Rafah, 2014. Composite image research: Forensic architecture 2015.
openDemocracy first showcased Weizman's research as ‘Politics of Verticality’ fifteen years ago. The wide reception of this text led to fresh thinking about colonisation and the system of Israel’s domination of Palestine as well as to new concepts in geography. In this text Weizman returns to examine these themes, noting how an evolving vertical system of domination has in the past 15 years hardened into a geographically unique structure that he calls Vertical Apartheid, one in which layers, both physical and juridical, create a laminated political system whose dismantling would require a new form of thinking.
In the context of a recent, mildly critical interview about the political deadlock between Israel and the Palestinians, a former Israeli general, until recently the chief commander of the West Bank, claimed that the Israeli military had become ‘world champions in occupation’ and has managed to turn its control of millions of Palestinians into ‘an art form’, as if this two generation long degrading and lethal regime is some sort of a sport or managerial challenge.[1]
