The antisemitism to come? Gaza and the colonial management of necropolitical pollution

Abstract

What is the relation between Israel and the colonial West today? There are abundant folk, journalistic and academic views on that matter. They oscillate between seeing Israel as acting out the West's interests in the Middle East and seeing it as a more autonomous national actor influencing Western nations through 'Zionist lobbies.' In this piece I argue that there is much to be gained by viewing the Western-Israeli colonial assemblage as an instance in the West's struggle to shield itself from the social and ethical pollution that is generated by colonial war and violence. I explore the ways in which this pollution has been historically dealt with, whether by purification rituals, something that anthropology has much to say about, or by the assignment of the function of warriors to specific categories of people deemed 'pollutable.' I examine the ways such an approach helps us shed new light on the violence we are witnessing today in Gaza.