From Jamestown to Bethlehem: Local connections of geopolitical violence

Abstract

In this visual intervention, I demonstrate connections between Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and rural Jamestown, Pennsylvania, USA, through 14 photos of surrounding landscapes. This intervention demonstrates how local geopolitical landscapes between two settler colonial nations perpetuate violence in the occupied Palestinian Territory (oPT), specifically through photos of “less-lethal munitions” in the West Bank and the site near the Pennsylvania manufacturer. While many scholars have demonstrated how US media and broader geopolitical discourses shape violence in everyday, intimate ways on bodies and people, this photo essay demonstrates how geopolitical violence and rhetoric manifest in everyday, local landscapes. Photos in this essay come from Aida Camp in the occupied West Bank outside of Bethlehem and rural Ohio and Pennsylvania, USA, on the route to where Combined Systems, Inc. manufactures rubber bullets, tear gas canisters, and other “less-lethal munitions and launching systems” deployed by the Israeli Security Force (ISF) in Aida.