well as family and neighbors back in the United States and in Europe writ-
ing e-mails reminding me to be vigilant, I swiftly understood the local
“topography of fear.” It was 2008, and the security situation in Israel was
relatively stable. Not unlike in New York or Chicago, some areas were, of
course, best to be avoided. I learnt from the locals where to go and what to
avoid, and I followed their advice. Thus while for my American dentist, the
whole of Israel seemed fearful, I learnt that there was a difference, not only
between Sderot, West Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv, but also each city had its
idiosyncratic geography of fear. There was a complex ecology of what was
considered safe, and by attending to how locals defined danger, I expected
to be able to minimize my own risks.
While I relatively soon felt comfortable navigating Israel, I was also
assigned to do research in the Palestinian Territories. Again I turned to
locals for advice. Yet when breaking the news to an Israeli colleague that I
wanted to go to a small Palestinian village to interview a local pastor, he
matter-of-factly stated, “if you go there, you will be killed.” Over coffee, a
former female solider told me “Palestiniansall they wantis kill as
many Jews as possible.” Other stories included graphic descriptions of the
lynching of Israeli soldiers in Bethlehem. A security briefing for
Fulbrighters soon after my arrival, stipulating a host of security measures,
also didn’t ease my fears. At the same time, exclusionary mechanisms, such
as fences, barriers, and walls, were everywhere: there were security guards
checking bags upon entry into public buildings, checkpoints, and gates at
universities, and the West Bank Wall between Israel and the Palestinian
Territories supposedly guarded “us” against “them.”^1 I started to under-
stand why Israelis felt “secured” by the wall. The stories I heard and the
security measures that were put in place, did indeed construct the West
Bank like a place and a space that seemed utterly “other,” “dangerous,” a
place where the “wild things are,” indeed the very “heart of darkness.”
How under the circumstances, could I not be paralyzed by fear?
One day, however, I entered East Jerusalem’s Arab quarter with my
Israeli friend Danny.^2 The streets were buzzing with Palestinians, tourists,
and venders, who were selling their gear from small make-shift stalls. As we
walked along the narrow streets, Danny suddenly turned to me ashen-
faced, shaky, and petrified: “I must turn back,” he insisted. We had just
passed a group of Israeli soldiers. Their presence rather than inspiring con-
fidence in him had signified danger. We turned around. What then is fear
which he felt so intensely and I didn’t? How indeed is fear and potential
danger unequally distributed? Had I gone inadvertently “native” in terms
of the way Israelis had defined the ecology of fear within IsraelPalestine?
Knowledge-Making and its Politics in Conflict Regions 21