Zoe Holman: How do you define ‘security theology’?
Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian: I say that there is a clear security theology at work in Israel, which means that the state has turned security into a theology whereby no-one can discuss, challenge or talk about this ideology in different ways. Just like a biblical theology, there is also a security theology and this is one of the greatest structures in the history of ethnic cleansing. It allows all sorts of things to be done in the name of theology: it masks state violence through the use of a security presence, which works to naturalise the dispossession and racialisation of the Palestinians. So in my book I talk about the two theologies: on the one hand, there is a Biblical belief in the chosen people and the promised land, and on the other, a security theology that is embedded in a settler-colonial ideology. These ideologies are based on a militaristic system that produces fear of Palestinians and creates legal systems, social systems and media systems – an assemblage of different theologies – that ensure the power of the state.
ZH: So security theology becomes a doctrine that is untouchable, that cannot be questioned?
NSK: Yes, exactly. And this theology has different layers – it has bio-political elements, which are clear in the legal system and other demographic systems that maintain control over bodies. One chapter in my book is named ‘Israel in my bedroom’ because of this specific connection between the security theology and bio-politics. The state maintains a level control over Palestinian bodies – who they are marrying, whether those they marry can get citizenship, or live alongside Israelis, and so on. I refer to the case of one young woman, a citizen of Jerusalem, who moved to Gaza, married a Jerusalemite and had four children. They moved back to Jerusalem, where her husband died of cancer, so she ended up being there with no Jerusalem ID - someone who should by law be expelled from her own place. The only way she was ultimately allowed to stay was under various conditions that she must stay with children, never marry anyone from outside Jerusalem and maintain a clean criminal record. Every year now, she must get a police letter stating that she is not a security threat to the state. So here we have a condition where a bio-political state has the power to control the body of a young woman who has just lost husband and is alone with her children, at the state's mercy. Still, the state defines her as a security threat. Of course, there is also an added geopolitical layer – this element is about land and dispossession and is very clear in Israeli policies like urban planning, architecture, land confiscation and house demolitions. So through this combination of bio-politics, geopolitics and security theology, we reach a situation of what I call a necro-political regime - an economy of life and death which tells you who should live and how, and who should die and how.
NSK: The element of ‘everydayness’ is major in my work. Because I am a feminist scholar and a Palestinian feminist, I look at connection and interlocking - not intersection, because elements do not intersect, but rather interlock – in what happens every day. It is about the epistemology of details, of the mundane, through which the security theology works. For example, I refer to the fact that every day flags are put in your face and there is a violence attached to this act. Those flags not only engage the space, but they also tell Palestinians that they are outsiders here, that ‘you are not included, you are an invader’. It is in the everyday – the ability to go to school, or reach the clinic, or meet family members – that the state is committing an additional sociocide, a killing of society through slow fragmentation. Another example of this is child arrest. One of my studies shows clearly that Palestinian children are being intentionally confined to their homes by security laws. The moment you put children under arrest in their house, the home – the place of sleeping and feeding and safety – is turned into a prison.
ZH: What sorts of physical and psychological effects do you see resulting from these practices?
