Article The Palestinian Middle Class in Rawabi: Depoliticizing the Occupation Tina Grandinetti 1 Abstract This article examines the neoliberal promotion of the idea of a Palestinian ‘‘middle class’’ that can lead to peace by transcending perceived Arab backwardness or irrationality through market logic and capitalist reasoning. The Palestinian city of Rawabi is used as a case study, as it is marketed as a middle-class city built with support from both Israeli and Arab businesses and as a project that will ‘‘eliminate radicals on both sides.’’ An analysis of the marketing rhetoric of Rawabi provides insight into the political and cultural subjectivities being articulated by this new middle class. Ultimately, while the middle-class ethos being cultivated by Rawabi views neoliberal capitalism and consumerism as a sign of modernity and a new form of resistance, it operates to depoliticize economic devel- opment under occupation, preclude alternative models for ‘‘resistance’’ economies, and make the occupation less costly, or even profitable, to Israeli and Palestinian elite. Keywords middle class, neoliberalism, occupation, settler colonialism, resistance In the West Bank, between Ramallah and Nablus, air-conditioned tour busses carry groups of Amer- ican investors up and down a winding road to view the birth of a new Palestinian City called Rawabi. Construction cranes rise up into the air alongside fluttering Palestinian flags. Rawabi, they are told, represents the promise of a new Palestine. In this article, I examine the neoliberal promotion of the idea of a Palestinian ‘‘middle class’’ that can lead to peace by transcending perceived Arab back- wardness or irrationality through market logic and capitalist reasoning. I use the Palestinian city of Rawabi as a case study, as it is marketed as a middle-class city built with support from both Israeli and Arab businesses and as a project that will ‘‘eliminate radicals on both sides.’’ 1 By analyzing the marketing rhetoric of Rawabi, I hope to gain insight into the political and cultural subjectivities being articulated by this new middle class. I argue that the discourse put forth by Rawabi’s developers seeks to (1) distinguish and identify a young, upwardly mobile, business-minded—and importantly—moderate middle class of Palesti- nians, (2) actively depoliticize the occupation by erasing rhetorical and visual reminders of the occu- pation from both the discursive and spatial aspects of life in Rawabi, and (3) supplant discourses of 1 University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA Corresponding Author: Tina Grandinetti, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96266, USA. Email: tinag@hawaii.edu Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 1-16 ª The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0304375415581259 alt.sagepub.com