Joseph Rafael Kaplan Weinger

This dissertation project critically explores the relationship between colonial states and settlers in the context of Zionist settlement, particularly in the contemporary Occupied Palestinian Territories. This research integrates historical analysis of archival records and ethnography of present conditions to investigate how the monopoly of state violence is challenged, delegated, or maintained amid the process of coerced territorial redistribution. It asks, How and why do relations between settlers and colonial states fluctuate between alliance, reinforcement, and discordance? What hybrid forms of sovereignty emerge that fracture the state’s monopoly on legitimate coercion? How does this cleavage differentially shape the outcome of frontier violence? The project, based on four ethnographic and archival case studies of “authorized” and “unauthorized” colonies, empirically assesses the repercussions of the hypothetical splintering or delegation on the employment of frontier violence against Palestinian cultivators. It sheds light on the dynamic contingencies and sequenced processes animating interactions between settlers, states, and indigenes, offering novel insights on the mechanisms of colonial settlement.