, form the “cultural landscape” and become the “meaning-makers
and meaning-carriers” when passed between the speaker and the respondent.
The allocation of names is a personal and collective act – remembered by the community,
practiced, whether out loud or not, by the individual. Equally, the individual and the
community regulate sites of movement through self-boundaries governed by geographies of
anger and fear. If checkpoints such as Qalandiya present transition zones at which the
22
imbalance of power is enacted, then the spaces in-between, such as the West Bank and the
settlements, become locations in which “nested hierarchies of space and site” are supplanted
by “the spatial outcome of complex interactions between faraway events and proximate fears,
between old histories and new provocations, between rewritten borders and unwritten orders”
(Appadurai 2006, p. 100). Within Appadurai’s geography of anger, one can locate Newman’s
geography of fear that is charted through the creation of “mental maps” of safe and unsafe
zones in Jerusalem from 1987 onwards:
[If] Israelis would cross into the West Bank and into East Jerusalem on Saturdays […]
this activity ceased altogether. The famous water-melon stand outside the Damascus
Gate, where Israelis and Palestinians would do nothing more serious than buy a water
melon and sit down next to each other while they consumed the product, rapidly went into
decline and ultimate extinction. (2006, p. 153)
The mental maps are constructed from the memory of conflict past, as well as the likelihood
of the unrest rekindling, while “the borders are rewritten” through both the act of avoiding
certain spaces, as in the case of the shared activities once held at Damascus Gate, or through
the emergence of (in)security in zones that are officially civilian, but unofficially militarized
since 1980 (ACRI 2013). In the context of the South Hebron Hills, Firing Zone 918 has
presented a zone of (in)security for Palestinian residents, the parentheses denoting the duality
of the security provided and the question of whom it serves. Established in 1999,
approximately 700 Palestinian residents of 12 villages6 were displaced by the Israeli military
on the grounds of “illegal residence in a live-fire zone” (B’Tselem 2013; ACRI 2012).
Although the live-fire zone was declared in the 1970s, little activity had taken place and the
individuals who had taken up seasonal or permanent residence in the caves within the
military area had, with time, grown in numbers (B’Tselem 2013). Despite the declaration in
1999, it was not until 2012 that live-fire action commenced and to date more than 18 percent
23
of the West Bank has been designated as a closed military “fire zone”, which is off limits for
Palestinians (Amnesty International, 2012). The consequences of the closed military training
zone have been displacement, home demolitions and the loss of livelihood. In a physical
sense, the spaces once negotiated with ease are realigned in accordance with new rules: in the
case of Al-Shuhada Street in Hebron, freedom of movement has been curtailed since 2000,
when front doors facing the street were welded shut. Since then, the residents and
shopkeepers negotiate a myriad of roof-top climbs and wall-scales (B’Tselem 2007), while
Israeli soldiers and the inhabitants of nearby settlements traverse the thoroughfare freely, a
disparity that contributes to the “arbitrary matrix of spatial enclosures” (Pullan 2013, p. 126)
that mark the boundaries in the West Bank.
Conclusion
The negotiation of power at, around and through boundaries and borders in Palestine-Israel is
visible at the separation wall, checkpoints (flying and fixed), and the presence of the military
in the South Hebron Hills and al-Khalil/Hebron. The West Bank evokes the “borderlands
milieu” (Martínez 1994, p. 8), a site marked by transnationalism that enables shared
experiences, values, ideas and customs to cross state and national lines. Both in the case of
the Palestinians in Israel and the wider region, ties with their counterparts in the West Bank
are sustained through the online medium, visits, communications and solidarity networks.
Likewise, the network between the settlers and segments of the Israeli political and social
milieu is maintained by the military and through political support (B’Tselem 2014) afforded
to settlers and the settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (Kershner and Rudoren
27 October, 2014; Ravid 26 October, 2014). In both cases, topophilia strengthens the nation
through collective memory, identity, ideologies and aspirations. As noted by Paasi (2012;
1998), Newman (2006; 2003), Smith (2011) and Van Houtum (2002a; 2002b; 2010), the
borderlands milieu presents a site of separation and conflict, and these processes are reflected
24
in the West Bank through the re-negotiation of power that governs the interactions in the
transition zone. Interactions in the West Bank evoke Williams’ “bad fences”, affording a
“mechanism to close debate, shutoff contact and impose understandings […] [that] retain the
ability to generate violence, conflict, war, repression and injustice” (2003, p. 44). While
border and boundary interactions in Palestine-Israel cannot be mended only through the
construction of “good fences”, the implementation of its attributes, including “an
understanding of neighborliness that recognizes, respects and values the different
contributions the interlocutors bring” (Williams 2003, 44) would ameliorate an already
challenged case.
As a framework within which to analyze border performativity in the West Bank, the
borderlands milieu should be extended to encompass the self-boundary, incorporating
geographies of anger and fear, transactions of negative reciprocity and “the impulse to record
and recall the spaces and places which haunt the present” (Kurki and Laurén 2012, p. 116).
The self-boundary acts on a physical and psychological level, in the case of the former
through the decision to venture into an area or not, and in the latter, through Othering of
fellow inhabitants and the haunting of the land through names lost, but not forgotten. As
opposed to the definition used by Rycroft and latterly, Shalit (Rycroft 1983; Shalit 1987,
366)7 the self-boundary is a visceral coping mechanism, responding both to the Other and the
process of being Othered. While the contemporary discourse redefines boundaries and
borders, it is their porousness and multiple guises that sustain the ambiguity. In the case of
the West Bank, while the designation may vary, the dichotomy of power in the zones of
transition does not. In turn, the lines remain “bad fences” perpetuated by a Foucauldian
disciplinary mechanism that sustains the cycle of instability. Moreover, the power
(im)balance is aggravated by the negative reciprocity enacted at the checkpoints and the
25
Wall, whether wittingly or otherwise, while the territorial tactics sustain exclusionary
practices that inhibit cohesive sentiments in the long term.
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Notes
1
Thor Heyerdahl quotation on the façade of the Kon-Tiki Museet, Oslo, Norway.
2
See also: Bar-Tal and Teichman (2005). . Stereotypes and prejudice in conflict: Representations of
Arabs in Israeli Jewish society, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and Bar-Tal and Graumann
(1989) and, Stereotypes and prejudice: Changing conceptions, (New York: Springer-Verlag) Bar-Tal
(2011), Intergroup Conflicts and Their Resolution: A Social Psychological Perspective, (New York:
Psychology Press).
3
Translated, “Fighters of the Ghetto,” it is also the name of the kibbutz, Lohamei HaGeta'ot, founded
in 1949 in the western Galilee by surviving fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943).
4
Natour, Salman. Personal interview. 4 December, 2014.
5
Translated, “Judea and Samaria”.
6
The villages include Jinba, Al-Mirkez, Al- Halaweh, Halat a-Dab’a, Al-Fakheit, A-Tabban, AlMajaz, A-Sfai Megheir Al-Abeid, Al-Mufaqara, A-Tuba, and Sarura.
7
The self-boundary is defined as the exercise of “control at the expense of expressiveness.” Cf.
Charles Rycroft, 1983. A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
32