Between Two Messiahs: An Ethnography of Settler-Colonizers in the West Bank

Author

Amir Reicher, The Graduate Center, City University of New YorkFollow

Date of Degree

9-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Anthropology

Advisor

Mandana Limbert

Committee Members

Karen Strassler

Gary Wilder

Nadia Abu El Haj

Subject Categories

Anthropology

Keywords

settler colonialism, Israel/Palestine, Middle East, Judaism, Zionism

Abstract

This dissertation is a study of settler-colonialism. Based on fieldwork among Jewish settlers in the West Bank, it analyzes from an anthropological perspective how a settler-colonial process takes place. Officially, since the signing of the Oslo Accords, with few exceptions, Israel ceased to build new settlements in the West Bank. But, on the ground, from the 1990s onwards, the West Bank hinterland was scattered with over 150 illegal outposts, strategically constructed to appropriate as much land as possible. Often established on remote hilltops, the illegal outposts are the central tool today in appropriating Palestinian land, and the “outpost people” who reside in them, are considered the most radical settlers of all. For this research, I moved to one of these frontier outposts which I pseudonymously refer to as Ma’ale Eliya. Located at the edge of the Judean Desert, I stayed in the community for an overall period of almost two years. On one level, at the center of this research is an investigation of how a settler-colonial project expands: I explicate the settler-colonial know-how by which settlers appropriate land against indigenous resistance, the different challenges they face, and the internal conflicts and desires that shape their colonial endeavor. I make the case that these days, at the heart of the advancement of the West Bank settlement project is a sense of crisis and a set of contradictions that paradoxically propel the colonial process forward. On a second level, by focusing on a particular strand of what I discovered to be “post-messianic” settlers, this dissertation investigates the conditions of political action in the aftermath of ideological and religious rupture. My main argument is that rather than wholehearted beliefs, the generation of outpost settlers is animated to colonial action precisely from a sense of ideological retreat. In analyzing this dynamic of post-ideological radicalism, in addition to being about settler-colonialism, this research is also about political action in an age when master narratives lose their mastery.

Recommended Citation

Reicher, Amir, "Between Two Messiahs: An Ethnography of Settler-Colonizers in the West Bank" (2023). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/5587