Rami Lévy au cœur du conflit israélo-palestinien, des « supermarchés de la paix » aux frontières multiples

Abstract

This paper proposes an original perspective on Israel/Palestine conflict, through trade activities of a supermarket chain. This chain exists in Israel but also in the Zone C of the occupied West bank. The status of this zone is theoretically mixed, especially its roads, but the extreme majority of its inhabitants are settlers and the Zone C zone is in the process of de facto annexation by the Hebrew State. In this regard, it appears as a territory with multiple borders. The Rami Levy supermarkets that settled in this zone attract both settler consumers and some Palestinians consumers. The “coexistence” of those two populations of customers supposedly radically opposed is sometimes an argument in the debate about the “economic peace”. Nevertheless, the ethnography of these supermarkets reveals a more complex and fragile coexistence.

Keywords

• Israel/Palestine
• conflict
• border trade
• economic peace
• anthropology of consumption