Occupier and Occupied
Israel, Palestine, and Masculinities across the Divide

Explores the gendered dynamics of settler colonialism through a comparative focus on masculinities across Israel and Palestine.

Chloe Skinner (Author)

9781009375214, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 June 2025

204 pages
23.4 x 16 x 1.7 cm, 0.43 kg

Working from the premise that gender and violence are cyclically related, masculinities' connection to power and violence are frequently simplistically assumed. Yet, amid ongoing colonisation and military occupation, there are other more complex dynamics simultaneously at play across Israel and Palestine. In this book, Chloe Skinner explores these dynamics, untangling the gendered politics of settler colonialism to shed specific light on the ways in which masculinities shift and morph in this context of colonial violence. Oscillating between analysis of Israeli militarism, colonisation, and military occupation in Palestine, each chapter examines the constitutive performance and negotiation of masculinised ideals across these colonial hierarchies. Masculinities are thus analysed across these settings in connection, rather than in isolation, as gendered hierarchies, performances, and identities intertwine and intersect with the racialised violence of settler colonialism.

Introduction
1. The docile bodies of 'muscular Judaism': militarised masculinities and embodied compliance in Israel
2. 'You can do nothing
he is a soldier with gun, and he is controlling you': The masculinised body under occupation
3. 'Injured soldiers', 'just warriors', or 'monsters': emotionality, 'morality' and militarised masculinities in Israel
4. 'It's the way I empty what is inside of me': occupied masculinities, emotional expression and rap music in a Palestinian refugee camp
5. 'The army, it makes me horny': untangling the sexual logic of Israel's settler colonial regime
6. At The nexus of imbalanced patriarchies: colonised masculinities and violence against women in occupied Palestine
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Constitution: government & the state [JPHC]