לינת חירום: הכלכלה הפוליטית של עבודה פלסטינית בזמן סגר הקורונה

This research note explores an unprecedented change during the first corona virus pandemic lockdown in Israel/Palestine (March–May 2020): 40,000 Palestinian construction workers received permits to sleep in Israel and were not allowed to return to their homes in the occupied Palestinian territories. This was a reversal of Israel’s policy since 1967, preventing Palestinians from sleeping within the “green line” borders. We argue that the control over the sleep of Palestinian workers is a critical site for establishing colonial sovereignty and neoliberal economy, and enables the state’s regulation of their bodies’ spatio-temporal possibilities. The resonance and difference between the pandemic’s biopolitics and the occupation’s bureaucracy invite two theoretical interventions. First, examining how neoliberal economic forces shape colonial governance; second, understanding Israel’s citizenship regime as an interplay between bureaucratic regulation and control over mobility.