3 - The Age of Governing: Young Age as a Means of Control

Summary

Chapter 3 investigates how age shapes Palestinians’ lives in four contexts. The first is Israeli military trials of Palestinians. The chapter reveals how military judges have treated Palestinians’ young age as an aggravating factor; how Palestinians’ physical appearance affects their sentences; how the age categories applicable to Palestinians evolved from colonial British law; and how the Israeli judiciary has been inconsistent on all these issues. Broader insights are provided into both Israel’s governing through uncertainty and the inherent fluidity of childhood and age. Second, this chapter examines legal disputes over Israel’s open-fire regulations (rules of engagement). It shows how these regulations, which in principle forbid shooting at under-14s, have been interpreted to authorize firing at younger Palestinians whom Israeli forces perceive to be dangerous or older. Third, the chapter discusses the age-based food quotas imposed on the Gaza Strip. A critical light is cast on the logic guiding this form of biological warfare, as well as on Israel’s attempts to justify it in humanitarian and legal terms. Fourth, the chapter interrogates the deployment of age as a risk management tool within Israel’s movement restrictions, as well as Palestinians’ resistance to these restrictions by deceiving Israeli authorities about their age.