Liora Sion
Abstract This article examines how Israeli combat soldiers’ war songs function as a cultural medium for constructing and performing enmity against Palestinians. Through an analysis of original, soldier-composed lyrics from the First and Second Intifadas, the study traces a shift from ambivalent depictions of Palestinians to open calls for their elimination. Drawing on Carl Schmitt’s Theory of political enmity, James Ron’s frontier/ghetto framework, and Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, the article argues that enemy-making is not merely a product of formal military policy or top-down propaganda. Rather, it emerges through informal, emotionally charged, and creative practices that sediment over time. These songs reveal how military culture helps reproduce ethno-national hierarchies and normalize extreme violence, transforming Palestinians from internal subjects into existential threats. By linking cultural performance to shifting legal and spatial regimes of control, the article sheds light on how permanent war is sustained not only through political strategy, but through affective and symbolic labor within settler–colonial military institutions.