The nexus of possibility and constraint

Police Encounters: Security and Surveillance in Gaza under Egyptian Rule

Ilana Feldman 

California: Stanford
University Press, 2015

Pp. 207

Egypt’s policing of Gaza in the years 1948-67 may seem a rather narrow topic, but the analysis in this book extends to broader questions of politics, citizenship, community, popular aspirations and pivotal points in Gaza’s history.

Feldman is Associate professor of anthropology, history and international affairs at George Washington University. She has spent much time in Gaza, and conducted both interviews and archival research for this study.

Based on evidence ranging from the nitty-gritty of who was arrested and why, to the testimonies of former Palestinian police officers and the writings of imprisoned communists, the book reveals “a policing apparatus that concerned itself with the control of social and moral order as well as crime and politics, that engaged in the surveillance of seemingly ordinary activity, and relied on informers as much as professional police”. (p. 2)

It also reveals links to “the colonial policing that existed in Palestine before 1948, and the increasingly authoritarian policing that developed in Egypt during the 1950s”. (p. 3) 

While much about Egypt’s policing was similar to policing anywhere, there were also unique features related to the geopolitical situation —Israel’s proximity, Gaza’s provisional borders and unresolved legal status, and the presence of thousands of refugees, only recently expelled from their homes in historical Palestine. 

Several paradoxes were built into the Egyptian security forces’ dealings in Gaza: On the one hand, Gazans were viewed as a subject population in need of protection, care and rights. On the other hand, they were viewed as security threats, whose actions could provoke a violent Israeli response or threaten Egyptian control. Moreover, widespread policing produced both “security about daily life [little crime or violence] and insecurity about other members of the population, about political machinations inside and outside Gaza, and about the future”. (p. 24) 

Overall, policing was a repressive undertaking, but Feldman also shows another side of the story: “Perhaps more unexpected are the ways this expansive observation also provided mechanisms for people to influence government and to make changes in the conditions of their lives”. (p. 72)

Widespread surveillance made the police aware of popular demands. To be on top of the situation, they required that the public participate in policing by informing on their compatriots, and police reports indicate that Gazans did report others’ suspected political or criminal activities, as well as social behaviour considered harmful to the community. In response to signs of popular discontent, the police often moved to address everyday problems and even corruption in their own ranks. Due to this reciprocal relation, Gazans could sometimes press for their own demands for public order, protection, representation, and the right to fight for the liberation of Palestine, as occurred in 1955, when Egypt changed its policy from preventing Palestinians from crossing the border, to supporting fedayeen actions.

Entering into virtually every sphere of life, the police also dealt with honour killings, which “bring two features of the security field into conflict: interdiction of crime and the claim of propriety”. (p. 87)

Feldman cites an interesting example of a woman who was strangled in Khan Yunis. “In this case, the police response to the murder did not engage the question of the validity of the charges of ‘immorality’ against Fatima. Killing her was murder, whatever the justification.” (p. 88)

This was in 1965, whereas such thinking has only recently taken hold in the judiciary of some countries in the region, if at all.

Police records not only tell a lot about the situation in Gaza, but, according to the author, “provide a rare window into the details of police procedure in the security states of the Arab world”. (p. 22)

Over time, policing in Gaza also acquired an international dimension as Gaza was the destination of the first ever UN peacekeeping force — the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), deployed after Israel withdrew from Gaza in 1957. In Feldman’s view, Gaza’s experience also has universal implications: “As we think about what conditions are necessary for civic and political action now — a question that has tremendous importance — it is worth remembering that the possibility of such action can exist even in highly policed and constrained circumstances… The lives of Gazans under Egyptian rule and our lives today, in whatever country we live, are shaped in this nexus of possibility and constraint.” (p. 149-150