The Impact of Protracted Peace Processes on Identities in Conflict: The Case of Israel and Palestine

Description

This open access book discusses the impact of protracted peace processes on identities in conflict. It is concerned with how lingering peace processes affect, in the long-term, patterns of othering in protracted conflicts, and how this relates with enduring violence. Taking Israel and Palestine as a case study, the book traces different representations of success and failure of the protracted peace process, as well as its associated policies, narratives, norms and practices, to analyze its impact on identity and its contribution to the maintenance and/or transformation of the cultural component of violence. On the one hand, drawing from an interdisciplinary approach comprising International Relations (IR), History and Social Psychology, this book proposes an analytical framework for assessing the specificities of the construction of identities in protracted conflicts. It identifies dehumanization and practices of reconciliation in ongoing conflicts – what is called peace-less reconciliation – as the main elements influencing processes of othering and violence in this kind of conflicts. On the other hand, the book offers an empirical historical analysis on how the protracted peace process has impacted identity building and representations made of the ‘other’ in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the end of the 19th century to the present day. Financial Support Acknowledgments About This Book Contents About the Author Abbreviations List of Pictures List of Tables Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Research Overview 1.2 Protracted Peace Processes, Protracting Conflict 1.3 Dehumanization and Peace-less Reconciliation in Israel and Palestine: A Historical Analysis 1.4 Structure of the Book References Part I: Identities in Conflict Chapter 2: The Construction of Identities in Protracted Conflicts 2.1 Framing Identities in Conflict: A Constructivist Perspective 2.2 Protracted Peace Processes: Definition and Characteristics 2.3 The Co-constitution of Identity and Violence 2.3.1 Categories of Identity 2.3.2 Categories of Violence 2.4 Conclusion References Chapter 3: Elements of Identity in Conflict 3.1 Dehumanization 3.2 Peace-less Reconciliation 3.3 Drawing the Cycle of Protractedness 3.4 Conclusion References Part II: The Genealogy of Dehumanization and Peace-less Reconciliation in Israel and Palestine Chapter 4: Before the Peace Process: Historical Roots of a Dysfunctional Relationship 4.1 Early Signs of Negative Interdependence in the Construction of National Identities 4.2 Reconciliation as the Accommodation of Interests in the British Mandate 4.3 Legitimacy and Recognition in the Wake of Conflict 4.4 Conclusion References Chapter 5: The UN Approach to the ‘Question of Palestine’ During the Cold War 5.1 Recognition and Denial from the Partition Plan to the First Intifada 5.2 Paving the Way to Political Reconciliation in a Bipolar World 5.3 An Action-Reaction Approach and the Construction of National Identities 5.4 Conclusion References Chapter 6: Reconciliation and Recognition in the Oslo Accords 6.1 Liberal Peace, Mutual Recognition and Dissent 6.2 Policy Changes in the 1990s: Post-conflict Peacebuilding and Reconciliation 6.3 From Hope to New Grievances in the Conflict of Identities 6.4 Conclusion References Chapter 7: The Twenty-First Century ‘No War, No Peace’: From the Second Intifada to the Stalemate of the Protracted Peace Process 7.1 Political Radicalization and the Increase of Cultural Violence 7.2 Subcontracting Peace: Reconciliation as an Everyday Process in the Twenty-First Century 7.3 New Avenues for Conflict Transformation from Dehumanization to Peace-Less Reconciliation 7.4 Conclusion References Chapter 8: Conclusion: Unraveling the Cycle of Protractedness References Appendix A: Chronology of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process from 1947 to 2022 From the Partition Plan to the First Intifada (1947 to 1987) The Oslo Period (90s) Twenty-First Century Peace Process (2001 to 2022) Appendix B: List of interviews Appendix C: Pictures Index