The Production of Terra Nullius and the Palestinian-Zionist Conflict by Marcelo Svirsky

This study presents an explanatory model that moves beyond the centrality of ideology in explaining the Palestinian-Zionist conflict and the driving forces of the Zionist movement as a settler-colonial movement since its emergence in Palestine. The study, which connects Deleuzian philosophy with post-colonial theory, presents a socio-political analysis to unearth the material facts and historical circumstances which represented the initial manifestations of the conflict, and which continue to fuel its protraction, through utilizing the concept of Terra Nullius, which is connected primarily with the Zionist "Desiring-Machines" that seek to hide the Arab Other. These can be explained as the mechanisms of social production for replacement-displacement within the frame of a specific form of settler-colonialism — the Zionist form.

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This study presents an explanatory model that moves beyond the centrality of ideology in explaining the Palestinian-Zionist conflict and the driving forces of the Zionist movement as a settler-colonial movement since its emergence in Palestine. The study, which connects Deleuzian philosophy with post-colonial theory, presents a socio-political analysis to unearth the material facts and historical circumstances which represented the initial manifestations of the conflict, and which continue to fuel its protraction, through utilizing the concept of Terra Nullius, which is connected primarily with the Zionist "Desiring-Machines" that seek to hide the Arab Other. These can be explained as the mechanisms of social production for replacement-displacement within the frame of a specific form of settler-colonialism — the Zionist form.

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