Labor as a Colonial Apparatus: Exclusion, Exploitation, and Discipline in Palestine

Abstract The suspension of Palestinian work permits after October 7, 2023, exposed the long-standing fragility of Palestinian labor in Israel and illuminated the political purposes this labor regime serves. This article situates Palestinian workers within a historical continuum of exclusion and conditional incorporation that has structured Zionist and Israeli labor policy since the Mandate period. Drawing on archival, historical, and contemporary sources, we show that Palestinian labor has functioned not as a neutral economic exchange but as a central instrument of colonial governance. We argue that Israeli labor policy toward Palestinians combines three interlocking logics—elimination, exploitation, and discipline—through which workers are rendered simultaneously indispensable to key sectors and permanently vulnerable to surveillance, disposability, and political sanction. The permit regime, tolerated informality, and externalized social reproduction constitute a technology of control that manages mobility while fragmenting collective agency. By analyzing Palestinian labor as a colonial apparatus, the article contributes to wider debates on the coloniality of labor and demonstrates how labor regimes can be mobilized to restructure dependent economies and pacify subordinated populations.