Beyond the contours of Zionist sovereignty: Decolonisation in Palestine's Unity Intifada

Abstract

This article takes the May 2021 uprising in Palestine, known as the Unity Intifada, as a prism to map old and new political geographies between coloniser and freedom-fighter, whose significance extends beyond the temporal limits of the May event. The first part of the paper investigates the role of identity and cultural geographies in re-enforcing Jewish claims to sovereignty. It shows how the Zionist production of pink (sexed/gendered), red (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 possibilities 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.