Mathie, Nicola S. and Kallis, Aristotle and Mabon, Simon (2018) (Re)creating the Jewish State : projects of (in)security and the disjuncture to price-tag violence. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.
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Abstract
Jewish-Israeli settlements built over the State of Israel’s internationally-recognised territorial borders are sites of contestation. The focus of this thesis is upon conflicts and contestations which have developed between the State of Israel and some of its own subjects, Jewish settlers, over the evacuation of settlement-communities and structures, and other perceived threats to settlement. From 2008, a new form of violence has been enacted by individuals in the settler community. Self-declared as Price-Tag violence, the attacks take different forms. These include vandalising Palestinian properties and spraying provocative graffiti, and throwing Molotov cocktails at properties. Whilst the attacks are predominantly perpetrated upon Palestinian targets, the attacks are directed at the State of Israel. Price-Tag attacks have also occurred directly on Israeli targets, such as Israeli military vehicles. Since 2011, mosques, churches and monasteries have been defiled with incendiary graffiti and have been torched. Such attacks reflect a heightened radicalism. A number of figures, including high-ranking Israeli security and military individuals, have warned of stark dangers which Price-Tag violence poses and classified it as acts of terror. The aim of this thesis is to trace a genealogy of Price-Tag violence and to critically ask why conflicts between the State and some settlers have developed. Politically and etiologically, I will analyse the origins of conflicts by identifying tensions in ‘Zionism,’ different meanings within the Jewish State of Israel’s (re)creation, and different projects within settlement. I will then focus on two key historic events which the Jewish State took against settlement: the Gaza Disengagement (2005) and the Amona outpost evacuation (2006). Situating these as significant disjunctive moments, I will assess (re)actions to these acts and their impacts on State-settler relations. With increased disjuncture in some State-settler relations, I will trace a taboo-breaking trajectory of the increased acceptability of violence to safeguard settlement, Land, and perceived security. The thesis will culminate in directly assessing the self-declared ‘new era’ of Price-Tag violence, uncovering its foundations, motivations and significance. Drawing on key concepts from Critical Security Studies and Political Geography, this thesis will make contributions to these sub-disciplines by showing central interactions between the State, space and (in)security throughout, and different natures of space, impacts of spatial practices, and different meanings of (in)security.