Calling without calling: Barghouti, Derrida and ‘the international day of telephones’

Drawing on research into telecommunications in the region by Helga Tawil-Souri (2013, 2015), this essay focuses literary, cultural and political implications of telephony Israel-Palestine. Analysing telephone Mourid Barghouti's I Saw Ramallah (2000) Was Born There, Here (2011), argue that memoirs exile are structured an impossible logic where picking up phone means not getting through. Demonstrating ways lines communication within between communities crossed, complicated, often cut entirely, point to oppressive religious, geographical boundaries only mirrored but also significantly extended through infrastructure occupied territories. The reads Barghouti alongside Jacques Derrida's account telephoning Israel ‘Avowing – Impossible’ (1998). Suggesting new connecting texts, examine how Israeli control airspace, infrastructure, cellular networks contribute Eyal Weizman's (2007) model vertical architecture state how, effect, using for both Derrida recalls Blanchotian syntagma ‘X sans X’: calling without calling.