In October 2023, at the beginning of an ever-escalating genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza, I wrote some rambling, rather perfunctory, thoughts on Afropessimism and Palestinian Liberation. I have since attempted to elaborate my thinking into a more structured argument, the result of which is the below essay. Declined for publication by several academic journals, I have decided to post it here, unsure of its merits but hoping amidst the words there may be a useful contribution to the conceptualizations of our collective struggles for liberation and the centrality of the Palestinian cause. I welcome feedback, critical or otherwise. As it is a lengthy essay, I have also made it available as a PDF.

Abstract: This paper draws upon Black feminist theory and Afropessimism to interrogate Palestinian demands for liberation. In doing so, it figures Zionism as a project of modernity and evaluates its epistemology through Sylvia Wynter’s formulation of the “genre of Man.” Subsequently, it picks up Afropessimism’s extension of Wynter’s thought to critique the ontology of the Human. As Zionism, a modern endeavor, knows itself through the othering of Palestinians, an Afropessimistic reading of Palestinian demands is examined. It is argued that Palestinian liberation is an impossibility in the current ordering of knowledge and being, demanding the end of the Human and this world.

In the face of genocide, the question of Palestinian liberation has never been more salient. Yet what liberation looks like and how to obtain it is a matter of debate. Formations such as the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian National Authority have accepted a two-state solution framework that would see a State of Palestine established alongside the State of Israel. Others have called for one binational state, where Israelis and Palestinians would live side by side under a secular, democratic government.[1] For its part, Palestinian civil society has focused less on a specific solution and more on the implementation of rights guaranteed under international law. This approach can be seen in the 2005 call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel, which demands an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the right to return for Palestinian refugees.[2] In a similar manner, scholars such as Rashid Khalidi have called for a focus on the inequality present in the Zionist project, proposing that a just solution in Palestine should be premised on equal rights for all inhabitants of the region: “Absolute equality of human, personal, civil, political, and national rights must be enshrined in whatever future scheme is ultimately accepted by the two societies. This is a high-sounding recommendation, but nothing else will address the core of the problem, nor will it be sustainable and lasting.”[3]

On the surface, appeals to equality and international law hold a certain resonance. They are aspirational yet practical, fitting within the current discourse regarding the fair and just organization of societies. At the same time, such approaches are hindered by unquestioned assumptions regarding the origins and intentions of constructs such as equality and international law, as well as the possibility of obtaining true or absolute justice within the current world paradigm. This paper argues that the present ontological and epistemological foundations of human being in this world – on which claims to equality or international law are based – impede the realization of Palestinian liberation. It posits that Palestinian freedom necessitates the creation of new worlds and, rather than the legislating of equality, the jettisoning of constructs such as modernity and the Human.

To make its case, this paper will place questions of Palestinian liberation into conversation with Black feminist thought and Afropessimism. It will first demonstrate the Zionist project to be one firmly rooted in modernity and loyalty to whiteness. Subsequently, it will draw upon the critiques of modernity formulated by Black feminist theorists, primarily Sylvia Wynter, arriving at a problematization of Man, or the current supremacy of the white, Western bourgeois male. Afropessimism will extend Wynter’s judgment of Man to encompass that of the Human, showing that Humanity itself is contingent upon anti-Blackness. Having troubled the construct of the Human, this paper will apply an Afropessimistic reading to Palestinian liberation, asking if total freedom means destruction of the Human, and Palestinians have been rendered as not-Human by Zionism, how can Afropessimism inform Palestinian liberation? I argue that Afropessimism not only assists in descriptively generating a theoretical reading of the Palestinian plight as the anti-modern Other, but also can prescriptively aid in conceptualizing resistance. My culminating argument, as mentioned above and built off the frameworks offered by Afropessimism and the Black feminist theory from which it emerged, is that true Palestinian liberation necessitates the end of modernity, the Human, and therefore, this world.