Dual-Use Politics: Military Agri-Tech and the Fight Against the Red Palm Weevil in Israel/Palestine

This article examines the anthropology of dual-use by analyzing how military technologies are repurposed for environmental management in date plantations in Israel/Palestine and the Middle East. By foregrounding the Red Palm Weevil as a paradigmatic Anthropocene pest revealing multispecies entanglements shaped by dynamics in the region, we show how Israeli military intelligence professionals, Israeli farmers, and Palestinian farmers mobilise cyber-seismic sensing technologies, making this case a distinctive site for theorising invasive species and technological repurposing. Expanding the concept of dual-use beyond its military-economic frame, we highlight its role in socio-political and ecological assemblages within a settler-colonial landscape. We demonstrate how these efforts foster ad-hoc alliances despite entrenched power dynamics, violence, and political constraints. Integrating scholarships on invasive species, more-than-human interactions in the Plantationocene, and dual-use technologies, this article offers a critical account of the military agri-tech complex as both a challenge and a point of convergence amid environmental change.