The International Dimension of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict

Daniela Huber

Description

Despite decades of international diplomatic efforts, a solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict is still as elusive as ever, forcing us to ask the question: have global and regional powers, rather than helping to solve the conflict, actually led to its perpetuation? This book explores this question from a post-Eurocentric perspective. Departing from the literature that sees the United States, Europe, and Russia as outside diplomatic actors, and regional powers such as Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey as part of the conflict, Daniela Huber instead conceptualizes all of them as actors in the regional/international dimension of the conflict, which they (re)produce through their role performances. Anchored in grounded theory and critical discourse analysis, she examines the scripts that have been performed by these powers at the United Nations and how the authoritative international framing of the conflict has evolved in the UN Security Council and General Assembly, identifying periods of continuity and ruptures in these scripts, as well as alternatives to them.
List of Illustrations
Abbreviations
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The State of the Art and a New Conceptualization of the Conflict

2. Theoretical Background: Roles, Meanings, and Scripts

3. Methodology

4. Categories and Key Concepts in the Representation of the Palestine/Israel Question at the UN

5. Continuities and Ruptures in the Role Representations of the Seven Powers

6. The Authoritative International Normative Framing of the Conflict

Conclusions

Notes
References
Index

Sujets

• Diplomatie (homonymie)
• Middle East
• History of the Middle East
• Comparative politics
• Diplomacy

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781438481609
• Langue: English

Extrait

The International Dimension of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict
The International Dimension of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict
A Post-Eurocentric Approach
Daniela Huber
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2021 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Huber, Daniela, author.
Title: The international dimension of the Israel-Palestinian conflict : a post-Eurocentric approach / Daniela Huber.
Description: Albany : State University of New York, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020039947 (print) | LCCN 2020039948 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438481593 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438481609 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Palestinian Arabs—Politics and government—1948– | Arab-Israeli conflict. | Palestine—International status.
Classification: LCC DS119.7 .H795 2021 (print) | LCC DS119.7 (ebook) | DDC 956.04—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039947
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039948
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Lorenzo
Contents
List of Illustrations
Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The State of the Art and a New Conceptualization of the Conflict
2. Theoretical Background: Roles, Meanings, and Scripts
3. Methodology
4. Categories and Key Concepts in the Representation of the Palestine/Israel Question at the UN
5. Continuities and Ruptures in the Role Representations of the Seven Powers
6. The Authoritative International Normative Framing of the Conflict
Conclusions
Notes
References
Index
Illustrations Figure 3.1 Research design Figure 3.2 Number of UN General Assembly speeches observed by country Figure 6.1 United Nations Security Council Resolutions on the Palestine-Israel question Figure 6.2 Number of UN Security Council vetoes, 1946–2015 Figure 6.3 US vetoes of resolutions on the Occupied Palestinian Territory by president Figure 6.4 Issues covered by UN General Assembly resolutions on Israel/Palestine between 1946 and 2015
Abbreviations AKP Justice and Development Party BDS Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement CFSP Common Foreign and Security Policy EC European Community ESCWA Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia EU European Union ICC International Criminal Court ICJ International Court of Justice IR International Relations MEPP Middle East Peace Process NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization OHCHR United Nations Human Rights Council OPT Occupied Palestinian Territory PA Palestinian Authority PLO Palestine Liberation Organization UK United Kingdom UN United Nations UNDOF United Nations Disengagement Observer Force UNDP United Nations Development Program UNEF United Nations Emergency Force UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCWA United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia UNGA United Nations General Assembly UNIFIL United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon UNRWA United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East UNSC United Nations Security Council UNSCOP United Nations Special Committee on Palestine UNTSO United Nations Truce Supervision Organization US United States of America USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Acknowledgments
T his book is the outcome of a two-year-long individual research project funded by the German Gerda Henkel Foundation and pursued at LUISS (Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali) University in Rome, while also building on my longer research pursued in the past ten years. It takes a comparative look at how seven powers in the Middle East—Egypt, the European Union, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United States—have discursively constructed and performed their roles in the region on the Palestine/Israel question over time, and have thereby not only attached meaning to it but also established webs of relationships bound by dominant paradigmatic framings of the conflict. These framings and the role foreseen for international powers and the UN in them are scripts, and the latter amount to orders when actors perform them accordingly; they break down when actors overperform, underperform, or disperform them. Indeed, scripts have changed over time, and this work traces back continuities, ruptures, and transformations of them. It offers a comparative and historical account to show how today’s specific international script on the Palestine/Israel question has emerged, what this script silences and sidelines, and what its alternatives could have been. It also highlights how this script has perpetuated the Israel-Palestinian conflict (so defined in this book to highlight the power asymmetry as one actor is a state and occupying power, the other a stateless people being denied their collective and individual rights) and how it has not succeeded in providing security and peace, but has set a context for further upheaval and crisis in the region at large.
This book will interest students and informed lay readers who would like to get an overview over how key powers in the Middle East have positioned themselves regarding one of the longest-running conflicts in the modern era and how the international paradigmatic framing of it has evolved at the United Nations. Furthermore, its theoretical and methodological take contributes to a decentering approach to International Relations and will therefore interest IR scholars working in this direction.
This work would not have been possible without the wonderful shared journey through this life with Lorenzo Kamel to whom I am eternally grateful for always cheering me up and without whom I might never have begun to think outside the standard IR toolbox. You have opened up a world for me. I am also very thankful to my colleagues at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) and LUISS University for their extensive feedback on earlier versions and their continuous support—most notably Riccardo Alcaro, Andrea Dessi, Raffaelle Marchetti, and Nathalie Tocci. Particular thanks go to Michelle Pace for all her thoughtful feedback on this book, as well as the many empowering discussions beyond. I am also extremely grateful to all the thoughtful input I received from the anonymous reviewers of this book and to the copyeditor who has done an outstanding job in improving the book. It has also greatly benefited from many discussions with friends and colleagues while living in Jerusalem and from the feedback I received from colleagues and students when I presented my research at conferences, workshops, and seminars in Rome, Moscow, Turin, Tehran, Ramallah, and Beirut. Furthermore, my wonderful students in my seminar on International Politics at Roma Tre University provided me with lots of food for thought when discussing the research and findings of this book. It would not have been possible without the generous support of the Gerda Henkel Foundation, which gave me the unique opportunity to focus on research. The usual disclaimer applies: the views expressed in this book are those of the author only.
An immense hug goes to my two children, Niccolò and Valerie, who always spread love and happiness in my life and (almost) never complain about spending long days at kindergarten and school.
Introduction
T he Palestine question has been internationalized from its very beginning. More than a hundred years ago, in 1917, the Balfour Declaration—later incorporated in the British Mandate for Palestine—promised to support a “national home for the Jewish people” while ignoring the right to self-determination of the local Arab-Palestinian majority, which it referred to as the “non-Jewish communities.” In July 1937, for the first time in history, the British Peel Commission recommended partition, and the related forced transfer of 225,000 Arab-Palestinians and about 1,250 Jews. Ten years later, in November 1947, thirty-three (out of a total of fifty-six) member states of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) suggested the partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. Over fifty years ago, in November 1967, United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 242, as well as Resolution 338 in October 1973, embodied the land for peace principle. When the General Assembly now began to stake out Palestinian collective rights—including the right to a state—the so-called peace process took off. In November 1977, Egyptian president Anwar el Sadat made his historic visit to the Knesset, and one year later the Camp David Accords were signed under US auspices. Indeed, the US had now become the key power in the region, launching repeated “peace” proposals that crystalized into the Middle East Peace Process (MEPP). This “peace process”—as this book argues—has been a specific script that has attached meaning to the Palestine/Israel question (namely, a prescriptive one that conditioned the return of land not on preemptory norms of international law, but on negotiations), but also included specific roles for all powers involved (but not for the UN). As long as all powers performed this script into being, it was resilient and had an impact on the ground. At the time of writing, US president Donald Trump is overperform