“To Make the State Look in More Zionist Eyes:” Settler Drones, Waxing Sovereignty
Abstract:
According to Wendy Brown, the diminishing power of the nation state in the twenty-first century is connected to the construction of walls such as those on the US-Mexico border or in Palestine. Brown’s argument, as well as her book’s title, is “Walled States, Waning Sovereignty.” As opposed to walls, surveillance drones operate differently. Among other traits, they are mobile, can “see,” “speak” (that is, sound the voice of the drone operator or a recording), and make noise. What do the technological advancements in the fields of surveillance of the twenty-first century, as manifested in Israeli-operated drones, teach about the workings of sovereignty? This article grapples with this question building on Brown’s oeuvre as well as interviews with Palestinians under drone surveillance and Israelis that operate drones. These interviews reveal how Israeli settlers, Israeli soldiers, forces employed by Israeli regional councils, and supremacist NGOs operate drones to further goals of domination. I argue that Israeli drones manifest what I call a “waxing sovereignty:” Rather than a weakening of the state, surveillance drones manifest a revitalization of the state by shifting actors.
If Arendt Smelled Lavender, or, Subject Formation after Gaza
Abstract:
In her analysis of totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt states, “suffering, of which there has been too much on earth, is not the issue, nor is the number of victims. Human nature as such is at stake.” This study brings Arendt’s analyses in The Origins of Totalitarianism to bear on Gaza. More specifically, it deals with Lavender—The AI machine Israel used to produce targets in the ongoing Gaza genocide—to get at a story not of eliminating the moral and juridical person in man, as Arendt’s claims vis-à-vis totalitarianism. Instead, Lavender teaches us, I argue, an alarming lesson on subject formation after the AI revolution. Its effects were not only in the order of what journalists have dubbed “a mass assassination factory” but also in the order of effects on Palestinian identity, behavior, and sense of self. Lavender ranked every person in Gaza according to the likelihood that they are affiliated with Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Elements that would increase a person’s ranking included being in an online photo with someone with a high ranking or having phone contacts with people with high rankings. Even moving or changing one’s phone number often would increase a person’s ranking. According to the different stages of the Gaza genocide, different rankings would be sufficient for someone to be included in the “bank of targets.” Simply put, if a person’s ranking is high enough, they, and everyone around them at the time, would be killed. Reading testimonies of Israeli soldiers as depicted in the film NAZA (2026) alongside Arendt’s analyses, I argue that Lavender was and is not only a tool of death, but of subject formation as well.
Abolishing Productive Torture
Abstract
From 1948 until 2023, Israeli torture practices have become more sophisticated: they are no longer only openly violent but, while not completely departing from violence, have shifted towards the use of the tortured persons’ actions and relations. Testimonies collected by the Israeli NGO the Public Committee against Torture in Israel gesture towards this shift in the axis of sophistication and a correlated shift in another axis, that of subject formation. Twenty-first century Israeli torture affects subjectivity by attempting to stir the tortured person away from politics, build a fractured society, and sow suspicion and mistrust. Thus, alongside its repressive traits, torture is also aimed at the production of subjectivity through action and interaction. In so doing, Israeli torture expands analyses of torture that view its contemporary characteristics as “lite,” “psychological,” “no-touch,” or “stealthy” to include a view of torture as a political technology of domination qua subject formation.
The Scent of Lavender: Israeli AI, Surveillance, and Subject Formation
I am at work on a second book-length project, tentatively titled “The Scent of Lavender: Israeli AI, Surveillance, and Subject Formation.” Here, I take the insights of subject formation in analog sites— prisons and torture facilities—to the digital realm. A central tenant of counter-revolutionary theories is the desire to know everything: to collect as much information as possible on the controlled population. Contemporary AI and surveillance technologies in Israel-Palestine complicate this story. Israeli means of surveillance not only collect information but affect subjectivities. In this project, I study the multi-layered contexts of surveillance and resistance in Israel-Palestine, to get at a broader story of how subjects are made and dominated. The contexts this project unpacks include the use of AI machines such as Lavender in Gaza, facial recognition technologies towards Palestinians in Hebron, surveillance of Closed-Circuit TV in East Jerusalem, the evolution of the use of drones from the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon to present day deployments by the military, settlers, and NGOs, Social media monitoring, and phone hacking. Combined, these technologies of the self tell a story about how control works through subjectivity.
Foucault’s Counter-limitative Critical Practice (forthcoming with New Political Science)
Abstract:
Recent advancements in the study of Foucauldian genealogy view it as “problematization” and as “possibilizing:” opening a path towards change. Analyzing genealogy from Foucault’s practical endeavors paints a more elaborate picture. Foucault’s writings on the prisons information group, the Iranian uprising, and gay liberation elucidate the transgressive transfigurative aspects of genealogy. What I call the anti-limitative critical practice of “transgressive transfiguration” is the positive creation of a different reality based on the genealogical investigation of the current reality. These endeavors show that genealogy is not only a site of problematization or one that is possibilizing. It also creates a change in reality. What Foucault calls a “transfiguring play of freedom” is based on challenging limits placed on people that are presented as universal. This anti-limitative critical practice expands our understanding of genealogy and at the same time provides the normative compass Foucault was so often accused of lacking.
