Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2013, volume 31, pages 227 – 244

doi:10.1068/d19810

The making of a void sovereignty: political implications

of the military checkpoints in the West Bank

Merav Amir

The Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Israel; e-mail: merav.amir@mail.huji.ac.ilReceived 20 October 2010; in revised form 19 April 2012

Abstract. Research on the Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank has emphasized not only that

these checkpoints have dire implications for the Palestinians living there, at the personal,

familial, and communal levels, and devastating eff ects on the Palestinian economy, but also

that they have far-reaching consequences for the ability of the Palestinians to establish an

independent political entity. At the same time, analysis of the Israeli forms of domination

over the Palestinians has also stressed the role of a Palestinian governing authority in

sustaining the Israeli rule, since the former relieves the latter of its responsibility to

care for the occupied Palestinian population. This paper aims to address this apparent

contradiction claiming that a comprehensive analysis of Israeli forms of domination

requires a spatial examination of the operation of sovereignty with an assessment of

governmentalizing arrays. This combined analysis suggests that a Palestinian sovereignty,

but one which is emptied of its actual ruling power, is construed at the checkpoints as an

epiphenomenon of Israeli apparatuses of control.

Keywords: sovereignty, governmentality, borders, Israel, Palestine, checkpoints, West Bank

Management of movement and organization of space have become key issues to understanding Israeli control over Palestinian occupied territory, especially as it manifests itself in the West Bank. A simple representation of the space as divided between the Palestinian and the Israeli is inadequate for the understanding of the politico-spatial dimension of Israeli domination over the entire area. The fragmentation of Palestinian space in the West Bank, through the extensive use of a wide variety of movement restriction elements, has been well documented in prior reports of political, human rights, and humanitarian organizations. Similarly, prior scholarly efforts have provided extensive analysis of these restrictions, both as forms of ruling a space and its inhabitants, and in relation to the implications of these restrictions as they affect the lives of the Palestinians living in the West Bank. Additionally, the devastating effects of these same elements, combined with their accompanying bureaucratic mechanisms, have also received much scholarly attention.(1)

The aim of this paper is not to dispute any of this previous research—quite the contrary. What this paper aims to do is provide an analysis of these means of control, and claim that one facet of their operation, and a signifi cant one at that, has been overlooked by prior research and analysis. When we examine, through the concepts of governmentality and sovereignty, the operation, in all its complexity, of the movement restrictions exercised by Israeli rule over the Palestinians in the West Bank, a seemingly contradictory picture appears. On the level of population management the regime of movement operates to actively inhibit the establishment and sustenance of a viable Palestinian political entity in the West Bank. A close examination from a purely sovereign perspective, however, will expose what seems to be a discrepancy, since, at least on the face of it, these same mechanisms operate to sustain and sponsor that same political entity. Thus, the politico-spatial examination of Israeli forms

(1) For an extensive review of existing scholarly literature in this fi eld, see Azoulay and Ophir (2008).

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of control and the integrated analysis of sovereign and governmentalizing aspects set out below aim to portray a form of rule which operates as a pincer movement in relation to Palestinian self-rule.

In the fi rst part of this paper I will examine the operation of the Israeli checkpoints and other elements through which Israeli rule controls Palestinian movement in the West Bank as a means of population management, and analyze the ways in which they thwart a Palestinian political existence. My claim in the fi rst part is that the excessiveness of the implementation of these means is the central factor through which their operation should be understood. It is this excessiveness that enables the Israeli forces to ensure a grip over any and all aspects of the lives of West Bank Palestinians while throttling the ability of any other governing entity to gain political potency through the management of this same population. I claim that this excessive governmentality renders the productive potential of this population redundant and wastes it as a resource: while not making use of it for its own needs, it also eliminates the possibility for any other governing power to harness it. The second part is an analysis of the operation of the same mechanisms on the level of sovereignty, emphasizing their role in the fabrication of a Palestinian sovereignty, and claiming that the construction of this sovereignty is an organizing factor in their operation. My claim is that the fabrication of a Palestinian sovereignty is necessary to sustain the particular form of rule that Israel exercises over the Palestinians. This rule should be understood as an aberrant form of governmentality, one which enables a split between the management of a given population and the responsibility for this same population that this management entails. The shedding of this responsibility is enabled through the fabrication of Palestinian sovereignty, since, presumably, this Palestinian sovereignty should be the bearer of these responsibilities. Yet, as I show in the last section, this construed sovereignty serves only as an element of Israeli control, since Palestinian sovereignty appears in these forms of control to be nothing more than a void sovereignty.

Much scholarly effort has been spent in recent years on incorporating and adjusting Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality to the changing landscape of governance brought about by neoliberalism and accelerated processes of globalization (Larner and Walters, 2004; Merlingen, 2006; Neumann and Sending, 2007; Walters and Haahr, 2005). These scholarly efforts have also contributed to the rethinking of nonliberal enclaves and locations which are at the global periphery, using the Foucauldian articulation of governmentality (see, for instance, Howell, 2004; Mitchell, 1991; Tosa, 2009). However, research which draws from the Foucauldian analysis tends to either overlook the operation of sovereignty in matrices of governmentality altogether, or narrow the manifestation of sovereignty to that of violence. This paper aims to contribute to these discussions by portraying the workings of diverse sovereign confi gurations within matrices of governmentality (Butler, 2004). This combined analysis allows us to identify the utilization of sovereignty in creating and sustaining confi gurations of governmentality which diverge from those which operate within liberal regimes.

Split control: disjoining management from responsibilityOver the last decade, restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the West Bank as a facet of Israeli control have received considerable scholarly attention, because of their increased prominence. Alongside the escalating outbursts of brute force, restrictions and limitations on movement in the occupied area and between the occupied area and the state of Israel have become the most conspicuous aspects of control applied by Israeli authorities over Palestinian residents of the West Bank. These forms of spatial control manifest themselves mostly in a compound of manned or unmanned physical obstacles, combined with juridical and bureaucratic regulations which, in actuality, prevent almost all movement of Palestinians into the state of Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, and restrict Palestinian access to vast

The making of a void sovereignty 229

areas of the West Bank. The areas in which Palestinians can live and move about freely are thus rendered discrete enclaves (Falah, 2003; Hammami and Tamari, 2001).

The restrictions on the movement of Palestinians divide Palestinian space in the West Bank into more than a hundred enclosed areas. These enclaves range in size from a single house or a small village to an area which includes a city and its surrounding towns, yet none of them is big enough to be self-sustaining in the most immediate sense. Research on this fragmentation of Palestinian space and hindrances on Palestinian movement has claimed not only that it carries dire implications for the people living in this space and has devastating effects on the Palestinian economy, but also that it is the principal impediment to the establishment of a viable Palestinian political entity in the West Bank (Weizman, 2007; Handel, 2010). However, this spatial analysis is insuffi cient in explaining the ways in which this system operates to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian political entity. To accurately understand the political effects of this system, we must provide a more thorough account of its operation.

A close examination of the ways in which Palestinian movement within the West Bank is managed provides a picture of a movement-regulatory system gone astray. Any and all movement of persons and goods between the different enclaves in the West Bank is subjected to restrictions and limitations posed by Israeli forces. Movement in and out of these enclaves is not completely prohibited; depending on the area and on the changing regulations, it is subject to the acquisition of the right permits, and use of the appropriate means of transportation (by public transportation and not by one’s own car, for instance); it is limited to certain hours, and permitted only through specifi c routes or any combination thereof (B’tselem, 2007). As prior research has already shown, this intricate system managing the movement of persons and commodities in a given space should be understood as a form of governmentality. Its structural point of reference is the population, as is evident from the reliance of this system on the census registration, and it intervenes in the most immediate aspects of life (Alatout, 2006; Arbel, 2006; Parsons and Salter, 2008).

Yet, the manifestations of this particular governmentality should be examined in the broader context of Israeli rule over the Palestinians. Neve Gordon (2008) has already shown that besides this regime of movement, all other forms of relations between the Israeli authorities and the West Bank Palestinians are characterized either by the exercise of brute force or by complete disregard. As Foucault (2007) elaborates extensively, governmentality is not simply a managerial system of circulation in space, it is a pastoral form of rule in which the primary relationship of the governing apparatuses to the population is one of provision and care. From an examination of the relation of the Israeli governing institutions to the Palestinians in the West Bank, it is clear that they lack all of the benevolent aspects of governmentality, since they are deprived of any and all regard for the prosperity and fostering of this population. History provides us with an abundance of examples of regimes which were lacking the components of care and responsibility while maintaining fi erce control, especially in colonial settings. However, the disjunction between control and responsibility within a framework of governmentality demands an exploration of the mechanisms which sustain it. To be implemented, in a manner which completely relinquishes any and all of the responsibilities which de facto control entails, some structural components have to be integrated into the controlling apparatuses, both as a justifi catory means and as a means of sustaining its internal coherence. In the case of Israeli rule over the Palestinians this split should be understood as closely linked to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Gordon marks a gradual shift which occurred between the fi rst couple of decades of Israeli control of the occupied Palestinian territory and the later ones: he characterizes the fi rst period as colonial in nature; though it was exploitative and hostile in essence towards the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza, it included elements of population care

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nonetheless, through disciplinary means and ‘biopower’, even if rudimentary. Since the early 1990s and particularly since 2000, a different form of domination has appeared, one which he characterizes as mainly relying on the exercise of violence and complying with the separation principle. A key component in this later mode of control according to Gordon’s analysis is the establishment of the PA, to which the responsibilities of taking care of the population could be outsourced (Gordon, 2008, pages 169–196). From a formal perspective, all aspects of care for most of the Palestinians living in the West Bank were transferred to the PA under the Oslo Accords. Ariela Azoulay and Adi Ophir (2008) portray the Oslo Accords as creating a shift in the form of Israeli domination, in which a split has appeared between the apparatuses of rule that have actual control over the Palestinian population and those bearing responsibility for the same population. This split was enabled by and, therefore, also reliant upon, the existence of the PA as the carrier of responsibilities for the Palestinian population, however inadequate or ill equipped the PA was for this task. The Israeli forces could then narrow down their implementation of control over the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to the exercise of security-oriented forms of domination (Azoulay and Ophir, 2008, page 169). According to Eyal Weizman, the establishment of the PA and its continuing existence not only freed Israel of its obligations as an occupying power and provided the conditions for Israel to use extensive military force, it also enabled the ‘humanitarianization’ of the Palestinian population, making the Palestinians dependent on humanitarian care (Weizman, 2007, page 141). The PA had to be perceived as independent of the Israeli ruling power in order for this process to take place, since as long as the Palestinians living in the West Bank were governed directly by the forces of the occupation, their well-being was also considered by the international community to be the responsibility of the same ruling power. The apparent split between the Israeli forces of occupation and the Palestinian ruling power enabled the disassociation between the causes of the deprivation of the Palestinians living in the West Bank and the governing apparatuses which should provide for the same group of people.(2)

Thus, the establishment of the PA was a key factor in the creation of the split between management of the population and care for it, and was instrumental in the bringing into being of this aberrant form of governmentality. However, the delegation of the responsibility for the Palestinian population to the PA could have facilitated the emergence of the PA as a political player in this region, an adversary with which the Israeli rule would have had to contend in its control of the West Bank Palestinians. Although the PA is often depicted as a challenger to Israeli authority in the West Bank, and is even at times portrayed as an equal to the Israeli state in peace negotiations and in the international arena, in this analysis I present the establishment of the PA and its sustenance as integral to the ways in which Israel operates to maintain and sanction its control over the region and its Palestinian inhabitants. For this purpose, I suggest that the undermining of the actual political potency of the PA is woven into the same mechanisms of control whose operation is reliant on its sustenance, and that its political undoing is integral to the modus operandi of these mechanisms.

Hyperactive governmentality as waste productionThe density of checkpoints enables a meticulous management and monitoring of movement of the population in a confi ned area and has devastating effects, not only on the daily lives of West Bank Palestinians, but also on the Palestinian economy, which has been brought to a practical standstill, making the same population dependent on external aid for its sustenance (World Bank, 2010). While this analysis has received ample analytic attention, here I would like to focus on one of its other apparent characteristics as a form of governing a population, which has been overlooked in prior research: its excessiveness. My claim here is that the

(2) For a discussion of humanitarianization see Fassin (2007).

The making of a void sovereignty 231

excessiveness of the regime of movement as a form of population management has had far-reaching political implications. Not only has it slowed down Palestinian movement in the West Bank to a minimum, introduced a constant unmanageable factor of unpredictability into the lives of Palestinians, paralyzed the Palestinian economy, and made the West Bank Palestinians dependent on humanitarian aid; fi rst and foremost, it plays an active role in preventing the Palestinian self-governance apparatus from becoming a political entity.(3) In modernity, Foucault claims, not only “[have] the problems of governmentality and the techniques of government … really become the only political stake and the only real space of political struggle and contestation [but] the survival and limits of the state should be understood on the basis of the general tactics of governmentality” (Foucault, 2007, page 109). Thus, the ability to governmentalize a population is a precondition for the acquisition and sustenance of a state-like formation with any political potency by any ruling apparatus.

By over managing one single aspect of life—that of movement, which is so central that, through it, almost every facet of life can be controlled by proxy—the Israeli forces are overriding and in fact negating any grip any other rule could have over the same group of people. Even if not all aspects of Palestinian population governance are annulled directly and bluntly, the intensity of the Israeli means of regulating Palestinian movement renders them subordinate to Israeli control (Hanafi , 2006). Access to healthcare, education facilities, employment, production, and even, in some cases, one’s own property is dependent on procedures and regulations determined by Israel. Thus, the extent of Israeli control over the movement of Palestinians overrides the grip any other government might have over this population. This is not to claim that there are no other governing apparatuses in place; both the PA and a large number of nongovernmental organizations participate in the governance of different aspects of Palestinian lives in the West Bank (Hammami, 2000). However, they all function within the limitations set by the Israeli forces and are almost completely dependent on them.

It is evident that the grip that Israeli authorities have on the Palestinian population is what enables the overriding of any other authority’s ability to suffi ciently relate to that population as its own. This type of grip, this type of ownership of the population is not only the locus of political power, but also its main resource of vitality. The size of the population, its well-being, level of education and economic productivity, quality of life, and ability to procreate are all central factors affecting the potency of governing powers. This is why the growth and well-being of the population are regarded as central for the politico-economic prosperity of states. What, then, should we make of this type of grasp that neither includes any of the benevolent and growth-inducing aspects, nor has any stake or any vested interest in the (3) In 2009 a change in policy was declared by the Israeli authorities in the West Bank. The Ministry of Defense announced that it would remove many of the checkpoints and barriers in the West Bank in order to create a distinction between its attitude towards the PA, and towards the Hamas regime in Gaza, and to lay the ground for renewed peace negotiations (Sa’ar, 2009). The explicit intention of this new policy, according to declarations by the Ministry of Defense, was to let the Palestinian economy in the West Bank recover and to strengthen the PA. The actual number of checkpoints which were removed turned into an issue of dispute between the Israeli Ministry of Defense and human rights and humanitarian organizations operating in the West Bank, yet this discussion disregards the fact that a more crucial change actually occurred during this period. While keeping most of the checkpoints in place, the Israeli army changed the intensity of the checking procedures at these checkpoints. For instance, at the main checkpoints within the West Bank, travelers were no longer checked individually; rather, random checks were performed. There is no dispute that this change has had a signifi cant effect both on the Palestinian economy in the West Bank, which is still depressed but shows indications of growth nonetheless, and on the strengthening of the PA (World Bank, 2010). Thus, despite the fact that the Palestinian space in the West Bank is as fragmented as it has been since 2003, the Israeli authorities have generated a measurable change in economic and political conditions in the PA simply by reducing a single factor—that is, the intensity, the excessiveness—of the regime of movement.

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fl ourishing of the population under its control? In addition to being a way of throttling the political vitality of any Palestinian governance, it should be understood as a form of wasteful management, or, rather, waste-inducing management, which turns this potential resource—the population—into excess, into something redundant, since the sole purpose of this system is to keep the population from becoming attainable to competing political entities, while not making productive use of it to its own advantage. Thus, my claim here is that the operation of this system should not be understood as relating specifi cally to obstructing the establishment of the PA in particular; rather, it works to undermine any form of Palestinian self-governance, be it on the local level or broader, be it workers’ unions or merchants’ associations, be it by commercial companies, political parties, or grassroots organizations.

The making of a void sovereigntyYet, as mentioned above, the form of control which Israel has maintained over the Palestinians since the mid-1990s is not only legitimized by, but in fact also dependent on, the existence of a Palestinian political entity, which, while not fully sovereign, should still be perceived as having a fair degree of independence. While considerable scholarly effort has been spent on the examination of the different factors that obstruct the realization of Palestinian political viability (especially since 2000), little attention has been given to the factors that operate to maintain this signifi cant precondition (ie, the existence of the PA) of this particular form of control. The Oslo Accords, and especially the second round of agreements signed in September 1995, were followed not only by the establishment of the PA, but also by a wide range of measures which were aimed at placing actual as well as symbolic emphasis on the quasi-autonomous status of the PA. These measures included the return of the PLO leadership to the West Bank, the foundation of the PA headquarters in Ramallah, the establishment of the Palestinian legislative body, the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Palestinian city centers and Area A, the establishment of the Palestinian offi cial security forces, and coordinated patrols by the Israeli and Palestinian security forces in Area B, as well as symbolic acts (recognition and legitimization of the Palestinian fl ag). Thus, this period was characterized by a split between the sovereign arrays of control over the Palestinians through the establishment of the PA and the apparent granting of limited jurisdiction to it (Azoulay and Ophir, 2008, page 169).

However, after the failure of the Camp David talks in 2000 and the outbreak of the second intifada all of these components ceased to exist, were completely destroyed, or severely undermined by Israeli forces. The coordinated patrols stopped, the Palestinian security forces no longer received Israeli and international support and recognition. Symbolic representations of the PA were systematically attacked and destroyed by the Israeli army and regular negotiations ceased. Admittedly, the PA was not completely destroyed. The PA continues to exist, with its democratically elected parliament, its symbolic and governing institutions, and the fl ow of funds that enable its operation, and receives international recognition. Additionally, Israeli–Palestinian peace negotiations under the auspices of the international community or the US government which were renewed after a period, implied that there existed an independent Palestinian political entity, since these talks are supposedly conducted between two adversarial, yet equal, sides. Although since the failure of the Camp David talks in 2000 and the outbreak of the second intifada these ritualized negotiations have been suspended for long periods, their constant potentiality operates to maintain the perception of an independent Palestinian political entity, and the portrayal of their prolongation as resulting from the antagonism between the two sides only strengthens this perceived independence. Yet, the operation of the Palestinian institutions is constantly being undermined by the overwhelming domination of Israeli forces over the Palestinians in the West Bank (Hammami, 2000; Parsons and Salter, 2008). Additionally, regular incursions by

The making of a void sovereignty 233

the Israeli army into Palestinian enclaves to conduct military maneuvers, attacks, and arrests, violate the apparent integrity of areas which were defi ned as under full Palestinian control. These attacks not only trample on presumed Palestinian sovereignty in these areas, but are sometimes designed to physically damage symbolic as well as concrete structures of this governance (Feldman, 2008, pages 230–231). The other elements, such as peace negotiations and international recognition, while not completely insignifi cant, are insuffi cient in and of themselves, since they are, to a great degree, external, and only manifest themselves in international settings.

Given these circumstances, the question still remains: how does security-oriented Israeli rule over West Bank Palestinians manage to operate as if there were a reasonably independent Palestinian political entity on the scene, a political entity which serves a central role in its operation, all the while undermining this same entity’s very existence? For this form of control to operate there has to be a perceived otherness, a suffi cient degree of alienation, between Israeli rule and the governing apparatuses that are supposedly in charge of caring for the Palestinian population in the West Bank. In this particular constellation, this governing body needs to be perceived as both external to and independent of the Israeli state, since, as I mentioned above, this is what enables the disassociation between control over the West Bank (which includes the meticulous management of the population) and responsibility for the sustenance of that population. Thus, the mere existence of the PA as an institution is insuffi cient in and of itself if its operation is perceived as overwhelmed by Israel; its political independence and externality can only be perceived if this political body is to some degree constructed as a source of sovereign power. How then may we identify the locus of Palestinian sovereignty in this power confi guration of an overarching Israeli dominance over the entire area of the West Bank? My claim is that the sovereignty of a Palestinian political entity is embedded in the forms of power that are exercised by Israeli rule, through reenactments of territorial praxes which performatively construct the appearance of Palestinian sovereignty as foreign. The sites at which these praxes are manifested are the military checkpoints in the West Bank.

Thus, the checkpoints are not merely sites through which arrays of governmentality operate; they are also sites of sovereign power. My claim here is that while governmentalizing means are utilized to undermine the ability of an effective Palestinian self-rule to establish and sustain itself, sovereign power is instrumentalized at the checkpoints to enable the fabrication of a Palestinian sovereignty. Prior research has analyzed the appearance of sovereignty at the checkpoints through a focus on the role of the exercise of violence (Azouley and Ophir, 2008; Bowman, 2007; Kelly, 2006). While violence, whether actual or potential, undoubtedly reenacts sovereign power at these sites, in what follows I offer to shift our attention from the violence–sovereignty nexus, and suggest a reading of the checkpoints as constituting sovereign authority through the integration of border logic into their operation. Like the act of exclusion, the exercise of state violence and the constitution of the law, the setting of borders is a privileged act which derives its legitimacy from the enactment of sovereign power (Agnew, 1998). Through this analysis, I wish to claim that sovereign power is constructed at the checkpoints by performative spatial control which creates differentiations on the axis of citizenship inclusion/exclusion. Moreover, I will claim that it is not only Israeli sovereignty that is enacted through the integration of border components into the operation of the checkpoints; a Palestinian sovereignty is also evoked, while actual Palestinian self-rule is at the same time severely undermined.

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Performative sovereigntyState sovereignty has a spatial dimension. Sovereignty is conceptualized as a singular political relation to a given area, and territory appears as the embodied manifestation of sovereignty. The connection between sovereignty and territoriality may be characterized as absolute, since there is no territory void of sovereignty and in each territory there can be only one sovereign. By defi nition, territory is a defi ned area, and the making of a territory is a derivative of border-setting, among other things. The setting of borders is a sovereign-type act par excellence, and the breaching of borders by a foreign force is construed as challenging the sovereignty that has a claim to this territory. Border-setting is also the spatial delimitation of the area of applicability of a given sovereignty, a self-imposed limitation of sovereignty. It is, therefore, a means through which sovereignty enters into interrelational junctions with other sovereignties. Consequently, borders may be defi ned as the spatial instrument through which sovereign mutual recognitions are orchestrated.

In political thought, sovereignty has traditionally been considered a unifi ed source of state power. In recent decades considerable scholarly effort has been spent on rethinking, disseminating, and decentralizing the concept of sovereignty. These types of analyses undermine the notion of state-oriented control as a sole manifestation of a centralized and coherent rationality from which ruling power originates. Adi Ophir suggests that a distinction should be made between sovereignty as a concept and the sovereign decision as a concrete governing reality and sociological practice. In any regime, even in the most horrible and totalitarian, sovereign rule has to negotiate the execution of exclusion, claims Ophir; it is never a miraculous event, as it was imagined by Carl Schmidt, originating out of thin air from the locus of the sovereign. The sovereign decision is from the outset a ruling praxis entangled in a multiplicity of relations between different power centers and in the relationship between the ruling power and its subjects (Ophir, 2006). Sovereignty is never manifested as a coherent unity, but is always already constructed retroactively as the origin of sovereign acts. Thus, sovereignty, which is construed in a process of subject formation, is materialized through reiterative praxes of a sovereign type. Rather than being the source of sovereign acts, whether they be an enactment of law, a declaration of an exception to the law, a decision to go to war, or an exercise of monopolized violence, sovereignty is the effect of their performatively regularized appearances.

To be clear, claiming that sovereignty is the effect of performative acts in no way suggests that performing sovereignty may be enacted by anything and anyone. The performativity of sovereignty is a prerogative of controlling apparatuses and governing authorities which hold actual power. The performativity of sovereignty is a retroactive construction of the source of the authority by which the actual ruling praxes are performed; it is in no way a fabrication of the power to rule, only of the origin and, hence, also of the legitimacy of this power. Performativity is often attributed to sovereignty, yet, as Nicky Gregson and Gillian Rose (2000) show, prevalent accounts of performativity in this context draw their understanding of the term from its conceptualization by Erving Goffman rather than that of Judith Butler. Goffman sees the self as enacted through performance, rather than as an organic entity; the performer and “his body merely provide the peg on which something of a collaborative manufacture will be hung for a time’” (Goffman, 1956, page 253, quoted in Gregson and Rose, 2000). Thus, Goffman assumes an active, conscious self, which precedes the performed interaction. By contrast, Butler turns the defi nition of performativity on its head, claiming that one cannot understand performativity as an act through which the subject creates (in the world) that same thing that he or she has named, but that discourse has the reiterable power to create the phenomenon which that same discourse regulates and limits (Butler, 1993, page 2).

The making of a void sovereignty 235

Reference to sovereignty can be found in political theory in connection with the creation of borders and the keeping thereof as a performative act. These formulations seemingly perform the displacement of the Butlerian structure regarding the individual subject, from the individual to the sovereign subject, wherein the territory plays the role of the body, the practices of setting the borders and the keeping thereof serve instead of gender performance, and the sovereign subject is the performative effect instead of the individual subject. Thus, prima facie, according to this structure, just as gender performance (which is actually performative reiterability) creates the subject of the individual, the governmental apparatus activates practices of border creation—which in actuality construct the sovereign subject. However, to my understanding, this conceptualization of performativity on the state-related political plane makes use of the term in accordance with Goffman’s articulation, and it distances itself from the Butlerian concept of performativity as presented above, since territory appears in these analyses as a prediscursive fact. Conceptualized in these ways, performativity in actuality acts as a performance—the creation of outward appearance and the analysis of performativity in such cases is, in fact, the disclosure of concept fabrication. According to these analyses, government mechanisms, which operate praxes of border regulations, seem to appear as a sovereign subjectivity through these praxes. The performative in these conceptualizations does not include the reversal upon which the Butlerian concept is based; that is, it does not point out the manner in which the reiterability of the discursive fi eld in which performativity takes place is that which structures that through which it seemingly works. Thus, performativity herein aims to be understood in the state-oriented context and as relating to territory and borders, in such a way that allows the examination of the structuring of the concepts of territory, borders, and sovereignty, without assuming the a priori constitution of sovereignty and territory to that of borders.

Checkpoints as border crossingsIn descriptions and analyses of the checkpoints in the West Bank, they are often characterized either as border crossings or bearing likeness to them.(4) While this characterization is often given as an obiter dictum or as a truism, here I wish to claim that while far from operating as actual borders, since the Israeli regime has full control on both sides of these checkpoints, this characterization is not based on a complete misunderstanding of the situation at hand. The checkpoints are composed of elements which simulate border crossings and are compliant with border-crossing rationale. Furthermore, my claim is that this component of the checkpoints is key to understanding the way in which the West Bank Palestinians are subjected to Israeli rule. It is important to note that the distinction between checkpoints and border crossings is central to the conceptualization of checkpoints. For instance, Pradeep Jeganathan’s (2003) analysis of checkpoints through the case study of Sri Lanka, which provides a theoretical framework for a consideration of checkpoints and their relation to the state, emphasizes this distinction. According to Jeganathan, the border crossing “marks the boundary of the state, implying different forms of citizenship and subject on either side”; the checkpoint, on the other hand, “operates within a given state, with a regime of citizenship and subjection … . A checkpoint … is located perhaps, not at the boundary of the state, but at its shifting, fl uid margins” (Jeganathan, 2003, page 75).

Thus, the differences between checkpoints and border crossings do not derive from their proximity to state boundaries; rather, they diverge in their relation to the subject and to the citizenry of the state. The border crossing enables the clear-cut distinction between those who are part of this citizenry, those who are subjects of the state, and aliens. Checkpoints, on the other hand, may marginalize subjects, but this operation does not alienate or exclude them altogether. Following Jeganathan, it is therefore possible to extract a border-crossing rationale

(4) See, for instance, Bornstein (2002) and Erlanger (2005).

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when examining the operation of a checking post, without assuming that this operation is a derivative of the proximity of the post to the territorial boundaries of the state. This border crossing rationale manifests itself in the type of distinctions that the checking post creates in relation to the persons attempting to cross it. The territorialized difference between the statehood statuses of the area on either side of the border crossing, between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’ of the state, is therefore only a derivative of the operation of the border crossing as it distinguishes between the native and the foreign.

For the purpose of the current analysis I would like to suggest a classifi cation of the checkpoints in the West Bank into three categories: movement-restricting checkpoints, enclave-boundary checkpoints, and dissection checkpoints. The movement-restricting checkpoints are checkpoints that prohibit or limit the movement of Palestinians on particular roads or into particular areas. These include all of the checkpoints along the Separation Wall and the checkpoints that separate the Jordan Valley from the West Bank. This category should also include the checking posts, or crossings, through which the passage of Palestinians is completely forbidden. The movement-restricting checkpoints prevent most West Bank Palestinians from entering the seam-line zone and East Jerusalem, from crossing the Green Line to enter Israel, from entering settlements, and from getting on the roads on which only Israelis are allowed to travel, and limit the access of West Bank Palestinians to the Jordan Valley. For Palestinians, crossing this type of checkpoint, if at all possible, is dependent on getting an almost unobtainable permit. The second type includes all of the checkpoints that are on the boundaries of Palestinian enclaves. Crossing these checkpoints is not restricted and does not require a permit, but is dependent on showing a valid identifi cation card and going through a checking procedure. The third type includes a small number of checkpoints which are located on the main transportation arteries and enable the partitioning of the West Bank into three main segments. For the purpose of this analysis, I will discuss the fi rst and second type of checkpoint but not the third.

Movement-restricting checkpoints: entry checkpointsAs part of the systemization of the regime of movement in the West Bank, the checkpoints along the route of the Separation Wall have undergone a fundamental change, a facelift of sorts; they have been renamed terminals or crossings, and reconstructed to appear as normalized border crossings. However, in actuality, all of the movement-restricting checkpoints, even those that are well inside the West Bank, operate in accordance with the same type of border-crossing rationale which constructs them as if they were border-crossing points, even if their appearance does not profess to mimic them. As mentioned above, a checking post that enables a distinction between the persons it allows through based on their citizenship affi liation, is one of the central attributes of a border crossing and what distinguishes it from a checkpoint. In the following section I will claim that checkpoints of this type not only prevent West Bank Palestinians from accessing considerable areas, but operate to create an undisputed difference between the statehood statuses on either side of these checkpoints. This is not to claim that these checkpoints operate as comprehensive border crossings, since they implement this rationale only for West Bank Palestinians and for them alone.

These checkpoints are, therefore, selective: as a general rule, only the movement of West Bank Palestinians is regulated. Crossing some of the checkpoints of this type is completely forbidden to West Bank Palestinians; at others, Palestinians are allowed to cross, but only those who have obtained an individual permit to do so; everyone else, Israelis and non-Israelis alike, either crosses freely or can bypass the checkpoint altogether, depending on the particular checkpoint. Figure 1 is a photograph of a sign positioned at the checking post on Route 5, which leads westward from the West Bank in the direction of the Green Line (see fi gure 2). The same sign can be found at many of the checkpoints that are intended for Israelis, leading to

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the seam-line zone from the West Bank. Located a few kilometers from the Green Line, this crossing point is, in actuality, the entry point to the seam-line zone, which includes the settlements of Oranit, Elkana, Sha’are Tikva, and Erz Efrayim, and the enclave of the Palestinian village of Azzun ’Atmah. The sign is positioned so those entering the seam-line zone from the east (traveling from the West Bank in the direction of Israel) can read it. The sign says: “Welcome to the Cross-Shomron Crossing. The crossing is only for Israelis. The crossing or the transporting of anyone who is not Israeli through this crossing is forbidden!! ‘Israeli’—a resident of Israel, whoever lives in the area [the West Bank] and is a citizen of Israel or can immigrate to Israel according to the Law of Return (1950) as it applies in Israel, and nonresidents of the area who have a valid entrance permit into Israel” (author’s translation).

Examining the defi nition of the category of ‘Israeli’ that this sign provides reveals that it includes not only all residents of Israel, regardless of whether they have Israeli citizenship, Israeli citizens who are residents of the West Bank, and anyone born to a Jewish mother, no matter where they live or what citizenship they hold (as they are eligible for Israeli citizenship according to the Israeli Law of Return), but also any person who holds a valid visa to Israel, as long as they are not residents of the West Bank. Thus, this cumbersome and surprisingly inclusive defi nition of the category of ‘Israeli’ can include anyone in the world, at least potentially, except for one category of persons: noncitizens of Israel who are residents of the West Bank, that is, West Bank Palestinians.(5) While there may be legal

(5) This also applies to the relatively small number of non-Palestinian residents of the West Bank who are part of the Palestinian communities, most often as spouses of Palestinian residents.

Figure 1. [In colour online.] A sign at the movement-restricting checkpoint of Cross Shomron. Photographed by the author.

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reasons why this defi nition specifi es this long list of categories of persons instead of simply stating that crossing is prohibited to West Bank Palestinians, it is nevertheless important to note that it does not simply state who can cross, but insists on incorporating all of them under the category of ‘Israeli’.

The defi nition of the persons allowed through this type of checkpoint as ‘Israeli’ is not an inadvertent subconscious slip; rather, it has a signifi cant role to play. As mentioned above, by restricting the crossing of these checkpoints to ‘Israeli’ only, the regulation of passage that these checking posts enable appears to comply with border-crossing rationale, since the regulation of movement of people through this checking post is seemingly governed through the category of citizenship affi liation and documentation. By implementing this border-crossing rationale, the checking post enables a spatial classifi cation of the area on whose threshold it stands and, consequently, the territorialization of the zone on its other side. Materialized by way of this sign, this territorialization is performatively enacted through the reinstating of sovereign power. It is through the evocation of sovereign power that legitimization can be drawn to create a boundary through which, presumably, only those who are subjects of a particular sovereign can enter. Therefore, it is important to note that the sign does not refer to the declaration by the military commander concerning the seam-line zone from which this order draws its actual legitimacy. Rather, the sign omits this information, enabling the Israeli sovereign to appear as the implicit source of its legitimization. Yet, this act does not only draw on sovereignty as the source of legitimization, it also enables the bestowing of a particular identity on this sovereignty. By designating entrance into this zone through a seemingly sovereign act only for those who are defi ned as ‘Israeli’, the zone beyond the checking post is territorialized as an ‘inside’ in relation to the Israeli sovereignty.

Figure 2. [In colour online.] The enclave of Azzun ’Atma (source: B’tselem, 2008).

The making of a void sovereignty 239

At the same time, it is designated foreign territory for the completely ‘othered’ Palestinian noncitizens.

These checking posts are unidirectional in their operation. Traveling in the other direction is completely open. Unlike all other exit points from Israeli territory, there are no parallel checking posts checking the persons traveling eastward or limiting the categories of persons who can cross, and there are no signs indicating that one is entering a different kind of area or any markings of that sort. This, together with the selective application of the restriction of movement through these checkpoints, isolates one component of the operation of border crossings—the keeping out of those who are deemed unauthorized aliens—and shows that they cannot be regarded as comprehensive border crossings. Discussions concerning the Separation Wall often articulate its operation as pertaining to the eastern border of the State of Israel, in future, if not in actuality. Accordingly, the construction of the Separation Wall has enabled and fi nalized the de facto annexation of the seam-line zone between the Wall and the Green Line. However, the unidirectional attribute of the checkpoints along the Separation Wall exposes the manner in which the Separation Wall diverges from a normalized border; the manner in which these checking posts are constructed facilitates turning the zone to their west into an ‘inside’, but their unidirectional operation does not turn the area to their east to an ‘outside’. Thus, in accordance with additional controlling apparatuses implemented there, while this confi guration of quasi-border crossings works to annex the area to their west, it does not pose a spatial limitation on Israeli sovereignty eastward.

Enclave-boundary checkpoints: exit checkpointsWhile the regulations according to which the enclave-boundary checkpoints operate are different from those applying to the movement-restricting checkpoints, a close examination of the enclave checkpoints shows that they also abide by border-crossing principles. Located on the roads leading to the Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank, these checkpoints have conspicuous red signs informing people who enter the enclaves that they are about to enter “Palestinian Authority territory”. Figure 3 is a photograph of such signs at the entrance to the enclave of Qalqilia. “Palestinian Authority territory Area A ahead”, these signs state, “No entry for Israelis. Entry illegal by Israeli law.” The smaller sign begins with a “Dear Citizen” address and explains that the entrance of Israeli citizens is forbidden by an order which was issued by the Israel Defense Forces commander of the region, and that “entrance is allowed only with prior coordination with the responsible authorities.”

Comparing these signs with the signs at the movement-restricting checkpoints, a few signifi cant differences immediately become apparent. First, while the signs at the movement-restricting checkpoints are all in yellow, the signs at the enclave-boundary checkpoints are bright red. In the language of signs, yellow is most often used for indication signs, while red is used for warning signs, since red is found to draw the strongest reaction of all colors. Equally indicative is the fact that, while the signs at the movement-restricting checkpoints only include instructions in Hebrew, the enclave-boundary checkpoint signs are in three languages: Hebrew, English, and Arabic. These differences emphasize the notion that while the yellow signs are mostly suggestive and informative, the red ones are aimed at catching the attention of those approaching the checkpoint and getting a message across.

The explicit warning that these signs state is that disobeying this prohibition is a violation of a law; however, having a warning sign that clearly states that one is about to break a law (in the context of Israeli rule as a liberal-democratic regime) implicitly indicates that not complying with this law may pose a threat to the disobedient individual. These signs are, therefore, declaratory acts indicating that danger lurks ahead. How, then, should this threat be understood? What is the nature of the danger that awaits in the areas beyond these signs? It is revealing that the warning and the prohibition apply to Israelis and to Israelis alone, without

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extending the defi nition of this category in this case. Thus, the implied danger that awaits Israelis in these areas originates from the status of these areas in relation to Israeli rule; it should therefore be understood as a danger that stems from the limitation of Israeli state mechanisms and from restrictions on their applicability in these areas. Through this declaratory act by way of these signs, Israeli rule is marking the areas beyond them as an exteriority from its perspective, as if to state: “if you enter these areas we cannot guarantee your wellbeing, since these areas are beyond our reach and the state mechanisms for providing your safety do not apply there.” Thus, the areas beyond these checkpoints are presumably externalized from the perspective of Israeli sovereignty, since the prohibition on Israelis entering them is due to their territorial status. This prohibition also complies with the similar general prohibition, according to Israeli law, on entering enemy territory.

Due to the overarching Israeli control over the entire West Bank, both from the legal perspective according to international law (Gross, forthcoming) and, in practice, as the frequent incursions of the Israeli army to carry out arrests and targeted killings in Area A clearly demonstrate, this limitation should be understood as a self-imposed sovereign act of withdrawal from this given area. These signs at the enclave-boundary checkpoints turn these checkpoints into checking posts that simulate exit border crossings, and as acts of a sovereign type they, therefore, have a dual function. As part of the operation of power by Israeli forces and as they refer to Israeli law and are addressed to Israelis, these are constitutive acts through which the Israeli sovereignty is enacted. However, operating as exit border crossings, they not only mark the spatial limitation, the territorial boundary of the zone of applicability of Israeli sovereignty, but also indicate that a different sovereignty resides beyond them.

Figure 3. [In colour online.] Signs at the enclave-boundary checkpoint of Qalqilia. Photographed by the author.

The making of a void sovereignty 241

The particular identity of this sovereignty is not left unnamed, but rather is specifi cally assigned, as the signs clearly declare: “Palestinian Authority territory Area A ahead.”

Importantly, unlike at the movement-restricting checkpoints, at these checkpoints the checking procedures are performed only on those leaving the enclaves, and not on those entering.(6) Thus, in actuality, these checkpoints do not limit the movement of people entering the enclaves, despite the statement on the signs. Nonetheless, this unidirectionality of the checking procedures is signifi cant since it further denotes an indelible difference between the statehood status of the enclave and the area beyond it. The fact that these checks are performed only on people exiting the enclaves acts to mark the otherness of the area of the enclave. The unidirectional checks testify to the presumed disinterest of, and the relinquishment of control by, the Israeli ruling powers in respect of these enclaves and their residents. It is as if the Israeli forces are stating that they are only concerned with security and control outside of these enclaves. This is why one needs to go through security checks to exit, but these are redundant on entering. The enclave is thus externalized through this unidirectionality, rendered as an ‘outside’ from the perspective of the Israeli forces and this territorial externalization also externalizes those whose civic status marks them as belonging to this territory.

Moreover, the checks that are performed on those who exit the enclaves are of a security type, and are not intended to validate the passage permits of the individuals going through these checkpoints. This emphasizes the reversely symmetrical relations between the two types of checkpoints I have discussed here. While, as demonstrated above, the unidirectional operation of the movement-restricting checkpoints turns them into entry border-crossings, marking the area beyond them as an ‘inside’ without turning the area in front of them into an ‘outside’, the checking procedures at enclave-boundary checkpoints turns the areas that they demarcate into an ‘outside’, without simultaneously implying that the other side of the checkpoint is an ‘inside’. Thus, the area that lies between these two types of checkpoints, mainly Area B, is assigned an undetermined status of neither included nor excluded.

To sum up, the checkpoints at the boundaries of the Palestinian enclaves operate as if they were border crossings, in a manner which seemingly delimits the Israeli territoriality through praxes that give the appearance of a Palestinian sovereignty on the other side of these checkpoints, in these enclaves. By externalizing these enclaves and demarcating them as Palestinian territory, the Israeli authorities sustain their form of control over the Palestinian residents of the West Bank while being relieved of the need to care for this population, whereas the evocation of sovereignty lends a cloak of legitimacy to this policy. It is signifi cant to note that this systematization and regularization of the checkpoints in the West Bank came about through a gradual process between 2003 and 2005, commencing as the process of destroying the actual and symbolic aspects of the Palestinian regime by the Israeli forces reached its peak. In this context these mechanisms can be understood as compensatory mechanisms which sustain the fabrication of a Palestinian sovereignty as a placeholder, as an empty signifi er, void of any actual power, but whose presumed existence is enacted by the same mechanisms that negate it.

By way of conclusion: palestinian sovereignty as an empty signifi erClaiming that Palestinian sovereignty appears as an empty signifi er through Israeli matrices of control is not to state that this sovereignty is ontologically inferior to Israeli sovereignty (or to any other state sovereignty for that matter). As mentioned above, all sovereignties are fabricated constructions that appear retroactively as the origin of state-related acts of complex ruling apparatuses. Thus, the Israeli sovereignty that appears through the mechanisms of

(6) This is true for all of the existing permanent checkpoints of this type except for one, the Jaba’ a-Ram (Lil) checkpoint. See Machsom Watch (2009).

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control as they manifest at the checkpoints is not more real or more substantiated than the Palestinian sovereignty that appears through these same mechanisms. Both sovereignties are construed through the operation of these checkpoints as they simulate border crossings. The evocation of border logics at the checkpoints, at the sites of management of space and of the fl ow of persons, enables the construction of both sovereignties. Their appearance, and especially that of the Palestinian sovereignty, is necessary for the self-justifi catory mechanism of the particular form of control that Israeli forces exercise over the Palestinians.

Nevertheless, there is a decisive difference between the manner in which these two sovereignties appear in these same ruling apparatuses: the Israeli sovereignty is construed as integral to the mechanisms of power, while the Palestinian sovereignty is rendered as external to these same mechanisms. The Palestinian sovereignty appears as the sovereignty which seemingly resides in the territory on the other side of the border crossing, a foreign sovereignty, and is therefore void of any actual substance. It appears neither as the source of authority and legitimacy, as the coherent origin of executed power, the source of enforced laws or exceptions from them, nor as the referent of the symbols or rituals of power. Its appearance is condensed into an epiphenomenon of the seeming spatial withdrawal of Israeli sovereignty from given areas, and the naming of these areas as ‘Palestinian Territory’. Crucially, the very same mechanisms that evoke this appearance of Palestinian sovereignty are the ones that take part in the politicide of the Palestinians, actively undermining the possibility of a sustained Palestinian political entity and, in fact, negating it, as demonstrated in the fi rst section of this paper. The combined operation of these mechanisms is what produces Palestinian sovereignty as an empty signifi er, void of any political potency.

This evocation of Palestinian sovereignty as a foreign sovereignty within Israeli ruling forces gives way to the form of governmentality that is manifested in Israeli management of West Bank Palestinians. The relinquishing of all accountability for the positive relation of the controlling apparatuses to the population derives its justifi cation from the notion that this population ‘belongs’ to a different sovereignty, a Palestinian sovereignty, which is responsible for it. The externality of the Palestinians in the West Bank to Israeli governance is justifi ed through the constructed otherness of the Palestinian sovereignty, but is reenacted in a multiplicity of loci and through a wide range of means. Through a combination of political technologies, the West Bank Palestinians are relegated to the position of those who are alien to Israeli power (Kotef and Amir, 2011). These technologies produce power as arbitrary, irregular, or inaccessible to the Palestinians from the outset. Consequently, the subjects ruled by this power are construed as impaired subjects, subjects who can never occupy the full (double) meaning of the word—subjected to power, as well as being the source of its authority. They are positioned as those who are never included within the power to which they are subjugated, while never being completely external to it, never being able to completely escape it. Thus, the Palestinian sovereignty is also emptied of its subjectivizing effects as it lacks the ability to provide its subjects with the protections granted to subjects under liberal regimes. This protection is usually mediated through the status of citizenship, yet is given authority by its (implicit) reliance on the authority of the sovereign.

As the fi rst section of this paper has demonstrated, Palestinian sovereignty is constructed as a shell of a sovereignty through its disjunction from actual power as Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank is constantly undermined through the Israeli spatial control of the region. Yet, a void sovereignty is not only void of power, it is not only disjoined from its coupling with the state, from privileged access to violence, and from an association with an actual ability to govern and bestow a certain level of protection on its subjects from the operation of other sovereignties. Most importantly, it is void since it is vacant both spatially and in substance, as it is pervious to other sovereignties in its inability to maintain its integrity, absoluteness,

The making of a void sovereignty 243

and exclusivity and since it is penetrable to the manifestation of other sovereignties. This pervasiveness is manifested as its territory, its spatial authority of exclusiveness; it is permeated and its prerogative sanctioning of violence violated, as the Israeli sovereignty—a foreign sovereignty—regularly tramples over it. Again, this is not to claim that the sovereign principle of exclusivity is never breached in the case of normative sovereignties—quite the opposite: in practice sovereign exclusivity is rarely absolute; however, normative sovereignties are constructed in accordance with this principle of impenetrability. By contrast, the Palestinian sovereignty is void, and it is only a shell of a sovereignty, not because it is lacking the ability to maintain cohesiveness and resistance to these regular violations by Israel, but, rather, in its being constructed, a priori, as porous, as deprived of this essential impenetrableness.

Acknowledgements. This paper is based in part on research conducted as part of my PhD thesis. I am grateful to my two thesis advisors, Prof. Adi Ophir and Prof. Yehouda Shenhav for their helpful guidance. I would also like to thank my research companion, Dr. Hagar Kotef, with whom my thinking on these topics was shaped, and the two anonymous reviewers, whose insightful remarks greatly contributed to sharpening and polishing my arguments.

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