IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/devchg/v56y2025i4-5p597-618.html

Development as Erasure: Palestine, Genocide and ‘Reconstruction’

Author

Listed:
  • Rafeef Ziadah

Abstract

This article examines the destruction of Gaza since October 2023 as part of a longer settler‐colonial project in which war, reconstruction and development are inseparably linked. Far from a rupture, the devastation exemplifies a historical continuum of erasure, from the Nakba of 1948 to contemporary schemes such as ‘Gaza 2035’, which envision the territory as a depopulated investment frontier for energy, logistics and speculative urbanism. Situating Palestine within comparative settler‐colonial scholarship, the article highlights how development and humanitarian discourses function as technologies of control, embedding dispossession within fiscal regimes, aid dependency and infrastructural planning. Tracing these dynamics through the Oslo Accords, donor interventions and regional economic normalization, it shows how neoliberal frameworks have transformed reconstruction into an extension of war by other means. In this system, Israel emerges not only as militarily dominant but also as economically indispensable, its occupation sustained through global markets, supply chains and international complicity.

Suggested Citation

  • Rafeef Ziadah, 2025. "Development as Erasure: Palestine, Genocide and ‘Reconstruction’," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 56(4-5), pages 597-618, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:56:y:2025:i:4-5:p:597-618
    DOI: 10.1111/dech.70014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.70014
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/dech.70014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:56:y:2025:i:4-5:p:597-618. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0012-155X .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.