Necroviolence in Palestine
Mother of Alaa Nababta clings to her sons grave at Al-Yusufia Cemetery, resisting the IOF’s forceful attempt to remove her // Source: Mostafa Al kharouf
The Zionist regime’s announcement of its plans to demolish the centuries old Al-Yusufiya cemetery for the construction of a national park sparked widespread public outrage last month.
However, it is important to understand that this act was not an isolated event, but rather one reflective of a pattern characteristic of colonial rule, whereby the colonised populations’ heritage, history, and identity are violated by the coloniser, sometimes long after death.
This article will draw on the framework of necroviolence to bring these patterns to light, and to further uncover the discriminatory ethos embedded deep within the Zionist regime’s character, which justifies the execution of these violent attacks against every aspect of Palestinian existence.
What is necroviolence?
The concept of necroviolence finds its origins in the theory of necropolitics first coined by Achille Mbembe, a political theorist. In his words, Necropolitics explains “the ways in which, in our contemporary world, weapons are deployed in the interest of maximally destroying persons and creating death-worlds, that is, new and unique forms of social existence in which vast populations are subjected to living conditions that confer upon them the status of the living dead.” [1]
In his book, Mbembe argued that the clearest example of the manifestation of necropower today is the Zionist colonial occupation of Palestine. From surveillance to outright apartheid, the regime exerts full control over the conditions in which Palestinians both live and die.
Necroviolence however, takes this theory one step further. Building off of Mbembe’s theory, Jason De Leon brought forward the concept of necroviolence which would take this theory beyond the boundaries of death. He defines it as:
“Violence performed and produced through the specific treatment of corpses that is perceived to be offensive, sacrilegious, or inhumane by the perpetrator, the victim (and her or his cultural group), or both.”
- Jason De Leon in The Land of Open Graves, p.69 [2]
His theory goes beyond how states assign different values to human life, to offer insight into what happens once this judgement results in the death of individuals from the ‘inferior’ community.
Necroviolence then, is the recognition that violence against a certain community can extend far beyond death, which allows us to draw out both the effects of this form of violence on the community that identify with the dead, as well as the characteristic condition of the perpetrator which justifies this corporeal mistreatment.
The Zionist regime’s use of necroviolence
1. ‘Ambiguous loss’; withholding Palestinian bodies
Since 1967, the Zionist regime, has been preventing Palestinian families from mourning their loved ones by withholding their bodies in freezers, [3] or the ‘cemetery of numbers’ (discussed below). This form of necroviolence, which imprisons the already dead, forces Palestinian bodies to exist in a state of absence; their location, status, and condition are often unknown for an indefinite period of time.
A mother stands at the empty grave of her son in the occupied West Bank. The regime has refused to hand over his body // Source: MEE, Shatha Hammad
This act in itself can be viewed as a form of collective punishment aimed at the families of the martyrs, who are forced to endure a great level of psychological pain in addition to grief over the loss of their loved ones. The colonial regime thus punishes families left behind for the mere existence of their martyrs, who represent Palestinian resistance as a whole.
“The erasure of a body… stunts the development of the social relationships that the living need in order to ‘make sense of the life and death of the deceased’ and negotiate (and renegotiate) the positions of the dead inside the living community.”
- Jason De Leon in The Land of Open Graves, p.71 [4]
Many families are then left in a state of what psychologist Pauline Boss calls 'ambiguous loss’; “a loss that remains unclear” [5], as their grieving process is forcefully halted by the regime's withholding of information which would allow families to carry out the cultural mourning process. By doing this, the Zionist regime alters the bereavement period by dictating when and how Palestinians should be mourned.
2. The cemeteries of numbers
‘Ambiguous loss’ can also be felt through the existence of the Cemetery of Numbers where mass graves of Palestinian martyrs are located, who are identified only by a numbered metal plate above their grave.
The Cemetery of Numbers // Source: The Palestine Chronicle
This marks an attack on the Palestinian experience, with the erasure of their names and the possibility of mourning, as well as a dehumanising attempt to erase individual identity by collectivising the Palestinian experience under nothing more than numbers.
Though in complete violation of human rights by international law, these bodies are kept as leverage for potential political negotiations with Hamas or the PA and as a deterrence from resistance to the occupation, further tormenting families who are left to campaign for the right to bury their loved ones days, months, and often years after their death. In 2019, the Israeli High Court approved the withholding of these bodies on the basis of state security, civil order, and the carrying out of political negotiations [6].
Here, we see the politicisation of Palestinian bodies, as they are used to maintain the colonial system, forcing martyrs to exist within the occupier-occupied dynamic long after death through the policing and dispossession of their bodies.
3. Demolition of historic gravesites
The Zionist regime has made the demolition of cemeteries a key arena for necroviolence to facilitate colonial expansion and historical erasure.
Mamilla cemetery - an ancient Muslim burial site located in Jerusalem, which dates back 1,400 years, has been one of the many burial sites under persistent attack by the Zionist regime. This cemetery in particular held the bodies of many of the early companions of the Prophet (pbuh), as well as Christians from the pre-Islamic era [7]. In the 80s, part of the cemetery was razed to build a municipal parking lot, while in 2004, it was announced that part of the cemetery would be demolished to create the Museum of Tolerance to commemorate the Jewish Shoah [8]. Bab Al-Rahmeh has faced the same fate, as large sections of the cemetery were levelled to build a park and hiking trail [9].
More recently, the Zionist regime announced its plans to demolish Al-Yusufiya cemetery - another burial site with great religious and historical significance. It was decided that a large portion of the cemetery would be razed in order to build a national park, which will open mid-2022. Public outrage soared last month, as images and videos circulated of Palestinian families clinging onto their loved ones' graves to protect them, while being confronted with stun grenades, beatings and arrests by the IOF [10].
A Palestinian shows the destruction of graves at Al-Yusufiya cemetery by the Jerusalem municipality and The Nature and Parks Authority // Source: Ahmad Gharabli
As Jason De Leon suggests,
“The destruction of a corpse constitutes the most complex and durable form of necroviolence humans have yet invented. The lack of a body prevents a “proper” burial for the dead, but also allows the perpetrators of violence plausible deniability”
- Jason De Leon in The Land of Open Graves, p.71 [11]
The regime has not only prevented the burial of Palestinian bodies, it has also gone to the extent of attacking the already buried, violating their bodies for further territorial expansion.
This also marks a step towards the complete erasure of the Palestinian experience, as many of these grave sites are centuries old, holding within them not only a history of Palestinian belonging, but one of resistance through the presence of martyrs who resisted decades of occupation.
The Zionist regime thus denies Palestinians agency in one of the few forms it has left to exercise; that is, the traces of their heritage, identity, and history on ground.
Conclusion
Here, we gain insight into the logic of Zionist colonialism, which necessitates full control over every aspect of the Palestinian individual, both in life and death; in all forms of existence.
This then, has grave consequences for the families of the martyrs, as the direct and indirect targets of most forms of necroviolence are the living community. The body is not treated as an individual. To the coloniser, the body is a national body representative of the enemy; the colonised group as a whole. It is they who have to endure punishment for their martyrs resistance, and often, just for their mere existence.
In this way, the regime’s exercise of necroviolence is a confirmation that Zionist colonialism continues long after death, through the dispossession, policing, and politicisation of Palestinian bodies, as well as territorial expansion through historical erasure. Erasing all traces of Palestinian culture, heritage, and identity works as an attack on the legitimacy of the Palestinian experience, allowing the regime what Leon called “plausible deniability,” and is therefore one of the key mechanisms with which the Zionist regime can continue its colonial rule.
Source Used:
[1] Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics
[2] Jason De Leon, The Land of Open Graves, p.69
[3] Suhad Daher-Nashif, Colonial management of death: To be or not to be dead in Palestine
[4] Jason de Leon, p.71
[5] Ibid
[6] Lina Alsaafin, Israel slammed for ‘necroviolence’ on bodies of Palestinians
[7] Randa May Wahbe, The politics of karameh: Palestinian burial rites under the gun, Randa May Wahbe p.329
[8] Ibid
[9] Ibid
[10] Samah Dweik, Palestinians vow to defend graves in Jerusalem cemetery
[11] Jason De Leon, p.71