37 The Zone in Reverse: Logistical Power and the Gaza Blockade Francesco Sebregondi Introduction of the localised actions of logistical disruption that What are the blind spots of a view of logistics as have multiplied around the world in recent years; ‘capital’s art of war’?1 This lapidary definition can their degree of success, indeed, is to be measured be said to encapsulate the primary angle of critique first and foremost against the particular demands used in much of the recent, humanities-based of the workers and activists undertaking them. scholarship on logistics.2 Undeniably, logistics plays Rather, what is perhaps worth questioning here a pivotal role in the current model of capitalism; is the conceptual schema that seems to emerge, as such, its operational logic increasingly sets the more or less explicitly, from a number of attempts rules for the restructuring of spaces and conditions at theorising such actions: whereby logistics = flow of labour all along a world-encompassing supply = capitalism, therefore blockade = interruption = chain. Yet this fact alone does not immediately entail resistance.4 Here it should suffice to mention the that the field of operations of logistics can be strictly example of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, reduced to capitalist dynamics. Could it be that, in and of the blockaded Gaza Strip, in particular, to order to formulate an effective critique of logistics, start disrupting such a schema. To anyone familiar one needs to venture beyond the horizon of capital? with the situation in Palestine, the recent entry into circulation of terms like ‘occupy’ or ‘blockade’ as key Paradoxically, it is the relative success of a major slogans of a self-proclaimed global movement of political mobilisation around and against logis- emancipation may have sounded, to say the least, tics that prompts us to pose this question. On 2 odd. What it raises is not merely a branding problem, November 2011, about twenty thousand protesters but rather a conceptual one. Unless key sites of marched into the port of Oakland – the fifth busiest struggle over mobility and circulation, such as container port in the US – causing a total shut- Palestine, are carved out as exceptions to an other- down of its activity. Widely discussed in the critical wise global rule of logistical capitalism, practices of literature on logistics, the blockade of the Port of obstruction and interruption cannot immediately be Oakland is often described as the most signifi- held as effective tactics of counter-power. cant instance of the Occupy movement, because of the actual disruption it caused to the material The main limit of the current critique of logistics flows of transnational capitalism. Among circles of that this essay sets out to discuss can be articulated the radical left, it has led to a discourse praising as follows: due to an excessive theoretical focus on ‘a move from the strike to the blockade’ as a new its instrumental role within globalised capitalism, paradigm of anti-capitalist action in the globalised logistics tends to be only considered in terms of condition.3 It would, of course, be foolish to pretend the flows that it releases and speeds up; in turn, assessing, in general terms, the strategic character this tendency entails a conceptual decoupling of 23 The Architecture of Logistics | Autumn / Winter 2018 | 37–52 38 logistics from questions of restricted mobility, isola- paradigm of logistics. The conclusion returns to tion, or confinement. As a result, the current critique the notion of logistical power used throughout the of logistics can be said to ignore a vast and signifi- essay, from the perspective of the expanded critical cant domain of logistical operations. What would it frame that it has outlined in the previous sections. mean to understand logistics as operating as much [Fig. 1a, 1b] on the fostering of certain flows as on the hindering of others? War as the continuation of logistics by other means With a view to addressing this question, the In 2005, Israel launched a unilateral Disengagement essay turns to the blockaded Gaza Strip. While it Plan, which resulted in the withdrawal of the military is rightly perceived as a place of closure – one that positions and the dismantlement of the settlements it is essentially bypassed by the flows of goods that had established inside the Gaza Strip since 1967. It logistics is meant to orchestrate – Gaza is nonethe- is no longer necessary to argue that this disengage- less proposed here as a paradigmatic logistical site; ment did not end the occupation of Gaza, but rather in the process, the essay outlines a reconstruction inaugurated an occupation of a new kind. In parallel of the problem of logistics as seen through the prism to the disengagement process, the concomitant of Gaza. At its core is a call to approach processes establishment, in 2007, of a drastic international of enclosure, isolation, and restriction of mobility as blockade has turned Gaza into an experimental logistical operations — in fact, as a mirror image of laboratory of colonial governance, where ‘Israel the fast-tracking operations that logistics is primarily fine-tunes a dubious balance of maximum control known for. and minimum responsibility’.6 Rather than marking the boundaries of Israel’s territorial sovereignty, the To develop this argument, the architectural blockade thus forms the primary infrastructure of perspective becomes critical. Indeed, an examina- the regime of power currently deployed over Gaza. tion of the Gaza blockade as a material process reveals that the spatial and technical infrastructure The sea, land, and air blockade of the Gaza used to obstruct circulations into and out of Gaza Strip has now entered into its second decade. By shares much in common with the one tasked with reducing the inflow of life-sustaining resources to lubricating the flow of goods and labour around the a bare minimum for the survival of its two million globe. The essay proceeds by setting Gaza’s archi- captive residents, it created a structure of subjuga- tecture of confinement against the ‘architecture tion that is unparalleled around the world.7 Unlike a of flow’ that typically characterises logistical sites medieval siege, the purpose of the blockade is not around the world.5 The material connections that to completely cut off the supply lines of the warring are identified in the process form the basis upon citadel of Gaza up to its final capitulation. Almost which the proposed revision to the problem of logis- every day, some goods, some supplies, and to a tics is articulated. The essay is thus structured as lesser extent, some people do cross the border follows. A first section examines the particular rela- of Gaza in either direction. Such flows ensure the tion between war and logistics that emerges from survival of an ever-growing population living on a Gaza’s recent past. A second section addresses narrow strip of land that has been rendered practi- the reversibility of the logistical apparatus through cally unfit for any form of productive economy. For a reading of Gaza as a zone in reverse. A third and this reason, the blockade could, at least in principle, final section turns to Gaza’s border crossings with a last indefinitely. view to discussing the terminal as the architectural 39 The approval or denial of any crossings of the communication across the border, those tunnels Gaza border is the remit of COGAT (Coordination posed indeed a fundamental – one may say topo- of Government Activities in the Territories), a unit logical – threat to the exercise of a mode of power subordinate to Israel’s Minister of Defence and based on the control of all forms of circulation. The commanded by a Major General of the IDF. Every army was thus called on to remodel a contested day, via its official Twitter account, COGAT posts terrain – to fill in the dangerous cavities through detailed statistics about the number of trucks it which Gaza was quite literally undercutting Israel’s allowed into Gaza, the total quantity of goods they authority. transported in tons, or the number of ambulance crossings it allowed.8 As an inexpensive public rela- The army’s role in shaping the spatial condi- tions campaign, these daily tweets perform two tions by which Gaza is governed can be identified distinct tasks. The obvious one is to downplay any in many other instances and extends beyond the allegations that Israel is strangling Gaza, by mini- timeframes of its mobilisation for large-scale mili- mising, in the eyes of the general public, the degree tary operations. Another example is the permanent of restriction to the flow of goods and people imposed ‘buffer zone’ that runs along the internal perimeter of by the blockade. The other one reveals, and in fact Gaza, and which considerably increases the fence’s affirms, the real purpose of the blockade as a regime encroachment into Palestinian territory. Its thickness of power. Rather than simply obstructing passage, is variable – from a hundred metres up to three kilo- the closure of the Gaza border enables, above all, metres during military operations.11 Regardless of a form of centralised and meticulous oversight over the lines on a map, the territory where the people distributed circulations – rendered by the detailed of Gaza can venture effectively ends where the figures that COGAT is so keen to tweet. With the army’s bullets land; and it is through the regular establishment of the blockade, the Israeli authori- shooting of anyone crossing that invisible line that ties have gained the ability to channel, monitor, and the soldiers permanently posted along the fence modulate the flow of everything going into and out remind the residents of Gaza of the current extent of of the Palestinian enclave.