Weaponizing space requires suppressing independent witnesses to succeed

Evidence

Space itself is open to constant rearrangement. Borders and boundaries are shifted according to harassing security mandates, checkpoints appear and disappear momentarily, buildings are bulldozed at whim, paths created for militarizing purpose not just across landscapes but through Palestinians’ personal homes in a process Eyal Weizman theorizes as the elastic geographies of “hollow land.” All this always visited on those assumed to be ethnoracially distinct, as already possibly suspect, exhibiting habits, behavioral dispositions, and cultural expressions deemed peculiar. And all done as much as possible out of the presence of international media or monitors, giving rise for the most part to what Derek Gregory, in a different context, has called “war without witnesses.” The forced absence of neutral witnesses, of almost any observers other than embedded reporters, removes every barrier to violent interventions, targeted removals, terrorizing collective punishments, or directed collateral injuries or death. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 674

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader argument pattern of how state violence depends on information control and media exclusion — echoes Hannah Arendt on the fragility of power without spectacle.