This research was born out of the desire to understand the relationship between the existence of long-term peace processes and the persistence—and often increase—of violence among societies involved in protracted conflicts. In this book, I attempt to address the relationship between the protracted nature of conflicts and peace initiatives, focusing on the reinforcement of processes of dehumanizing the ‘other’, which is a central feature of most cases of multigenerational conflicts—although underexplored in protracted conflicts literature (Azar et al. 1978; Azar 1978, 1986, 1990; Bar-Tal 2000; Burton 1990; Ramsbotham 2005).

Dehumanization is a type of cultural violenceFootnote 1 (Galtung 1990) that fuels conflict and contributes to its perpetuation over time. It is defined in this book as an element of identity that is constructed and reinforced within societies in the form of discursive and material practices. However, limiting the object of this study to an analysis of the dynamics sustaining dehumanization and its effect on relationships between societies would fail to reflect the complexity of protracted conflicts. Although dehumanization is the dominant aspect in many ongoing conflicts, there exist empirically observable alternative practices and policies that counteract its effects on identities in conflict. This observation justified a twofold approach that considers reconciliation as the other side of the coin. Reconciliation is a term that traditionally refers to post-conflict environments, meaning scenarios of formal peace in which a written agreement between the parties has been reached (Lederach 1997, 1999; Last 2000; Bar-Tal 2000; Bloomfield et al. 2003; Bar-Tal and Bennink; 2004; Philpott 2006). For this reason, the terminology ‘peace-less reconciliation’ (Biletzki 2013) is used here, in order to refer to practices of reconciliation in ongoing conflicts.

Against this backdrop, the book’s main research question is how different representations of success and failure of protracted peace processes, as well as the policies, narratives, norms and practices associated to them, have impacted identities in conflict by affecting the maintenance and/or transformation of the cultural component of violence, defined as dehumanization or peace-less reconciliation processes. It then takes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a case study, which evidences strong dynamics of both protractedness and dehumanization.

Methodologically, this work deals with the role of discourses, narratives and practices associated with the Israeli-Palestinian protracted peace process with regard to the conflict and its transformation. It aims to analyze how these dimensions interact with the identities of and relations between the societies involved in the conflict. Exploring how dehumanization processes have developed and are addressed highlights the importance of culture, history and identity for conflict and peace. Thus, this book develops a historically based account of the genealogyFootnote 2 of both dehumanization and reconciliation in the Israeli-Palestinian protracted conflict. This is done by mapping discourses and practices over diverse levels through the analysis of political discourses; official documents and reports; data on wars, violence and social mobilization; and media at key moments of the peace process since the beginning of the twentieth century.

This book is situated in the field of Peace and Conflict Studies and its epistemological perspective is fundamentally critical and interdisciplinary, relying on constructivism as its theoretical bias and also taking into account insights provided by studies on social psychology. This book aims at contributing to the thought and practice about peace by analyzing through a historiographic approach the relationship between protracted peace processes and the persistence of violence within societies affected by conflict.

1.1 Research Overview

The puzzle of this book is the contradiction between the existence of long-term peace processes and the development of dehumanization processes within societies experiencing protracted conflicts. It stems from the understanding that not only direct violence but also cultural violence tends to be legitimized and normalized in intergenerational conflicts (Galtung 1969; Burton 1990; Azar 1990). Dehumanization processes are an important dimension of cultural violence and become a particularly visible effect of this kind of conflict. They affect how representations of the ‘other’ are constructed and, therefore, the relationships and interactions between societies. Consequently, they simultaneously cause the conflict to be prolonged and allow for renewed cycles of violence, insofar as cultural violence tends to “legitimize violence in its direct or structural form” (Galtung 1990: 291). Hence, this work builds on many others which identify the role of identity, and more specifically processes of othering, as central to transform or deepen a conflict (Northrup 1989; Kelman 1973, 2004; Slocum-Bradley 2008; Strömbom 2013; Rumelili 2015, among others). It aims to explore the role protracted peace processes, either in their symbolic or material dimensions, have played in the reproduction, reinforcement or transformation of the representations made of the ‘other’ in the course of conflict.

To operationalize this proposal, this book analyzes the construction of both Israeli and Palestinian identities since the dawn of the twentieth century in light of their relationships and interactions in the context of the several peace initiatives—understood here as a part of a process in their whole—that were developed ever since, focusing on the inevitable negative interdependenceFootnote 3 between them. Through the identification of continuities and change, it approaches the Israeli-Palestinian peace process since 1947 as being constituted by three distinct phases corresponding to the Cold War period, the Oslo Era in the 1990s, and the turn to the twenty-first century. Although some might argue that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process did not initiate until the beginning of negotiations for the Oslo Accords, this book considers instead that it formally begins with the Partition Plan. Those who argue that the peace process initiated only in the 1990s and that have declared it dead in its contemporary phase take a different stand for its definition than the one I assume in this book. As we shall see in Chap. 2, I join the chorus of voices that consider that “the reality of peace processes is often a stop-start dynamic and a complex choreography whereby the sequencing of initiatives or concessions is timed to suit local circumstances” (Darby and Mac Ginty 2003: 1). Accordingly, this book approaches the peace process through a teleological perspective that allows for a deeper understanding of its dynamics, continuities and changes, as well as its continuous—symbolic and material—impacts on social identity through time.

By mapping the literature and practices on peace processes in the context of protracted conflicts, it is possible to realize that it lacks studies on how protracted peace processes affect identity by reinforcing or transforming dynamics of dehumanization and/or peace-less reconciliation in societies experiencing protracted social conflicts. The recognition that identity disturbances, in the form of dehumanization processes, are one of the main fuels for the perpetuation of protracted conflicts is already part of the narratives about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Bar-Tal 2007; Kelman 1973, 1999, 2007, 2017; Rouhana and Bar-Tal 1998; Oelofsen 2009; Lang 2010). These works have identified the obstacles to conflict transformation from various perspectives, ranging from a criticism of the peace process and its design (Darby 2001; Said 2003; Darby and Mac Ginty 2008; Slocum-Bradley 2008; Khalidi 2013) to the asymmetric character of the dispute—which puts into question the very usage of the term conflict (Khalidi 2017; Pogodda 2016; Bruneau and Kteily 2017)—and also questioning the ontological anxieties that are connected with the idea of peace in a protracted conflict (Rumelili 2015; Lupovici 2015). However, it lacks studies about the role the protracted peace process has played in the positive transformation or reinforcement of existing dehumanizing processes.

Against this backdrop, this book examines the mutual constitution between peace processes and the identities of societies, seeking to explain the dual process of dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation that work in parallel in protracted conflicts. Taking Israel and Palestine as a case study, it 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. This book addresses three aspects that derive from the research problems set out above. In order to understand the ways in which protracted peace processes affect identity, it begins by exploring the dimensions of identity that are influenced by the lingering peace process; then, it analyzes through a historiographic approach the role cultural violence is playing on the protracted nature of conflict via processes of dehumanization; and, finally, it discusses how reconciliation has been incorporated into narratives and approaches regarding the conflict, as well as its changing meaning.

As I will explain further in this chapter, the research design presented herein has evolved deeply during the first phases of this investigation, due to the vital importance of the fieldwork performed for this book to its very formulation. Unstructured exploratory interviews and participant observation (Lichterman 2002; Snow and Anderson 1991) have proved to be useful methods for the (re)construction of the research design of this book. The former has the potential to promote the appearance of issues that structured interviews might suppress, and the latter is useful to understand internal dynamics and helps us see the social process in action, which is ideal for complex contexts in which there is a diversity of opinions, motivations and behaviors (Savin-Baden and Major 2013: 375). In fact, it was the direct observation of this case on the ground; the interactions with local scholars, activists, organizations and politicians; the two advanced training courses I took in both Israel and Palestine; and the exploratory interviews I made, that led me to a profound and more interesting reorganization of my research questions and arguments.

The field research to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian TerritoriesFootnote 4 was conducted in two parts: one in 2015 and another one in 2016, aiming to establish first contacts, discuss the preliminary versions of this project with local scholars and practitioners, and identify groups and organizations that developed peace initiatives; to make preliminary unstructured interviews with members of the organizations and groups, local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), leaders of communities and staff of UN agencies; to participate in academic and practitioner-led short-term courses in order to learn from them and to map what is the local knowledge produced about the case study; and to preliminarily explore the field, check points and refugee camps through group-visits.

Fieldwork was a very important source of data collection for this project, although most of the information is incorporated in this book in the form of its epistemological direction and not as much as directly analyzed data.Footnote 5 In any case, most of the information I was looking for is available in the UN, governments, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and NGOs websites, and interesting testimonies are already documented in several ethnographic works about Israel and Palestine. For all those reasons, I decided to focus on document analysis and literature review to draw a historiographic analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The data I obtained, and in fact used, through the fieldwork were mainly personal notes and insights from informal conversations and lectures I had with local scholars, both in the Galilee International Management Institute, Israel, advanced training course “The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: Understanding both Sides” (July 15–27, 2015) and in the Al-Haq Centre for Applied International Law, Ramallah, Summer School “International Law and its Applicability in the occupied Palestinian territory” (July 24th–August 7th, 2016); printed pamphlets and promotional materials from several groups and organizations that deal with peacebuilding and reconciliation about their work; reports and studies from NGOs, INGOs, CSOs, the UN and both governments about the situation on the ground; as well as other materials also produced by these agents that portray several types of narratives about the conflict and the ‘other’.

I encountered groups situated in the cities of Haifa and surroundings, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron. This choice takes into consideration geographic and political criteria. Haifa, in the north of Israel, is considered to be the city of coexistence while Tel Aviv is not only the capital of the state but also a city where most organizations are situated due to better perspectives on financial support. Jerusalem is in fact a bi-national city that is divided in East and West, respectively the Palestinian and the Israeli parts although it is controlled by Israel. Also, most international organizations have placed their headquarters in this city due to the tensions between different religious groups. In the West Bank, Ramallah is the capital of Palestine, while Nablus is the most important city in the north and Hebron is its homologous in the south. All three cities have important international organizations and vibrant civil society.

This research aims at analyzing the relationship between protracted social conflicts, peace processes and identity, focusing on processes of othering that lead to dehumanization and/or peace-less reconciliation. In order to do so, I relied on a variety of primary data which includes a series of documents from official and non-official sources related with the protracted peace process since 1947. To develop a genealogy of dehumanization and reconciliation (see Sect. 1.3 of this chapter), I decided to focus on the main moments of the peace process in order to perceive how the representations of success and failure of this process reflected in governmental speeches, policy formulations, and media reports have impacted the relationships between the societies involved in the conflict. I compared the evolution of the levels of direct violence during these key moments of the peace process with the discourse analysis of speeches, agreements and reports focused on the dimensions of dehumanization and reconciliation. The documents used in this analysis include (1) legislation, Prime Minister and Presidential discourses (from both Israel and Palestine but also from relevant actors to the peace process), and ministerial documents available online in the governments’ website and also obtained during fieldwork; (2) reports prepared by the United Nations and civil society organizations about the situation on the ground right before, during and after important peace initiatives (looking for changes in the indicators of violence—direct, structural and cultural); and (3) press and public opinion articles from main regional newspapers such as Haaretz and Al Jazeera and also from international media.

Finally, recognizing that a wide range of actors are relevant for this process—considering that all people exercise power in some degree, insofar as their practices have always the potential of reinforcing or undermining meanings—this book approaches the research questions through a multilevel analysis. On the one hand, it looks at the systemic level in order to understand how the protracted peace process has affected dehumanization and/or promoted reconciliation within societies. To this aim, I drew from the international organizations reports, resolutions, mandates and policy formulations to assess their impact to manifestations of violence among societies in each of the four periods under analysis. I also analyzed official statements, documents and discourses developed at the level of political elites (as they are privileged actors for reinforcing or changing narratives and perceptions that construct and transform relationships), such as members of governments and political parties, to assess how their representations of the protracted peace process have affected identity and interactions within societies. On the other hand, I analyzed the impact of policies, practices and discourses connected to the peace process on identities and interactions of societies by focusing on the actions and reactions of local and international media, social movements, universities, NGOs and CSOs to each moment of the peace process. This multilevel approach allows for the identification of practices and discourses that reinforce dehumanization processes as well as the ones that counteract these meanings by promoting peace-less reconciliation.

By closely examining the processes of dehumanization that take place in protracted conflicts, this book sheds light on the unseen and forgotten dimensions of identity, which are central features sustaining some conflicts. It also develops a framework to assess and analyze the elements of identity building in protracted conflicts, providing conceptual tools that may enrich the field of Peace Studies. The relevance of this research also concerns the effects of long-term enmity on the big picture of greater politics. Firstly, this book adds to existing efforts to understand the social dynamics that enable the perpetuation of conflict over time through the investigation of the deepest effects of conflict and protracted peace processes on society. Secondly, and by addressing the co-constitutive nature of violence and identity in conflict situations, this book advocates that it is impossible to address one without taking serious account of the other. As a conclusion, this research places protracted peace processes, their policies and practices associated with them in a central position of the cycle of protractedness.

1.2 Protracted Peace Processes, Protracting Conflict

This book argues that protracted peace processes occupy a central position in the cycle of protractednessFootnote 6 insofar as the policies, narratives, norms and practices associated with them have the double potential of affecting identities in conflict by promoting dehumanization or reconciliation. The former is the dominating feature of othering in protracted conflicts, what tends to be reinforced by the interactions and new grievances sparked by protracted peace processes through time. However, the parallel and coexisting dynamics of both processes point to the appearance of empirically observable activities and practices that have emerged alongside—as a consequence—and within the very framework—as a desired outcome—of the protracted peace process. By exploring the dual process of dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation in ongoing conflicts, this book aims to offer a detailed analysis of the conditions that allow for one process to prevail over the other, which points to avenues for positive conflict transformation.

Although the theoretical ruminations of this book were developed based on the observation of a specific case study, that of Israel and Palestine, this is not an isolated case when it comes to the effects of protracted conflict—and, more specifically, protracted peace processes—in interactions between societies. According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program,Footnote 7 13 of the 243 conflicts since the end of the Second World War have been active for more than 35 years. The conflicts of Israel/Palestine, Cyprus, Myanmar/Burma and the Philippines are some examples of ongoing disputes with no sign of significant positive transformation. All of them count on peace processes that have failed to prevent the escalation of violence, and many others were subjected to supposedly successful peace agreements, although there are still high levels of violence within these societies (Call apud Darby and Mac Ginty 2008: 304). Therefore, it seems important to explore the reasons why this apparent contradiction persists in many cases and how we should analyze and deal with conflict in order to proceed toward what some call a sustainable peace (Lederach 1997; Keating and Knight 2004).

As this book shows, this analysis is intrinsically connected with the historical developments of the international peace architecture and its dynamics (see Richmond 2022). Due to the drastic changes in the international world order, the repertoire of approaches to deal with conflict has been evolving fast since the end of the Cold War. Accordingly, academic thinking, terminology and practice on conflicts and the way they should be addressed have also developed over the last decades. While the rationale regarding peace and its promotion before the 1990s focused on the maintenance of a negative peace, the end of a bipolar confrontation marks a shift toward new attempts to build positive peace instead (Sabaratnam 2011: 14–16). Alongside this change is also the formation of a new collective understanding shared by the main actors and institutions involved in the process of building peace about what it means and how it should be achieved, what Oliver Richmond (2004: 91–92) calls “the peacebuilding consensus”. This new policy formulation has dominated the approaches to conflict and peace at the international level since then.

It is important though to look back at the past not with the eyes of the present but putting in context former events as a means to avoid anachronist readings, which might obscure our understanding of history and its connection with the present. During the Cold War, ideological conflict and tensions between the two blocks limited the understanding of how to deal with conflicts to the idea of managing them, as expressed by the limited peacekeeping framework of the United Nations (Bellamy et al. 2010: 170–175). This approach was developed in the belief that conflict management was the best that could be achieved given the anarchical nature of an international competitive system (Ramsbotham et al. 2011). Although this is essentially a realist understanding, it can be linked to early stages of the nowadays commonly accepted and widely disseminated proposals of the ‘liberal peace’ theory (Paris 2004: 5). Moreover, it has promoted a reactive and episodic approach to peacemaking that, even though differs greatly from the paradigm of peace processes that emerged in the 1990s, cannot be undervalued or set aside if one intends to look at the historiography of peace processes as a whole in the course of protracted conflicts which precede the end of the Cold War.

Conceptually and practically, this proposition tended to imply a very narrow and state-centric understanding of peace, as it was essentially focused on state-related matters, excluding non-state actors. The policies developed in this period were mostly limited to diplomatic efforts to mediate negotiated agreements between political elites and mechanisms designed to observe the application of cease-fires such as peacekeeping missions (Darby and Mac Ginty 2008; Richmond 2011; Campbell et al. 2011). Therefore, the root causes of conflicts and identity issues connected to them were not taken into a serious account. In practice this implied a rationale about peace that was directed toward negative peace (Richmond 2008) as most of the literature of this period was focused on ‘problem-solving’ (Cox 1981)—in this particular case, ending direct violence. Yet, as we shall see, this does not mean that peace processes during the Cold War did not unintendedly impact the identities in conflict by legitimizing one’s claims in detriment of the ‘other’s’, or by turning into another arena for conflict insofar as each actor perceived in these processes an opportunity to underscore its positions and gain recognition for its cause domestically and internationally. Although episodic, non-coordinated and, sometimes, even uncoordinated, these peace initiatives developed after the Second World War have remained part of the conflicts and their episodes of violent manifestations during the Cold War, turning into a symbolic and a material structure that, overall, has played an important part in informing the construction of interests and identities, understandings about the ‘self’ and the ‘other’, both in the state and societal levels, thus contributing directly to the reinforcement of conflict narratives.

Those approaches have been challenged over time by scholars, practitioners and policy makers who perceived the contradictions that rely upon the possibility of a scenario of formal peace in which social conflict remains as a featured variable (Bellamy et al. 2010). Thus, a radically different view was developed by the so-called second generation approaches to conflict and peace, that is represented by the assumption that conflicts can be and should be resolved rather than managed (Richmond 2002: 75). This is not just an issue of nomenclature, as it represents a specific way of dealing with conflict that corresponds to an “ethos of thinking that ‘we’ can intervene to resolve ‘their’ conflicts” (Mac Ginty and Williams 2009: 24). Furthermore, most of the mainstream International Relations (IR) scholarship and policies dealing with conflicts after the end of the Cold War agreed that all states should resemble liberal democracies and that the international efforts toward peace should be transformed accordingly (Paris 2004: 16–24). This framework drew on Johan Galtung’s (1969) conceptualization about peace and violence, recognizing that the deprivation of basic human needs and potential were the main causes of protracted violent conflicts (Azar 1990). This approach goes further from the previous, as it is concerned with overcoming not only direct violence but also structural violence, being also directed toward the societal level rather than just state and international levels (Richmond 2008: 99–102).

As a consequence, the debate about peace and its implementation into other spheres flourished, including in its agenda issues and expanded concerns such as development and political participation, as well as including other actors into the debate, for example, the civil society and NGOs (Sabaratnam 2011: 16), creating the idea that building peace was necessarily a process. Although this approach was still limited in terms of its practical implementation and its Eurocentric bias, it was able to push the discussions about peace beyond the state’s concerns and security issues. Nevertheless, alongside the recognition of the urgency to focus on positive approaches to peace came the understanding that this objective should be pursued in ‘post-conflict’ scenarios, meaning that it should be deployed after the signature of a cease-fire and the conclusion of the negotiated agreement phase (Lederach 1997). Thus, the principle of the peace process as efforts directed at maintaining negative peace in the international system persisted.

The development of this new rationale for dealing with conflict can be examined through the United Nations Agenda for Peace that designed specific tools to guide interventions. The United Nations’ mechanisms to deal with conflict were presented in this founding document in this order, as preventive diplomacy efforts, followed by peacemaking, peacekeeping and [post-conflict] peacebuilding. The latter is defined as the instrument directed at “strengthening national capacities at all levels for conflict management, and to lay the foundation for sustainable peace and development” through addressing “the deep-rooted, structural causes of violent conflict”, as a “post-conflict” strategy (UN 1992). The foundational text for the policy of “post-conflict peacebuilding” advances a wider approach toward conflict, insofar as it considers structural violence as one of the root causes of prolonged conflict. However, the distinction between the practical applications of these instruments on the ground is very tenuous, since they quite often overlap, and most of the efforts toward building a positive peace are left for the period after the signature of a cease-fire agreement between the political elites, acting as tools for the consolidation of what had been achieved so far in the table of negotiations. Moreover, the issue of cultural violence has remained overlooked in these approaches, thus failing to operate a change of mentalities and narratives that are deeply encrusted in societies experiencing intergenerational conflicts. Meanwhile, the situation on the ground tends to deteriorate, especially regarding protracted conflicts, in which there is a normalization of violence and animosity (Paris 2004; Paris and Sisk 2009: 2) that, I will argue throughout this book, have the potential to be even aggravated by the protracted peace process when failing to address identity issues.

Moving beyond this paradigm, John Paul Lederach stated that sustainable peace could only come through conflict transformation, suggesting that the former brings about the idea of constructive change, while some might argue that the word resolution implies some sort of attempt to discard the problem without addressing its causes and leaving no room for advocacy. Lederach built on the principle that conflict is normal in human relationships and that it is actually essential and even desirable as a motor of change. Accordingly, he proposes that conflict transformation “is to envision and respond to the ebb and flow of social conflict life-giving opportunities for creating constructive change processes, that reduce violence, increase justice in direct interaction and social structures and respond to real-life problems in human relationships” (Lederach 2003: 14). The author refers to relationships as both the face-to-face interactions and the very ways we structure our social, political, economic and cultural realities, bringing the societal level into the center of this approach. In this sense, rather than perceiving peace as an end in itself, conflict transformation views peace as an evolving process toward developing increased understanding, equality and respect in relationships, which cannot be done without addressing justice and identity issues.

Given that protracted social conflicts are defined as “identity-related conflicts” (Azar 1990: 2), protracted peace processes, when failing to address identity issues, have the double potential of acting as a force for positive conflict transformation and/or, on the other hand, normalization of the violent conflict and the maintenance of status quo, thus allowing and even collaborating for the development of coping mechanisms such as processes of dehumanization of the ‘other’ which contribute to protracted conflict. However, the simultaneous and co-constitutive nature of these processes point to the coexistence of dynamics of violence and peace, dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation. The complexities inherent to all societies help explain why violence cannot be perceived as the only dynamic taking place throughout the protracted peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed, despite (or because of) the very protracted character of the peace process, activities and practices that aim to provide new avenues for positive conflict transformation gradually became established in what we can call processes of peace-less reconciliation. Put differently, although dehumanization dominates in ongoing conflicts, it does not fully portray such complex environments. Even though the identity dimension has become a thriving field of study and practice regarding conflicts, more studies are needed about the relationship between the past and the present, aiming to understanding the historical impact of protracted peace processes on the identities in conflict and, even more, the role they have played in protracting conflict.

1.3 Dehumanization and Peace-less Reconciliation in Israel and Palestine: A Historical Analysis

The case of Israel and Palestine is one of the most relevant examples in contemporary history of protracted conflict, with the important dimension of dehumanization at its core. In 1947, the year the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) approved Resolution 181 that determined the Partition Plan for Palestine, the world became familiar with the conflict between Arabs and Jews for land and ownership. More than 70 years have passed, and the situation seems still to be a stalemate, while conflict developments have caused it to become known as the Israeli-Palestinian conflictFootnote 8 (Khalidi 2010; Smith 2010; Pappé 2010). Although there has since been a peace process between the two parties, brokered by external powers (Khalidi 2013), societal interactions on the ground have contradictorily been deteriorating (Mladenov 2019: 1; Darweish and Rigby 2015; Pappé 2013; White 2009). This is particularly true since the end and failure of the Oslo Process in the 1990s, which led to a generalized feeling of hopelessness, thereby legitimizing the establishment of an orthodox and radicalized political environment on both sides of the conflict (Cypel 2006: 291–350).

Among the main consequences of this process have been the geographical, political, cultural and social detachments between the Palestinian and Israeli societies over the past two decades (Pappé 2010; Chomsky and Pappé 2010; Khalidi 2010; Finkelstein 2003; Carter 2006). Expressions of this mutual detachment include the idea that the other side is responsible for both the lost opportunity for peace and the physical division that has been added through the building of the wall,Footnote 9 the establishment of check points and other legal mechanisms of segregation and movement control. Examples of radicalization of societies can also be seen in the election results of the last years, favoring political extremist parties such as Hamas and Likud, and allowing for and legitimizing violent policies toward the ‘other’, insofar as both organizations reproduce hate discourses and violent political practices. It is hard to know whether this has happened despite the peace process or because of it. However, it is clear that a process of dehumanization has been taking place, allowing for the legitimization of continuously violent policies toward the ‘other’ that are supported by most of the electorate on both sides (Kelman 1999; Bruneau and Kteily 2017: 6; Van den Bos 2020: 568). And, as we shall see, both the policies and discourses associated with the peace process, as well as the representations made by political elites of its failures and successes, have deeply impacted the ongoing processes that dehumanize the ‘other’.

While this scenario is not limited to the Israeli-Palestinian case, the theoretical ruminations presented in this book were in fact developed in a specific time and place, through the in-depth observation of this conflict during exploratory fieldwork conducted in that region. During one of those trips, my interactions led me to realize that although there had been a peace process between the two parties and brokered by all sorts of external powers since 1947, the relationships between the Israeli and the Palestinian societies seemed to be deteriorating. Interviews conducted in 2015 and 2016 with Israeli and Palestinian scholars, activists and politicians,Footnote 10 as well as informal conversations with ordinary people, were unanimous in stating that the turn to the twenty-first century witnessed a deterioration of the interactions between regular Israelis and Palestinians,Footnote 11 what most of them attributed to the construction of the Separation Wall and the policies of movement control that have led to a de facto detachment between the two societies.Footnote 12

It was at this point that, in the context of the interactions I had with scholars, practitioners, international civil servants, ordinary people, members of both governments and diplomatic missions to Ramallah,Footnote 13 I started to realize that dehumanization was a central part of the everyday vocabulary of both Israelis and Palestinians. In fact, despite underdeveloped in the literature about peacebuilding,Footnote 14 the term dehumanization is becoming more and more embedded in common language and is frequently referred to by local activists, CSOs and NGOs. However, it soon became clear to me that dehumanization was not a contemporary process. Although it has definitely contributed to deepening the conflict and reinforcing dominant intersubjective meanings such as enmity and conflict, as we shall see further in Part II of this book, its origins dated back to the first interactions between the recently established Zionist Movement in the end of the nineteenth century and the Arab autochthonous population of Palestine. Thus, since both the concept and practices of dehumanizing the ‘other’ are closely related to the concept of identity and to processes of identity building (see Chaps. 2 and 3), this book frames this analysis from the beginning of the twentieth century (see Chap. 4) to nowadays. As explained before, I rely on a historiographic approach that aims at exploring continuities and changes in the dynamics under analysis, which allowed me to identify three phases of the protracted peace process, preceded by what I call the embryonic phase of such process.

As we shall see, the recognition of a legitimate Israeli identity is not a consequence of this conflict, but the worldwide acceptance of their national aspiration claims is expressed in the approval of the United Nations General Assembly’s Resolution 181 (UN 1947) that determines the partition of the region and the establishment of two national states: one Arab and another one Jewish. This first phase of the peace process can be considered a landmark of the institutionalization of dehumanization, defined by Kelman (1999) as the denial of identity—agency—and community, insofar as the Partition Plan ignores the existence of the autochthonous population as a distinct identity group with national aspirations, by referring to them generically (see Chap. 5). For this reason, the contemporary version of this conflict, which includes the consolidation of the two-state formula in the context of the peace process, begins with the widespread international recognition of the Palestinian identity after the First Intifada that initiated in 1987. The following decade, corresponding to the second period under analysis, would be marked by renewed efforts to building peace through unprecedented direct negotiations between the two parties during the Oslo Process. The most important characteristic of the peace process during the 1990s was the ability to promote mutual recognition, though counteracting the already ongoing processes of dehumanization (see Chap. 6). Nevertheless, the assassination of the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the failure to implement the agreements led to the frustration of expectations and a new period of radicalization that begins in the turn to the twenty-first century and that is still ongoing today. The third and last period identified, corresponding to the last couple of decades, has witnessed a deterioration of the situation on the ground, with the dying peace process serving the deepening of the status quo and, therefore, benefiting the strongest party of this asymmetric conflict (see Chap. 7). Nevertheless, it has also been marked by an increase in local and international proactivity in promoting peace and reconciliation at the level of societies that, although has not been able to deeply transform this conflict yet, has played an important part in experimenting ways of positively impacting the ongoing processes of intensification of cultural violence in these societies.

This division between three main periods is explained by the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also relates to the international developments of policies regarding peace and its promotion. As mentioned before, the end of the Cold War and the triumph of liberalism operated a shift in the thought and practice on how to deal with conflict. The United Nations Agenda for Peace was published in 1992, thus introducing the concept of post-conflict peacebuilding. With the signature of the Oslo Accords, the expectations were that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would come to a settlement, so peacebuilding initiatives aiming at stabilizing the region and promoting a sustainable peace started to be implemented on the ground. The failure of these accords led to a schizophrenic policy development that persists to this day, since the perpetuation of this conflict over time brought about the necessity of deeply intervening in order to support the population, especially in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. For this reason, the Oslo Accords are considered a turning point, since they represented a change in policy and the exercise of power both externally and internally on regarding to the conflict, allowing for a better understanding of the impacts that the peace process in its diverse forms has been having on people’s lives and on identity perceptions. For instance, the Palestinian Authority was created by those Accords, changing the dynamics of power and politics in Palestine and crystalizing the wide recognition of Palestinians as an ethnic group with national identity claims. On the other hand, the failure of its implementation contributed to the radicalization of Israeli and Palestinian societies after the building of the Separation Wall, following the eruption of the Second, most violent, Intifada.

As per my already existing interest in reconciliation, I became absolutely astonished by the perception that there has been a proliferation of local and international NGOs and CSOs in both Israel and Palestine, whose work has aimed at transforming narratives, bringing people from both sides together and counteracting what they have already identified as a long-term process of dehumanizing the ‘other’. That seemed to me as a type of ‘peacebuilding industry’ operating parallel to the peace process on the ground, insofar as all those organizations and activities have in fact been supported and financed mainly by external actors connected to the peace process (the EU and some of its member states individually—e.g., the German GIZ—the UN, the USA, INGOs and CSOs, among others). The idea of ‘industry’ also came to my mind as peacebuilding activities have become a source of self-employment or a full-time job for many people, as well as the breadwinner of several families.Footnote 15 In this sense, they seemed to me as a consequence of both the peace process efforts and the extensive Western-led intervention in this region, that created a dynamic Western-like civil society in both Israel and Palestine. This perception led me to connect those parallel efforts toward building peace that are developed within societies with the peace process and a differentiated view of ongoing reconciliation, empirically observable in this case. What I realized was that the failures to produce and implement a negotiated agreement at the level of political elites were being compensated by incentives and support to initiatives at the local level with the potential of mitigating the manifestations of conflict and others that could transform identities.

Methodologically, this book proposes a genealogical approach as a means for conceptualizing and analyzing processes that constitute practices of dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation. Genealogy as a research strategy accounts for the importance of historical processes (context), the conditions for the establishment of certain meanings (power) and the discourses, knowledge, and relationships that create them (intersubjectivity) (Foucault 1977). However, the approach to genealogy used here differs from that of Michel Foucault in the sense that his methodological proposal focuses on investigating “the constitution of a given discourse through the rehabilitation of counter-discourses that have been actively discarded” (Fournier 2014). Genealogy for Foucault is a type of counterfactual exercise, which focuses, then, on the literal analysis of what is “contrary to the facts” (Roese and Olson 2014: 1), thus providing the researcher with the conditions to analyze what could have happened, instead of the historical processes that have in fact developed within a specific context. Rather, I am more interested in the conditions that allow for certain meanings and practices to prevail over others, what could be considered to be more connected to Foucault’s concept of archaeologyFootnote 16 (Foucault 2002).

Using the terminology of genealogy in this book is explained by the fact that the etymology of the word echoes the generation of knowledge. In this sense, the aim is to map the ‘DNA’ of both dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation through a historical process tracing of those practices. More specifically, the approach to genealogy developed in this book considers it as a method of historiographic production that aims at studying the origins of a concept or process in a context-related manner, in order to determine the conditions that allow for certain discourses, practices and norms to become possible in a specific timeframe. This approach allows to develop a conceptualization of dehumanization and reconciliation focused on the specific dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian case, through the discourse analysis of narratives and practices connected to the protracted peace process. It also provides a better understanding of the contemporary origins of dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation in this conflict since the beginning of the twentieth century, as well as the role that has been played by the protracted peace process in each of these dimensions.

A genealogical approach developed through a historiographic analysis of an in-depth case study also presents itself as a suitable technique to unveil dynamics that are not measurable through quantitative analysis. For example, research questions such as ‘why has dehumanization prevailed over reconciliation in the Israeli and Palestinian societies?’ can be better answered by this method. This is one of the reasons that this book relies on the choice of a single case study. Situating the research questions within specific contexts allows for the development of more focused concepts and deeper understanding of how shifts in meanings affect people living in a particular region—in this case, Israel and Palestine. Understanding the conditions for the development of dominant intersubjective understandings is important since they constitute people’s identities and interests (Wendt 1992; Risse-Kappen 1995). They also frame interpretations of behavior, thus influencing interests, agency and the legitimization of some policies and actors instead of others. In Klotz and Lynch’s words,

This conception of the exercise of power as the ability to reconstruct discourses and shape practices offers researchers a framework for assessing how meanings condition identities and actions, why some dominate others, and when these patterns shift. It also broadens the scope of our analysis beyond behavior to include how people justify their actions. [the italic is mine] (Klotz and Lynch 2007: 11)

According to Adler and Pouliot, ordinary people, social groups and institutions in world politics enact practices of assimilation or distinction in various levels, thus creating International Relations through their daily activities (Adler and Pouliot 2011: 16). This happens because practices are agential, being not only performative but also a means to frame actors, their understandings about themselves, and, consequently, their interests and actions. Practices are precisely the structured patterns of action that emanate from these interpretations, while the combination of language and techniques used in order to maintain those practices are defined as discourses (Adler-Nissen 2012). For this reason, it is essential to identify and explore the discourses that define and reproduce negative practices, such as dehumanization, in order to deconstruct the mechanisms that reinforce or undermine these practices, a necessary step to break with the cycle of protractedness.

1.4 Structure of the Book

This book has two main parts, followed by a concluding chapter. The first part includes two chapters focused on identities in conflict. Chapter 2 discusses the specificities of the construction of identities in protracted conflicts. It explores the mutually constitutive nature of protracted peace processes and the identities of societies in relation to cultural violence. Chapter 3 introduces an analytical framework for studying processes of othering—the negative dimension of identity—in protracted conflicts, developing understandings and indicators for the study of dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation that will be used in the following chapters.

The second part introduces the case of Israel and Palestine and addresses the effects of the protracted peace process on the identities in conflict. It develops, through a historiographic overview, a genealogy of both dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation in each phase of the protracted peace process. It does so by identifying, from a teleological perspective and focusing on continuities and changes within the Israeli-Palestinian protracted peace process, four historical periods that correspond to the genesis of the peace process (from the establishment of the Zionist Movement to 1947), followed by its first, second and third phases (respectively, from the Partition Plan to the First Intifada, the Oslo Era in the 1990s, and from the Second Intifada to nowadays). Each period corresponds to one of the four chapters of this part, covering the period from the British Mandate to the twenty-first century.

The concluding chapter brings all the previous elements together, making a final assessment of the framework of analysis proposed, evaluating the effects of the Israeli-Palestinian protracted peace process to identities in conflict. By unravelling the dimensions and dynamics of the ‘cycle of protractedness’, this book contributes to the development and reexamination of key concepts in the field of International Relations, providing a renewed analysis about the role of the Israeli-Palestinian protracted peace process to the conflict and its transformation. It concludes that even though dehumanization dominates in ongoing conflicts, it is possible to identify activities undertaken by local and international actors in the societal level that have developed alongside—as a consequence—and within the very framework—as a desired outcome—of the protracted peace process. In terms of policy design and policy making, the findings of this book provide some clues for the intensification of new—underexplored—avenues for conflict transformation that favor reconciliation rather than reinforcing dehumanization. Although focused on a single case study, being that of Israel and Palestine, the findings of this research can be applied to other cases of protracted social conflicts by way of lessons learned.