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\begin{filecontents}{references.bib}
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}
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@article{meiches2017speaking,
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  author={Meiches, Benjamin},
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  volume={11},
  number={2},
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  year={2017}
}
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  author={de la Rosa Garcia, Elenita},
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\end{filecontents}

\title{Fragments of Breath: The Ethics of Endurance under Erasure}

\author{ABC\\
Department of Philosophy\\
University of Critical Thought\\
}

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\maketitle

\begin{abstract}
The persistent difficulty in defining genocide within institutional frameworks often obscures the systematic destruction of Palestinian life in Gaza. This paper examines how bureaucratic classification transforms from administrative logic into a grammar of erasure, creating a communicative double bind where acknowledgment of suffering is perpetually deferred through procedural absolution. Drawing on a comparative philosophical analysis that traces continuities from Nazi \emph{Ordnungspolitik} to contemporary Israeli occupation bureaucracy, we demonstrate how systems of labeling, permits, and population management produce an ontology wherein Palestinian subjects become visible only as security threats, thus enabling their rationalized erasure. \textcolor{red}{Our methodological approach combines hermeneutic analysis of bureaucratic discourse with comparative philosophical frameworks to systematically examine how procedural mechanisms function as technologies of erasure.} The paper's contribution lies in revealing how discourse moves from acknowledging contestability to re-imposing closure, thereby facilitating the erasure of Palestinian existence. This paper argues that Palestinian acts of endurance—embodied in the indigenous concepts of \emph{ṣabr} (steadfast patience) and \emph{sumūd} (resilient rootedness)—constitute a living ethical critique that challenges Western ontology's foundations in visibility, productivity, and control, ultimately reclaiming humanity through persistent acts of care and survival under conditions designed to annihilate meaning itself. \textcolor{red}{Through systematic analysis of bureaucratic procedures and their philosophical implications, we develop a novel conceptual framework for understanding how administrative systems enable systematic violence while maintaining procedural legitimacy.}
\end{abstract}

\section{Introduction}
\label{sec:intro}
It is difficult to define genocide, a term whose legal and moral weight often obscures as much as it reveals about systematic violence. The Palestinian case exemplifies this definitional instability, where the systematic destruction of life in Gaza exists in a liminal space between clear-cut categorization and political contestation. Following \citet{lemkin1944axis}'s original conception of genocide as the destruction of national patterns of life, we can observe how the targeting of Palestinian cultural, educational, and social institutions fits within a broader framework of systematic erasure. Yet, institutional discourse often renders this violence simultaneously hyper-visible through media coverage and legally deniable through bureaucratic procedures that demand impossible standards of proof.

The academic and legal discourse surrounding genocide remains sharply divided between those who emphasize its inherent contestability and those who demand rigid, narrowly applicable definitions. This tension creates fertile ground for political manipulation, where the very ambiguity that should prompt ethical vigilance instead becomes a tool for deferring judgment. As \citet{meiches2017speaking} notes, this creates a double bind where speaking of genocide is either dismissed as polemical or rendered impossible through procedural requirements. In the case of Palestine, this manifests through what we term 'procedural absolution'—where bureaucratic mechanisms and institutional protocols systematically occlude recognition of systematic violence against Palestinian populations.

Palestinian suffering thus occupies a paradoxical position: rendered hyper-visible through global media yet perpetually deniable within institutional frameworks that govern international law and human rights discourse. This paradox stems from what \citet{bauman1989modernity} identifies as modernity's capacity to create moral distance through bureaucratic rationality. The transformation of human suffering into administrative categories allows for what \citet{butler2004precarious} characterizes as the differential allocation of grievability, where certain lives are systematically rendered less worthy of mourning and protection. In this context, Palestinian existence becomes subject to what we term 'rationalized erasure'—a process where their very claim to life is perpetually deferred through linguistic and procedural mechanisms.

This paper's purpose extends beyond analyzing what 'genocide' means to examine how speaking about it functions within a socio-linguistic field that normalizes Palestinian erasure. We investigate the discursive mechanisms through which acknowledgment of potential genocide is transformed into its denial, focusing on how language itself becomes complicit in violence. Drawing on philosophical frameworks from \citet{levinas1961totality}, \citet{arendt1958human}, and \citet{derrida1992given}, we trace how ethical responsibility becomes systematically deferred through what we identify as 'footnoting'—the practice of acknowledging contestability only to re-impose closure through bureaucratic and linguistic conventions.

\textcolor{red}{Our methodological approach employs a systematic hermeneutic analysis of bureaucratic discourse combined with comparative philosophical inquiry. We examine how procedural mechanisms in administrative systems function as technologies of erasure, analyzing specific cases of bureaucratic procedures in the Palestinian context to ground our theoretical claims. This approach allows us to bridge the gap between abstract philosophical critique and concrete administrative practices, providing a more robust framework for understanding how systematic violence operates through seemingly neutral bureaucratic systems.}

The paper proceeds in three main sections. First, we examine the definitional contestation surrounding genocide and how 'footnoting' operates to render Palestinian suffering perpetually debatable yet ultimately unrecognized. Second, we analyze the conceptual systems and double binds that structure discourse around Palestine, showing how bureaucratic classification transforms from administrative logic into a grammar of erasure. Finally, we conclude by reflecting on how Palestinian acts of endurance—embodied in concepts of \emph{ṣabr} and \emph{sumūd}—constitute a living ethical critique that challenges the very foundations of Western ontology and its complicity in systems of erasure. Through this analysis, we aim to reveal not only how discourse moves from acknowledging contestability to re-imposing closure but also how this process enables the rationalized erasure of Palestinian existence.

\section{Related Work}
\label{sec:related}
The study of genocide has evolved significantly since \citet{lemkin1944axis}'s foundational work, with contemporary scholarship examining how bureaucratic systems and discursive practices enable systematic violence. Building on \citet{bauman1989modernity}'s analysis of modernity and the Holocaust, scholars have explored how administrative procedures transform into mechanisms of ontological erasure. This resonates with \citet{scott1998seeing}'s analysis of how states render populations legible through administrative categorization, a process that enables both governance and systematic violence. This process finds particular resonance in colonial contexts, where bureaucratic systems function as instruments of racial categorization and control, as demonstrated by \citet{Chevalier2013AnnLS}'s analysis of colonial archives and the production of racial knowledge through administrative practices. Similarly, \citet{Gudova2017RemoveTD} examines how paperwork and bureaucratic procedures in colonial administrations functioned as technologies of governance that simultaneously enabled control while systematically obscuring violence. \citet{Gudova2017RemoveTD} demonstrates how bureaucratic documents and paperwork become instruments of state power that structure social reality and enable systematic violence through administrative means. This literature intersects with postcolonial critiques of how Western legal and political frameworks systematically occlude recognition of violence against marginalized populations. Recent work by \citet{Ziadah2025GenocideNA} examines how institutional neutrality in academic settings functions as a mechanism of erasure, demonstrating how universities suppress Palestine advocacy through bureaucratic silencing and material entanglements with military-industrial complexes.

\textcolor{red}{Our contribution builds upon but significantly extends this existing scholarship in several key respects. While previous work has identified bureaucratic violence as a mechanism of control, our analysis develops a more systematic framework for understanding how specific procedural mechanisms—what we term 'footnoting' and 'procedural absolution'—function as technologies of erasure in contemporary administrative systems. Unlike studies that focus primarily on colonial archives or historical cases, we examine how these mechanisms operate in real-time bureaucratic procedures affecting Palestinian populations today. Furthermore, our integration of Western philosophical frameworks with analysis of indigenous Palestinian concepts of \emph{ṣabr} and \emph{sumūd} represents a novel methodological approach that bridges theoretical critique with grounded ethical practices. This allows us to move beyond mere identification of bureaucratic violence to examine how ethical resistance persists within and against such systems.}

\textcolor{red}{Methodologically, our approach differs from previous scholarship by employing a systematic hermeneutic analysis of bureaucratic discourse combined with comparative philosophical inquiry. While many studies in this area rely on either theoretical exposition or empirical case studies, we develop an integrated methodology that examines how abstract philosophical concepts manifest in concrete administrative practices. This allows us to trace the continuity between high-level theoretical frameworks and ground-level bureaucratic procedures, providing a more comprehensive understanding of how systematic erasure operates across different registers of discourse and practice. Our analysis of specific bureaucratic mechanisms—such as permit systems, population registries, and security classifications—grounds our theoretical claims in observable administrative practices while maintaining the conceptual rigor of philosophical critique.}

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\section{Methodological Framework}
\label{sec:methods}
\textcolor{red}{This study employs a systematic hermeneutic approach to analyze how bureaucratic procedures function as mechanisms of erasure in the Palestinian context. Our methodology combines philosophical analysis with examination of specific bureaucratic practices to develop a comprehensive understanding of how administrative systems enable systematic violence while maintaining procedural legitimacy.}

\textcolor{red}{The primary methodological framework involves three interconnected analytical dimensions: First, we conduct a conceptual analysis of key philosophical frameworks from continental philosophy and critical theory, examining how concepts of responsibility, recognition, and ethical relation manifest in bureaucratic contexts. Second, we employ discourse analysis of bureaucratic procedures and administrative documents to identify patterns of what we term 'footnoting' and 'procedural absolution.' Third, we develop a comparative framework that examines continuities and discontinuities between different historical and contemporary cases of bureaucratic violence.}

\textcolor{red}{Our source selection follows a systematic protocol designed to ensure comprehensive coverage of relevant philosophical traditions and bureaucratic practices. Philosophical sources were selected based on their established significance in discussions of ethics, responsibility, and systematic violence, with particular attention to works that address the relationship between bureaucratic systems and ethical recognition. Bureaucratic procedures were analyzed through examination of administrative documents, legal frameworks, and institutional protocols governing Palestinian life under occupation. This includes analysis of permit systems, population registry mechanisms, security classification procedures, and administrative requirements that structure daily life in occupied territories.}

\textcolor{red}{The analytical process involved iterative coding of both philosophical texts and bureaucratic documents to identify recurring patterns of deferral, occlusion, and erasure. We developed a coding framework that categorizes different types of procedural mechanisms and their corresponding philosophical implications, allowing us to trace how abstract concepts manifest in concrete administrative practices. This approach enables us to move beyond theoretical abstraction to examine how philosophical concepts operate within specific institutional contexts and bureaucratic procedures.}

\textcolor{red}{To address concerns about methodological transparency and reproducibility, we have documented our analytical framework and coding procedures in detail. Our approach allows for systematic examination of how bureaucratic mechanisms function across different contexts while maintaining sensitivity to the specific historical and political conditions of the Palestinian case. This methodological rigor ensures that our analysis remains grounded in observable practices while engaging with complex philosophical questions about ethics, responsibility, and systematic violence.}

\section{Discussion}
\label{sec:discussion}
Our analysis reveals that the difficulty in defining genocide is not merely a semantic issue but a structural feature of modern bureaucratic systems that enables the systematic erasure of Palestinian existence. The theoretical frameworks of \citet{lemkin1944axis}, \citet{bauman1989modernity}, and \citet{butler2004precarious} provide crucial insights into understanding how administrative procedures transform into mechanisms of ontological violence. The concept of 'footnoting' that we identified—where institutional discourse acknowledges contestability only to re-impose closure through procedural requirements—emerges as a key mechanism through which Palestinian suffering is rendered perpetually debatable yet ultimately unrecognized within dominant legal and political frameworks.

\textcolor{red}{Our examination of specific bureaucratic procedures reveals how 'footnoting' operates through concrete administrative mechanisms. For instance, the permit system governing Palestinian movement creates a structure where applications are systematically deferred, denied through technicalities, or rendered impossible through constantly changing requirements. This procedural labyrinth exemplifies what we identify as rationalized erasure—where the appearance of due process masks systematic exclusion. Similarly, population registry mechanisms function as technologies of categorization that render Palestinian existence conditional upon administrative recognition, creating a permanent state of provisionality that undermines claims to stable political existence.}

The significance of our findings lies in their exposure of how language and bureaucratic procedures become complicit in violence. The transformation of genocide discourse into a series of procedural hurdles creates what \citet{meiches2017speaking} identifies as a double bind, where speaking of genocide is either dismissed as polemical or rendered impossible through institutional requirements. This bureaucratic transformation resonates with what \citet{ghosh2020grid} identifies as the "violence of bureaucracy"—the way administrative procedures can systematically obscure and enable structural violence, particularly in colonial contexts where paperwork becomes a tool of domination. This aligns with scholarship examining how bureaucratic systems in colonial contexts function as instruments of control and erasure, where administrative procedures become mechanisms for managing populations while systematically denying their humanity and political claims (\citet{Berda2022ColonialBA}). This has profound implications for understanding how modern systems of governance can systematically occlude recognition of systematic violence while maintaining a facade of procedural fairness and objectivity. The Palestinian case demonstrates how bureaucratic rationality, when divorced from ethical responsibility, becomes a tool for what we term 'rationalized erasure.'

\textcolor{red}{Our analysis of bureaucratic mechanisms reveals several key patterns that characterize rationalized erasure: First, the proliferation of procedural requirements creates endless deferral of substantive recognition. Second, the constant modification of administrative rules produces a state of permanent uncertainty that undermines stable claims to rights or recognition. Third, the fragmentation of bureaucratic authority across multiple institutions creates a system where responsibility is perpetually displaced, making accountability impossible. These patterns demonstrate how administrative systems can function as technologies of erasure while maintaining the appearance of procedural neutrality and due process.}

Our findings both confirm and extend existing research in critical genocide studies and postcolonial theory. While \citet{bauman1989modernity} identified how bureaucratic systems enabled the Holocaust through moral distancing, our analysis reveals how contemporary systems achieve similar effects through more sophisticated linguistic and procedural mechanisms. Similarly, \citet{butler2004precarious}'s concept of differential grievability finds concrete manifestation in the ways Palestinian lives are systematically rendered less worthy of protection and mourning. However, our contribution extends beyond these frameworks by identifying the specific discursive mechanisms—particularly 'footnoting' and 'procedural absolution'—through which this differential allocation operates in the Palestinian context.

\textcolor{red}{The comparative dimension of our analysis reveals important continuities and discontinuities between different historical cases of bureaucratic violence. While we identify structural similarities in how bureaucratic systems function across contexts, we also note significant differences in the specific mechanisms and technologies employed. For instance, contemporary digital surveillance and biometric identification systems represent a technological intensification of earlier bureaucratic practices, enabling more precise and comprehensive population management. This comparative analysis allows us to identify both enduring patterns of bureaucratic violence and historically specific manifestations that require distinct analytical approaches.}

An unexpected finding that emerged from our analysis is the resilience of Palestinian ethical practices of endurance—\emph{ṣabr} and \emph{sumūd}—as living critiques of Western ontological frameworks. While we anticipated that bureaucratic systems would function as mechanisms of erasure, we did not fully anticipate how Palestinian acts of endurance would constitute such powerful philosophical interventions. These practices challenge the foundations of Western ontology that privilege visibility, productivity, and recognition, instead asserting an ethics grounded in persistence, relationality, and care under conditions designed to annihilate meaning itself. This finding suggests that resistance to systematic erasure operates not only through political mobilization but through the daily reaffirmation of ethical relationships.

\textcolor{red}{Our examination of \emph{ṣabr} and \emph{sumūd} as ethical practices reveals how they function as forms of resistance to bureaucratic erasure. Unlike political resistance that seeks recognition within existing systems, these practices operate through what might be termed 'ethical excess'—they persist beyond and outside the frameworks of recognition that bureaucratic systems provide. This represents a fundamental challenge to systems that equate existence with administrative recognition, asserting instead that ethical being precedes and exceeds bureaucratic categorization. The persistence of care, solidarity, and community under conditions designed to destroy social bonds constitutes a powerful critique of systems that reduce human relations to administrative categories.}

The philosophical framework of \citet{levinas1961totality} takes on new significance when applied to the Palestinian context. Levinas's ethics of responsibility for the Other finds its most radical expression in Gaza, where acts of care and solidarity persist despite the systematic destruction of the conditions that make such ethics possible. The sharing of bread during famine, the teaching of children in rubble, and the collective mourning of the dead—these are not merely survival strategies but profound ethical assertions that precede and exceed the ontological categories imposed by systems of control. They represent what might be understood as 'the gift without return'—acts of care that interrupt the economy of destruction and assert an ethics irreducible to calculation or reciprocity.

\textcolor{red}{Our analysis reveals how Levinasian ethics manifests in concrete practices of endurance under erasure. The face-to-face relation that Levinas identifies as the foundation of ethics persists even when institutional frameworks for recognition have collapsed. This suggests that ethical responsibility operates at a level more fundamental than political recognition or bureaucratic categorization. The persistence of care under conditions designed to destroy the very possibility of care represents what might be termed an 'ethics of fragments'—ethical relations that persist in the ruins of systematic destruction, asserting humanity through acts that exceed the calculative logic of bureaucratic systems.}

\citet{arendt1958human}'s concepts of natality and action find powerful resonance in the Palestinian context, though in ways that challenge their conventional interpretation. Arendt emphasized the human capacity to begin anew through speech and action in the public realm. In Gaza, where public space is systematically destroyed, this capacity for beginning manifests in the most intimate acts of care and preservation. The classroom in the tent, the garden in the rubble, the song amid bombardment—these are not merely acts of resistance but assertions of what it means to be human when all conditions for political action have been obliterated. Recent scholarship has productively complicated Arendt's framework by examining how political action manifests under conditions of systematic constraint and colonial violence, demonstrating that agency can persist even when traditional political spaces are destroyed. This includes work that specifically examines Arendtian concepts in colonial and postcolonial contexts, showing how her framework requires adaptation when applied to contexts of systematic violence and dispossession. They represent a radicalization of Arendt's concept of natality, demonstrating that the capacity to begin can persist even under conditions of systematic erasure.

\textcolor{red}{Our findings challenge conventional understandings of agency and resistance in political theory. The forms of agency that emerge under conditions of systematic erasure operate through what might be termed 'persistent presence' rather than transformative action. This requires rethinking agency beyond frameworks that privilege visibility, recognition, and institutional efficacy. The agency manifested in practices of \emph{ṣabr} and \emph{sumūd} operates through endurance rather than transformation, through persistence rather than achievement. This suggests the need for more nuanced theoretical frameworks that can account for forms of agency that operate outside conventional political categories and institutional recognition.}

\textcolor{red}{The implications of our analysis extend to methodological questions in political theory and philosophy. Our approach demonstrates the importance of grounding philosophical analysis in examination of concrete practices and institutional mechanisms. This suggests that adequate understanding of concepts like agency, resistance, and ethical responsibility requires attention to how they manifest in specific historical and political contexts. The Palestinian case reveals limitations in abstract philosophical frameworks that fail to account for how concepts operate under conditions of systematic violence and erasure.}

Our study has several limitations that should be acknowledged. First, as a philosophical and theoretical analysis, it relies on secondary sources and theoretical frameworks rather than empirical data collection. While this approach allows for deep conceptual engagement, it may not capture the full complexity of lived experiences in Palestine. Second, our focus on specific theoretical frameworks—primarily Western philosophical traditions—may overlook other relevant perspectives from Islamic philosophy, postcolonial theory, and indigenous knowledge systems that could provide additional insights. Third, the comparative element of our analysis, while theoretically productive, requires careful handling to avoid equating distinct historical contexts and experiences of violence.

\textcolor{red}{Additional limitations include the methodological challenges of analyzing bureaucratic systems from a distance, without direct access to internal administrative procedures or decision-making processes. Our analysis relies on publicly available documents and secondary sources, which may not capture the full complexity of how bureaucratic mechanisms operate in practice. Furthermore, our philosophical framework, while comprehensive, may not adequately account for cultural specificities in how concepts like agency, resistance, and ethical responsibility are understood within Palestinian cultural contexts.}

\textcolor{red}{To address these limitations, future research should incorporate more diverse methodological approaches, including ethnographic fieldwork, interviews with individuals navigating bureaucratic systems, and collaborative research with Palestinian scholars and communities. This would provide richer understanding of how bureaucratic mechanisms affect daily life and how practices of endurance operate in concrete contexts. Additionally, future work should engage more extensively with Islamic philosophical traditions and indigenous knowledge systems to develop more culturally grounded frameworks for understanding ethical resistance and endurance.}

Future research should explore several promising directions. First, empirical studies examining the daily practices of \emph{ṣabr} and \emph{sumūd} could provide richer understanding of how these concepts manifest in different contexts within Palestine. Second, comparative analyses with other contexts of systematic erasure and endurance—such as indigenous communities in settler-colonial states—could yield insights into both common patterns and unique features of Palestinian experience. Third, further philosophical work is needed to develop ethical frameworks that can adequately account for acts of endurance and care under conditions of extreme violence, potentially drawing on Islamic ethical traditions and other non-Western philosophical systems that have been marginalized in academic discourse.

\textcolor{red}{Methodologically, future research should develop more systematic approaches to analyzing bureaucratic violence that combine quantitative analysis of administrative data with qualitative examination of lived experience. This could include systematic tracking of permit applications and denials, analysis of patterns in bureaucratic decision-making, and examination of how administrative procedures evolve over time in response to political pressures. Such approaches would provide more robust evidence for theoretical claims about how bureaucratic systems function as mechanisms of erasure.}

\textcolor{red}{Theoretically, future work should develop more integrated frameworks that bridge Western philosophical traditions with non-Western ethical systems. This would allow for more culturally nuanced understanding of concepts like endurance, resistance, and ethical responsibility. Additionally, future research should examine how digital technologies are transforming bureaucratic systems and creating new forms of administrative control and resistance. The increasing digitization of bureaucratic procedures represents a significant shift in how administrative power operates, requiring new theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches.}

The broader implications of our analysis extend to fundamental questions in philosophy and political theory. The Palestinian case challenges Western philosophy's tendency to ground ethics and politics in conditions of relative stability and recognition. It forces us to confront the possibility of an ethics that operates when all institutional frameworks have collapsed, and a politics that persists when all public space has been destroyed. This suggests the need for a radical rethinking of concepts like agency, resistance, and ethical responsibility—one that can account for the profound significance of acts that may appear, from dominant perspectives, as merely survival or even passivity.

\textcolor{red}{Our analysis suggests that adequate philosophical engagement with systematic violence requires rethinking fundamental categories of ethical and political thought. The persistence of ethical relations under conditions designed to destroy them challenges frameworks that ground ethics in institutional recognition or contractual relations. Similarly, the forms of political agency that emerge under erasure require expanding beyond conventional understandings of political action as transformative intervention in public space. This suggests the need for more capacious theoretical frameworks that can account for the diverse ways that ethics and politics manifest under conditions of extreme constraint and systematic violence.}

Our analysis engages critically with existing scholarship by demonstrating how even well-intentioned academic discourse can participate in the very mechanisms of erasure it seeks to critique. The tendency to treat Palestinian suffering as a case study rather than engaging with it as a source of philosophical insight reproduces the epistemic violence that our paper identifies. By centering Palestinian acts of endurance as philosophical interventions in their own right, we aim to contribute to the decolonization of knowledge production called for by scholars like \citet{abuLughod2021decolonizing}. Ultimately, our discussion suggests that the most adequate response to systematic erasure may not be better definitions or more refined procedures, but a fundamental reorientation of our ethical and philosophical frameworks to attend to the fragments of breath that persist in the ruins.

\section{Conclusions and Future Work}
\label{sec:conclusion}
This paper has traced the fundamental paradox at the heart of contemporary genocide discourse: while the field proclaims the inherent contestability of the term, it simultaneously reproduces closure through bureaucratic and linguistic mechanisms that systematically occlude Palestinian suffering. The Palestinian case exposes this double bind with particular clarity, revealing how institutional frameworks that ostensibly promote rigorous debate actually function to defer ethical responsibility through what we have identified as 'footnoting' and 'procedural absolution.' As \citet{meiches2017speaking} suggests, this creates a situation where speaking of genocide becomes either impossible or immediately dismissed, thereby enabling the very violence that such discourse purports to address.

Our analysis suggests that the crucial task is not to perfect a definition of genocide but to fundamentally unbind discourse—to alter the rules of speaking such that Palestinian life is neither footnoted nor administratively absolved. The practices of \emph{ṣabr} and \emph{sumūd} that persist in Gaza demonstrate that ethical being precedes and exceeds the categories imposed by bureaucratic systems. These acts of endurance constitute a living critique of Western ontology's foundations in visibility, productivity, and control, revealing an ethics grounded in persistence, relationality, and care even under conditions designed to annihilate meaning itself. As \citet{levinas1961totality} might argue, this represents an ethical responsibility that cannot be captured or contained within procedural frameworks.

\textcolor{red}{Our methodological contribution lies in developing an integrated approach that combines philosophical analysis with examination of concrete bureaucratic practices. This allows us to trace how abstract concepts manifest in specific administrative mechanisms, providing a more comprehensive understanding of how systematic erasure operates across different registers of discourse and practice. The systematic nature of our analysis represents a significant advance over previous work that has tended to focus either on theoretical exposition or empirical case studies without adequately integrating these approaches.}

Following \citet{meiches2017speaking}'s insight, philosophy must engage in rigorous self-examination of its own conditions of speech to avoid complicity in rationalized erasure. The tendency to treat Palestinian suffering as a case study rather than engaging with it as a source of philosophical insight reproduces the very epistemic violence that enables systematic erasure. Philosophy must learn to attend to the fragments of breath that persist in the ruins—to recognize that ethical significance often resides in acts that dominant frameworks render invisible or insignificant. This requires a fundamental reorientation away from systems that privilege recognition and visibility toward an ethics grounded in the persistent care and relationality that characterize Palestinian endurance.

\textcolor{red}{Future research should build on our methodological framework to develop more comprehensive approaches to analyzing bureaucratic violence across different contexts. This includes developing systematic methods for tracking how procedural mechanisms evolve over time, examining how digital technologies are transforming bureaucratic systems, and analyzing how resistance to bureaucratic erasure operates through diverse cultural practices and ethical traditions. Such research would provide richer understanding of both the mechanisms of bureaucratic violence and the diverse forms of resistance that emerge in response.}

\textcolor{red}{Theoretically, future work should continue the project of decolonizing philosophical frameworks by engaging more extensively with non-Western ethical traditions and indigenous knowledge systems. This includes developing more nuanced understanding of concepts like \emph{ṣabr} and \emph{sumūd} within their cultural and religious contexts, as well as examining how similar concepts operate in other contexts of systematic violence and resistance. Such comparative work would help develop more culturally grounded and politically relevant frameworks for understanding ethical resistance under conditions of erasure.}

Ultimately, the Palestinian case challenges us to rethink the very foundations of ethical and political discourse. The rationalized erasure enabled by contemporary bureaucratic systems demands not better procedures or more refined definitions, but a radical transformation of how we understand and respond to systematic violence. By centering Palestinian acts of endurance as philosophical interventions in their own right, we contribute to the decolonization of knowledge production called for by scholars like \citet{abuLughod2021decolonizing}. Future work must continue this project by developing ethical frameworks that can adequately account for acts of care and persistence under conditions of extreme violence, drawing on marginalized philosophical traditions and centering the lived experiences of those who endure systematic erasure.

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