[The right to intimacy serves as both a realm of domination as
well as a form of resistance under Israeli settler-colonialism.]
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NO ROOM FOR LOVE IN APARTHEID ISRAEL  
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Izzeddin Araj
September 6, 2022
Mondoweiss
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_ The right to intimacy serves as both a realm of domination as well
as a form of resistance under Israeli settler-colonialism. _

‘Ambassadors of Freedom – Palestine’ on a bottle used for
smuggled sperm at Razan Clinic, Ramallah., Izzeddin Araj

 

According to new rules that come into force on October 20, foreigners
in the West Bank who fall in love with Palestinians must inform
Israeli authorities of this romantic interest
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This bizarre, nonetheless terrifying news is another testament to how
Israel’s apartheid regime seeks to brazenly control our lives and
bodies. For me as a Palestinian, it comes as no surprise.

In fact, as many scholars have argued, Israel’s settler-colonial
character precisely manifests through such a logic of entitlement –
where the state seeks to dominate indigenous bodies and determine the
ways they exist in the world – how they live, move, get sick and
heal, and how they love and reproduce.

The idea that bureaucrats and officials feel entitled to determine
every single aspect of Palestinian life (including whom we love and
how we do that) is beyond the concept of control, it is about the
institutionalization of a decades-long colonial fantasy about
enslaving Palestinian bodies. This logic of entitlement has defined
decades of oppression in Israel/ Palestine. Palestinians have long
known this and therefore seem less shocked by the new rules. Over the
course of my work on reproduction and intimacy politics in Palestine,
I have visited several families wrenched apart by Israeli apartheid
– children who have never met their fathers, bedrooms abandoned on
the Israeli army’s orders, and partners whose access to conjugal
togetherness is mediated by a militarized state.

Earlier this year, I conducted interviews in the city of Nablus, to
the north of the West Bank. I came across the demolished apartment of
a Palestinian prisoner who was arrested a few months after his
wedding. While I looked at a rusty bed frame in what used to be the
couple’s bedroom, his wife told me that the Israeli army comes every
few months to make sure that the apartment remains unoccupied. This
same woman was nevertheless able to give birth to her husband’s
child, with sperm smuggled from behind bars. “It’s a story of
victory that they would never even get,” she told me. A deserted
bedroom, rusting furniture, a prisoner now punished and banished; a
child who came into the world as an “ambassador for freedom” as
the Palestinians call these children. This scene could sum up nearly a
century of conflict over intimacy in Palestine. Intimacy, a space of
colonial domination, but also of resistance.

Abandoned apartment sealed by the Israeli Army. Nablus 2022. Photo
credits: Izzeddin Araj 

The above picture, taken on that day last Spring, demonstrates more
than merely the Israeli tendency to invade and control every aspect of
Palestinian life. It also illustrates how the right to intimacy and
love lies at the core of settler-colonialism. Every time I look at the
picture, I remember the Hebrew name for the place where Jewish
prisoners meet their partners on conjugal visits in Israeli prisons
– the ‘love room’. If you are a Jewish prisoner imprisoned for
assassinating the Israeli prime minister, you would still have the
right to conjugal visitation, which is indeed the case of Yigal Amir
who killed Yitzhak Rabin. However, if you are Palestinian, you are
doomed to have no room for love. It is that clear and has always been.

It is important to feel shocked by the new rules, as normalizing this
oppression should not be an option. Yet, it is crucial to understand
that they represent nothing exceptional or incidental and should be
understood within the broad context of entitlement and intervention
that governs everyday life in Palestine.

The targeting of Palestinian intimacies is not a metaphor. It takes
place amidst the material realities of ordinary people and their
everyday lives. The colonial fragmentation of Palestine and
Palestinian land is an everyday exercise of power, and is most clearly
reflected in the systematic separation of our bodies. In one way or
another, access to _land_ – a question at the core of
settler-colonialism, is manifested, among other things, through access
to _love_. Over the course of my life and work in the West Bank, I
have met several partners forced to live apart as a result of these
colonial demarcations of land and bodies.  

However, there is another side to this story. As Israel seeks to force
these people apart, they constantly produce and reclaim forms of
togetherness that subvert the distances imposed by this colonialism of
borders. Through several intimate forms of resistance, Palestinian
bodies have demonstrated what I call ‘counter-demarcation’. There
are many examples – like the stories of prisoners whose sperm is
smuggled from prisons in Palestine ’48 to the Gaza Strip and the
West Bank. This practice extends the imprisoned and bordered self
outward and brings their children into the world. 

All of this tells us that intimacy is as much a realm of resistance as
it is one of domination. One way to understand the Palestinian
struggle is as a struggle for togetherness. And one way to read the
colonial regime is as an attempt to tear Palestinians apart, from the
world, but also from each other. I am appalled by news of the recent
policy, but also know, as all Palestinians do, that it is only a small
part of a long, ongoing story. 

_IZZEDDIN ARAJ is a Palestinian researcher, journalist, and Ph.D.
candidate in anthropology at IHEID in Geneva, Switzerland._

_MONDOWEISS is an independent website devoted to informing readers
about developments in Israel/Palestine and related US foreign policy.
We provide news and analysis unavailable through the mainstream media
regarding the struggle for Palestinian human rights._

_Mondoweiss is only able to continue with the support of its readers.
The website is part of The Center for Economic Research and Social
Change [[link removed]], a 501(c)(3) organization, and
contributions to which are tax deductible to the extent provided by
law._

_You can make an online tax deductible donation here
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* Palestine
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* Israel
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* occupation
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* settler colonialism
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* love
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