Cracks in the Separation Wall: Resisting Security and Global Problems of Truth in Khaled Jarrar’s Film Infiltrators

Abstract

Known for a series of art exhibitions and a documentary film that confront the violence of Palestinian occupation, Jarrar’s art displays both the absurdity of life under occupation and the subjugating differences and divisions produced by barriers, checkpoints, and militarized borders. Jarrar’s documentary film Infiltrators (2012), repetitively displays the many crossings and climbings of the separation wall that Palestinians undertake every day, demonstrating that the wall, as a boundary of securitization, and a symbol of global security, is flawed at its most basic premise. Situating the film within the tradition of Palestinian roadblock cinema, which continually demonstrates the fragmentation of life and movement under occupation, Jarrar’s film exposes and plays upon colonial dehumanizing tropes to demonstrate what I will call the truth problem of security. Further, Jarrar's film, as a resistance film, is read as a symbol that demonstrates connective ties to resistance movements around the globe, building on the idea of a Global Palestine.