Biopolitical Resistance in Palestine

Abstract

In this chapter, I move from questions about intellectual freedom and the Question of Palestine to the material reality of Palestinian resistance against occupation, humiliation, and dispossession. I attempt to join intellectual resistance, as it manifests itself in the context of the struggle for Palestinian liberation, to a most unsettling form of physical resistance: suicide bombing. Palestinian suicide bombing represents the last form of resistance, as futile as it is, against colonization. It is in some sense a rejection of deliberation, dialogue, intellectualism, and debate. After all the rationalizations that have been provided by media pundits and academic intellectuals for why Israel’s occupation must continue in the face of Palestinian extremism and violence, the suicide bomber rejects intellectuality and polite evasion as grotesque in such extreme circumstances. The act of suicide bombing itself becomes a form of self-defense for oneself and one’s community.KeywordsSuicide BomberIsrael Defense ForceNational LiberationLife Worth LivingWillful IgnoranceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.