Surviving the Wall: Daily Struggles in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

This thesis examines the conditions and struggles among dispossessed Palestinians as they attempt to survive Israeli policies of surveillance and occupation in the West Bank. The thesis focusses on the consequences and struggles against the Israeli separation wall. The thesis highlights the fact that the physical structure of the wall imposes isolation, hardship and suppression over Palestinian daily life; but what is equally important to the structure itself, is the accompanied complex set of overt and covert dehumanising, humiliating and restrictive surveillance procedures which severely impact Palestinian life. Palestinian forms of resistance are often nonviolent, unconfrontational and disguised everyday acts of an affirmation of life and a determination to exist, all of which come under the heading of what Palestinians call ‘sumud’ or steadfastness. This thesis examines how the wall serves the Zionist project in Palestine and how it has brought Palestinian sumud onto the frontline of politics.