An American Soldier in Bed: Intimacy and Global Politics in the Port of Haifa

This article examines the politics of memory and oblivion surrounding the visits to Haifa Port of the Sixth Fleet in the years 1979-2001. Through historic and legal texts and ethnographic documentation of the rejuvenating port area, the article sheds light on the silenced conflicts between the American Empire and the port city in the neoliberal era. By examining the physical aspects of the encounters between Israeli citizens and U.S. soldiers, the author exposes the formation of the alliance between Israel and the US. She posits that the disappearance of the Sixth Fleet soldiers from the spatial memory and national narrative is rooted in the local ambivalence over the dependency relationship between the U.S., the empire – and Israel, the client state. The dominant discourse preferred the normalization of prostitution, encouraged the obfuscation of cases of gender violence, and promoted a supposedly solemn and egalitarian narrative, according to which the special relationship between the two countries was based on mutuality, political independence and complementary interests.