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Journal of Middle Eastern Politics & Policy

Topic / Gender, Race and Identity

(Un)Making Masculinities: Tracing How Men’s Responses to Violence Impact the Home in the Occupied West Bank

INTRODUCTION 

The methods of indigenous ‘elimination’ implemented by settler colonial Israel are more complex than the physical eviction of Palestinians from their homes, though this indeed remains crucial. Through my primary research in the occupied West Bank, it has been evident that structural and direct violence against cities, communities, and families is systematically implemented and nurtured with the objective of breaking down social support systems and challenging normative gender roles to create unlivable conditions for Palestinians. The performance of Palestinian masculinity offers a crucial target for gendered modes of Israel’s colonial violence. 

I propose that the home is closely interlinked to identity formations, such as gender, which makes it a pertinent sphere for studying a settler colonial agenda that is constructed upon the eradication of both Palestinian identity and space. My research confronts three levels of interaction with the occupation: physical violence against the home, indirect forms of violence that permeate into the home through the bodies of men, and, finally, inter-communal violence. These categories of violence collectively challenge the ability of Palestinian men to uphold normative patriarchal roles constructed within cultural and religious frameworks, such as the ‘protector’ and ‘provider.’ In the case of male family members failing to protect their friends and family, particularly within the space of the home, there is a breakdown of important forms of social power, and an environment of shame is cultivated – a ‘social death.’ Therefore, my research has revealed that men are forced to choose between two dominant languages in these instances: 1) violence and 2) self-isolation. Both responses hold the ability to break down local mechanisms of support and solidarity. This article will target one level of violence – physical violence enacted against Palestinian homes ­– and how such violence nurtures the breakdown of Palestinian masculinity, particularly Palestinian men’s role as ‘protectors.’ Such a study offers an entrance to wider considerations of gender performances within this settler colonial context. 

METHODOLOGY 

My study is grounded in first-hand narratives and observations of Palestinians inhabiting the occupied West Bank. For three months, I resided in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Al-Khalil (Hebron), Nablus, and Jenin to conduct this ethnographic research. It is important to note that my Palestinian heritage is concealed by my British passport and white-conforming body, therefore, I held the privilege to navigate the land and interact with soldiers as though this aspect of my identity did not exist. I interviewed predominantly men to expand the space for first-hand male accounts of violence and trauma, in a setting that is commonly closed off to such due to culturally prescribed masculine ideals of resilience and strength. Prior to my interviews, I was advised by another researcher that the men interviewed would shape their responses in a manner to impress me as a cis woman—a ‘social desirability bias.’ In reality, I was struck by the vulnerability that these men demonstrated. Possibly, in the presence of a woman from an external culture, the male participants felt they had the opportunity to explore memories and emotions that had been previously denied due to social pressures. 

PALESTINIAN MASCULINITIES 

MacKenzie and Fosterdefine ‘thwarted masculinity’ as a gender category that has emerged due to structural and direct occupational violence threatening traditional gender roles.[i] To reclaim desired forms of masculinity, men are shown to express patriarchal attitudes and resort to violent actions. Such behavior supports a narrative of backwardness and terror surrounding Palestinian men, feeding into the occupation’s security discourse, and legitimizing further mechanisms of violence and control. The settler colonial agenda continues to be ‘legitimized’ by these ‘tropes of violent hypermasculinity that characterize ongoing Western Orientalist discourse.’[ii] Through such logic, Israeli violence cannot be understood and contested without confronting the gender constructions that facilitate such racism and imperialism. 

Findings from my research suggest that Palestinian masculinity continues to be centered around the roles of ‘provider’ and ‘protector’ within the direct family and wider community. Local conflict resolution systems enhance this further by being reliant on men who have endured violence, such as imprisonment or torture. Through this, Palestinian male bodies are considered to provide an important link between violence inside and outside of domestic spaces. As Mitchell defines it, the family is the key arena of the patriarchy.[iii] Despite developments in the younger generations sharing duties inside and outside the home, the overall responsibility continues to lie on the Palestinian man. This is not always limited to the father of the family; I stayed with a family in Al-Khalil where the eldest son had a successful job, and his role as the economic provider ultimately altered the dynamics in the family space. I witnessed the rest of the family waiting on him in the same manner other families would the father, bringing him shisha, cooking him his favorite food, demonstrating the value of providing economically for the family. 

When Palestinian families live without formal political representation, the family becomes a key protector and form of social authority.[iv] Through the zoning of land and corruption of the Palestinian Authority (PA), structures of protection continue to be manipulated and dismantled to encourage lawlessness and ensure that the Palestinian population remains vulnerable to both the external enemy and internally constructed ‘enemy.’[v] Many of the fathers I interviewed detailed their personal methods of protecting the family and the safety of the home. Such efforts included banning the discussion of politics in this space and keeping their children inside when not at school to avoid involvement with resistance. However, after discussing these efforts, every interviewee reluctantly revealed their futility, as the occupation is a powerful force in the economic, political, and material construction of the home. Interestingly, I asked my interview participants what defines a Palestinian man, and the most referenced answers across all locations included: protecting the family (18), hiding their feelings, or remaining emotionally strong (8), and thinking about the future on behalf of their family (7). This is supportive of my theory that Palestinian hegemonic masculinity is claimed through performances of the ‘protector’ and ‘provider.’

The intrinsic link between the self-worth of men and their role in the family was emphasized to me in an interview with a 28-year-old male psychologist based in Ramallah, who uses art therapy to address trauma. It was particularly interesting to hear about the group therapy that he held for Palestinian men, especially as other organizations noted that men refused to use their services. The psychologist explained to me that when he asked, ‘Who are you?’ ‘Where do you want to go in life?,’ the men would respond through narratives of their family members. For example, one father responded about how his son attends university, and he hopes for him to travel abroad; the psychologist would point this deflection out and then ask them to connect their personal emotion. We discussed why this was a common response from men, in comparison to women who more openly referred to themselves. Firstly, the ongoing stigma associated with men’s mental health was noted as one of the largest factors. We also identified fatherhood as one of the most important aspects of a man’s self-worth. As the head of the family, fathers are ‘bestowed with an immense amount of respect and gender status in Palestinian society.’ This is particularly important in the context of an occupation where national identity and masculinity go hand-in-hand. To be a father, therefore, is to ensure the continuation of the Palestinian lineage; as ‘the mother was responsible for the reproduction of Palestinians until 1947, the rape [of the land as mother] disqualified her from this role. It is now fathers [i.e., paternity] who reproduce the nation.’[vi] Therefore, there is a tremendous psychological impact when men cannot fulfil this role. This was evident during my research as men often introduced themselves to me through their positionality as a father, showing photos of their children and expressing pride in their achievements. When asked about the impact of the occupation on their lives, the most dominant response was associated with ‘failed fatherhood’ and the humiliation they experienced of being unable to protect themselves and their family. Thus, the value of fatherhood holds the capacity to diminish men’s individuality. 

The notion of honor, translated in Arabic as ‘sharaf,’ is an imperative concept to understanding gender performances in Palestinian society; particularly in rural areas and traditional communities, such as Al-Khalil, sharif is shown to greatly influence social behavior. Lang defines sharaf as ‘the sum of all moral virtues that gives a man a right to higher social status.’[vii] This is dependent on the morality of the individual but is also intertwined with family honor, particularly the modesty of women. By understanding the politics of honor, the occupation can target a system of domination that maintains the familial unit. This was highlighted to me during an interview with a 59-year-old woman from a neighboring village; she explained how ‘drones are sent up on our life…as an Arab Muslim community, we must be covered. If I sit outside my home without my hijab, the drone can see my hair and face.’ In this instance, surveillance mechanisms not only violate the boundaries of the home but also that of a Muslim woman’s honor. This was emphasized further by a 30-year-old man based in Aida Camp, Bethlehem: 

‘The occupational forces know the background and characteristics of the Palestinian man and use this to humiliate them. They take pictures of his family when they threaten to demolish the house.’ 

As a patriarchal concept, men take responsibility for the preservation of honor, and when these boundaries are breached, it is seen to be a failure on their part. 

GENDERING HOME 

The connection between the space of the home and performances of gender was revealed to be integral in my fieldwork. As Harker states, ‘home is the space where one is with their family, where they can receive friends and relatives and visit them in turn, and if they want to start a family, they’ll need to make a home first.’[viii] Most of the homes that I visited had multiple floors inhabited by both immediate and extended family. These spaces are passed between generations, and when their child marries, many parents will invest in expanding the home for them to live with their new family. To violate this space, imbued with cultural significance and identity, is to destroy the dignity and honor of the bodies inhabiting it. Shalhoub-Kevorkian and Ihmoud define ‘the ongoing militarization, invasion, and destruction of the Palestinian home space as a central aspect of the Zionist project’s erasure of Palestinian history and memory, but also the dislocation of

Palestinian familial and communal life.’[ix] Spatial power has undeniably been utilized by the occupation as a means of reshaping the bodies, identities, and relations of those that reside within to, ultimately, dismantle resistance and state building efforts. Herzl, or the ‘ideological creator’ of ‘Israel,’ states in his manifesto, ‘If I wish to substitute a new building for an old one, I must demolish before I construct.’[x] Therefore, in the case of the occupied today’s post-second intifada era West Bank, there is a great deal to learn from the localized material spaces of the home, due to their significance as a site for national struggle and the (un)making of relations. 

HOME AND LESS 

‘I want a house built of metal’ 

were the words of a young boy whose newly built home in Bethlehem had been demolished by three Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) tank grenades. The occupation impacts performances of masculinity through violence against the home, a space that should embody strength and solidarity. Nowhere can the home be removed from violence and insecurity, as ‘the house is at best a fragile, tenuous space in which to be when all other spaces have been refused.’[xi] However, the precariousness of the home takes on a unique specificity when considered in the occupied West Bank, where it stands as a fundamental target and tool of settler colonial violence. Weizman argues that space is not merely the ‘background’ of Israeli state projects but rather ‘the medium that each of their actions seeks to challenge, transform, or appropriate.’[xii] As another Palestinian home is destroyed, another Palestinian family is replaced by settlers, another house is raided during the night, the walls of the home are transformed into a technology of governmentality, a set of borders that separate freedom from imprisonment. Through direct violence against the home, such as home raids and settlement

expansion, I found the performance of the masculine ‘protector’ to be rendered insecure. 

Despite the division of the West Bank under the 1995 Oslo Accords between the PA and occupation, the reality is ‘the PA has become a sort of sub-contractor for Israel and has, thus, served in part to mask the reality of an Israeli military occupation (who holds) full security control and total domination over land and all other resources.’[xiii] This demonstrates the permeability of Palestinian homes residing in Areas A, B, and C to such colonial power. As the only main city with Israeli settlements within, Al-Khalil has a further level of spatial control, the two areas H1 and H2. Responsibility for security and civil matters in H1 is under the PA, whilst H2 is divided by Israel controlling security and the PA civilian matters; however, the level of interaction with the occupation remains very high in both areas. These two defining features of the location blur the boundaries between the private and public to ensure the infiltration of colonial violence. As one father working for the International Committee of the Red Cross described, ‘In Hebron, the problem is the presence of Israeli settlers in the heart of the city as a burning motive to keep the area boiling. You have extreme settlers, which matters a lot.’ Thus, I will be applying the term ideological settler to reference religious fundamentalist settlers who pursue the expansion of Israeli rule through the violent expulsion of Palestinians. Al-Khalil, both in the towns and rural districts, is considered the most conservative area of the occupied West Bank. There continues to be a strong emphasis on the Muslim faith and traditional ideas of the family, as my research revealed, with the men of the family responsible for the protection of their family’s honor. The 23-year-old journalist from Al-Khalil, when asked about his responsibility as a brother, told me that he would kill a man immediately if he ever looked at his sister in the wrong way. Although not unique to the Palestinian context, this reaction demonstrates the powerful role of honor within a Palestinian normative model of family and gender relations that centers responsibility around the man. Therefore, this location stands as a target for the breakdown of such Palestinian traditions and customs, particularly through violence against the Palestinian home by the IOF and ideological settlers. This exhibits how, as the journalist summarized, ‘the occupation and the home in Hebron are impossible to separate.’ This entanglement causes a ‘social death’ that expands outside of the household into the wider family and community. 

HOME RAIDS 

In home raids, the home is reconstituted from a space of safety into a space of warfare, especially in H2 areas due to the lack of security for Palestinians. Din defines how home raids encompass four forms: house search, arrest of a family member, mapping physical features of houses and the identity of its occupants, as well as house seizures to serve operational needs.[xiv] The occupation has completed three-dimensional models of the entire West Bank, providing intimate details of family homes, including the layout of rooms.[xv] Therefore, even after a raid is completed, the privacy of the home cannot be restored. Families are placed in a precarious state of waiting for their spaces to be infiltrated, especially as raids are known to occur predominantly during the night, which heightens the fear and vulnerability associated. The psychological impact of this exposure to violence has been found to cause PTSD and anxiety.[xvi] One 22-year-old woman from Al- Khalil described how ‘we (would) wake up when we are sleeping and look above and see a soldier,’ which led to her having sleep insomnia and nightmares. The military law operating in the West Bank ensures that the IOF does not require a warrant to invade the private domain, with more than 200 arbitrary raids occurring every month.[xvii] Often, these house seizures would involve the IOF claiming the roof to observe the actions of others, appropriating the home as a spatial weapon of violence against the family’s neighbors, and dismantling ideas of communal trust. A 21-year-old male student from Nablus explained to me, ‘If people know someone is a spy, he will be killed by the community, and his whole family will be impacted.’ Therefore, the same violation can both undermine the performance of the man as ‘protector’ of the home, but also the broader social ties that are dependent on trust and honor. 

Shame and self-hatred are shown to be ignited when men cannot protect the boundaries of the home and the bodies residing within. I interviewed a 31-year-old radio presenter about his experience living in H2 with his three children, the youngest son being 10 months, who explained, ‘I lost my understanding of someone as strong and the protector after I was beaten in front of my children by the soldiers. If I cannot protect them, how can I be a man?’ As Sartre theorizes, the gaze of others can alienate and shame, which the occupation weaponizes by intentionally highlighting fathers’ vulnerabilities in front of their children.[xviii] Since the performance of fatherhood is rooted in notions of strength and authority, forced vulnerability is thus inherently damaging to a father’s self-worth and maintenance of familial dynamics. The father from Al-Khalil explained how he does not ‘hold the power to decide to live again in this area’ after a similar experience: 

‘Every single father in a Palestinian family from occupation feels he cannot do anything. When they raid a Palestinian home, they put all members in the same room, and the children and wife are meant to look to the man, the biggest man of the family, so you must protect them, but he feels he cannot do anything.’ 

This loss of agency by forcing family members together into one room, often along with neighboring families, rebuilds the home into a stigmatized space. The father of three went on to speak about his inability to socialize with the neighbors with whom he had been imprisoned due to ‘the shame I hold inside me,’ choosing to isolate himself from his community. As aforementioned, ‘sharif’ functions as a powerful mechanism of control over men by both their own communities and the occupation. With the expression of emotion continuing to be stigmatized for Palestinian men, there is not sufficient space to process and recover from such experiences. This was emphasized when the interviewee admitted he had not spoken about this experience or that of his brother’s murder that occurred three months ago by an IOF soldier. He viewed this interview as an opportunity to navigate these feelings, a method for processing trauma: ‘I must talk with you. It is important to talk with you because for three months I did not speak about it at all. Maybe this can make me rest and feel more comfortable.’ In recent years, mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) has been strengthened in post-conflict spaces (for example, IJR[xix]). However, for the occupied West Bank, which faces ongoing trauma, the Ministry of Health continues to prioritize ‘physical life-saving activities…besides the struggle to access MHPSS services, stigma and shame prevent many from seeking aid, particularly men, who associate demolitions and settler violence with an inability to protect their families.’[xx] Therefore, the diminishing of trust and cooperation, within a context where MHPSS is already weak and stigmatized, has a destabilizing long-term impact. This prompted me to consider the ‘colonized mind,’ as many male interviewees, after narrating experiences of ‘domicide’ and trauma, were unable to define life outside of the occupation’s boundaries. Startlingly, the most common response to planning the future for their wife and/or children was the inability to do so, though all interviewees noted it as one of their responsibilities. Jabr observes how the capacity to trust and grow socially is restricted by humiliation.[xxi] Ultimately, methods of disempowerment, such as domicide, hold the potential to socially eliminate an oppressed group. 

As Parekh describes, ‘a society based on humiliation uses all means at its disposal to keep the humiliated groups in conditions of poverty, squalor, long working hours, ill health, political isolation, and social marginalization.’[xxii] This is distressingly materialized by the radio presenter who expressed the humiliation he experienced after having to defecate in front of his family and neighbors, something that can subvert and deconstitute one’s social being.[xxiii] My observations of Palestinian men demonstrated that masculinity is largely claimed through notions of self-control and agency over the body through both physical and emotional discipline, particularly poignant given frequent comparisons of the Palestinian land to the body. A 70-year-old male interviewee originally from Dheisha Camp spent 25 years in Israeli prison; he described the chronic stomach problems that he developed from sharing a toilet with 49 other men, ‘there is a lot of violence inside the jail, and I did not go to the toilet for 12 days.’ When he left prison, this pain functioned as a reminder of these past experiences of violence and vulnerability, alongside the mental pain, he noted. This is seen across all the geographies in the occupied West Bank. One 22-year-old interviewee from Bait Sahour had discovered that his newly married cousin had been beaten by her husband during their honeymoon. This had ignited a feud between their families, so he had been called upon to ‘deal with the situation.’ He told me, ‘When I find him, I will hit him in the face once, maybe twice, but that is it as I have to have control.’ This illuminates how mastery over body and space is likely crucial to claiming honorable masculinity.

SETTLER EXPANSION 

The home should provide ‘safety, harmony, and love,’ a father of three children from Al-Khalil lamented to me. The occupation, rather, restructures this space into a prison, a military base, a graveyard. As Baxter argues, the home has been increasingly used as a space of refuge from danger and humiliation which the occupation encroaches upon.[xxiv] Outside of demolitions, the expansion of settlements applies other forms of violence to render Palestinian homes uninhabitable and force families to evacuate their spaces. Homes close to the settlements in Al-Khalil, for example, are continuously threatened by violence from ideological settlers, without any legal consequences. As a means of intimidation, ideological settlers throw stones through the windows, shout verbal abuse, and often physically attack Palestinians as they leave their homes. This occurs regularly for homes that overlook Al-Shuhada Street, a major road in the Old City that has remained blocked off from Palestinians since 1994 after 29 Palestinians were murdered by ideological settler Baruch Goldstein.[xxv] For protection, many Palestinians place bars on the windows of their homes, forming a self-imprisonment. Through the discourse of security, the occupation has legitimized a further act of apartheid and left Palestinians vulnerable to attacks. 

Mbembe argues that ‘the settlement project in Palestine sought the fragmentation of Palestinian society and geography, to take control over its territories and expel its inhabitants.’[xxvi] One interview with an internationally renowned activist in Al-Khalil brought Mbembe’s work to life. The home in which we conducted the interview was one of the last Palestinian-owned homes in the settlement and was under constant threat of occupation by ideological settlers. The interviewee proudly explained how he contacted the Palestinian owner, who had been too afraid to resist the settlers and offered to pay him the rent to stay in the house and resist the occupation himself. Despite the power of his resistance by inhabiting this home, this ignited violence, including loss of familial and social relationships, legal prosecution, and the construction of an uninhabitable area. The activist explained how: 

‘Here, you do not have access to maintenance, ambulance, friends do not come to visit because it is a closed military zone. You are living in a ghost town and jail at the same time. I am living in a big prison here without protection or food. All aspects of your life are controlled and affected by the mood of Israeli settlers.’ 

Through a ‘closed military zone,’ the occupation attempts to create unliveable conditions, isolated from support systems and social relations, to drive Palestinians out of their homes. It only took one hour for this to be brought to life as two soldiers infiltrated the home, demanding that we switch off the Arabic music playing. The soldiers and activist shouted at one another until one of the soldiers raised his gun and threatened to kill him. This contest via noise brought to mind my interviewees’ description of masculinity, many of whom referenced a ‘using a loud, harsh voice.’ He explained to me that he had not seen his son for months, who had moved away with his wife because of the danger of living in this home. In this case, the activist chose to protect his family and Palestinian land through self-detachment. This is particularly pertinent considering the traditional Muslim culture in Al-Khalil, which situates the family as the central social unit. There is an interesting dichotomy at play; by embodying the role of the ‘protector,’ his role as a father is disassembled. Through continuous pressure on the home through both physical and psychological violence, the social, economic, and political connections of the Palestinians residing within are weakened. Ultimately, men cannot protect both the home as a physical space and the family: the occupation forces a decision. 

CONCLUSION 

This paper has established the dominant performance of Palestinian masculinity to be reliant on the roles of the ‘protector’ and ‘provider.’ In instances of direct violence against the home, men’s ability to perform these roles is threatened, and consequently, the social fabric of the family is often damaged. Palestinian men largely attempt to reclaim gendered power through two primary strategies: 1) responsive violence and 2) self-isolation. In instances of physical violence against the home where men are faced with humiliation and the inability to protect family honor, a response of silence and self-isolation is often chosen. Subsequently, these men become isolated from the support systems that work to sustain life under the occupation and are unable to contribute to such systems themselves – what I call a ‘social death.’ Societal expectations of strength and stoicism place pressure on men to resist their feelings or deter them from seeking MHPSS support, preventing trauma recovery. The psychosocial impact of violence is exacerbated and breaks down men’s ability to protect the sphere of the Home and permits more violence to enter. This paper has identified not only how settler colonialism targets the Home but also how subsequent gender responses by men may further damage familial and communal relations. The gendered expectations placed upon men as the ‘protector’ and ‘provider’ amplify the violence of the occupation by preventing access to avenues of both solidarity and healing.

Interviews were conducted between June and July 2022.


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[xx] Nizet

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[xxiii] Al-Mohammad, H. 2007. ‘Ordure and disorder: the case of Basra and the anthropology of excrement’, Anthropology of the Middle East, 2(2), pp. 1–24.

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[xxv] Middle East Monitor

[xxvi] Mbembe,A. 2003. ‘Necropolitics’, Public Centre, 15(1), pp.11-40. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-15-1-11.