Gavriel Cutipa-Zorn presents: "Tangled Histories of Israel and Latin America"

 

Presenter Bio:

Gavriel Cutipa-Zorn is a Perry World House fellow. His research covers the imperial histories of surveillance and agribusiness throughout the twentieth century. His book project, Net Empire: US and Israeli Technologies of Counterinsurgency Across the Americas, argues that US efforts to subcontract the control of movement of people in Israel/Palestine and Latin America shaped contemporary policing protocols and data surveillance of agricultural farmland in the United States. Cutipa-Zorn’s writing has been published in Cultural Dynamics, Review of International Studies, and Space and Society. He received his PhD in American Studies from Yale University and his BA in History and Africana Studies from Brown University.

Abstract:

In 2018, Guatemala became the first country to follow the Trump administration to move its diplomatic embassy with Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The decision - in denial of the national aspirations of the Palestinian population - reversed decades of US-stated policy that advanced a two state solution, while strengthening a burgeoning alliance between Israel and Central America. Since 2018, voters in eight countries in Latin America have chosen Left candidates. Today, the question of Palestine remains important to struggles against racism in Latin America. This talk revisits two flashpoints in the tangled history of Israel and Latin America, where transfers of technology and military intelligence have been central: first, the Cold War period of US hegemony in Latin America; and second, the expansion of digital surveillance and exchange programs today.

 

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This event is co-sponsored by Perry World House.