This Foucault-inspired analysis of the degeneration of the Oslo Process into direct Palestinian-Israeli violence critically examines the ideas and practices that define Palestinian-Israeli relations. The text offers a radically different peace proposal that moves far beyond exhausted calls for confidence-building measures and/or an end to settlement construction.

Many observers have portrayed the Oslo Process as a milestone in the peacemaking process between Palestinians and Israelis. In this controversial and groundbreaking new work, McMahon challenges the interpretation of the Oslo Process as a breakthrough or new beginning in Palestinian-Israeli relations. He argues that the Oslo Process affected no discursive or non-discursive change and that the Oslo Process in fact institutionalized the analytics practices involved in Israeli and Palestinian relations. It should, McMahon concludes, be no surprise that the process ended with direct Palestinian-Israeli violence. This book will be crucial reading for scholars of Israeli and Palestinian relations as well as anyone who is interested in understanding what discursive change must occur for peace between Israel and Palestinians to be established and sustained.

A great deal of political and academic responses to the Israel/Palestine conflict have construed the Palestinians as an object of Western and Israeli discourses, rather than their own Palestinian discourse. This has hindered understanding of the internal mechanisms involved in the production of the Palestinian conditions. Palestinian Political Discourse presents an in-depth examination of Palestinian political discourse since an-Nakba in 1948 and stitches together the underlying mechanisms and rules that have shaped Palestinian politics, in turn synthesizing, interpreting and scrutinizing these rules. Studying the question of Palestine discursively offers new ways to rethink political agency, structures, identity, institutions and power relations while interpreting Palestinian actions. This book adds new understanding to Palestinian political agency by explaining how political actions were constructed. Discourse analysis methodology underlies the critical examination of the genealogy of concepts and frames that have oriented Palestinian political thought. Contrary to established views that ascribe shifts in Palestinian politics primarily to external factors and international changes, this book demonstrates how transformation has been a continuing inbuilt feature within the discursive regime and that dramatic shifts were only effects of much deeper, slowly evolving changes. Examining discourse, and thus language, offers an exceptional possibility to see from the Palestinian perspective. As such, this book provides material vital to the deeper interpretation of the Palestinian question. It will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of Israel-Palestine studies, Middle East studies, and discourse analysis.

This edited volume offers a new critical approach to the study of Zionist history and Israeli-Palestinian relations, based on the encounter between history and anthropology. Informed by the anthropological method of setting large questions to intimate settings, the book examines processes of Zionist colonization, nation-building and Palestinian dispossession by focusing on encounters between members of different national, religious and ethnic groups “from below”—through paying close attention to life stories and reconstructing everyday practices and micro-histories of places and communities. Thus, it tells a complex story in which the practices of historical actors are not simply reducible to a single underlying logic of colonization, even as they participate in the production and reproduction of colonial structures. This approach effectively undermines the prevailing tendency to study national communities in isolation, projecting onto the past an essentialist and rigid separation. Rather than assuming two clearly bounded and monolithic national groups, caught from the start in perpetual conflict, this volume probes their historical production through their evolving relationships, and their varied and shifting political, social, economic and cultural manifestations. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in an array of fields, including the history of Israeli-Palestinian relations, anthropological perspectives on settler colonialism, and Zionism.

How can irregular political situations, which impact the lives of millions, become normalized? Specifically, within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, how can 50 years of Israeli control over the Occupied Territories become accepted within Israeli society as a normal, possibly even banal phenomenon? Conversely, how can such a situation be estranged from daily reality, denied any relation to who "we" are? This volume explores these questions through the lens of two central discourses that dominate the Israeli debate regarding the future of the Occupied Territories: 1) Occupation Normalization Discourse, which portrays Israeli control of the territories as a "normal" part of life; 2) Occupation Estrangement Discourse, which portrays this situation as distant from Israeli reality. In addressing these discourses, the authors develop a new methodological tool, Dialectic Discourse Analysis, which examines discourse as a process of perpetual positing and synthesis of oppositions through the discursive construction, differentiation and mediation of self and other. Through this approach, the authors illustrate that these discourses are dialectically constituted in opposition to one another, feeding off one another, each enabling the other to exist. This dynamic has resulted in a fixed discourse, preventing any progress towards a synthesis of oppositions.

This book seeks to debunk the popular myth of an all-powerful pro-Israel lobby. Here, Kiely demonstrates how discourses surrounding American Identity and US foreign policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has deep roots in American historicity, have constructed an understanding of the conflict which is inherently more susceptible to the Israeli narrative. Kiely argues that the so-called power of what other researchers, such as Mearsheimer and Walt (2006, 2007), call ‘The Israel Lobby’ are limited by these discourses. It is the author’s contention that groups such as The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) serve to amplify and reproduce existing representations within these discourses which align the United States and Israel in terms of cultural, historical and political values while simultaneously reinforcing dominant representations of the Palestinian ‘Other’.

This book examines the polarization of positions surrounding the transnational boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement aimed at ending the Israeli occupation. The author compares four US-based case studies in which activists for and against BDS struggle over issues of identity, morality, legitimacy, and conceptions of "peace."

Until the recent uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, the resilience of authoritarian regimes seemed a fundamental feature of regional politics. While economic, political, and internal security policies are most often considered in discussions of regime maintenance, Laurie Brand introduces a new factor, that of national narratives. Portrayals of a country's founding, identity, and bases of unity can be a powerful strategy in sustaining a ruling elite. Brand argues that such official stories, which are used to reinforce the right to rule, justify policies, or combat opponents, deserve careful exploration if we are to understand the full range of tools available to respond to crises that threaten a leadership's hold on power. Brand examines more than six decades of political, economic, and military challenges in two of North Africa's largest countries: Egypt and Algeria. Through a careful analysis of various texts—history and religion textbooks, constitutions, national charters, and presidential speeches—Official Stories demonstrates how leaderships have attempted to reconfigure narratives to confront challenges to their power. Brand's account also demonstrates how leaderships may miscalculate, thereby setting in motion opposition forces beyond their control.

National minorities and their behaviour have become a central topic in comparative politics in the last few decades. Using the relationship between the state of Israel and the Arab national minority as a case study, this book provides a thorough examination of minority nationalism and state-minority relations in Israel. Placing the case of the Arab national minority in Israel within a comparative framework, the author analyses major debates taking place in the field of collective action, social movements, civil society and indigenous rights. He demonstrates the impact of the state regime on the political behaviours of the minorities, and sheds light on the similarities and differences between various types of minority nationalisms and the nature of the relationship such minorities could have with their states. Drawing empirical and theoretical conclusions that contribute to studies of Israeli politics, political minorities, indigenous populations and conflict issues, this book will be a valuable reference for students and those in policy working on issues around Israeli politics, Palestinian politics and the broader Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

This book brings together, for the first time, independent and highly respected lawyers and jurists from both sides of this century-old conflict, to identify and assess areas of common interest. As violence diminishes in favour of negotiation and compromise, all issues covered by the ongoing discussions will be determined by emerging rule of law. The book contains original contributions from an experienced team of Palestinian and Isrealic lawyers and scholars in the field and covers a range of strategic issues, including history and law, key international treaties, the domestic dimensions of the peace process, water arrangements, economic issues, and the legal institutions which are being created and must adapt to the new scene. An important feature of the book is that it succeeds in showing that the traditional opposition os Israeli and Arab views may be giving way to a common informed reflection on modes of coexistence primarily determined by law. Contributers include Raja Shehadeh, Ruth Gavison, Eyal Benvenisti, Eugene Cotran, David Kretzmer, Anis Al-Qasem, Celia Fassberg, Sharif Elmusa, Mahmud El Jaafari, Eran Feitelson, Ruth Levush, and Mona Rishmawi.