Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital/Settler-Colonialism in the Palestinian Liberation...

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Omar Zahzah Steven Salaita

Terms of Servitude

Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital/Settler-Colonialism in the Palestinian Liberation Struggle...

Omar Zahzah, Steven Salaita

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English

Seven Stories Press,U.S.
16 September 2025

Politics & government

This groundbreaking book documents how digital platforms and technology companies based in the United States support the Israeli settler-colonial project through censorship.

Terms of Servitude demonstrates how social media has become a new tool of anti-Palestinian suppression even though these platforms were initially instrumental in advancing the Palestinian struggle.

Features an introduction by Steven Salaita, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo.

Terms of Servitude is a joint production of The Censored Press and Seven Stories Press.

This groundbreaking book documents how digital platforms and technology companies based in the United States support the Israeli settler-colonial project through censorship.

Terms of Servitude demonstrates how social media has become a new tool of anti-Palestinian suppression even though these platforms were initially instrumental in advancing the Palestinian struggle.

Features an introduction by Steven Salaita, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo.

Terms of Servitude is a joint production of The Censored Press and Seven Stories Press.

Terms of Servitude explores the paradox whereby prominent digital platforms like Meta, Google, and X that initially facilitated the expression of activism and advocacy for Palestinian liberation have come to fortify Zionist settler-colonialism. Through anti-Palestinian censorship and erasure often justified by so-called ""terms of service"" or ""community standards"" violations, these Big Tech companies provide the Israeli occupation forces with AI technology and metadata used to streamline genocidal colonial violence against Palestinians.

Through original analysis and careful documentation, Omar Zahzah, Assistant Professor of Arab, Muslim, Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies at San Francisco State University, traces the timeline from the Sheikh Jarrah uprisings of 2021 to the beginning of October 2023 to the most current developments to explain social media's role in advancing and suppressing Palestinian narratives.

This revealing and alarming book explores what makes anti-colonial counter-narratives across digital platforms so urgent, and what resistance can and must mean in light of the consolidation of Big Tech with Israeli colonialism and genocide.

By: Omar Zahzah
Foreword by: Steven Salaita
Imprint: Seven Stories Press,U.S.
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 197mm, Width: 114mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9781644214800
ISBN 10: 1644214806
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 16 September 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Acknowledgements A Note On Process Foreword by Steven Salaita UNDERSTANDING DIGITAL/SETTLER-COLONIALISM Preface: Locating Palestine Rejecting the Language of Silence Formative Years: My Introduction to Digital/Settler-Colonialism Breeding Trolls for the Start Up Colony: Cyber Warfare in the Age of Hasbara 2.0 Meta’s Community Standards as a Tool of Digital/Settler-Colonialism Kidnapped Posters Serve Genocidal Sentiment X Marks the Spot: Digital/Settler-Colonialism and Musk’s Meeting with Netanyahu PARADIGMS OF SUPRESSION, NARRATIVES OF RESISTANCE E-Racing Palestine Narrative Shifts and Digital Muzzling: Anti-Colonial Resistance And the Internet Post-Oslo “We Battled the Algorithm and Won” Digital/Settler-Colonialism Goes Global: Zionism and Colonial Humanity in International Culture FIGHTING BACK Tech Giants Censor Palestinian Content TikTok Ban Sign of US Imperial Anxiety Campaign against Project Nimbus gathers steam and supportersWhy Big Tech’s Control of Social Media cannot stop Anti-Colonial Resistance “It’s Never Been about Community Standards:” Samidoun Faces Repression on Social Media Conclusion: Virtual Palestine

OMAR ZAHZAH is a writer, poet, organizer of Lebanese Palestinian descent, and Assistant Professor of Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies at San Francisco State University. Omar has covered digital repression in relation to Palestine as a freelance journalist since May 2021, with work appearing in such outlets as Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, CounterPunch, and more. Omar holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from UCLA. STEVEN SALAITA is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo. His most recent books are a memoir, An Honest Living, and a novel, Daughter, Son, Assassin. He writes at stevesalaita.com.

Reviews for Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital/Settler-Colonialism in the Palestinian Liberation Struggle

""Terms of Servitude is a blistering, timely testament to the unyielding power of Palestinian resistance in the age of digital empire. With eloquence and rigor, Omar Zahzah exposes how Silicon Valley’s so-called “neutral” technologies collude in Israel’s settler-colonial violence, demonstrating that censorship, algorithmic bias, and surveillance are not glitches but blueprints for silencing Indigenous struggles. Written in the midst of ongoing genocide yet unwavering in its vision, the book slices through corporate euphemisms to reveal how Big Tech encodes the brutality of occupation into pixels and code. It insists on situating Palestine at the center of any decolonial project seeking to reclaim the digital commons."" —Laila Shereen Sakr, author of Arabic Glitch: Technoculture, Data Bodies, and Archives ""From social media censorship to the pernicious surveillance of Palestinians and their supporters, Omar Zahzah chronicles the intimate involvement of American Big Tech corporations in Israel’s unrelenting settler-colonial project. Terms of Servitude provides a guide to understanding and resisting digital settler colonialism. It is a timely and urgent read for everyone concerned with the fate of Palestine.""—Michael Kwet, author of Digital Degrowth: Technology in the Age of Survival