Political Geography 103 (2023) 102844

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Political Geography
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/polgeo

Full Length Article

Beyond the contours of Zionist sovereignty: Decolonisation in Palestine’s

Unity Intifada
Walaa Alqaisiya a, b, c, *
a
Ca’Foscari University of Venice, Dorsoduro 3484/D, Calle Contarini, 30123, Venezia, Italy
b
Columbia University in the City of New York, United States
c
London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This article takes the May 2021 uprising in Palestine, known as the Unity Intifada, as a prism to map old and new
Decolonisation political geographies between coloniser and freedom-fighter, whose significance extends beyond the temporal
Zionism limits of the May event. The first part of the paper investigates the role of identity and cultural geographies in re-
Settler colonialism
enforcing Jewish claims to sovereignty. It shows how the Zionist production of pink (sexed/gendered), red
Unity Intifada
(racializing/indigenising) and green (environmental) markers, is used to draw the contours of settler legitimacy
and intensifies when faced by growing indigenous rebellion. The second part addresses the decolonising possi­
bilities engulfing the Unity Intifada. It examines the role of youth, including women and queer collectives, and
how their actions invoke new political and material taxonomies beyond the liberal peace structure to which
Palestine has succumbed since the Oslo agreements. Overall, the article advances the political geographies of
decolonisation by challenging the maintenance of settler colonial violence within the popular, political, and
intellectual imaginary of ‘Israel/Palestine.’ It does so by tracing the spatial and epistemic value of decolonisation
theories that extend from interactions across indigenous, queer feminist, critical race, and eco-materialist
debates.

1. Introduction colonialism. To situate Palestine within the settler colonial analytic

means to understand the nature of Zionist inflicted Nakba in relation to
In May 2021 the world’s attention turned to Palestine and its indigenous positionality and struggle for decolonisation (Barakat,
ongoing struggle with Zionist settler colonial violence. The plight of the 2018). This article takes the Palestine May uprising as a prism to map old
small Jerusalemite neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, its people’s deter­ and new political geographies between coloniser and freedom-fighter
mination not to be removed from their homes, urged a Palestinian mass extending beyond the temporal limits of the May event. Nakba is a
movement to mobilise various forms of resistance across historic structure not an event (Wolfe, 2006). The Zionist response to the May
Palestine, from the river to the sea. Street mobilisations, online cam­ uprising unleashed forms of violence whose goal is to substitute the
paigning—such as the #saveSheikhJarrah—triggered global solidarity native’s presence while normalising the ongoing encroachment on Pal­
with Palestinian struggle against forceful dispossession. Pivotal to the estinian land.
May uprising—also known as the Unity Intifada—is the sense of unity it The first part of this article discusses how the Zionist production of
has revived across the fragmentated Palestinian polity, from Gaza and identity markers along pink (sexed/gendered), red (racializing/indige­
Jerusalem to Lydd and Hebron. Categories, such as West banker/East- nising) and green (environmental) contours, is used to reinforce settler
Jerusalemites/48-Arabs/Gazan, reflect Zionist spatio-temporal bound­ legitimacy and intensifies when faced by growing indigenous rebellion.
aries used to keep Palestinians within their colonially crafted reserves, The indigenous struggle for freedom and decolonisation constructs ‘time
quelling any chances for large scale mobilising and revolt. These as succession and presences of traces’ (Guillaume & Huysmans, 2019, p.
boundaries are also produced, as Salamanca and others argue (2012), in 288). That is, the Palestinian May uprising elicits past and future
scholarly accounts that have failed to understand Palestine and its decolonial decolonising possibilities within the locus of ‘duration as a
struggle against Zionism within the analytical framework of settler mode of continuity as well as heterogeneity’ (Grosz, 2001, p. 111). To

* Ca’Foscari University of Venice, Dorsoduro 3484/D, Calle Contarini, 30123, Venezia, Italy.
E-mail address: [email protected].

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2023.102844
Received 2 April 2022; Received in revised form 4 February 2023; Accepted 8 February 2023
Available online 28 March 2023
0962-6298/© 2023 The Author. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
W. Alqaisiya Political Geography 103 (2023) 102844

situate indigenous resistance ala the future (Estes, 2019) is to excavate analytical directions of the first section. For example, the emerging
‘the space-time of the new,’ where historicity enfolds the non-exhaustive subtheme ‘Reviving Our Ancestors’ Ways’ brought me to engage, in the
possibilities of the logic of invention, as opposed to the logic of identity first section, with the greenwashing sub-theme. Overall, while indige­
or self-containment (Grosz, 2001). The second part of this article ad­ nous resistance is placed thematically in the second3 section of the
dresses the new language and methods of decolonisation engulfing the article, decolonisation—in its empirical and theoretical dimen­
Unity Intifada. It examines the role of youth, including women and sions—remains the guiding lens used to delineate the contours of Zionist
queer collectives, showing how their actions invoke new political and sovereignty arising in reaction to indigenous-led movements.
material taxonomies beyond the liberal peace structure to which Pal­
estinian elites have succumbed since the Oslo agreements. Overall, the 2. Pink, red and green: the contours of settler sovereignty
article advances Palestine’s centrality to the political geographies of
decolonisation (Daigle & Ramírez, 2019), challenging the maintenance In October 2020, the Israeli magistrate’s court of Jerusalem ruled to
of settler colonial violence within the popular, political, and intellectual evict twelve Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood
imaginary of ‘Israel/Palestine.’ It does so by tracing the spatial and and hand over their homes to Jewish Israeli settlers (Yousef and Thabet,
epistemic value of decolonisation theories that extend from interactions 2021). While Zionist settler expansion over Palestinian land is hardly a
across indigenous, queer feminist, critical race, and eco-materialist new occurrence, the plight of Sheikh Jarrah’s twenty-eight families
debates. captures the continuity of native forceful exiling (Hammami, 2012). It
stretches from 1948, the year that marked Israel’s establishment and
1.1. Methodological framework dispossession of native Palestinians—among them those who took
refuge in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood—up to this moment of
Investigating the Unity Intifada’s role in the unfolding dynamics of ongoing Judaization of Palestinian4 and other Arab land.5 As mobi­
indigenous resistance and settler legitimacy is the core question guiding lisations against forceful expulsion started to build up during the month
this article’s methodological approach. The temporal framework of of Ramadan, violent repression from Zionist colonial forces intensified,
May–December 2021 served to identify primary data about the nature of both within Sheikh Jarrah and Damascus gate. Protestors were brutally
the political events, as well as activist and (non)governmental-led praxes beaten and, in some cases, killed; also, within the Al-Aqsa compound,
and analyses pertaining to the Uprising. These sources ground the two where rubber bullets, sound bombs, and gas canisters were fired at
main sections of this article. I proceeded by carrying out a content Palestinian worshipers (Aljazeera, 2021a, 2021b). The upsurge in
analysis of newspaper reports (Palestinian and Arab: Ra’y AlYoum, Zionist brute force against activists and residents of Sheikh Jarrah led
Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, Middle East Eye, The New Arab; Is­ the resistance factions in the besieged Gaza Strip, ranging from Popular
raeli: Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, Ynetnews, The Times of Israel), activist Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) armed wing to Hamas and
digital accounts (Al Kurd Instagram; Araro Tweets, almoultaqa YouTube other military wings of Palestinian factions,6 to engage in retaliation by
channel) and non-governmental website content (alQaws, Indigenous firing rockets into Israel. While the sound of rocket sirens in Jerusalem
Bridges). This allowed me to identify textual information and categorise forced Israeli settlers to call off and divert the route of their ‘Flag
it systematically, as subthemes, across the two major sections. Addi­ March’7 from going through Damascus gate and the old city of Jerusa­
tionally, given the role played by social media in circulating activist lem, heavy bombardment of the Gaza Strip continued for over ten days,
online campaigns and commentary about the Uprising, a digital ethno­ inflicting the tragic loss of over 260 lives and between 140 and 180
graphic component shaped the methodological approach of the article. million dollars’ worth of damage to Palestinian housing, health, and
Not only did this method help direct the selection of primary sources educational infrastructure alone (World Bank, 2021).
that ‘capture how self-identity is formed, structured and expressed on It was as the bombs were dropping on besieged Gaza, devastating
digitally based platforms,’ (Kaur-Gill and Dutta, 2017: 3) but it also entire families and amounting to war crimes,8 that Israel took part in the
aligns with the epistemic base of decolonising research (Tuhiwai Smith, annual international song competition, Eurovision. Israeli participation
2012), recognising the author’s own positionality as Palestinian. Indeed, in such events unveils a cultural site for Zionist pinkwashing, delineating
the majority of the discussion across the two sections emerges from the a sexed/gendered self that reifies the logic of settler colonial domina­
author’s political and scholarly engagement within decolonial feminist tion. The country’s 2021 representation through the figure of a Jewish
and activist online spaces, in Palestine1 and beyond,2 which responded Ethiopian woman, Eden Alene, reveals how race plays a defining role in
to the Unity Intifada’s plight. The aim of advancing the sovereignty of settlers’ (subjects and state) efforts at indigenising colonial settlement. I
indigenous knowledge, therefore, is at the heart of this article’s meth­
odological approach (Tuhiwai Smith, 2012). Secondary scholarly ma­
terial helped to enforce the arguments made in each sub-section as well 3
It was the author’s choice to end the article with the idea and the power of
as expand into new (sub)themes, guiding an engagement with other
decolonisation, rather than settler supremacy.
primary sources, including (non)governmental content: i.e., the Blair 4
Similar dispossessions are taking place in other areas in East Jerusalem,
Institute, the Jewish National fund, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, Stand such as Batn al Hawa and Silwan, and also in area C within the West Bank, such
with US; and international newspaper reports (i.e., The Guardian, as Masafir Yatta, and areas within historic Palestine, such as Naqab’s unrec­
CNBCNEWS), which exceed the Unity Intifada’s temporal framework. ognised villages.
5
For example, while the Israeli singer Alene’s participation in the 2021 In December 2021, Israel approved the expansion of settlements in the
Eurovision cotest served to identify pinkwashing within the scope of the occupied Golan Heights of Syria.
6
May event, secondary analysis on homonationalism and It is crucial to challenge the common assumption, particularly within
settler-indigenization expanded an engagement with other past exam­ Western media and political discourse, that Hamas is the only group that en­
gages in armed resistance and the firing of rockets from Gaza. In the aftermath
ples (Dana International and Barzilai) of Jewish claims to sovereignty.
of the latest Israeli war on the Gaza strip, a huge rally was organised by Pal­
Furthermore, the sub-themes identified within the second section of the
estine’s largest socialist movement, the PFLP. The rally’s spokesperson, Jamil
article, via the decolonisation conceptual framework, guided the vali­ Muzhir, a top PFLP official in Gaza, made a statement commending the ‘tough
dation—through a data triangulation process—of the sources and resisters of the PFLP’s armed wing, Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, along with the
armed wings of all Palestinian political groups’ (Palestine Chronicle, 2021).
7
The march was held in celebration of the anniversary of Zionist conquest of
1
Workshop with alQaws. Jerusalem in 1967, known in Hebrew as yom yerushalem (Jerusalem Day).
2 8
Workshop on ‘Palestine as a feminist and decolonial issue’ see: https:// The UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, declared that Israel’s recent
twitter.com/KohlJournal/status/1396745358269583366/photo/1. aggression may constitute ‘war crimes’ (Aljazeera, 2021a, 2021b).

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W. Alqaisiya Political Geography 103 (2023) 102844

read Alene’s 2021 Eurovision contest participation as an attempt to colonial settler foundation of the state, but also reinforces settler state
neutralise Zionism’s mounting crisis during times of growing confron­ violence, perceived as ‘strategic’ political promotion of culture, against
tation with the indigene’s resistance via the crafting of ‘an alternate (hi) the indigene racialised Other, who is reduced to the analytical category
story.’ This Zionist self-indigenising narrative, which also activates of ‘nonstate actors’ (Kiel, 2020, p. 975). Remarkably, obscuring Zion­
forms of cultural exchange with Indigenous nations and their plight ism’s racializing premise comes hand in hand with the state’s own effort
elsewhere, further intertwines redwashing and greenwashing efforts. at advancing a self-racialised image that plays well with the settler’s
indigenising effort.

2.1. Feminist/queer settler vibes 2.2. Indigenising Zionism

Predating Alene’s participation was Netta Barzilai’s win of the 2018 Race plays a crucial role in settler formations of sexed/gendered
Eurovision contest with the song ‘Toy,’ whose feminist LGBTQ vibes identifications. The latest participation of Eden Alene into the contest
(Cook, 2019) invoked the celebration of Israel as a place that shares the was hailed as the first Jewish Ethiopian representation of the country.
progressive liberal values of Europe. Israel has been at the core of Reporting on her emotional outburst upon qualifying for the contest
embodying attributes of ‘European identity’ (Ayoub and Paternotte, finale with the song ‘Set Me free,’ an Israeli newspaper comments on the
2014) as they link to feminist and LGBTQ issues. Dana International’s contestant being emotionally overwhelmed because ‘“we’ve been
victory in 1998 marked the first transgender win in the history of the through so much,” she says, in an apparent reference to the ongoing
competition (Barlow, 2018) and Tel Aviv’s hosting of the event in 2019 conflict with Gaza terror groups’ (The Times of TheTimes of Israel,
‘promises feminist anthems and sequins’ that would make it ‘the 2021). Indeed, Alene’s emotional excitement for her country appears in
queerest’ of all (Alled, 2019). Upon winning, Barzilai not only thanked a widely shared video and in other statements where she declares her
the audience for ‘accepting difference amongst us’ but also declared: gratitude for ‘supporting us in those sensitive and complicated times for
‘next year in Jerusalem!’ in reference to the hosting of the event in her my country’ before finally asserting: ‘To have Israel on the world map in
country’s alleged capital (Haaretz, 2018). While her words bear reli­ the most positive way possible and for that I am grateful and proud’ (in
gious connotations of Jewish redemption through messianic longing for Haaretz, 2021).
Jerusalem,9 Benjamin Netanyahu hailed her as the country’s ‘best While Barzilai and Dana’s participation mainly captured the pink
ambassador,’ especially as her victory followed the US recognition of the image of Israeli society through the queer/feminist subject and/or lyrics,
city as Israel’s capital (Haaretz, 2018). It further coincided with the Alene’s entry shows how racial identity functions as a signifier for ethnic
Zionist celebration of Jerusalem day, marking the conquest of the city in Euro-Western multicultural diversity and democracy (Tobin, 2007). Is­
1967. raeli media celebrated her Jewish Ethiopian roots, before informally
Settler violence is a formative factor in the Israeli feminist and queer declaring that she served in the army and, in some instances, sharing
self who is heavily invested in the promulgation of Israel’s pink image.10 videos of her singing at an ‘Independence Day Torch Lighting Ceremony’
Both Barzilai and Dana celebrate and promote Israeli pride parades and or in military uniform, where she pays tribute to Ethiopian Jews and
the progressive queer feminist values they embody. The former’s their journey to ‘the land of Israel’ (Book, 2021; Ynetnews, 2021).
embrace of the Israeli flag and announcement of love for her country Eurovision, and by extension Euro-Western claims to multiculturalism,
accompanies anti-BDS11 statements such as ‘When you boycott light, brings to life the neoliberal commodification of identity and cultural
you spread darkness’ (Times of Israel, 2019). Dana’s promotional videos heritage, and links to more intricate forms of dispossession that must be
of the Eurovision event, exemplifying Tel Aviv ala queer flamboyance situated in relation to the state’s non-Jewish native Other. Moreover, by
and rainbow feathers (TelAvivJaffa Municipality, 2019), must be read in reading the cultural production of the racialised immigrant as a form of
concert with her role in promoting Aliyah (Hebrew for ‘Ascent’), refer­ re-institution of settler sovereignty, this entails turning our attention to
encing Jewish immigration and settlement in ‘Israel,’ for the World how Jewishness lays the premise to ‘enabling settlers and neutralising
Zionist Organisation (Israel Hayom, 2021). Barzilai and Dana exemplify migrants’ (Veracini, 2015, p. 43).
settler feminism and/or homonationalism (Alqaisiya, 2022), encapsu­ The arrival of Jewish Ethiopians in the country dates to the 1980s
lating the centrality of violence in the formative process of modern covert mission, ‘Operation Moses,’ shared by the US Central Intelligence
queer and feminist subjects within settler colonial contexts, such as US, Agency, Mossad, and the Sudanese state, then followed by ‘Operation
Canada, and by extension the Zionist entity. To read settler sovereignty Solomon’ in 1991 when the Israeli government airlifted more than
as constitutive of the cultural production of queer feminist modernity is 14,000 Ethiopian Jews from Addis Ababa to Tel Aviv (Centre for Israel
to challenge dominant analytical frameworks of ‘cultural diplomacy’ Education, 2022). There is no doubt that Ethiopian Jews are among
and its evaluative methodical premise concerning the enhancement of a otherised ethnic identities, i.e., Mizrahi Jews, classified as inferior to the
state’s cultural advocacy strategy (Cull, 2008). Analysing Israel’s Ashkenazi (White European) Zionist’s primary self-definition. Indeed,
participation in Eurovision within such a framework invokes an evalu­ the biopolitical administration of Ethiopian Jews goes as far as to inject
ative critique of the state’s ‘reactive’ and/or ‘cheap’ diplomacy efforts, women with the contraceptive Depo-Provera pill, and perfectly captures
while encouraging more ‘strategic’ policies aimed at countering legiti­ Zionism’s premise of reproducing Jewishness ala White Europeanness
mization of the state’s opposing forces (i.e., Palestinian cultural boycott (Abusneineh, 2021). Yet, the scholarly hyper focus on intra-Jewish
of Israel) (Kiel, 2020, p. 974). Such a framework not only obscures the community racism ignores the role played by Jewish settler-migrants
in expanding Zionist territorial colonisation through Palestinian
dispossession across varied geographies (Desille & Sa’di-Ibraheem,
9
The phrase ‘Next Year in Jerusalem’ is traditionally sung by Jews during the 2021). Not only do Jewish settlers, regardless of their ethnic identity,
holiday of Yom Kippur to signify the hope for a messianic future and the substantiate Israel’s racial citizenship and immigration regime,
rebuilding of its temple (see Alperin, 2022). privileging ‘return’ only for its Jewish subjects, but the racialised Jewish
10
Pinkwashing is rooted in Israeli branding campaigns involving Israeli state
subjects themselves have become key participants in Israel’s expansive
institutions, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Tourism, and
settlement enterprise within the West Bank (Allegra & Maggor, 2022).
the Tel Aviv Municipality, as well as Aguda, Israel’s LGBT Task Force (Alqai­
siya, 2022). The overall aim of such campaigning, which dates to the year 2010
Further, Mizrahim and Jewish Ethiopian settlements in areas within
(Michlin, 2010), is to confront the growing negative image of the Israeli state ‘Israel proper,’ such as Qiryat Gat, whose industrial and residential
amounting to an ‘assault on its legitimacy’ (see Reut Institute, 2010).
11
Palestinian led movement for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions against
Israel.

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expansion comes at the expense of the Palestinian dispossessed villages and identifies its goal as that of ‘forging international solidarity, coop­
of alFaluja and Iraq alManshiya,12 demonstrate how the life of Jewish eration, and partnerships between local and diaspora Indigenous com­
subjects (racialised or not) is entangled with the death and dispossession munities’ (Indigenous Bridges, 2022). What is most striking about the
of Zionism’s ultimate Other, the Palestinian (Desille & Sa’di-Ibraheem, webpage of the organisation is the lack of detail regarding the claimed
2021). support—whether political or economic—that has been provided for
Dominant scholarly analyses focusing on the ‘cultural pluralism of Indigenous communities. At the same time, one cannot fail to notice the
immigrant’ society, where Ethiopian Jews emerge to embody ‘today’s official statement on the organisation’s blog page regarding the May
shifted and multi-sited identity constructs’ (Anetebi-Yemeni, 2005, p. 2021 events, designated as ‘the current Arab/Israeli conflict’:
241), reproduce the amnesia of settler colonialism. Settlers turn into
We reject genocidal colonialism and oppression. And for that reason,
‘migrants’ and settler colonial society is construed ala ‘pluralistic’
we support Jewish and Israeli self-defense [sic] against Arab colo­
and/or ‘integrationist’ taxonomies (Auerbach, 2011). One can go further
nialist aggression and terrorism […] Jews are Indigenous to the land
to argue that the hailing of the racialised gendered migrant figure within
of Israel (also known as Judea); whereas Arabs are obviously
the dimension of pluralism substantiates the reproduction of the Zionist
Indigenous to the Arabian Peninsula and arrived as colonialist set­
self-indigenising narrative. Cultural figures, such as the Ethiopian Jew
tlers. (Indigenous Bridges, 2022).
Ashger Araro (Blackjewishmagic, 2021), known as an activist and a
social-media influencer, have come to embody the voice of a different The sense of affinity that the statement relays between Jewish Isra­
Zionist story, as she declares in a passionate video entitled ‘This is my elis and Indigenous people is further emphasised in a recent publication
Zionism’ published in the aftermath of Zionist aggression on Gaza: about the organisation in the Jerusalem Post, where ‘inter-tribal soli­
darity’ is meant to ‘fly in the face of many of the common theories
Hey this is me, the “Zionist Israeli, the white colonialist settler
supported by radical left-wing thinkers and anti-Israel activists’ where
occupier.” When you describe Zionism as this white imperialist idea
instances of joint protests between First Nations and Palestinians against
you are actively deleting the history of black and brown Jews. You
the state of Israel carries ‘a lot of impact’:
dismiss our stories, struggle, survival. You ignore the fact that the
Zionist cause has built a safe home for Jews like us. It presents a false narrative that portrays Arabs as indigenous to the
Levant, and Jews as colonists—painting the Palestinian case, which
Araro, who graduated as a lieutenant paratrooper in the Israel mil­
is a very recent one, as part of a totally different process that began
itary forces, uses storytelling (21see, 2020) as a method for advocating
with the discovery of the New World (Hacohen, 2020).
for Zionism, including within international platforms such as Stand With
US.13 Through storytelling, Araro (Ashger Araro, 2020) stands up Indigenous Bridges incarnates a cultural site that promulgates an
against criticisms of the state of Israel, flagging them as anti-Semitic. The indigeneity narrative by ‘drawing parallels between [Israel and First
usage of storytelling captures the efforts of settler subjects to capitalise Nations] respective claims to indigeneity, legacies of genocide (evoking
on Indigenous culture and methodology. Israel/i parading of Jewishness the Jewish holocaust), and ongoing adversity regarding threats to ‘cul­
ala Indigeneity demonstrates what J Kehaulani Kauanui identifies as tural extinction’ (Indian Country, 2013). Most significantly, a political
Zionist redwashing (Indian Country Today, 2013). While the figure of goal underpins this redwashing strategy; that is, to refute any Ara­
Araro presents how tropes of ethnic diversity have played into Zionist b/Palestinian claims to the land and the premise of potential solidarity
claims to being a movement for Indigenous rights and plight, the between Palestine and First Nations. Such discourses not only fabricate
self-identified ‘Indigenous activist’ of Atreet Violet Shmuel exudes the history to Judaize Palestine, but they also reproduce the very settler
role of spirituality in shaping her story of ‘return’ to the land of milk and colonial geography of ‘discovering the New World,’ as stated above. In
honey (Alder, 2015). doing so, they tokenise indigeneity to re-instantiate settler colonialism
Narrating her story of Aliyah from Boston to Jerusalem, Shmuel re­ in both Palestine and the Turtle Island contexts.
counts her journey from the ‘punk-rock’ life of America to embracing the The racist and condescending ascription of indigenous difficulties
Jewish religion that led her to come to Israel ‘on a Taglit-Birthright14 under COVID-19 to their ‘culture of close-knit families living together’
trip and cancel [ed] the return flight’ (Alder, 2015). Shmuel’s arrival (Hacohen, 2020), is accompanied by the silencing of history when
and settling into Israel not only happened through an educational flagging statements, such as ‘the Navajos do not have electricity and
platform15 that reduces Judaism to Zionist indigenising project in 30% do not have running water’ (Hacohen, 2020). The silence around
Palestine, but also marks the birth of another cultural platform where past and ongoing structural violence within the US settler colonial
Shmuel herself propagates the indigenous narrative of the Jewish state. context is not unintentional, rather it works well with the need to steer
Shmuel is co-director of an organisation called Indigenous Bridges, which clear of any political criticism of the state that has been Israel’s best ally
is dedicated ‘to the advancement of Indigenous communities globally’ for decades.16 This also explains why the kind of initiatives conducted by
(Indigenous Bridges, 2022). The organisation’s home page maintains the organisation remain rather vague, particularly when pertaining to
that it was launched ‘in 2016 by Native American and Diaspora claims around supporting the Indigenous in their plight around food and
Jewish/Israeli leaders, entrepreneurs, educators, artists and activists,’ water sovereignty. Instead, hyper-emphasis is paid to Israel’s role in
aiding communities during the pandemic through the simple provision
of FPP2 masks (Indigenous Bridges, 2022). Further posturing of Israel’s
12
Palestinian refugees continue to be denied their right of return to this date. rescuer role is upheld in relation to its modern technological advances in
13
The Israeli government heavily funds this US-based organisation to the fields of ‘agricultural innovation’ and ‘water technology’ (Hacohen,
disseminate hasbara (public diplomacy for the Israeli government) through 2020). Israel’s ‘fantastic reputation for agriculture,’ which is being
‘citizen activism,’ whose goal is to mobilise young people in Israel, the US and communicated to delegations of indigenous people in North America
Britain to stand up for Israel and Jewish people. (See Bazz, 2015; StandWithUs, and in the MENA region (i.e., Kurds), reflects the key role agriculture
2022). The organisation is also a prominent site of Israeli pinkwashing, holds for ‘native people as they have a singular relationship to their
depicting Palestinians as homophobe terrorists and Israel as a gay haven. land’ (Hacohen, 2020). At this juncture, I turn my attention to the role of
14
Taglit is Hebrew for discovery. In its official website, birthright.org, Israel
greenwashing in animating the Zionist self-indigenising narrative.
boasts of having facilitated more than 75,000 trips into the country.
15
Birthright Israel Foundation is ‘the largest educational tourism organisation
in the world’ whose purpose is to ‘ensure the future of the Jewish people by
16
strengthening Jewish identity, Jewish communities, and connection with Israel Since WWII, Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of US military
via a trip to Israel for most Jewish young adults from around the world’ (Jewish aid. In 2016, the US pledged to provide $38 billion in military aid to Israel
Federation of Madison, 2022). (Congressional Research Service, 2022).

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2.3. Blooming the desert (Gasteyer et al., 2012: 465). To situate an analysis of productivity and
modern green technology within the genocidal premise of settler colo­
In a recent report published by The Tony Blair Institute for Global nialism requires considering waste ala human and nature as an ‘intrinsic
Change, and entitled ‘How Israel Became a World Leader in Agriculture characteristic of value’ (Kadri, 2019). Doing so means accounting for
and Water,’ its director, Blair himself, writes: how the sphere of production within a settler colonial order always, and
I have come to see first-hand just how much Israel has to offer others already, entails simultaneous wasting of indigenes and environments,
from its experience in “making the desert bloom”—building a thriving unveiling the genocide-ecocide nexus of capitalism and colonialism
agriculture sector under conditions of considerable adversity (Abraham (Crook et al., 2018).
et al., 2019). The Palestinian plight in the face of settler colonial wasting logic
Israel’s ‘making the desert bloom’ rhetoric, coined by its first prime across various geographies became a precursor of the Unity Intifada,
minister David Ben Gurion, emanates from Zionist early settlers’ ‘civi­ which, as the following aims to show, was the catalyst for new language
lizing and modernising’ mission of the land seen as terra nullius (Gas­ and methods for decolonisation.
teyer & Flora, 2000). Jewish pioneer settlers bore the idea of
transforming a people and a land whose replacement enabled it to 3. From under the rubble, we rise
bestow Jewishness on ‘a place in the modern family of nations’ (Chaim
Weizmann in Said, 1979, p. 13). Israel’s green model within ‘an arid The Unity Intifada catalyst for a movement of decolonisation in ways
region’ is at the heart of its successful environmental story, as the Israeli that capture Haunani-Kay Trask’s definition of the term as ‘the collective
minister of environmental protection stressed again during Israel’s resistance to colonialism, including cultural assertions, efforts toward
participation in the 2020 Expo Dubai (Ministry of Environmental Pro­ self-determination, and armed struggle’ (1999: 251). The Uprising
tection, 2021). signalled a moment of transformation and breaking away from the Oslo
For instance, the Jewish National Fund has been instrumental in peace structure to which the Palestinian leadership has succumbed since
celebrating and promoting Israel’s ecological and environmental prog­ the late 1990s. In doing so, it encapsulates a commitment to what
ress around the world by encouraging tree planting and educational Winona Wheeler identifies as the need for:
tours of the country (Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, 2019). Yet, JNF’s
developing a critical consciousness about the cause(s) of our
ecological work has enabled settler colonial Judaization, stretching from
oppression, the distortion of history, our own collaboration, and the
East Jerusalem neighbourhoods, such as Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, to
degrees to which we have internalized colonialist ideas and prac­
the Naqab in the south. JNF’s attitude to the ‘environment’ entwines the
tices. Decolonization requires auto-criticism, self-reflection, and a
crafting of an imaginative settler geography (Gregory, 1995) whereby
rejection of victimage. Decolonization is about empowerment—a
greening and modernising corroborates settler overtaking of Palestinian
belief that situations can be transformed, a belief and trust in our
lands and homes. Ongoing dispossession of Palestinian Bedouin com­
own peoples’ values and abilities, and a willingness to make change.
munities in the Naqab, classified as unrecognised, has been dubbed as
It is about transforming negative reactionary energy into the more
JNF’s mission in ‘turning the Desert green’ through combatting desert­
positive rebuilding energy needed in our communities (Cited in
ification, afforestation, and developing water resources17 in the barren
Wilson, 2004:14).
desert (Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, 2019). This revitalisation of the South
project aims to bring 50,000 new Jewish residents to the area because The Uprising reflects the crucial role played by a new young gener­
there is a need to ‘build so that they will come’ (JNF-USA, 2022 a, b). ation in bringing forth new methods for empowerment and resistance. In
Crucially, JNF’s role in turning over Palestinian properties in East Je­ what follows I identify three aspects that illuminate how decolonisation,
rusalem to settler bodies, such as Elad, reveals the entanglement of as moved forward by the Unity Intifada, entails a process of indigenous
settler greening landscape with the discursive re-invention of a ‘messi­ resurgence beyond settler and neo-colonial structures that perpetuate
anic’ geography (Busbridge, 2020). Indeed, the inscription of the Palestinian Nakba.
‘ecological’ into the ‘messianic,’ is shown through the various biblical
quotations, including ‘will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in 3.1. First: mobilising a new vocabulary
the desert’ (Isiah 43:19),18 that are widely shared on the JNF-KKL
website. The mobilising of a new vocabulary centring indigenous resistance is
Upon evictions of Palestinians from places like Silwan, former Israeli one of the main characteristics of the Unity Intifada. Decolonisation for
prime minister Naftali Bennet declared that ‘in the city of David, which Waziyatawin Angela Wilson entails first and foremost the will to fully
used to be called Silwan, there is now a Jewish majority, this means that understand the conditions of one’s oppression, otherwise ‘we are in
the city of David will always be part of Israel, and this is a historic event’ danger of being incapacitated in our dealings with the colonialist re­
(Hasson, 2018). JNF’s enabling of settler sovereignty over the territorial gimes and perpetuating a form of neocolonialism among ourselves’
landscape they covet materialises through laws, such as absentee (Wilson, 2004.). On 18 May 2021, young activists issued ‘The Manifesto
property law. Critical scholarly accounts, situating Zionist land and of Dignity and Hope,’ whose aim is to ‘tell a story of justice and of the
water grabbing within ‘a new colonialism’ framework, are useful truth that no level of Israeli colonial repression can erase’ (Open Letter,
because they shed light on the inequitable foundations found in in­ 2021). At the heart of this story lies the need to revive the struggle in the
stances like the draining of Hula Lake, which accompanied the dispos­ face of ‘racist settler colonialism in Palestine’ imposing fragmentation,
session of Palestinians in the area (Gasteyer et al., 2012). They isolation, and a system of imprisonment that has led to ‘quietude and
nonetheless remain apologetic for the ‘productive potential’ of external defeatism’ (Open Letter, 2021). This new story enfolds the political
investment in land through ‘the application of modern technology’ aspiration to break away from the current ‘Oslo prison’ and its
comprador elite class that re-colonised Palestine internally:
The brave generations to come will have been raised, once again, on
17
See Turning the desert Green: https://www.kkl-jnf.org/forestry-and-ecol the fundamental principle of our unity. It will stand in the face of all
ogy/afforestation-in-israel/turning-the-desert-green/; Combatting desertifica­ the elites working to deepen and entrench the divisions in and be­
tion: https://www.kkl-jnf.org/forestry-and-ecology/combating-desertificatio tween our communities (Open Letter, 2021.)
n/.
18
For more details on the project and its website, see ‘Developing the Negev’ Through the Unity Intifada, Palestinian youth put forward a new
at: https://www.kkl-jnf.org/people-and-environment/community-development vocabulary for the struggle, one which breaks the reconciliatory politics
/negev/. of state building the Palestinian political establishment has endorsed

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since the signing of the Oslo Accords. On 18 May 2021, the Dignity strike everywhere became a frontier as the native rose from the ashes of the
was launched across the totality of Palestine, recalling a longer history of settler world to announce their return and call for an end to their Nakba.
collective action against Nakba, such as the general strike of the 1936 Furthermore, the new story that was being scripted by the young,
revolt and the 1967 Land Day strikes. This was paired with wide-spread eloquently and unapologetically responding to international biases with
demonstrations across several cities, and confrontations with Israeli their occupier, was one of unwavering defiance in the face of interna­
soldiers at barriers, which were met with live ammunition, rubber bul­ tional media and political discourse on Palestine.20 In November 2021,
lets, and tear gas. Palestinian protests within ‘Israel proper’—including Muhammad Al Kurd addressed the United Nations:
Akka, Haifa Lydd—were also attacked by armed Israeli settler mobs,
I do not care whom this terminology offends. Colonial is the correct
lynching Palestinians, raiding, and burning their homes while chanting
way of referring to a state whose … whose nation-state law enshrines
death to Arabs (Kopty, 2021). In Lydd, a young Palestinian man, Musa
“Jewish settlement” as a “national value … to encourage and pro­
Hassuna, was shot to death by a group of Jewish Israelis who belong to
mote.” The appetite for Palestinian lands—without Pales­
‘Garin Torani’ (meaning: biblical seeds), a Zionist group within the city
tinians—has not abated for over seven decades. I know because I live
carrying the goal of ‘Judaising Lydd’ (Buxbaum, 2021). Not only did the
it. I have no faith in the Israeli judicial system; it is a part of the
Israeli judicial system fail to bring punishment on Hassuna’s killers
settler-colonial state, built by settlers for settlers. Nor do I expect any
(Honenu, 2021), but the deputy Mayor of Lydd declared in a council
of the international governments who have been deeply complicit in
meeting, that hundreds of ‘volunteers,’ from ‘Judea and Samaria’ and
Israel’s colonial enterprise to intervene on our behalf (Doha Debates,
Jerusalem settlement councils, would be coming to protect Lydd from
2021).
Arabs, alongside its police force, warning Arabs to stay in their homes
(MiddleEastEye, 2021). Settler institutions, including state officials, Al-Kurd’s speech and cynicism towards the international community
army, and police, and everyday Jewish citizens—from Yakub’s entitled and its complicity in Israel’s settler colonial project, particularly the US,
‘stealing’ of Al-Kurd’s house in Sheikh Jarrah (Muna.Kurd15, 2021) to marked a noticeable departure from the address of the late Yasser Arafat
young couples ‘fighting a war’ for the Jewish presence in Lydd (Abra­ to the same platform in 1974. Arafat’s speech came in the form of
mowitz, 2010)—came together to draw the boundary between the repeated appeals to the international community to maintain ‘the olive
dispossessed and the dispossessor. Yet, Palestinian marchers declared in branch,’ which later carved the way to a fully-fledged diplomacy track
one voice: ‘after night comes day. From under the rubble we rise, from with Israel, culminating in the Oslo agreement. Arafat’s speech was also
under the destruction we are born’ (Subuh, 2021). shrewd, giving emphasis to the potential role of the US in endorsing the
The marchers’ defiant spirit conjured the legacy of ‘non-obedience’19 Palestinian cause; he pleaded with the American people to recall George
that the late Basil Al-Araj, known as the engaged intellectual, summoned Washington’s plea for freedom along with Abraham Lincoln as ‘cham­
through his activist work. Al Araj, persecuted by the Palestinian Na­ pion of the destitute and the wretched, and Woodrow Wilson, whose
tional Authority police regime until he was finally killed in a 2017 Israeli doctrine of Fourteen Points remains subscribed to and venerated by our
military raid, embodied the power of a rising Palestinian Youth Hirak people’ (al-bab, 2018). Finally, when making the difference between the
(movement), which the May events further unveiled. Palestinian rebels revolutionary and the terrorist, he drew on various struggles, starting
employed resistance tools and tactics, reflecting the power of integration with ‘the American people in their struggle for liberation from the
and cooperation between various geographical locations; what Basil British colonialist’ (al-bab, 2018). While the speech had used the ter­
calls iltiham sha’bi and ishtibak maydani (popular unity and field minology of colonialism and racism to define Zionist encroachment on
engagement), prominent during the First Intifada (Al Araj, 2018, p. 54). Palestine, the likening of the Palestinian struggle to that of the American
Throughout the Unity Intifada, rebels attacked and burnt police cars in revolution not only contradicted Palestine’s revolutionary plight, but
Ramla, Yafa, Lydd, Haifa and Akka; disrupted the railway between Lydd also normalised the colonial settler logic of both Zionist and American
and Tel Aviv; attacked army vehicles and clashed with soldiers at entities. In a 2004 interview, Arafat reflected on the achievement of
various barriers across the West Bank; cut power supplies to West Bank having prevented Israel from wiping out Palestinians by declaring ‘we
settlements. Meanwhile, the resistance in Gaza targeted multiple infra­ are not red Indians’ (El Amrani, 2004).
structure sites in Tel Aviv, leading to cancellation of international flights The normalisation of Indian extinction does not merely enfold the
into Ben Gurion Airport (crimethInc., 2021). Gazan demonstrators racist undertone of refusing to see the continuity of the native presence
flocked to the border between Gaza and Israel, launching incendiary and politics of refusal (Simpson, 2014). More crucially, Arafat’s state­
kites and balloons. Protestors from Lebanon and Jordan stormed into the ment animates the politics of recognition, normalising settler states in
northern and eastern frontiers, sabotaging fences, and clashing with Palestine and Turtle Island. In doing so, it glosses over the significance of
soldiers and borderline police (Trew, 2021). Standing at the heart of the indigenous resistance, bent on countering settler violence in the guise of
uprising was the element of ‘surprise’ it prompted as it proliferated peace while striving for a new political vocabulary and material stra­
across all fronts (Al Araj, 2018, p. 55), triggering settler fear of what tegies beyond settler colonial and imperial hegemonies. Such resistance
were now ‘Arab rioters’ (Lynfield, 2021). The malleability and prolif­ instructs forms of solidarity that are driven neither by identity tokenism
eration of resistance when it expanded beyond the ‘meeting point’ with nor by the logic of historical reductionism (Olwan, 2015). Rather, they
the settler army at the frontier, resonates with a Red Nation uprising that animate an ‘inter/nationalism’ rooted in an ethos and political
is bent on destroying ‘bordertowns,’ and the forms of relations they commitment for decolonisation across/against borders (Salaita, 2016).
exemplify between savagery and civilisation: Arafat’s omission not only watered down the 1970s action in
anti-imperialism and decolonial solidarity, which was happening be­
there is no objectively innocent spatial form in a settler world that we
tween the PLO and native activists from Turtle Island; it also obscured
might just call it a “town,” rather there is only the spatial expression
how these solidarities continue to animate the present, through actions
of the settler borders violence and police […] every settler town is a
like First Nations rallying against the Trump Plan, and Palestinians
bordertown because every native person on the land that the settler
standing with the Wet’suwet’en plight in the face of Canada’s Coastal
desires, whether in the city or the reservation, represents and em­
GasLink pipeline construction, as well as with the North Dakota NoDAPL
bodies the ongoing failure of the settler project (Estes et al., 2021: 8).
movement (see Desai, 2021; Estes, 2019). These omissions reify Zion­
With the uprising proliferating across multiple geographies, ism’s indigenising narrative, discussed above, and reveal the limits of

19 20
He writes: ‘The biggest insult against a martyr would be to say that he was Muhammad Al Kurd’s response to CNN presenter’s ‘inaccurate and biased’
obedient, submissive and polite in the face of his killer’ (in Hassan, 2017). framing of the issue in Sheikh Jarrah is one example (muhammadalkurd, 2021).

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the PLO’s statist project undertaken via the Oslo peace structure. political mobilisation and decolonisation’ (alQaws, 2020). Indigenous
feminist and queer epistemologies challenge the global proliferation of
3.2. Second: queer feminist epistemologies of decolonisation pink contours seeking to reify the settler colonial present. In doing so,
they advance a feminist decolonising epistemology (Arvin et al., 2013)
The Unity Intifada demonstrated the crucial role Palestinian women that challenges socio-political structures sustaining the native’s ongoing
and queer collectives play in mobilising epistemologies for decolonisa­ Nakba. Queer feminist work in Palestine not only challenges the hier­
tion against hetero-patriarchal structures sustaining colonial conquest of archy within which national priorities are construed, but, most impor­
bodies and lands. Grassroots collectives, such as alQaws for Sexual and tantly, it shows how within this hierarchisation we witness the
Gender Diversity and the Tal’at women’s march, are examples of a recolonisation of native bodies and lands by comprador native elites
feminist queer praxis expanding beyond the liberal focus on individuals’ (Alqaisiya, 2022). Palestinian queer feminist epistemologies carve the
identity. They instead centre the goals of the indigene’s liberation where way for a radical self-determination that opens a life beyond the re­
‘the fight against patriarchy and sexual oppression is intertwined with gimes, of Time, Space and Desire, maintaining colonised subjection on
the fight against capitalism and settler colonialism’ (alQaws, 2021a). As multiple scales (Alqaisiya, 2020).
Israel was promoting for its Gay Pride event in late June 2021, alQaws
issued its ‘No Pride without Dignity’ statement in which they explained 3.3. Third: Reviving Our Ancestors’ ways
how pinkwashing works hand in hand with settler colonial violence:
In August 2021, two months into the Unity Intifada, massive wild­
Zionists flooded our social media networks with statements such as
fires consumed an area of pine forest in Jerusalem, putting Israeli fire­
“try to organize a pride parade in Gaza.” Such statements are char­
fighters to work for days (The New Arab, 2021). In the aftermath of
acteristic of pinkwashing, and they are used to delegitimize Pales­
putting out the fire, the view laid bare a long-hidden landscape
tinian anti-colonial uprising. These statements fit within a larger
unfolding the history of Palestinian terraced gardens. The terraced
context of structural racism in which Israel is portrayed as enlight­
gardens widely known by their Palestinian makers as salassil (inter­
ened, and a proponent of gay rights, while Palestinians, especially
locking series) date back to thousands of years of indigenous farming
those in Gaza, are uniformly described as anti-gay and therefore
and cultivation of the land through a system in balance with the
deserving of murder and expulsion from our land (alQaws, 2021b).
socio-ecological environment around it. The terraced gardens emanate
alQaws further reminds that the Tel Aviv pride takes place in the from the capacity of the Palestinian farmer (fallah) to assemble a
‘ethnically cleansed Palestinian city of Yaffa and its surrounding vil­ distinctive typology of garden, which conceived space in its malleability
lages, and its success depends on the erasure of Palestinian lands, lives, rather than rigidity and abstraction. Abusaada explains:
and voices’ (alQaws, 2021b). Finally, the statement asserted that the
Each household maintained a garden or, more often, a series of
group’s work aims to build spaces of work and solidarity, where pride is
gardens stretching vertically across multiple terraces, each hanging
re-signified in relation to the indigene’s struggle for dignity, ending their
above the other. The canal system distributed the shared water re­
statement with the call to: ‘Abolish Settler States, Liberate Indigenous
sources to the gardens, with periodical access to each household
Lands, Take Back Pride.’ The Unity Intifada built on the cumulative
according to a set cycle. The efficacy of the system of terrace
work and long legacy of Palestinian women and queer indigeneity’s
gardening, therefore, rested on not only the social and ecological
plight, which is about land repatriation as well as the struggle to exist
division of space, but also of time … With their construction, the
beyond the colonial governmental regime substantiated through the
terraced gardens turned into sites not only of agricultural cultivation
Oslo liberal peace structure. Since September 2019 Palestinian women
but also of loci for social gatherings, practices, and rituals (Abusaada,
marchers of Tal’at, who stepped out in the street to shout, ‘No Free
2021).
homeland without free women’, have taken to situating their definition
of emancipation in relation to a ‘radical process of collective healing’ Jewish settler utilisation of European pine trees to replace Arab
and expansive vision for liberation whose definitive goal is the ‘shat­ villages and their cultivated salassil of olives, figs, and grapevines, has
tering of capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy all at once’ (Marshood been instrumental to the Zionist project of dispossession based on
& Alsanah, 2020). ‘wholesale fabrication of history and geography’ (Mansour, 2021).
Both alQaws and Tal’at exemplify the work of indigenous queer These trees, which the JNF has for over seventy years taken pride in
feminist praxis that dares to challenge hegemonic Euro-western ap­ planting, are known for their high degree of flammability and thus un­
proaches on feminist and/or LGBTQ issues. In their 2019 campaigning suitability for the land on which they have been imposed. Their burning,
for a boycott of Eurovision in Israel and Tel Aviv pride, alQaws and other therefore, is indicative of the wasting logic that underpins settler colo­
anti-pinkwashing allies issued a statement to call on international visi­ nial/indigene relations. It is in the face of ongoing Nakba that the in­
tors and spectators not to ‘becomes accomplices to Israel’s spectacle of digene’s determination for resistance emerges to halt further theft and
cultural propaganda’ (alQaws, 2020). Al-Khatib (2019) from the group wasting of its lands and ecologies.
argues that Eurovision’s celebration of Israeli queerness and camp aes­ As the May mobilisations grew in the streets and neighbourhoods of
thetics, maintains and reproduces sexual and gendered politics perpet­ Jerusalem, villagers in the outskirts of Nablus were fiercely waging their
uating Israel’s settler colonial project. Through working on re-building a fight against settlement expansion atop Jabal Sbeih. Resistance against
de-fragmented feminist solidarity beyond the institutional parameters of settler theft of their land drew inspiration from Gaza’s marches of return
the settler state (Israel) and the PNA-Oslo regime (Marshood & Alsanah, strategies. By throwing stones, burning tires, and launching campaigns
2020), the Tal’at movement challenges neo-liberal feminist approaches of ‘night confusion,’ they confronted settlers’ attacks and the army’s
as they proliferate into Palestine through Euro-Western gender main­ bullets. Villagers, who have not been able to reach their olive trees since
streaming programmes within the PNA regime. Instead, the Tal’at the beginning of settler activity in early May, fought determinedly until
marchers invest in conjuring a decolonial cartography of Palestine forcing settlers to evacuate by July. Beita’s resistance has presented a
where marchers from Haifa, Ramallah, and Gaza, reaching Lebanon, successful example of popular mobilising, with Palestinian youth ac­
initiate forms of re-mappings and otherwise cartographies (Oslender, tivists joining the side of farmers to help reaching land and harvest their
2021) beyond the sexed/gendered/classed colonial order of the border olives through the Palestinian tradition of Faz’a (Patel, 2021).
security regime. Similarly, alQaws’ work transgresses the NGO-ised Youth organising within the model of Faz’a challenges humanitarian
neoliberal state building structure of Oslo Palestine by focusing volunteerism inherent to the neoliberal Oslo-NGO structure, which, as
instead on bringing activists together, from across historic Palestine and Al Araj (2018) argued profusely, is to be distinguished from our ances­
beyond, in the process of mobilising queerness, as ‘a radical approach to tor’s ways of bonding together in the face of capitalist colonial

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aggression. That is, rather than cementing the notion of lofty altruism colonial and imperial sovereignty. Rather, they are fuelled by the plu­
that is now prominent within the liberal peace order, Faz’a reflects rality of imaginations and the infinite possibilities that each singular
indigenous ways of life within an organically crafted model of social move can invoke in the search for humanity beyond ‘the technique and
reciprocity and responsibility, which entailed the establishment of style’ of the colonial neoliberal governmentality order (Fanon, 1963, p.
horizontal and inter-relational forms of social organising and belonging, 311).
standing in the face of Ottoman taxation and oppressive feudal systems
and later the British mandate regime of land confiscation (Al Araj, 2018, 4. Conclusion: placing Palestine in geographies of
pp. 38–41). Palestinian youth mobilise ‘Faz’a campaigns,’ for the pur­ decolonisation
pose indicated in the name (from yafz’a meaning to rush), rushing
together to help in olive picking and land cultivation for relatives and In growing efforts to ‘bring the decolonial to political geography’, ge­
communities that are confronting settler and army violence on their ographers turn to settler colonial analytical lens to argue for decolo­
lands, stretching from Beita, to Salfit, Burin and many other places nising approaches urging accountability to the indigene of the world and
(Watan News, 2022). In enabling Palestinian farmers access to their their struggle for self-determination (Naylor et al., 2018). This article
land, Faz’a campaigns revive a model of resistance that is animated by has aimed to place Palestine at the centre of scholarly approaches to
the refusal to forget our ancestors’ ways of defying and confronting decolonisation as it proceeds from a critical understanding of the
settler-colonial encroachment on the land. While the fires indicate an structural conditions of indigene elimination. The Unity Intifada ad­
urgency to challenge the unethical wasteful relations settlers impose on vances an intellectual and political movement for decolonisation that
earth, a new generation of Palestinians rise from under the rubble to helps translate the cultural, and geo-political conditions enabling the
revive a commitment to nature and life that shatters Ben Gurion’s wishes continuity of the settler colonial present. Zionism’s pink, red, and green
for ‘the old to die and the young to forget.‘21 Reflecting on Gaza’s contours demonstrate the gendered, raced, and ecological tenets of Is­
marches of return as they embody the indigene’s reclamation of land rael’s naturalisation of settlement, enabling ‘settlers’ move towards
and roots, Palestinian writer and one of founders of the Gaza great innocence’ (Tuck & Yang, 2021: 9). Drawing on an indigene-situated
marches of return, Ahmad Abu Artima, asserts: approach to decolonisation, decolonial geography literature breaks the
silence on settler commodification of identities ‘defining contemporary
While the occupation kills humans, nature was able to revive resis­
subject formation and spatial imaginaries that provoke cultural and
tance. Marches of return brought forgotten places, located near the
physical elimination of Indigenous others’ (Zaragocin, 2018, p. 204).
barbed wire where occupation soldiers are present, back to life. The
While Barzilai and Dana’s Eurovision wins capture a reaffirmation of
simple act of movement towards a place where it is restricted meant
settler sovereignty in the formative processes of internationally cele­
that people were engaging in a new confrontation and bringing that
brated Israeli queer/feminist subjects, the figure of the racialised Jewish
place back to life (Almoultaqa, 2021: np)
woman unveils an ‘alter-story’ to Zionism that is meant to fly in the face
Artima further reflects on how a refugee’s ‘Nostalgia for nature and of its critics as ‘white settler-colonial occupier’ (Blackjewishmagic,
the green scenery beyond the barbed wire made people in Gaza chal­ 2021). The use of racial and spiritual gendered figures to uphold an
lenge their stillness’ (Almoultaqa, 2021). Thus, the act of marching indigenous positionality of the state and its rightful ‘returnee’ and/or
embodies not only a refugee’s physical movement towards a denied ‘desert bloomer’ subject is crucial to contemplate in the present
home but also their appetite for life against ‘the slow death’ regime, moment, when Human Rights reporting on ‘Apartheid Israel’ (see Am­
since ‘what lay beyond the barbed wire is the hope that we had to nesty International, 2022) neither questions the racist, settler-colonial
reclaim’ (Almoultaqa, 2021). The marches, therefore, embody the ref­ foundation of the state, nor denies the rightfulness of its Jewishness.22
ugee’s ‘living practices of return’ which, as Salih and Corrie argue, In other words, the political imperative of dismantling Zionism and
‘underscore the novel human–nature entanglements and political claims its racist, settler colonial, and capitalist premise remains absent within
the afterlife of nature sustains’ (2021: 11). Refugee memories and return the international human rights framework and its definition of justice.
practices unravel at the site of cacti and vegetation whose resurgence This, in fact, resonates with other indigeneity contexts, where demands
amidst the village ruins, destroyed during the Nakba, captures Indige­ for political sovereignty and land restitution continue to face serious
nous ‘life-worlds’ and their persistent operation beyond settler colonial limitations both within international legal (Shrinkhal, 2021) and
extinction logics (Salih & Corry, 2021, p. 11). While refugee life-worlds ‘metaphorical’ intellectual terrain (Tuck & Yang, 2021). Palestinians,
are animated by an overwhelming sense of a collective and unifying like their other indigenous allies, know very well the limitations of these
national conscience, they also underscore the possibility of new forms of frameworks and that is why they wage their uprising through the po­
political imaginations beyond the modern European nation-state that litical taxonomies of refusal to settler states’ essentialising and elimi­
indigenous local elites have reproduced as they extend colonisers’ civ­ natory logics of political and judicial legitimacy (Simpson, 2014).
ilisational paradigms (Fanon, 1963). Abu Artima explains that the Decolonisation in the Unity Intifada presents an example of locally
marches stemmed from ‘what each person longed for’ and thus: grounded forms of resistance to foster other possible worlds ‘beyond
hegemonic forms of nation-states, territory, sovereignty, citizenship’
every person had the chance to lead and move around the way they
(Radcliffe & Radhuber, 2020: 10). Youth mobilising of critical
wanted. People practiced self-rule, and all titles and unilateral
self-consciousness in the face of Palestinian internal defeatism captures
sources of authority were completely dismissed amid this popular
a departure from the ‘chronopolitics’ of recognition, which the Oslo
momentum (Almoultaqa, 2021).
regime catalysed, to enabling ‘plural space-times’ of ‘epistemically
The above reflection perfectly captures how indigene life-worlds distinct imaginations, practices and spaces’ (Radcliffe & Radhuber,
invigorate a willingness to move beyond the spatio-temporal stillness 2020: 10). ‘Unity’, therefore, underscores the power of the indigene’s
that nation state and its barbed wire imposes on the world, dictating an iltiham shabi across the variegated geo-temporalities of decolonisation.
oppressive structure of a settler vs. native. These life-worlds are not Palestinian feminist and queer collectives play an essential role in
governed by a political reactionism working in the defence of ‘tradition’
and ‘indigenization’ that only extends the violent contours of settler
22
This is echoed in both Amnesty’s secretary press conference statement and
as a press release publication on the organisation’s website: ‘Amnesty Inter­
21
A celebrated statement by Ben Gurion in which he assures his Zionist fel­ national does not challenge Israel’s desire to be a home for Jews. Similarly, it
lows that Palestinians will never come back to their homes (in Arab News, does not consider that Israel labelling itself a “Jewish state” indicates an
2002). intention to oppress and dominate’ (see Amnesty International, 2022a, b).

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advancing forms of social and geo-political re-mappings that connect Amnesty International. (2022a). Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of
domination and crime against humanity. Amnesty International Documents. https
‘multi-scalar analysis with gendered and sexual violence of the settler
://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/5141/2022/en/. (Accessed 5 October
state’ (Zaragocin, 2018, p. 204). Therefore, the Unity that the May In­ 2022).
tifada underscores is one that is informed by the plurality of the in­ Amnesty International. (2022b). Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of
digene’s genders, epistemologies and life-worlds that are tied to place. domination and crime against humanity. Amnesty International Report. https://www.
amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/5141/2022/en/. (Accessed 5 October 2022).
Acts of Faz’a conjoin with marchers dreaming of other possible worlds Anetebi-Yemeni, L. (2005). From Ethiopian villager to global villager: Ethiopian Jews in
beyond the settler’s wasteful relations of land and nature. To rebel Israel. In A. Levy, & A. Weingrod (Eds.), Homeland and diasporas: Holy Lands and
against the barbed wire of the settler state, is to incite the set of imag­ other places. Stanford: Stanford university Press.
Arab News. (2002). The old will die and the young will forget David Ben Gurion. Arab News.
inations, knowledges and bodies that confront the geo-political condi­ https://www.arabnews.com/node/220313. (Accessed 5 October 2022).
tions of everyday dispossession which are naturalised under settler 21 see Araro, A. (2020). The woman breaking down barriers in Israel. Youtube
colonialism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaxwigwXXps. (Accessed 5 October 2022).
Arvin, M., Tuck, E., & Morrill, A. (2013). Decolonizing feminism: Challenging
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W. Alqaisiya Political Geography 103 (2023) 102844

Walaa Alqaisiya is a Marie Curie Global Fellow working between Ca’ Foscari University of Geography from Durham University in 2018; examining the transformative potential of
Venice (Italy), Columbia University in the City of New York (USA) and the London School political activism and aesthetics in the ambit of gender and sexuality in Palestine, pub­
of Economics and Political Science (UK). Her project focuses on indigenous geographies of lished as a book monograph with Routledge.
environmental justice across settler colonial contexts. She received her PhD in Human

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