Lecture: The Past, Present, and Future of Indirect Rule in the Occupied West Bank

Please join us for a lecture by Diana Barbara Greenwald, Professor of Political Science at The City College of New York, City University of New York, in which she will summarize her research on Israel’s regime of “indirect rule” in the occupied West Bank and its effects on local governance of Palestinian communities. Israel has militarily occupied the West Bank since 1967. Greenwald characterizes this as a regime of indirect rule, an approach used by dominant powers—empires, colonial states, postcolonial states, or specific governments within them—that do not want to or cannot, except at great cost, govern some subset of the population that they control. Greenwald’s research highlights how this regime has shaped Palestinian government at the local level, drawing on quantitative data and interviews with Palestinian mayors, council members, and staff. Although the Palestinian case is often treated as exceptional, Greenwald draws illustrative parallels with British colonial India and South Africa’s apartheid regime. In the wake of the October 7 attacks in Israel and Israel’s ensuing war on Gaza, the future of the indirect rule regime in the West Bank—and, ultimately, Palestinian self-determination—is highly uncertain.