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Mark Griffiths, "Checkpoint 300: Colonial Space in Palestine" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
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Dr. Mark Griffith
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New Books Network Announcer
Welcome to the New Books Network.
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Moita Zahajizadeh
Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of New Books Network. This is your host Moita Zahajizadeh from Critical Theory Channel. Today I'm honored to be speaking with Dr. Mark Griffith about a recent book that is published with Minnesota University Press and it's a very topical subject. The book is called Checkpoint 300 Colonial Space in Palestine. Mark Griffith is Reader in Political Geography at Newcastle University. He's the co editor of Encountering, Making and Unmaking Spaces of Colonial Violence. Mark welcome to New Books Network.
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Dr. Mark Griffith
Thank you for having me. Thank you for being interested in the book. Thanks.
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Moita Zahajizadeh
It's a very timely topic. But before we start talking about the book, can you just very briefly introduce yourself and talk about your field of expertise?
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Dr. Mark Griffith
Yeah, I mean as you mentioned, I'm a political geographer. I work in Newcastle, the uk and I mean expertise. I'm interested in colonial space, especially in Palestine and Israel's colonial project in Palestine. So I've written on different aspects of that. Checkpoints is one of them mobility restrictions. And that's what this book is focused on me mainly.
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Moita Zahajizadeh
And for the uninitiated, checkpoint 300. What does it refer to? What is checkpoint 300.
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Dr. Mark Griffith
Well, it's a large checkpoint crossing facility to the north of Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem. And where some checkpoints are just, you know, small facilities or even just a concrete block and a soldier. This one's become airport style. It was upgraded to something called terminal status in 2005. That means it's a whole network of corridors, turnstiles, biometric checks, and it controls the movement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, West Bank Palestinians coming from the south of the west bank north into Jerusalem. And it's embedded into the west bank wall. And so it's quite easy to miss from the Palestine side. But it means that all Palestinians, West Bank Palestinians, I say that again, who need to go north for their jobs or for a hospital appointment or for family or for whatever reason, they must pass through this or another checkpoint. But this one's one of the major ones.
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Moita Zahajizadeh
I've seen some videos and pictures of that. And in your book you have some really amazing pictures of the checkpoint and also different positive of the city. But we'll get to talk about it. But I'm interested to know how the idea of this book come about. And it would be great if you could also talk about, for writing this book because some of the pictures were taken by you. You've been there, you traveled to Palestine. Would be great if you could just tell us the idea of the book, how it came to you and also about your experience in Palestine when you were there doing research for this book.
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Dr. Mark Griffith
Yeah, sure. I mean, without making it too much of a personal story, I first went to Palestine in 2015, so 10 years ago and went to the checkpoint. And it is a very, it leaves an impression, that site because you think about the investments in capital, the thought that's gone into it, and the cruelty too, like trying to design some a space that is so dehumanizing, it's. It's quite a shocking space. And this will be a familiar experience, especially for visitors, non Palestinian visitors. Especially for white non Palestinian visitors. I. I'm not sure anymore, especially after writing this book, but I walked through that checkpoint almost without anybody looking at me. I would take my passport and I would barely ever be asked for it. Whereas the experience for Palestinians, as everyone knows and as the book shows, is completely different. So it's a very racialized space too. And then you start to talk to and get to know people in Bethlehem, as I have done over the years, and there's always a story about the checkpoint. And you realize that this, it's not just crossing the checkpoint that is, you know, the spatially spatializing function of the checkpoint is also just living around it. You know, whether you, you have a business in the, in the vicinity of the checkpoint or you're a resident, it's always there. Or whether your, your, your husband has a power. It's usually husbands. Whether your husband has a permit to pass as a laborer to go through there, then it affects your home life, too, as a wife, as a mother and all of those things. And so start to think about the wider spatial effects of the checkpoint. If that answers your question, Matissa.
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Moita Zahajizadeh
Yeah, it does. I have never been there myself, but I've seen a few documentaries, and also I've seen some pictures of how people are treated when they go through that checkpoint. That's quite distressing. And I listen to them. Like I said, I watched some documentaries. I don't remember the title of the documentaries now, but it was more or less ethnographic documentaries that interviewed people there. And it was for the first time that I realized I knew about the checkpoint. But it was for the first time that I realized how much that checkpoint is embedded into their everyday life. As you mentioned, for a simple doctor visit, you might take a whole day, or you might even decide that it's not even worth to try. So it sort of controls every single aspect of their lives. And it's very arbitrary for the Palestinians there. It's in terms of the way they decide who to let in, who not to let in. But anyway, we'll get to talk about some of these things. A lot of people might just look at that huge, huge, cruel structure and call it. It's the border between west bank and maybe other parts of occupied Palestine that is presided by settlers. But you tend to think of it, and in your book, you write about it as a colonial space rather than border. I'm keen to know why is it important to make that distinction, that it's not a border, but it's a colonial space?
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Dr. Mark Griffith
I'm glad you pick up on that point, because the checkpoint and large portions of the wall, including this part of Bethlehem, cut through not the line between internationally recognized Israel and the west bank or occupied territories, because the Green Line, which is the line that denotes that separation of space agreed by the United nations in 1948, is still 2 km to the north. So this land is all owned by Palestinian families in Bethlehem. So it's important not to conceptualize it as a crossing between Israel and Palestine because that gives into the colonial logic. And so I do talk of it as a bordering function in the terms it is there, it is a bordering function. It has the function of making people be checked, comply to the checkers authority, if you like. So it has a bordering function. But to call it a border itself needs a lot of qualification. So yeah, it's good that that came through clearly.
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Moita Zahajizadeh
Yeah, yeah, it certainly did. And I must say, in my naive years, I'd say maybe 15 years ago, when I got, when this checkpoint was being built, I used to think of it as border without wanting to take the side of the, you know, Israel, Palestine, but I used to just think of it as a borderline. But you're absolutely right and that you can't really, it's kind of a neutral term if you just say border. And another thing that I was really liked about your book was. And again, I guess a lot of people might just see this structure and think of it as a checkpoint. But when you, as you mentioned earlier, again, there's a lot of thoughts and planning gone into this. There's a lot of technology involved in this. And in a way, I guess you can even say that it controls the flow of labor. It's sort of reflective of capitalism as well. But anyhow, what I want to ask is how does that checkpoint reflect international complicity in Israel Settler colonialism? It's not only Israel that was involved in that. What does that tell us about that international complicity in this project?
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Dr. Mark Griffith
I mean, this is one of the things that I really push the book along when you start to think about the equipment and the know how that is involved in making that checkpoint space. So I mean, I memorized lots of pieces of equipment that I saw in and around the checkpoint and started to research them and tried to get to know who's supplying that hardware. So to give some examples, there's facial recognition technologies that are developed in universities in Europe, actually in the UK and then sold to the Israeli authorities. And then they're used and they're marketed as battle tested and then sold to, you know, like casinos in Las Vegas or sports stadiums in London. So this whole circulation of expertise and capital and innovation and some of this is what always gets me. Some of, you know, our best brains, if you like, PhD students, postdocs, are doing all of this research into how to make bio or like facial recognition technologies more efficient and then it's being used for these purposes, for these, you know, colonial control. Purposes of colonial control. So I'm fascinated by that. You could dedicate. You wrote a PhD. I wrote a PhD. It's hard work, you know, it's four, five years really hard work. And the product of that is that you are a part of this. And there are obviously there are other people, there are the supervisors and then there are the people who are making the money out of it. And I'm really interested in this circulation. So without saying without. I think the challenge is then we don't talk about colonialism or Israeli colonialism as like a dispersed, you know, it's just global capitalism. We have to remain focused on the fact that these are Israel's crimes that are, that are facilitated and enabled by international connections, international complicity. And I think that's where lots of activists and lots of journalists too are thinking around the current war on Gaza or, you know, it's supposed to have ended yesterday, but I don't know. And we've all got our doubts about that. So. Yeah, I hope that answers the question.
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Moita Zahajizadeh
It does and it's quite interesting. One thing, I mean, one. Good. Well, I can't say good. Of course, the horrible things that have been happening in the past three years, I think one of the consequences was that even university students, they were aware, but they have become more aware, I know, with the whole student in camp and that they don't want their money or their research, the resources of the university to support the genocide or to support the settler of colonialism. So that's at least the uplifting part of. Despite the fact that a lot of governments are complicit in this. But when you look at people out there on the street, students, they're not wanting to be involved in such crimes. That's a little heartwarming that people are becoming more and more aware that it's not only a foreign army oppressing others, but it's, it's, it's their taxpayer money. And I'm, I live in Australia. The government, my government is also responsible for this. My taxpayer, my tax money is also going into, it's being used in some of these companies. And you're absolutely right because it might look like it's something, you know, you know, in a sense like the facial recognition camera, but, but this equipment is actually used in war scenarios as well. And unfortunately it's used in places like Palestine. I think even the past three years they tested a lot of new weapons there. Yeah, in Gaza.
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Dr. Mark Griffith
Yeah, yeah. I mean if you go to any airport, you're going to find the same companies that are, that are selling their wares that have been used in checkpoints and security facilities over the, all over the world. And so I think that that Distinction between civilian and military is always very blurred. And I think we should be really, really tuned. And people are like students. Students are leading the way, actually. They're really showing us how to pressure their universities into not being complicit in this. In this war machine. And so I tried to draw focus on the circulation of these, of these, you know, products and knowledges and.
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Moita Zahajizadeh
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me ask you another question. It's about the role that this checkpoint, this spatial violence, because it's that huge structure, but it's not only a dead piece of, let's say, brick that is there. It has its own agency in terms of exerting violence. It shapes every aspect of Palestinian lives. And I know that there have been a couple of really, really good movies that I watched. I can't remember the name. One of them was by the famous Palestinian director. It was a Christian Palestinian. Anyhow, I don't remember the name. I think the movie was Divine Intervention. Yes, Divine Intervention. When two lovers wanted to meet, but they met each other at the Czech. The Czech was there, but it separated the lovelove. Another one. I think the movie was made like Omar, I think the name of the movie was. And it was again about how that checkpoint, the Wall, or the Israeli presence there influenced every aspect of life there. But anyhow, can you talk about this structure, this spatial violence, and how it shapes everyday lives of Palestinian people?
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Dr. Mark Griffith
Yeah, I mean, I'm a geographer, so I see or I think about things in spatial terms often. So it's not the only story. I'm also not Palestinian, so there are people who are more qualified to tell this story. But I would say, you know, spatial control is a essence of Palestinianness in many ways. So, you know, if you're a West Bank Palestinian, which is, to be clear, Israel issues ID cards to Palestinians according to where they're born and where they're from, where they have residency. So Jerusalem Palestinians have a different card to west bank to West Bank Palestinians. And again, Gaza is a different case. And then Palestinians who are offered citizenship in Israel are separate again. So you've got this hierarchies within Palestinians. So. And they can, can and can't do different things. So if you're West Bank Palestinian, you're not able to travel through the airport in Tel Aviv, for example. You have to go through Amman. So these are basics. I mean, I'm not sure how much listeners will be familiar with this, but even just going back to those basics, really important. If you are a Jerusalem Palestinian, you can buy a car with an Israeli number plate, which means you can drive through checkpoint 300 through the driving part, and you can pretty freely drive back and forth. At least you can when it's open. It's a bit different now the war's on. Whereas if you're a Palestinian with a West bank car, you can't do that. You can't go through there. You have to go through by foot. So spatial control, I think, is really important. And we shouldn't also think, forget about Palestinian diaspora, you know, like returning is, you know, it's an old story, an important story. We need to keep it, keep it alive, that they're not able to do that even to visit family, let alone come back to their homes. So spatial control, I think, is essential to understanding, you know, Palestinian struggle, Israeli colonialism. Yeah.
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Moita Zahajizadeh
And what about how does it. That colonial space, how does it affect men and women in Palestine differently? Does it create, let's say, gendered subjectivity there, the way it influences their lives?
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Dr. Mark Griffith
Yeah, I mean, I think there are many, many instances where there's a gendered aspect to colonial control in general, in Israeli colonial control specifically. But one thing that the book does is talk about the ways that permits. So to get a permit to cross the checkpoint. Often they're attached to labor, the needs of the labor market, Israel's labor market, and that could be construction and agriculture, they're the two main sectors, and they're issued almost entirely to men. So you have all these men going through the checkpoint. This is a bit convoluted, but it's really important to stay with it. So to get a permit, you have to fulfill certain criteria. You can't be involved in union action. You can't have been to prison or black blacklisted for many reasons. You're also much more likely to get a permit if you're a man, if you are married and if you have a child. By Israel's, you know, logic, that means you're less likely to be involved in, so, you know, terrorism against the Israeli state. But what that also means is that for every man you see crossing that checkpoint, which can take a long time in the mornings, could take two hours. It means they're getting up at 3 o' clock and 4 o' clock and they're coming back. And their whole workday is, you know, really elongated. And they're knackered, sorry, tired, knackered. They're leaving a woman and at least one child at home. So that means that the woman has to take on, you know, the wife has to take on More of the domestic labor, more parenting, more cooking, more cleaning. And that's not to say, you know, there aren't gender divisions anyway, like there are in Palestine and the world over, but that they're exacerbated there. There's no other way of arranging life when only the man can go to work and the. That his labor conditions are so harsh and that's multiplied by the checkpoint system. So I think that's one. That's one instance that the book gets into and sort of spurs, you know, chapters two and three of the book. I mean, I would add that I've been lucky enough to work with Palestinian women feminist researchers to learn about these things, to go in there as a British man to ask certain questions about, you know, how. How is your domestic labor divided in a home? Which we have done and people have spoken to us. It took a long time to sort of gain trust and, and get the stories as they. As they thought that they. They represented them fairly. So I'm lucky to have benefited from those collaborations.
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Moita Zahajizadeh
And you mentioned that how, how men are affected, those. The labor force, let's say, is affected by these checkpoints. I'm interested to know if women's experiences, how that. How do women experiences challenge these dominant narratives around the checkpoint violence.
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Dr. Mark Griffith
Yeah, I mean, there are two things that I talk about in the book and that I know about is that, you know, women's experiences of crossing the checkpoint are a lot different. They have lots more refused permits. They can generally, they. So there's a group of women who've tried to go as. No, they might try to go to promote the things that they make in their workshops. For example, there's a furniture workshop that I'm thinking of there, but they don't get a permit for that. They might try and go to have social time and maybe they, I don't know, go to the beach or go to Jerusalem and just have a day of social time. Often not allowed to do that. They do get permits to go to hospital visits and to accompany their family members to the hospital. So they get gendered in that way. So they're carers. They're often, you know, caring. Their permits are tied to their caring responsibilities. They can often get permits as well to go for prayer. So, you know, it's tied to religion. And on the other hand, they can't go to fulfill, you know, their social or political pursuits. And I think that's an important thing to recognize. They also have really terrible stories of being trapped in the crowds at the checkpoint. You know, for A woman being in a really, really close quarters with a lot of other bodies is a different experience. And often they've got kids with them as well, which makes it all the more stressful. There are some really terrible stories of. We talk about a place where people have cracked ribs and short of breath. And it has been like that at times. I think it's a bit like that. Less now in 2025, but it has been like that. And so they, you know that holding their kids up above their head so their kids can get by. And it's really so that, yeah, there is that gender experience of crossing. Um, but yeah, some really terrible stories come out of it.
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Moita Zahajizadeh
Yeah, especially that, that place. Those places are usually kind of male dominated. I mean, there are a lot of males there.
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Dr. Mark Griffith
Yeah.
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Moita Zahajizadeh
I mean, just after the complexity, just.
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Dr. Mark Griffith
Think yourself when you've ever been in a really crowded place, whether it's a sports event, I mean that for me as a, as somebody from the uk, it's a sports event. How that feels and how it would feel as a woman or a different, different kinds of positionality, I think is, is an entirely different space.
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Moita Zahajizadeh
Yeah. You also talk about Rachel about the role that her tomb plays in the spatial reconfiguration of Bethlehem. I'm keen to know more about it. If you could talk about it, that would be great.
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Dr. Mark Griffith
Yeah. Rachel's tomb is really important to understand the wider effects of Checkpoint 300 and its spatial makeup in northern Bethlehem. So if people don't know, Rachel, matriarch of Abrahamic religions, unlike the other patriarchs and matriarchs, is buried on the side of the road close to where checkpoint 300 is now, and not in Hebron Khalil, where the others are buried. And there's a tomb there which has been of varying, like different levels of importance to the three main Abrahamic religions. It's been a mosque, it's been a place of worship for also Christians and also Jews through centuries. It's been forgotten for long periods, for 10, tens of years and for hundreds of years at times. But during negotiations around the wall, or at least when Israel was deciding where to put the wall, there was apparently a last minute appeal to keep Rachel's tomb in Israeli hands. So what happens is the wall goes around what might be whatever natural means, in this case, a natural course around the north of Bethlehem, but then it dips in quite significantly about 300 meters as it happens into northern Bethlehem to sort of land grab this bit of this tomb, Rachel's Tomb, and around it, all the Palestinian buildings that were there are now part of it is a yeshiva, so a place of study. And it is accessible to Israeli Jews from the Israeli side of the wall. And so what that means is you've got, unlike in other parts of the west bank, you have an Israeli settlement right apart from in Hebron, but that's a different case. You have an Israeli settlement right in the middle of Palestinian urban space. Like you can be 10 or 20 meters apart from lots of settlers. And you can't see them, of course, because the wall is so high. But there's those two worlds existing at the same time. And what that protruding element of the wall does is sequester all of this space around the Hebron road area and means that it's a place of encounter where Palestinians might protest or do protest. And then Israeli military responds with all of its equipment that it has that it uses. So it's real, it can be a flashpoint and it can be a real site of colonial encounter in those senses. And that's where a lot of the technologies come in around that area. You know, we have drones and tear gas and skunk water and all the pretty terrible things. And rubber bullets that are not, you know, non lethal, they can be very lethal, too. So that's why Rachel's Tomb is important, because it means that it reconfigures contemporary space in that way.
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Moita Zahajizadeh
And it's a military occupation there. And the military is present almost everywhere. You can see soldiers, guns and military cars. How does that presence, that urban militarization of every single aspect of Palestinian love, how does it impact their economic and social life?
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Dr. Mark Griffith
Well, I mean, I'll speak about that area around the Hebron road in the checkpoint. So during the OSLO agreements in 95, in that brief period of maybe something better than what's happened now, there's a lot of investment. I mean, we should also remember there was an airport built in Gaza that was opened by Bill Clinton in this period that, you know, it's a completely different time. And this northern part of Bethlehem, because Bethlehem could almost be thought of as a southern suburb of Jerusalem. So this, this road which runs from Hebron through Bethlehem to Jerusalem and onto Nablus, really important thoroughfare. And it's where lots of trade would happen literally for thousands of years. So there's also lots of hotels, souvenir shops, just to give a bit of a historical take. It was where there used to be a casino, Bethlehem's first pizza place that everyone talks about from the mid-90s. But then you have a period of, you know, closure and the second Intifada and the road is closed and the wall is built across it. And at the checkpoint, of course, and you can imagine what happens. You know, residents, empty, businesses struggle or adapt, by the way, they. They don't just close down. Things for the different uses of space change. So what might have been an orchid? As you said, orchid, I meant to say orchard. So what might have been an orchard is now paved over and is now is a car park so people can park there while they go and use a checkpoint, do their day of labor. So you have. The entire space has been changed from a commercially vibrant, culturally vibrant area to a place that is really struggling to survive. It's been depopulated. Businesses have been either they've either disappeared or had to adapt. And so it's had a huge effect on the whole of the. I'd say the whole of the city, but especially the northern part of the city of Bethlehem.
- [30:15]
Moita Zahajizadeh
I wish I'd asked this question a bit earlier, because earlier then we talked about the complicity of, you know, global powers in that structure. Checkpoint 300. This colonialism is rarely, especially these days, you know, with globalism, it's rarely the work of, let's say, one single country. I'm keen to know your thoughts about how Checkpoint 300 exemplifies the global production of colonial space.
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Dr. Mark Griffith
Yeah, I mean, the complicity of certain companies that we talked about earlier is really key to understanding that. That Israel can purchase and use wares from the. That are produced through, you know, different researchers at universities and, I don't know, tear gas manufacturer from Pennsylvania, for example, and produce space in that way is really important. I think we should also not. I mean, this has really come to light in the war on Gaza, but let's not lose sight of the fact that the actions of the Israeli state are so often defended and given authority by Western states. And we can see, therefore, that the production of colonial space is global in that sense. That's the same for Australia where you live, same for UK where I live. But especially the United States protection of Israel. We only have to look at the United Nations Security Council resolutions, proposed resolutions on a ceasefire, and see how many the United States has vetoed.
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Moita Zahajizadeh
So far. We've been talking about how this structure, checkpoint 300, influences and impacts the everyday life of Palestinians. We talked about the complicity of international powers in this, about the gendered aspects of this structure. But let's talk about the Palestinians themselves. How do they navigate this colonial space? How do they remake that through their everyday practice? How do they challenge the narrative that is written for them in terms of how they go about their everyday life?
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Dr. Mark Griffith
I mean, that's a key question that I think we always need to keep coming back to. And the book, if I just. It's not all about the book, of course, but wouldn't be a book if it weren't for Palestinians wanting to talk about their stories and for who? I'm a person. I must mention too, a brilliant photographer, Nadia Marge, who took a lot of the photos, did a lot of the interviews too, that people want to tell their stories. I don't think a book's going to change the world, but this kind of thing's really important. The Palestinians remain visible, that they have a voice, and that's key there, in terms of that area around, it does remain Palestinian. So I mentioned that a lot of the economics activities have had to change, and that's true. And nobody would argue that the checkpoint and the Wall have been a good thing for the economy around there, but they've adapted. So what once was a restaurant where people have their Sunday lunch is now a restaurant that serves the workers a different kind of food of Course, and different times of the day, what was land that was used to, you know, it was an olive grove at one time, is now a car park, which obviously is not a great thing ecologically, but it is an adaptation. So economic life continues. And you know, there are areas around there that are because of the. It's area C within Palestinian urban space means there are different laws around tax or no laws around tax. So, you know, supermarkets have thrived. Of course, that doesn't help the supermarkets who are inside the taxable areas. But these different adaptations, Palestinian life does continue. And you could even people do romanticize this a little bit. But you know, the graffiti around the wall, there's also Bakkes Hotel around there, which is very famous, have become international symbols that people that are really well known, that people know that Palestinians struggle through this kind of shows of resistance and that Palestinian life does continue. And it does continue. And I think that's. That's also what I tried to do in the book. And what we should all try to do is just recall that Palestinian life continues. We've seen it today. I know you might ask me a question about this, but we're seeing it today in Gaza too, that in the most oppressive and terrible of conditions, that life does continue. So we need to defend it and make sure it does get a soapbox there. But yeah.
- [35:13]
Moita Zahajizadeh
And I think this is an important point because the whole point of this structure is to kind of make them disappear. But they're there, they're visible. They live their life. They resist that. And what about the, let's say the decolonial, and it's the title of the book, Colonial Space. What about the decolonial practice? What do you think decolonial practice could look like or should look like in the context of Checkpoint 300, whether it's in Palestine by Palestinians, which of course is quite naturally it's different from what their sympathizers around the world want to do to help them.
- [35:54]
Dr. Mark Griffith
Yeah, I mean, I want to stick to the, to the important point that decolonizing is about restitution of land. And that's always there's. I'm sure listeners will know that the famous article decolonization is not metaphor, but I think we should leave space for recognizing that the way that life can continue, for example, in the art projects are the cafes or the cultural center that are in the shadow of the wall in northern Bethlehem and in the shadow of the checkpoint, how they continue, how they plant land or sow the land with important foods for Palestinians in the refugee Camps around how that is a decolonial practice, how it doesn't give in to the way that the colonizer wants to make space, how it wants to create exceptional spatioside and make this a securitized space that cultural life and agricultural life can continue. I think that's an important decolonial practice. And on top of that, seeing it as a decolonial practice, talking about it, talking it into being and recognizing it. So, you know, there are lots of accounts of Palestine that go straight into, you know, kind of exception thanatopolitics is total Israeli control, which at times it is. Of course it is. But that. That doesn't see what. What. What there is to be defended, which is Palestinian life on Palestinian land. So I think it's an important decolon is to try and see that and talk it into being and give it space to live and breathe, whether in representation, whether it's in a book or, you know, in film, or different ways of doing that. That was a bit rambly, but anyway.
- [37:52]
Moita Zahajizadeh
That makes sense, I guess. Again, it's A lot of people have all this sympathy and they want to help, but they're at the same time they're not sure how the best they can do that. It's. I don't know, it's been two years and they're maybe frustrated as well because all those solidarity, all those movements haven't yielded the results they were hoping for. But this is not really. It is relevant to these things you discuss in the book, but maybe not really a chapter in the book, but I'm keen to know, to relate it to what's happening these days. There's a lot of solidarity and sympathy for Palestinians and criticism against this war. What do you think that international solidarity, what role does it play in dismantling this colonial architecture, Israel's colonial architecture in Palestine?
- [38:48]
Dr. Mark Griffith
Well, I think. I don't know. We're at a very difficult moment. I think international solidarity is everything. It's really important historically. It's been important to bring terrible governments. South Africa is the obvious case that is. Is compared and. But we are in a really. A really difficult moment or a really scary moment, I would say. So the international solidarity is strong. We've seen it, We've seen it in the cities. I mean, I just saw where you live in, in Sydney. Harbour Bridge was closed down by. By people once. They're activists and they aren't, but it's just also members of the public. And this was really turned the tide for lots of people who maybe didn't have an opinion before. You know, my, my family, friends who didn't even talk about it before now have a very clear ethical stance on Palestine and Israel where before they wouldn't have said a word. And it's really strong. People are, I wouldn't even call them pro Palestinian, they're just pro justice or they're pro.
- [39:51]
Moita Zahajizadeh
You're right, absolutely right.
- [39:53]
Dr. Mark Griffith
And this is really clear to me that it's stronger than ever. And we see it in cities all across the world, but at the same time we've never been gaslit so like so enthusiastically so even while in democratic, so called democratic states that obviously the majority of people would want a ceasefire to stop the war or for Netanyahu and his, his people to be in the Hague. That's not going to happen because governments are not listening to their publics, they're listening to other. Something else is pushing this along. So I think international solidarity is really strong. I'm not saying the battle for solidarity is one, but it's really strong at the moment. Yet all of us are facing, many of us are facing, from our own administrations, often university administrations, from police and from governments. We're facing dangers in speaking out, saying basically what everybody else believes. So I think it's a, it's a, it's a difficult, pretty terrible time.
- [41:00]
Moita Zahajizadeh
Yeah, yeah. And it's kind of heartwarming when you see ordinary people and as you said, you don't have to believe Palestine. It's just basic ethics and humanity. What's happening there is absolutely unjustified. And unfortunately some of these institutions, especially academic institutions that are supposed to be places for free discussion and for debate, are trying to silence not only the activist students alongside academics who simply disagree with what's happening there and they have all these basis accusations that they lay against them now that we're doing this interview. I guess it was just yesterday that a peace deal was announced and even Hamas, I think, if I'm not mistaken, I read it in a non English media. I need to check it. I haven't checked it, but I think even Hamas kind of was favorable and thanked Trump. But a lot of people have skepticism about this deal that is really shaky deal that has been signed between Israel and Hamas. Even let's say, even if a deal is achieved and there's a ceasefire. Do you think this is the response? This is the ideal response to the question of colonial space?
- [42:26]
Dr. Mark Griffith
No, I mean, I'll say this and it's really important and this is what we should hold above almost. I mean all other reactions, I'M reading from friends in God or gods and friends, that this is a moment for them to breathe for almost the first time in two years. So I'm gonna say it's a good thing they're not dropping. So they were. They were still firing after the ceasefire was announced. Yeah, but they're not. They're not bombing like they were. And so it means that these people can get some respite. It's been. We've seen how terrible it's been, so that's really important, something to hold on to, finally. But I think we need to be critical about the way it's come about. It's been on Trump's terms and Netanyahu's terms. It shouldn't be about Trump. Trump's obviously trying to. I'm not a geopolitics guy. I'm not. I'm not the person who knows a lot about, or tries to talk openly about states and international relations, but Trump's obviously got this idea in his head that he's a. He's the person who negotiates peace. I don't see this as a peace. I see as a peace ideal. And by the way, let's not forget that ISRA World's record on holding ceasefires is on keeping to ceasefires is not very good at all. But this shouldn't be about Trump. It should be about the United Nations. There should be, I would say a few things. First, there should be some international observers and journalists allowed to go into Gaza, because what they're going to find there, we. We all know it's going to be horrendous. But why aren't people being allowed in to do that right now? And there should be an inquiry. Of course there should be an inquiry. Part of the deal should be anyone who's got an arrest warrant, an international court should be tried. And that's not part of the dialogue, of course, and it won't be. And it's entirely on Netanyahu and Trump's terms. And I think that's not the way negotiations should take place. That said, it needs to hold, it needs to stop. And just for the Palestinians in Gaza, too, to those who are left, by the way, to recover in the best way that they can and remain there, by the way, if they want to remain there, they remain there. So let's see what happens.
- [44:43]
Moita Zahajizadeh
Yeah. As a final question, I know that you've recently published this book, and it takes a long time to write a book, but I'm keen to know if there's another project or A book you're working on that might be published sometime soon.
- [45:02]
Dr. Mark Griffith
Yeah, I mean it definitely won't be sometime soon, but yeah, I am working on another project. We're looking at the effects of war on ecologies. So Gaza is one place we're looking at actually, and it'll be important. What we learn from places like Iraq is that decades after people are suffering because ecology suffered and it has effects on, for example, fertility, cancer rates, different respiratory conditions. And it has in Iraq and that invasion is 2003. And so what we might find in the lands of Gaza is a similar effect. So we need to really think about what these long term effects of war are on ecologies, on the places that people live, the air they breathe, the waters they drink and how it can enter food chains and things like that. So that's our, that's been our focus for the last few years and so working on war and ecologies. War and Geos we're calling it. And there's a website too. So. Yeah, but the book is Books take a lot, as you may know. Like books take a long time. So.
- [46:12]
Moita Zahajizadeh
Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's easy to write a book, but.
- [46:16]
Dr. Mark Griffith
I hope loads of ideas, books, loads of titles.
- [46:21]
Moita Zahajizadeh
That's right. Well, hopefully that we should be able to talk to you soon once the new project is out. Mark, thank you very much for your time. This, as I mentioned earlier, this is a very timely topic. The book we just discussed was checkpoint 300 colonial space in Palestine, published by Minnesota University Press. Thank you very much for your time to discuss the book with us on New Books Network.
- [46:46]
Dr. Mark Griffith
Thank you, Morteza. Thank you for having me.