Andy Clarno Knihy

In recent years, as peace between Israelis and Palestinians remains elusive, scholars and activists have turned to South African history to understand the situation. In the early 1990s, both South Africa and Israel began negotiating with their colonized populations. South Africa achieved democratization and legal equality for black citizens, while Palestinians have not gained freedom or equality, with Israel continuing as a settler-colonial state. Despite these differing outcomes, both regions have experienced similar socioeconomic changes over the past two decades: increasing inequality, racialized poverty, and advanced methods for maintaining power and controlling marginalized populations. This work explores the paradox of (de)colonization and neoliberal racial capitalism through a decade of research in Johannesburg and Jerusalem. It includes an ethnographic study of the precarious lives in Alexandra township, colonization dynamics in Bethlehem, the rise of fortified suburbs and private security in Johannesburg, and the security coordination between the Israeli military and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. As the first comparative study of these areas since the early 1990s, it addresses the limitations of liberation in South Africa, examines the effects of neoliberal restructuring in Palestine, and argues that a new form of neoliberal apartheid has emerged in both contexts.