Abboud Hamayel interrogates the perpetual state of war Israel imposes on Palestinians

Abboud Hamayel is a Lecturer in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature at Birzeit University. In this conversation we talk about a number of his recent articles, and think through the implications of the October 7th Al-Aqsa Flood, or the attacks led by Hamas within the so-called Gaza Envelope. Abboud has written some invaluable pieces breaking down the assumptions people project onto Palestine in the West, on the complicity of the United States, in particular, in the ongoing annihilation of Palestinian society. Those essays are absolutely essential for thinking through and acting against the settler colonial violence being perpetrated in Gaza. The conversation here is relatively long, but extremely focused. There’s a concentration on what can be done that should be useful, but Abboud also offers a really rigorous theorizing of the foundations of occupation and settlement. He understands how the occupation affects life and politics in the West Bank, and that reality is something that I think we need to grasp more thoroughly.