Gaza 2021: When Israel's arrogance was broken

Ameer Makhoul
13 July 2021 

Israel's belief that its military might will bury the Palestinian will to resist was proven wrong

It is difficult to interpret the ultimate outcome of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, since the main driver was an international effort, involving in particular Egypt and the US.

The real motive driving both sides to reach a ceasefire, however, was the situation on the ground, both socially and militarily. This could potentially mark the end of an era and the start of a new one. But it could also represent missed opportunities in the shifting Palestinian political sphere, continuing the “armistice doctrine” rather than finding a real solution to the blatant power imbalance.

Its belief that planes could bury the Palestinian will to resist by levelling residential towers was proven wrong

If we consider the recent Gaza battle to have begun when the military wing of Hamas launched rockets towards Jerusalem at the height of a popular political uprising against Israeli policies in Sheikh Jarrah and at al-Aqsa Mosque, we have a situation where a Palestinian group took the reins and initiated an attack against escalating Israeli aggression. Hamas did not rely on a “reaction doctrine” after a strike by Israel, such as the assassination of one of the group’s leaders.

The missile attacks surprised Israel and revealed a major and fundamental failure in its estimation of Hamas’s military strength. The battle was calculated, with the targeting of Israeli population centres in Jerusalem, Beersheba, Tel Aviv and other cities in the Gush Dan area.

Jerusalem was witnessing a popular battle - the most successful since the First Intifada - that united the Palestinian people over key issues, including self-determination and the right of return. What was postponed after the Oslo Accords came back to the forefront.
Israel's military might

Israel bet on its military might, especially its advanced air force and the enormous capabilities of its military intelligence, that is equipped with the latest technologies and have almost total informational control over all of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

In its military approach, the occupying state also bet on two other dimensions: firstly, the “battle between wars”, constituting the rounds of aggression Israel launches every few years without allowing them to escalate into major, full-fledged wars.

The second dimension, dating back to 2006, is what the Israeli army calls the “Dahiya doctrine”, referencing an area in the southern suburbs of Beirut where Hezbollah was located. The strategy is centred around massive destruction and the targeting of civilian infrastructure to “deter” the other side, which is not an organised army.

Israeli tanks are deployed near the Gaza Strip on 20 May 2021 (AFP)

This could well be renamed the “2021 Gaza doctrine”, having been further developed by the Israeli army’s chief of staff, Aviv Kochavi. It is centred on causing the greatest amount of destruction in the fastest time, or as translated by the inciteful Israeli media: “Changing Gaza’s topography.”

Israel’s strategy is closer to one of urban genocide, aided by the latest technologies and artificial intelligence. It launched dozens of deadly strikes on Gaza within a single night. But Israel’s arrogance has been broken - its belief that planes could bury the Palestinian will to resist by levelling residential towers was proven wrong, as Palestinian rockets continued to target Israeli cities, and popular gatherings did not stop. The whole country became a battlefront.

In addition to losing the value of these two dimensions of its military approach, Israel made every possible effort to avoid a ground invasion, which endangers its soldiers, putting them at greater risk of death or capture.
Palestinian divisions

Since 2006, Israel has been the primary beneficiary of the fundamental divisions within the Palestinian political system. Israel was relying on the Trump administration to continue propping it up for another four years in its ongoing assault against the Palestinian cause, but this wish did not become reality.

Under the Biden administration, the fundamental policies and comprehensive support for Israel have not changed, but there is a growing consensus that the Israeli leadership is an obstacle to other US policies in the region, such as the Iran nuclear deal.

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While the Biden administration has not put the Palestinian cause at the top of its regional priority list, the cause nonetheless rose to the fore this year with all its might - especially with regards to the incendiary issue of Jerusalem - raising, for Israel, the spectre of a regional war. Israel has also witnessed major shifts in the international arena, with the Palestinian voice getting louder, particularly among progressive US Democrats.

In other words, the latest round of fighting has generated a national security crisis for Israel, from which the ruling Zionist establishment sees no clear exit. Troublingly, the only thing saving it is the misery of the ruling Palestinian political establishment.

Israeli society seems to have lost its ability to protest against state aggression and failure. There is no real political opposition to the ruling right-wing, and no alternative political project. As a result, no one is held accountable for strategic political and security failures, including the setbacks of Israel’s military doctrine.
National currents

On a regional level, Israel’s relations with Egypt have been rocky in recent years. But amid the changes taking place - whether in Gaza or in the US Democratic Party - and with the Biden administration seeking to reinstate the Iran deal, Israel was forced to depend on Egyptian diplomacy in arranging the Gaza ceasefire. This also reflected a change in the US administration’s priorities.

If we borrow from military theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s concept of war, the current aggression against the Palestinian people is a continuation of the same political and strategic project that seeks to bypass the Palestinian cause at the Arab regional level and through economic peace, to deepen Palestinian divisions and weaken national currents, and to undermine the position of ’48 Palestinians.

People are viewing Sheikh Jarrah and Lod not in the framework of their individual identities, but as part of one cause

Despite the pause in the Israel-Gaza military conflict, the aggression against ’48 Palestinians and Jerusalem is not only continuing, but becoming increasingly aggressive, under the direct supervision of the Shin Bet. The ingredients for a new flareup on the ground are emerging; the latest Gaza offensive was not a “normal” battle, but rather a turning point.

The general feeling in Israel is that this latest conflict represented a military, intelligence and political failure from a strategic perspective. The state of deterrence between Hamas and Israel may ultimately strengthen the Palestinian cause as a whole. The solution will not be the reconstruction of Gaza and humanitarian aid while the siege is maintained; rather, it will entail reexamining the Palestinian cause and reinforcing demands for a just solution.

One people, one cause

What is happening among ‘48 Palestinians, and in particular the emergence of the younger generation as a driving force in protests, is important, but it is not what distinguishes the latest confrontation with the Israeli regime. Rather, this is about the larger cause. People are viewing Sheikh Jarrah and Lod not in the framework of their individual identities, but as part of one cause and one people oppressed by racism and settler-colonialism across historic Palestine.

The United Nations Human Rights Council’s decision to investigate Israel’s violations against the Palestinian people, including in ‘48 areas, reflects a shift in international perception. This must be transformed into a lever for the Palestinian struggle as a whole, and for its ability to confront the multi-pronged Israeli establishment.

Palestinians hold a rally in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, on 3 July 2021 (AFP)

It is difficult to predict how the situation will reflect on Palestinian politics, with a number of competing possibilities. So far, there are no signs of reconciliation, or of a plan to unify the two existing entities in the occupied West Bank and Gaza within the framework of a single Palestinian political system. Internal Palestinian escalation is not a far-fetched concept, and this could undermine all that the people have achieved in Jerusalem, the ’48 territories, Gaza and the West Bank.

It would also be wrong to underestimate the ongoing influence of foreign parties. If the US truly wants negotiations between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel, it must work to push the forces of the Israeli political centre in this direction.
Future horizons

On the other hand, the achievements of the Palestinian resistance have created a new level of deterrence that cannot be underestimated. This is a strong basis for the two sides to move towards a long-term truce, which is in their interests and could even presage the beginning of the end of the Israeli strategy of the “battle between wars”.

It is difficult to imagine Israel succumbing to its failure, which would constitute a strategic shift, with Israel losing its power of deterrence and absolute military superiority. It is difficult to see how Israel will cope with the current situation, but it must realise that it cannot do everything.

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At the same time, the dominant Palestinian political establishment has been unable to keep pace with the framework of the victorious popular struggle, which is now accepted by all components of the Palestinian people, even generating fresh hope in the hearts of refugees.

I do not think that Palestinian Legislative Council or National Council elections will salvage this situation. Rather, we must apply the all-inclusive popular model to the concept of political organisation, establishing a comprehensive Palestinian coordination body that includes the Palestine Liberation Organization, PA, Hamas and the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab citizens of Israel.

A forward-looking Palestinian political project will not be able to succeed without an integrated role for ’48 Palestinians. This coordination body should be formed in order to develop and open up future horizons.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

How Tunisia inspired Kandinsky and enabled expressionist art

The Russian artist Vasily Kandinsky began his journey into the abstract during a stay in the North African country, inspiring others like Paul Klee and August Macke

Kandinsky's early works, like this piece, had not yet evolved to the elaborate abstract compositions he later became known for (Centre Pompidou)
By
Farah Abdessamad
29 November 2021 

The traditionally studded doors of Tunisia’s Sidi Bou Said village would have appeared dream-like to Vasily Kandinsky's artistic sensitivity.

For the Moscow-born painter, white symbolised the harmony of silence and blue was a heavenly colour.

Having arrived in the country with his German partner Gabriele Munter on Christmas Day in 1904, Kadinsky spent the next three months in Tunis, first at the Hotel Saint Georges, then the cheaper Hotel Suisse.

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Their perceptive photographs, sketches and gouaches capture glimpses of Tunisia’s capital city and beyond. The pair also briefly visited Sidi Bou Said, Hammamet, Sousse and Kairouan.

Even before he arrived in North Africa, Kandinsky was already making a name for himself. He had shown at the Salon d’Automne in Paris in 1904 and taught in Munich between 1901 and 1903, where he met Munter, a fellow artist. However, Kandinsky’s artwork had yet to evolve into the elaborate abstract compositions for which he is now famous.

In Tunis though, we see in his brush strokes the waning influence of neo-impressionism and an increasing attention towards colour, permeating from the everyday motifs he chose.

Life in the city, though relatively brief, would have a lasting impact on his works even decades later.

Munter’s camera was a shared accessory that immortalised street life and memories. Years later, these photographs would help Kandinsky revive the colours and scenes of Tunis from afar, in the manner of postcards or a first sketch.

Kandinsky's Mohrencafe, 1905, is an example of his early gouache on board work (Christies)

Kandinsky recalled in 1938 how he had felt under the "strong impressions of the phantasmatic environment" in Tunisia. Munter affirmed this view in 1960, after Kandinsky’s passing, stating that he "already expressed a great interest in abstraction" when in Tunisia.

Specifically, Islamic art and Islam’s religious prescription against the pictorial representation of the divine may have further prompted Kandinsky to experiment with new forms and colour, to begin questioning the power of the non-objective and explore the idea of "form-feeling" that the painter would later develop, notably in his ground-breaking art theory volume, On the Spiritual in Art.
'Hearing' colour

Less than a week after Kandinsky’s arrival, Japanese forces seized Port Arthur and the Russo-Japanese War continued its uncertain, dangerous course. It’s amidst deep worry for the fate of his compatriots, including his enlisted brother, that Kandinsky attempted to engage with his surroundings, limiting contacts with outsiders.

He and Munter arrived in Tunis, a generation after the establishment of the French protectorate of Tunisia, in 1881. Unlike Algeria, the Bey remained in nominal authority while France, through its highest representative, the resident general, took over diplomacy and finances, as well as stationing its army on Tunisian soil.

Gabriele Munter's Calvacade photograph taken in 1905 shows Arab horsemen parading at a carnival in Tunis (VG Bild-Kunst)

The pair witnessed traditional celebrations during their stay - of Eid Al Adha for instance, which Kandinsky sketched in his Fete de Moutons (Tunisian Sheep Festival, shown at the 1905 Paris exhibition, now in the Guggenheim’s Founding Collection). The painting portrays recognisably Muslim and Jewish people, including children, near a modest ferris wheel. The festive event, a fete foraine or travelling carnival, seems to have taken place in Halfaouine Square and is blessed by a rainbow.

In her photographs, Munter also captures the equestrian "fantasia", in which skilled horse riders were selected to parade the streets of Tunis holding rifles. In that image, a prominent Tunisian flag is held by one of the riders. Another rider follows him, this time holding a French flag of the same size.

Kandinsky’s rendering of the scene conveys movement and folklore. In Arab Cavalry, published in 1905, he strips away historicity and space, and what remains evokes the timelessness and resonance of the wild steppes of his native Russia.

Arab Cavalry by Vasily Kandinsky (1905)

What they see matters as much as what stays hidden from them and absent. As non-French Europeans, their gaze is largely confined to public spaces - to alleyways, to squares such as Halfaouine, Bab el Khadra or Bab Souika, or parks such as the Belvedere.

Nevertheless they remain attentive to Tunisia’s diverse social and cultural fabric, for instance painting Black subjects, daily workers, and Sufi Marabouts, the latter being the tombs of local saints, religious guides or founders of a zaouia (religious establishment).

Orange Sellers (1905) is based on the Marabout of Sidi Sliman, which no longer exists. The painting contains touches of vivid colour and the placement of oranges like notes on sheet music in front of the Marabout highlights the idea that Kandinsky could "hear" colour as he possessed a rare ability called synesthesia.

Kandinsky's visually striking Arabs I (Cemetery) painting showcases his foray into abstract art (Hamburger Kunsthalle/Elke Walford)

Kandinsky and Munter works during their visit to Tunisia demonstrate that they were more interested in the contemporary Arab soul of Tunis than its classical past and the ruins of Carthage. They visit the Bardo Museum, located in a 19th century Beylik palace, and not the Byrsa Hill, the site of an ancient Phoenician citadel, which was the heart of Carthage before its destruction by Rome.

They painted the modern villas of Tunis and the tombs of the Beys, capturing a city at a standstill and transformation, between tradition and modernity. Even long after his sudden return to Europe due to family matters, Kandinsky regularly went back to revisiting his Tunisian memories, for example in the visually more daring Arabs I (Cemetery) painted in 1909.

Impact on other artists

Kandinsky and Munter created the Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter) movement a few years after leaving Tunisia, in 1911, with other artists, such as Marc Franz, Paul Klee and August Macke. The symbol of the horse and its rider for this avant-garde group takes a spiritual connotation, one of artistic freedom, and inevitably refers to the Tunis cavalcade in its essentialised form.

Tunisia re-emerges in Expressionist art history, via two other artists affiliated with the Blaue Reiter, the Swiss Klee and German Macke. With a third friend, Louis Moilliet, a compatriot of Klee's, who had floated the idea of the trip since 1913, the artists visited Tunisia in 1914 on the eve of the First World War. Klee consigned his impressions in a diary, which provides us with rich insights on his artistic practice as well as daily life.

Kandinsky and Munter transcribed the domination of the French in Tunisia in symbolic terms, through flags and the official "Republique Francaise" insignia that would be included in (relatively few of) their paintings and photographs. Klee had also noticed the fleeting "Frenchness" of the protectorate.

The Tunisian independence movement before war mainly occupied the elite. In 1907, the Young Tunisians formed a political party and tried to increase the outreach of their message of liberal reforms and greater Tunisian participation in the country’s affairs with the launch of the bilingual newspaper Le Tunisien (Arabic edition launched in 1909).

Klee's Hammamet with its Mosque, (1914) is on display at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (Artists Rights Society)

With mounting social unrest in the context of the recent Italian takeover of Tripoli, further compounded by a French decision to regulate land ownership in a cemetery, French authorities declared a decade-long state of emergency from 1911 which forced the editor of Le Tunisien, Ali Bach Hamba, into exile. At the outcome of a trial, the French guillotined several pro-nationalist protesters.

This helps in understanding Klee’s caustic remark when he wrote in his diary on Easter Monday, 1914, just before travelling to Hammamet: "Tunis is Arab in the first place, Italian in the second, and French only in the third. But the French act as if they were the masters."

Klee encounters French people, who were mostly arrogant, mocking - the three artists were presumed to be Germans and treated as such - and unwelcoming. He describes in later pages, as Kandinsky had also mentioned, the rickety trains and a dilapidated highway - not so advantageous for the image of the French colonial project which was to modernise public works among other "civilising" feats.

Klee was attracted to architecture, cafe life, as places of socialisation, gossip and storytelling; he often painted in Halfaouine Square. His interest encompassed vistas and gardens. In Tunis, the three men stayed with a Swiss doctor and his wife, who also owned a secondary home in Saint-Germain, today’s Ezzahra, less than 13 miles away from Tunis on the seaside. In Ezzahra, in a villa not far from the beach and close to Boukornine mountain, Klee and Macke drew evocative watercolour sketches.

In Saint Germain near Tunis (1914), Macke stylises Boukornine in blue, pyramid-like forms in the backdrop of a panorama, which includes both Arab and French houses amongst an ebullient flora.

From a similar-looking vantage point, Klee’s chromatic values are obliquely deeper, the hues less saturated and his watercolour, View of St. Germain (1914), suggest a subdued reverence.

We explore Klee’s journey as a geography and as an inner progression, towards works that highlight colour and abstraction, such as in Hammamet with its Mosque (1914) and Before the Gates of Kairouan (1914). In these two luminous watercolour paintings, we feel the stroke of a blinding Mediterranean high-noon sun and the awe of a spectacular, kaleidoscopic landscape. His exploration culminates in density, richness, depth and saturation in In the Style of Kairouan (1914), painted shortly after his return from Tunisia. Years later, like Kandinsky, he would remember Tunisia and its southern gardens.

The Boukornine mountain is paid tribute to in August Macke's Saint Germain near Tunis, 1914 (Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munchen)

Tunisia uniquely altered Klee’s artistic journey, which he likened to an "intoxication". Both Macke and Klee encountered local artworks and presumably interacted with their styles.

It was in the holy city of Kairouan that Klee discovered colour and experienced almost an epiphany.

"Colour and I are one. I am a painter," he wrote on 16 April 1914, leaving Tunisia shortly after, explaining: "I had to leave to regain my senses."

Macke was killed in action in France early during the war in September 1914.

Championing inner expression

Klee and Kandinsky would teach together at the influential Bauhaus school, which was formed in Germany after the war. The institute emphasised modern art theory and also taught other disciplines, such as design and architecture.

Following the rise of Hitler and the confiscation of some of their artwork, which were considered "degenerate" by the Nazi regime, both artists eventually left Germany.

A 2014 exhibition marking the 100-year anniversary of Klee, Macke and Moilliet’s trip to Tunisia underscores the contribution Tunisia made to European Expressionism.

The combined legacies of Kandinsky, Klee and Macke, as pioneers of the non-objective, and champions of using the canvas as a gate towards inner expression and the spiritual, is immense and extends a sphere of influence over artists such as Mondrian, Rothko, Pollock and others.

And behind this chromatic liberation, somewhere, is the memory of Tunisia’s shores, its markets, towns and people and the distant drums of a darbuka reverberating in strokes, shapes and gradients, colliding in beauty beyond words and an un-representable truth.

Black Medusa: Will its brutal heroine change North African cinema?

A woman picks up men and subjects them to horrific attacks in striking and provocative new drama from Tunisia

The filmmakers create a deliberate sense of ambiguity when it comes to explaining Nada's violence (Utopia Films)

By Joseph Fahim
8 December 2021

A striking feature debut from Tunisian pair Youssef Chebbi and Ismael is showing the way forward for one of the most worn-out narratives in Middle Eastern cinema, that of the oppressed Arab woman.

Black Medusa is an unflinching work that makes its mark not only with formal boldness but in its genuinely reformist politics.

It opens with a woman sat alone in a bustling bar. She’s young, mysterious looking and undeniably attractive. Her face is stoic, teeming with steely determination but largely undecipherable. Her eyes meets those of a random man. Her look, he promptly deduces, is an invitation to try his luck. The man is inebriated and boasts that he has lost control. She’s indifferent, sober and fully in control.

Nour Hajri is Nada, an introverted deaf and mute online editor with seemingly no friends or family (Utopia Films)

When they reach his place, he falls on his face unconscious. The woman feels her way around the apartment until she finds a broomstick and starts to rape him, her exultance visible.

An impressionistic revenge fable gorgeously shot in black and white, Black Medusa is an angry shriek; a brazenly amoral meditation on violence and the righteousness of retribution, and a moody panorama of a lawless Tunisian capital.

With a cryptic narrative that avoids psychological tropes, the feature is a much-needed upheaval of long-held North African narratives on women’s subjugation and the patriarchy.

What makes it distinct is how it breaks free from the "victimised woman" narrative that has dominated North African cinema, giving the female protagonist agency without judging her. In doing so, the directors acknowledge they cannot comprehend the trauma their heroine has endured that results in her using violence as a coping mechanism.

After premiering earlier this year at the Rotterdam Film Festival, it screens at Turkey’s Malatya Film Fest from 10-14 December. It has also been acquired by arthouse streaming service Mubi.

Debt to Abel Ferrara

In her second feature film, Nour Hajri (The Scarecrows) is Nada, an introverted deaf and mute online editor with no visible friends or family. Every night, she allows men to believe they can have her, before she inflicts acts of violence upon them.

Unfolding over nine nights, Chebbi and Ismael's drama doesn’t divulge the motivations behind Nada’s vengeful streak. A sole flashback in the woods implies that she may have been assaulted by a faceless ex-lover, but this suggestion remains hazy, at best.

With minimal dialogue throughout, Nada becomes an empty vessel for the men’s vanities; for their self-centredness, their seedy desires, their pettiness. One divorcee claims he never attacked his wife, but his admission that he did threaten to kill her makes it clear he probably did. Another man pounces on Nada when she doesn’t respond to his advances.

The film premiered at Rotterdam Film Festival in February (Utopia Films)

The violence Nada enacts swiftly spirals into murder - a deed she discovers to be quite effortless, if not as gratifying or thrilling. Perhaps her biggest realisation is that she can commit murders without any remorse.

As bloodlust becomes her raison d'etre, she finds respite with Noura (Rym Hayouni), her Algerian colleague and the sole empathetic figure, offering disarming compassion and warmth to the weary, distrustful Nada. But it is only a palliative, for the road Nada has taken has no point of return.


Black Medusa is inspired by Abel Ferrara’s 1981 cult classic Ms .45, about a mute New Yorker seamstress who, after being raped and attacked twice in a single day, embarks on a murder spree, killing random men every night.

Ferrara’s controversial body of work could be summed up as lengthy exploration of the relationship between violence, power and redemption, all filtered from an abidingly Catholic prism similar to some degrees to Taxi Driver writer Paul Schrader.

At the time, Ms. 45 was a revelation: a shock exploitation thriller that places a woman at the centre of the popular, male-dominated vengeance sub-genre of the 1970s. Its predecessor, Meir Zarchi’s much-banned I Spit on Your Grave (1978), also featured a woman vigilante hell-bent on annihilating her rapists.

But Ms .45 was more subversive and more complex in its exploration of the relationship between violence and sex, as well as more unapologetic about its heroine’s lack of motivation for murdering the men who may or may not be blameless. Its influence can be traced to 2007’s The Brave One starring Jodie Foster and Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman, winner earlier this year for an Oscar for best original screenplay.

Black Medusa adopts the Ms .45 premise but goes into thornier, more abstract realms. Its subtle eroticism, broodiness and refusal to make its influences clear are more in line, however, with Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill (1980) and Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013), starring Scarlett Johansson.
The birth of Black Medusa

The film was conceived five years ago, when Chebbi suggested to Ismael - his co-director on the feature documentary Babylon (2012) - that they remake Ms .45 in Tunisia, the Arab country that has made the most advances in women’s rights in North Africa. Ismael confessed that he was neither familiar with the film nor a fan of Ferrara. “I honestly wasn’t very interested in the prospect of remaking Ms .45,” he told Middle East Eye.


The pair met again in 2019 and discussed the idea further. Soon, Ismael started to piece together specific scenes in his head. "For me, the origins of film projects are never rooted in specific narratives or themes or ideas. They always spring out of particular images, and this is how Black Medusa was born.”

For their debut feature, Chebbi and Ismael wanted to sidestep the usual route of international co-productions and script development labs, opting instead to self-finance their small-budget project and shoot it quickly.

After one month of discussion and a couple of weeks' writing, the screenplay was ready. Two months of pre-production and 12 days of shooting later, the film was almost ready. This rare freedom is what allowed the pair to realise their vision.

Violence becomes an increasingly meaningless yet devouring addiction in Black Medusa (Utopia Films) ​

Although Black Medusa does share some similarities with Ferrara's film, Ismael sees it as the opposite of Ms. 45 in characterisation, and distinct from the latter’s overly Catholic resolution.

“Thana, the heroine of Ms. 45, starts off as being vulnerable and lonely, but gradually grows stronger, finding self-empowerment through the murders,” he said. “Nada is the polar opposite. She’s very well organised at first, in full control of her ritualised actions. Her veneer gradually starts to crack, as she begins to feel with Noura the kind of genuine and profound emotions she has not experienced before.

“Another distinction is how Ferrara at the end chooses to punish Thana, seeing it as the sole means for her absolution. That’s not the case with Nada.”

With its cryptic narrative, Black Medusa offers a radically revisionist take on the victimised Arab woman battling, mostly in vain, the unconquerable patriarchy.

Here a female protagonist is given agency. The film-makers also refuse to judge her, acknowledging that they cannot comprehend the trauma their heroine has endured, and which results in her using violence as a coping mechanism.

Black Medusa's politics are more in line with commercial films of the 1980s and 1990s which centred on neglected Egyptian women. These were fronted by a group of the country’s biggest female film stars at the time – including Nadia El Gendy, Nabila Ebeid and Naglaa Fathi – and included the likes of The Lost One (El Da'eaa- 1986), The Woman and the Cleaver (Al-Mara’a wa Al-Satour, 1996), The Iron Woman (El-Maraa Hadideeya, 1987), about heroines taking it upon themselves to avenge the men who had wronged them.

Like Nada, these Egyptian characters sidestepped the authorities to take the law into their own hands. Unabashed about using their sexuality to achieve their goals, they took a vigilante path that allowed them to assert their individuality and feminism away from an indifferent system.

But Ismael is keen to draw a contrast between Black Medusa and these earlier works. “These [North African films] may seem to empower women, but they do it through a bourgeoisie or capitalist framework. Nada lies outside these social, moral or historical frameworks.”

Tunis is portrayed as a discordant urban wasteland (Utopia Films)

Chebbi and Ismael put Nada in full control of her own destiny. Nada assaults these men not because she’s compelled to, not out of any ethical or ideological or even feminist duties: she does it simply because she enjoys it.

The story does not delve into the character's psychological motivations but instead works on a symbolic level. Its one-dimensional, villainous depiction of her male targets is therefore justified.

“She’s an editor, she assembles images together," says Ismael. "She mixes and makes up her own reality. She’s honest about her own twisted sexual desires. She’s content with lying in the margins of society… of reality, even.”

The slippery narrative, the vagueness of motivations, the clashing sentiments Nada endures… these are not just part of the film’s formal design that stand in contrast to the narratives outlined above; collectively, these elements represent a philosophical decision reflecting the film-makers’ recognition that as men, they can neither fully comprehend nor accurately convey the harrowing traumas women like Nada are forced to live with.

'There are a lot of male directors everywhere who are doing these pseudo-feminist movies that are in fact very patriarchal'

- Ismael, co-director

“Naturally, I’ll never know what being a woman means or feels. I can never put myself inside the woman’s shoes. It would be conceited to claim otherwise. There are a lot of male directors everywhere who are doing these pseudo-feminist movies that are in fact very patriarchal. We were very conscious of that. Psychologising the female experience is synonymous with moralisation for us,” Ismael said.

“We also didn’t want to fall in the trap of presenting sexual trauma and being obliged to explore it in literal terms. What happens to Nada can be interpreted in different ways, but I don’t personally see it as rape. When directing Hajri, we even told her that the character could be a virgin. She is clearly suffering from a grave trauma, but it may not be sexual.”

There’s a palpable unease with which Nada interacts with the world through her body. Only when she inflicts violence on men can she attain the agency of her body. The role of violence in Black Medusa is thus multi-layered.

For Nada, there’s a cathartic effect when she first inflicts pain on the men but that proves to be short-lived, and is overtaken by monotony. The use of violence, choreographed without a hint of sensationalism, is transformed from an instrument of cleansing to repetitive work; an increasingly meaningless yet devouring addiction.

Tunis is another principal character in the film. Shown mostly in a composite series of spare nocturnal panoramas, the Tunisian capital emerges as a discordant urban wasteland – a series of scattered facades as chaotically structured as the lives of the people who inhabit them.

The city, in the imagination of Ismael and Chebbi, is a depraved jungle, abandoned by law and scorned by its disenchanted denizens. The methodical homicidal measures Nada follows stand as a reaction towards the disorderliness of her city.

Nada in Spanish means nothing, and at the end of Black Medusa this enigmatic heroine evolves into an empty vessel through whom the audience project their own traumas, fears, perversions, anger and loss. Nada is the avenging angel, the impenitent killer, the anguished wanderer - call her anything but a victim.

Sally Rooney: Anyone who has visited Palestine could not fail to support her decision

Alexandra Pringle
3 December 2021

Experiencing what Palestinians endure daily changes you forever. That's why many writers who've been to the Palestine Festival of Literature backed her refusal to publish in Israel

Irish novelist Sally Rooney in Pasadena, California on 17 January, 2020 (AFP)

Irish author Sally Rooney recently made the decision not to have her latest novel published by an Israeli publisher. The Normal People author said that she could not "accept a new contract with an Israeli company that does not publicly distance itself from apartheid and support the UN-stipulated rights of the Palestinian people".

All we needed was a pair of eyes to see what is there: the indignity and brutality of the checkpoints, the settlers shouting and waving their guns, the wall, the barbed wire, the refugee camps

Last month, 70 writers, poets, playwrights, booksellers and publishers, including myself, signed a letter endorsing her decision. It struck me that over a third of those who signed have attended the Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest). The letter was also signed by PalFest's co-founders, Ahdaf Soueif and Brigid Keenan.

PalFest was founded in 2008, with patrons including Chinua Achebe, John Berger, Mahmoud Darwish, Seamus Heaney and Harold Pinter. They were later joined by Philip Pullman and Emma Thompson. It was formed "in the hope … that the experience of visiting Palestine with PalFest expands authors’ vocabulary and imagination, that they will draw connections between their own work and the various processes of control ongoing in Palestine". The number of signatories to the letter is evidence that this has worked.

One of those who signed the letter supporting Rooney was the Scottish novelist Andrew O’Hagan.

He attended PalFest in its first year and wrote in the London Review of Books: "In the week that Israel celebrated its 60th anniversary, I had come as one of the writers attending the first-ever Palestine Festival of Literature… everywhere we went the wall seemed a shadow, a heavy ornament of Israeli aggression and a horrible reminder to those of us who grew up to see the wall come down in Berlin and the end of apartheid in South Africa. Even in those infamous places, merely mentioning the problem did not invite hatred the way trying to say anything at all about Israel does. Discussion lacks traction in a land scarred from end to end with barriers to progress."
Indignity and brutality

I first went to Palestine with PalFest in May 2009. We crossed over the Allenby Bridge and were kept waiting for eight hours while the Arab writers among us were detained until the last possible moment.

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I stood in the sunshine, in a small group including Michael Palin, Deborah Moggach, Rachel Holmes, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Claire Messud, Henning Mankell and others, little realising that the aggression we were shown was a mild foretaste of what was to come.

That evening, in Jerusalem, we assembled at the Palestinian National Theatre for the opening of the festival. The Israeli army descended with their guns and forced us out. We picked up large platters of food and trooped down the road, into the garden of the French Cultural Institute, where the show went on.

It was a week that changed the lives of every one of us. All we needed was a pair of eyes to see what is there: the indignity and brutality of the checkpoints, the settlers shouting and waving their guns, the wall, the barbed wire, the refugee camps and, in some ways saddest of all, the old city of Hebron.

As Messud wrote: "The agonising descent into darkness that was our visit to the glorious city of sandstone and carved trellis work, an ancient city was being depleted of its inhabitants."
A quotidian oppression

I will never forget walking along a shuttered marketplace, once thriving, now empty. Looking up, Israeli flags fluttered from houses taken from Palestinian families. Netting stretched across the street to catch the rocks and garbage hurled from windows onto Palestinian women, men and children walking to market.

But the netting couldn’t catch the urine and faeces that sometimes accompanied the rocks. As Messud said, we were witnessing "a quotidian oppression that must be experienced, even for a few hours, to be believed".

I returned in 2017 for the 10th anniversary of PalFest, which we marked at Bloomsbury by publishing an anthology, This is Not a Border, edited by Ahdaf Soueif and Omar Robert Hamilton. From Amman, we made our way through the King Hussein border crossing, and on by bus to Ramallah, then to Jerusalem, through the infamous Qalandia checkpoint, used daily by tens of thousands of Palestinians who work in Israel.

"On a walk through occupied Ramallah... one of the writers turned to me and said, "there is little we can do, but you can publish."

 (Photo of Alexandra Pringle in Ramallah in 2017/supplied)

We emerged waving copies of the This is Not a Border. From there we travelled to Hebron, now an even sadder city than on my first visit, and on to Bethlehem, Haifa and Nablus. Every day we travelled by bus, through checkpoints, to different venues.

Out of the bus windows, we could see the olive trees so necessary to Palestinian life, destroyed by Israeli soldiers. We were taken on a walk through occupied Ramallah by Palestinian writer Raja Shehadeh. On that ancient, stolen hillside, one of the writers turned to me and said, "There is little we can do, but you can publish".

The book was also launched at literary festivals throughout the UK. At the Hay Festival, Soueif was awarded the Hay Medal for Festivals "in solidarity, kinship and deepest admiration" for her work on PalFest.
'Psychologically and emotionally devastated'

After his experience at PalFest, novelist William Sutcliffe wrote in the Guardian: "I returned from Palestine psychologically and emotionally devastated by what I had seen. Every aspect of the occupation was harsher, more brutal than I had expected."
Sally Rooney: 'Normal People' author boycotts publisher linked with Israel's defence ministryRead More »

Sutcliffe is Jewish, like many other participants, including Adam Foulds, Gillian Slovo, Ben Ehrenreich, Esther Freud, Jillian Edelstein, Geraldine d’Amico, Ursula Owen, Ben Moser and myself. In the New York Times, Foulds said: "You hear so much about the rage, the violent mood… but I have found a language of peace, freedom and justice. The festival is recognition of the independent life of the Palestinian people. Coming through the invisible barrier of fear has actually filled me with hope. I found deep humanity on the other side."

Publishing about Palestine has been a part of my work as a publisher. In 2020, the Irish writer Colum McCann’s powerful and humane novel Apeirogon was longlisted for the Booker Prize. After reading it, one of my Jewish authors said to me she would never walk down a street in Jerusalem and feel the same way.

Last year, Susan Abulhawa’s novel Against the Loveless World was a winner of a Palestine Book Award. I was Edward Said’s final editor, and this year Timothy Brennan’s biography of Said, Places of Mind, won the Palestine Book Award for biography.

Sally Rooney is not the only author to cause a storm with her support of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. In 2019, Kamila Shamsie had the Nelly Sachs prize for literature, awarded to writers promoting "tolerance and reconciliation", rescinded by the city of Dortmund.

"It is a matter of great sadness to me," she said, "that a jury should bow to pressure and withdraw a prize from a writer who is exercising her freedom of conscience and freedom of expression."

Shamsie, along with Geoff Dyer, Andrew O’Hagan, Eileen Myles, Hanan al-Shaykh, Gillian Slovo, Carmen Callil, China Mieville, Pankaj Mishra, and many other PalFest signatories, had, like me, got on and off buses, struggled through checkpoints, read to audiences in cities and universities through Palestine, and seen, with our own eyes, why it was that Rooney made the decision she did.

And that is why we signed in support of her.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Alexandra Pringle

Alexandra Pringle was editor-in-chief of Bloomsbury Publishing for 20 years.

 She is now executive publisher

Palestinian factionalism has destroyed the national movement

Tariq Dana
7 December 2021

Driven by rigid dogmas and exclusionary politics, Palestinian factionalism leaves little room for fresh voices and progressive change

Palestinians protest in the occupied West Bank on 15 October 2021 (AFP)


It was once an internationally renowned anti-colonial movement that brought the question of Palestine into the regional and international spotlight. But today, the Palestinian national movement suffers from increasing irrelevance and dramatic decline, torn by polarisation and division, its national strategy replaced by competing self-serving agendas.

This can easily be attributed to the mechanism of control devised by the Oslo process, notably the Palestinian Authority (PA), which coopted a significant segment of the Palestinian movement and leadership. But the movement’s structural crisis predates Oslo, with factionalism having long sowed the seeds of intra-Palestinian rivalries.


Factionalism constitutes fertile terrain for competing Arab regimes to manipulate Palestinian politics for their own ends

Instead of imbuing the Palestinian body politic with revitalising pluralism, factionalism has instead been largely driven by rigid dogmas and exclusionary politics. It devastated the pre-Nakba Palestinian struggle against British and Zionist colonial forces, which was dominated by clan cleavages inherited from the Ottoman era. Parties lacked clear political programmes and frequently engaged in squabbles over power and authority.

The formation in 1964 of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as a collective framework for various political movements initially breathed new life into Palestinian politics. But it was soon riven by competing factional agendas, sometimes presenting irreconcilable visions. The absence of genuine democratic mechanisms within PLO institutions further damaged the national movement.

One of the major historical divides related to the 1974 “10-point programme”, embraced by Fatah but rejected by other factions because it prioritised statehood over liberation through the creation of a “national authority”.
External manipulation

Factionalism constitutes fertile terrain for competing Arab regimes to manipulate Palestinian politics for their own ends. In Syria and Iraq, for example, Baathist forces founded as-Saiqa and the Palestinian Arab Front respectively, aiming to represent their competing claims within the PLO. This was a factor in diverting the national movement from its anti-colonial objectives towards rival Arab state interests.

Islamic movements introduced an additional factional pillar to the national movement. The foundation of Islamic Jihad in 1981 and Hamas in 1987 challenged the historical dominance of the PLO. Hamas in particular has presented itself as a viable alternative to the crisis-ridden PLO, advancing a radically different vision of how Palestinian politics and society ought to operate, including through a conservative social order.

Palestinians in Ramallah call for an end to the Fatah-Hamas divide in 2019 (AFP)

At the same time, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have their own intra-factional rivalries, with the two groups holding contrasting views on various political and social issues. Whereas Hamas was an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad was inspired by the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. Unlike Islamic Jihad, which distances itself from controversies on the social role of Islam, Hamas' doctrine emphasises the Islamisation of society as a precondition for liberation.

While Hamas views its relationships with Iran and Hezbollah through a lens of pragmatism, Islamic Jihad considers them strategic allies for the Palestinian struggle.
Pursuit of power

The Oslo years ushered in a new stage of Palestinian politics, where the pursuit of power and material privileges dominated most factions under Israel’s colonial expansion. The establishment in 1994 of the PA, a body that was dependent on international aid and Israeli security conditions, fuelled exclusionary politics based on narrow factional loyalties and interests.

The crisis peaked in 2007 amid clashes between the Fatah-led PA in Ramallah and the de facto Hamas government in Gaza. They mobilised their resources against each other, suppressed dissents and tightened their individual grips on power, allowing Israel more space to manipulate the situation to prevent meaningful reconciliation between the West Bank and Gaza leaderships.

Factionalism also has an economic dimension, with employment in the PA’s civilian and security sectors in Gaza and Ramallah largely based on proximity to the ruling factions. Fatah also exploits its financial leverage to weaken opposition to the PA.

The PA relies heavily on dogmatic, populist rhetoric to enforce its dominance over Palestinian politics and institutions. The recent assassination of activist Nizar Banat by PA security forces was a case in point. While Palestinians took to the streets to demand accountability, Fatah portrayed the protests as a “conspiracy” fuelled by a “foreign agenda” targeting its “legitimate” leadership, and waged a brutal crackdown.

Palestinian factionalism is ultimately a self-destructive endeavour that runs counter to the Palestinian struggle and national interests. It has marginalised urgently needed voices and ideas, and prevented progressive change within the national movement.

As long as this rigid form of factionalism persists, the decay of the Palestinian national movement is inevitable.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Tariq Dana

Tariq Dana is an assistant professor of conflict and humanitarian studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies and an adjunct lecturer at Northwestern University, Qatar. He is also a policy advisor for Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network.

Britain helped create the refugees it now wants to keep out

Jonathan Cook
6 December 2021

Those making perilous journeys for asylum in Europe have been displaced by wars and droughts, for which the West is largely to blame

A group including women and children, in a dinghy, react as they approach the southern British coastline as they cross the English Channel from France on 11 September 2020 (AFP)

The deaths of at least 27 people who drowned as they tried to cross the Channel in an inflatable dinghy in search of asylum have quickly been overshadowed by a diplomatic row engulfing Britain and France.

As European states struggle to shut their borders to refugees, the two countries are in a war of words over who is responsible for stopping the growing number of small boats trying to reach British shores. Britain has demanded the right to patrol French waters and station border police on French territory, suggesting that France is not up to the job. The French government, meanwhile, has blamed the UK for serving as a magnet for illegal workers by failing to regulate its labour market.

No European leader appears ready to address the deeper reasons for the waves of refugees arriving on Europe's shores – or the West's role in causing the 'migration crisis'

European leaders are desperate for quick answers. French President Emmanuel Macron called an emergency meeting of regional leaders a week ago to address the “migration” crisis, though Britain’s home secretary, Priti Patel, was disinvited.

Britain’s post-Brexit government is readier to act unilaterally. It has been intensifying its “hostile environment” policy towards asylum seekers. That includes plans to drive back small boats crossing the Channel, in violation of maritime and international law, and to “offshore” refugees in remote detention camps in places such as Ascension Island in the mid-Atlantic. UK legislation is also being drafted to help deport refugees and prosecute those who aid them, in breach of its commitments under the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Not surprisingly, anti-immigration parties are on the rise across Europe, as governments question the legitimacy of most of those arriving in the region, calling them variously "illegal immigrants", "invaders" and "economic migrants".

The terminology is not only meant to dehumanise those seeking refuge. It is also designed to obscure the West’s responsibility for creating the very conditions that have driven these people from their homes and on to a perilous journey towards a new life.
Power projection

In recent years, more than 20,000 refugees are estimated to have died crossing the Mediterranean in small boats to reach Europe, including at least 1,300 so far this year. Only a few of these deaths have been given a face – most notably Aylan Kurdi, a Syrian toddler whose body washed up on the Turkish coast in 2015 after he and others in his family drowned on a small boat trying to get to Europe.

The numbers trying to reach the UK across the Channel, though smaller, are rising too – as are the deaths. The 27 people who drowned two weeks ago were the single largest loss of life from a Channel crossing since agencies began keeping records seven years ago. Barely noted by the media was the fact that the only two survivors separately said British and French coastguards ignored their phone calls for help as their boat began to sink.

But no European leader appears ready to address the deeper reasons for the waves of refugees arriving on Europe’s shores – or the West’s role in causing the “migration crisis”.

The 17 men, seven women, including one who was pregnant, and three children who died were reportedly mostly from Iraq. Others trying to reach Europe are predominantly from Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen and parts of North Africa.

Protesters in London denounce Britain’s border policies on 25 November 2021 (AFP)

That is not accidental. There is probably nowhere the legacy of western meddling – directly and indirectly – has been felt more acutely than the resource-rich Middle East.

The roots of this can be traced back more than a century, when Britain, France and other European powers carved up, ruled and plundered the region as part of a colonial project to enrich themselves, especially though the control of oil.

They pursued strategies of divide and rule to accentuate ethnic tensions and delay local pressure for nation-building and independence. The colonisers also intentionally starved Middle Eastern states of the institutions needed to govern after independence.

The truth is, however, that Europe never really left the region, and was soon joined by the United States, the new global superpower, to keep rivals such as the Soviet Union and China at bay. They propped up corrupt dictators and intervened to make sure favoured allies stayed put. Oil was too rich a prize to be abandoned to local control.

Brutal policies

After the fall of the Soviet Union three decades ago, the Middle East was once again torn apart by western interference – this time masquerading as “humanitarianism”.

The US has led sanctions regimes, “shock and awe” air strikes, invasions and occupations that devastated states independent of western control, such as Iraq, Libya and Syria. They may have been held together by dictators, but these states – until they were broken apart – provided some of the best education, healthcare and welfare services in the region.

The brutality of western policies, even before the region’s strongmen were toppled, was trumpeted by figures such as Madeleine Albright, former US President Bill Clinton’s secretary of state. In 1996, when asked about economic sanctions that by then were estimated to have killed half a million Iraqi children in a failed bid to remove Saddam Hussein, she responded: “We think the price is worth it.”

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Groups such as al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State quickly moved in to fill the void that was left after the West laid waste to the economic and social infrastructure associated with these authoritarian governments. These groups brought their own kind of occupation, fragmenting, oppressing and weakening these societies, and providing additional pretexts for meddling, either directly by the West or through local clients, such as Saudi Arabia.

States in the region that so far have managed to withstand this western “slash and burn” policy, or have ousted their occupiers – such as Iran and Afghanistan – continue to suffer from crippling, punitive sanctions imposed by the US and Europe. Notably, Afghanistan has emerged from its two-decade, US-led occupation in even poorer shape than when it was invaded.

Elsewhere, Britain and others have aided Saudi Arabia in its prolonged, near-genocidal bombing campaigns and blockade against Yemen. Recent reports have suggested that as many as 300 Yemeni children are dying each day as a result. And yet, after decades of waging economic warfare on these Middle Eastern countries, western states have the gall to decry those fleeing the collapse of their societies as “economic migrants”.
Climate crisis

The fallout from western interference has turned millions across the region into refugees, forced from their homes by escalating ethnic discord, continued fighting, the loss of vital infrastructure, and lands contaminated with ordnance. Today, most are languishing in tent encampments in the region, subsisting on food handouts and little else. The West’s goal is local reintegration: settling these refugees back into a life close to where they formerly lived.

But the destabilisation caused by western actions throughout the Middle East is being compounded by a second blow, for which the West must also take the lion’s share of the blame.

Societies destroyed and divided by western-fuelled wars and economic sanctions have been in no position to withstand rising temperatures and ever-longer droughts, which are afflicting the Middle East as the climate crisis takes hold. Chronic water shortages and repeated crop failures – compounded by weak governments unable to assist – are driving people off their lands, in search of better lives elsewhere.

The remains of a submerged village abandoned decades ago, seen on 4 November 2021, resurfaced after a large drop in the water level of Iraq’s Dohuk Dam due to drought (AFP)

In recent years, some 1.2 million Afghans were reportedly forced from their homes by a mix of droughts and floods. In August, aid groups warned that more than 12 million Syrians and Iraqis had lost access to water, food and electricity. “The total collapse of water and food production for millions of Syrians and Iraqis is imminent,” said Carsten Hansen, the regional director for the Norwegian Refugee Council.

There is probably nowhere the legacy of western meddling – directly and indirectly – has been felt more acutely than the resource-rich Middle East

According to recent research, “Iran is experiencing unprecedented climate-related problems such as drying of lakes and rivers, dust storms, record-breaking temperatures, droughts, and floods.” In October, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies noted that climate change was wreaking havoc in Yemen too, with extreme flooding and an increased risk of waterborne diseases.

Western states cannot evade their responsibility for this. Those same countries that asset-stripped the Middle East over the past century also exploited the resulting fossil-fuel bonanza to intensify the industrialisation and modernisation of their own economies. The US and Australia had the highest rates of fossil fuel consumption per capita in 2019, followed by Germany and the UK. China also ranks high, but much of its oil consumption is expended on producing cheap goods for western markets.

The planet is heating up because of oil-hungry western lifestyles. And now, the early victims of the climate crisis – those in the Middle East who provided that oil – are being denied access to Europe by the very same states that caused their own lands to become increasingly uninhabitable.
Impregnable borders

Europe is preparing to make its borders impregnable to the victims of its colonial interference, its wars and the climate crisis that its consumption-driven economies have generated. Countries such as Britain are not just worried about the tens of thousands of applications they receive each year for asylum from those who have risked everything for a new life.

They are looking to the future. Refugee camps are already under severe strain across the Middle East, testing the capacities of their host countries – Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq – to cope.

Europe is preparing to make its borders impregnable to the victims of its colonial interference, its wars and the climate crisis that its consumption-driven economies have generated

Western states know the effects of climate change are only going to worsen, even as they pay lip service to tackling the crisis with a Green New Deal. Millions, rather than the current thousands, will be hammering on Europe’s doors in decades to come.

Rather than aiding those seeking asylum in the West, the 1951 Refugee Convention may prove to be one of the biggest obstacles they face. It excludes those displaced by climate change, and western states are in no hurry to broaden its provisions. It serves instead as their insurance policy.

Last month, immediately after the 27 refugees drowned in the Channel, Patel told fellow legislators that it was time “to send a clear message that crossing the Channel in this lethal way, in a small boat, is not the way to come to our country.”

But the truth is that, if the British government and other European states get their way, there will be no legitimate route to enter for those from the Middle East whose lives and homelands have been destroyed by the West.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Jonathan Cook

Jonathan Cook is the the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at: www.jonathan-cook.net

How Israel turned Palestine into a surveillance tech dystopia

Nadim Nashif
10 December 2021 

International community must stand up against Israel's increasingly invasive surveillance operations

In response to mounting pressure, the US recently blacklisted NSO Group over its spyware sold to foreign governments (AFP/file photo)

Whether in the occupied West Bank, Gaza or Israel, Palestinians live under a cloud of constant Israeli surveillance. Recent revelations have included the Israeli army’s deployment of Blue Wolf facial recognition technology, which reportedly saw Israeli soldiers incentivised with prizes for taking the most photos of Palestinian civilians, and the installation of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware on the phones of Palestinian human rights workers.

While these revelations might have shocked the international community, Palestinians have long known that Israel uses the occupied territories as a laboratory for testing invasive surveillance technologies. This allows Israeli firms to market their technologies as “field tested” when they are exported around the world.

In addition to violating Palestinians' human rights, Israeli surveillance ... has far-reaching consequences for the international community

In addition to violating Palestinians’ human rights, Israeli surveillance of Palestinian communities has far-reaching consequences for the international community. The lack of accountability, transparency and regulation on the sale and provision of surveillance tools threatens marginalised communities, human rights defenders, academics and journalists worldwide. As like-minded governments look to Israel as a blueprint for surveilling their own citizens, the international community can no longer afford to stand by as the right to privacy is eroded.

Indeed, Israeli surveillance systems have become central to controlling the everyday lives of Palestinians. Since its 1967 occupation, Israel has gradually tightened its control over the information and communications technology sector in the West Bank and Gaza, in defiance of the Oslo Accords, which required Israel to gradually transfer control to Palestinians.

This has resulted in severe violations of Palestinian digital rights, including a tiered system of accessibility in which Israelis enjoy access to 5G, while Palestinians in the occupied West Bank only have access to 3G, and 2G in Gaza.
'Pressure points'

Israel simultaneously stifles technological advancement for Palestinian communities, while controlling the infrastructure that undergirds the surveillance state. An Israeli military whistleblower recently revealed that Israeli authorities have the ability to listen in on any phone conversation in the occupied West Bank and Gaza - and not only that, any mobile device imported into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing is implanted with an Israeli bug.

Israel’s controversial Unit 8200 uses such surveillance methods to find “pressure points” to turn Palestinians into informants. The Unit often seeks out gay Palestinians, and burdens them with the impossible choice of having their sexuality revealed to their friends and family, which may lead to persecution, or becoming informants and spying on their communities for the Israeli government.

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Over the past half-decade, there has been a notable increase and diversification in Israeli surveillance methods. Israel encouraged the tech and security sector to produce algorithms and surveillance tools to sift through Palestinian social media content, and its controversial predictive policing programme has seen hundreds of Palestinians arrested on charges of social media incitement since 2015.

The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the situation, as Israel has used the guise of public health to roll out new invasive surveillance measures. Palestinians face severe restrictions on freedom of movement and must apply for travel permits, but in light of the pandemic, Israel last year launched a mobile application to replace in-person permitting services.

While the app was framed as a public health measure, its more insidious intentions are clear in its terms of service, which force users to provide access to the data stored on their phones, such as calls and photos. This becomes more problematic when understanding how important these services are for many Palestinians.

Without proper permits, it can be difficult to find work within the small geographical areas to which many Palestinians are confined. Israel’s pandemic response has thus forced Palestinians to choose between access to a professional livelihood, or maintaining their right to privacy.

Closed-circuit cameras

At the same time, video surveillance and facial recognition software are a daily reality for Palestinians. In 2000, several hundred closed-circuit television cameras (CCTVs) were installed in the Old City of Jerusalem. In 2015, that system was significantly expanded, and today, facial-recognition technology has become so widespread that many Palestinians no longer feel safe in their own homes.

Some CCTVs are positioned in such a way that they can see into private homes, leading some women to resort to sleeping in their hijabs, while other families are reluctant to let their children play outside, as the cameras have stripped away any sense of privacy.

Governments around the world must push for increased regulation and transparency in how surveillance technologies are developed and deployed

While Israel’s system of surveillance is clearly built on a lack of regard for Palestinians’ basic rights, including their right to privacy, the response from global governments has been slow and ineffective in addressing the issue. The work of civil society organisations and digital rights defenders is thus a vital tool for increasing public pressure on surveillance companies.

In response to mounting pressure, the US recently blacklisted NSO Group and Candiru, saying they “developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments that used these tools to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers”. And last year, amid intense public scrutiny, Microsoft announced that it would sell its stake in the Israeli facial recognition company AnyVision.

Yet, this does not go far enough to tackle the systemic issue of entrenched Israeli surveillance systems and the testing of such technology on Palestinians. Governments around the world must push for increased regulation and transparency in how surveillance technologies are developed and deployed, and sanction companies that depend on the exploitation of marginalised communities to test their products.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Nadim Nashif is the executive director of 7amleh, an organisation that focuses on the advancement and protection of Palestinian digital rights