The Impact of Protracted Peace Processes on Identities in conflict

Posted on : July 24, 2023
Author : Debsarang Biswas

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Title: The Impact of Protracted Peace Processes on Identities in conflict.

Edited by: Joana Ricarte

Published by: Palgrave Macmillan

First published: 2023

Length: 266 pages

Genre: Politics, peace and conflict studies, international relations.

 

Peace processes, when stretched for a period of time, transform the protracted nature of conflict into a social structure on which the behaviour and activities or interests and identities of the actors involved in the conflict gets determined. This protractedness tends to impact the perceptions about the parties involved in the conflict and puts into play the negatives of identity like the detachment or difference of the ‘self’ and the ‘other’.

In this book the research by Joana Ricarte on “The Impact of Protracted Peace Processes on Identities in Conflict” is based on the relationship between the existence of long-term peace processes or protracted peace processes and the continuity in existence and often increase of violence among parties involved in the inter-generational conflicts (the protractedness of the peace processes often turn the going on conflicts into inter-generational conflicts.

Protracted peace processes transform into a social structure, dehumanization of societies comes into this structure, dehumanization of society is a feature of inter-generational conflict and this book revolves around the question of how different representations of success and failures of protracted peace processes have affected the identities in conflict by affecting the cultures of the societies involved in the conflict by dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation processes.

In this book the author has taken up the case study of Israeli – Palestinian conflict to evidence the strong role of protractedness and dehumanization in a conflict. It deals with the role of discourses, narratives, practices, reconciliation, peace treaties associated with the Israeli – Palestinian protracted peace processes and its transformation since 1947 (the plan of partition) to the transformation in the 21^st century, it approaches the Israeli – Palestinian peace processes since 1947 to Cold War Period to Oslo era when Oslo Accords were introduced and then to the 21^st Century

The situation in Israel and Palestine is one very relevant example in contemporary history of protracted conflict, with the important dimension of dehumanization at its core.  In 1947, the year the UNGA approved resolution 181 that determined the Partition plan for Palestine, the world became familiar with the conflict between the Jews and the Arabs for land and ownership. This came to be known as Israeli – Palestinian conflict. Although there has since been a peace process between the two parties, brokered by external powers, societal interactions on the ground have been deteriorating. This is particularly true since the end and the failure of Oslo Peace Process in the 1990s, which led to a generalized feeling of hopelessness there by legitimizing the establishment of an orthodox and radicalized political environment on both sides of the conflict.(p.14)

There have been consequences of this process, the Palestinian and Israeli societies have been detached from each other on the grounds of geography, politics, culture over the last decades. And this cultural detachment has caused the spread of the idea that the other side is responsible for the lost opportunities for peace and the division raised between societies by building walls and checkpoints, enforcing military, radicalization and other legal mechanisms of segregation and movement control. Radicalization of societies is evident by the legitimized political presence of Hamas and Likud, which appoints violent policies towards the other which promotes the mutual hatred between the two, resulting in hate discourses and violent political practices.

 

It is quite evident that the process of dehumanization is in play which supports the repeated violent policies towards the other and legitimizing them and the sad part is that both parties support it.We can see that, though in 1947, the peace processes that took place between the two parties which were worked out with external powers did try making peace in the conflict, the relationship between the societies of Israel and Palestine has been in the course of deterioration since it stepped into the 21st century and a proof of the same is the construction of the Separation Wall in the West Bank and the policies of movement control and it should not be hard to realize that dehumanization is and has been a central part of the everyday existence of both Israelis and Palestinians, it’s almost like they are more familiar to dehumanization than peacebuilding. And this dehumanization is not a contemporary phenomenon, its origin can be traced back to the first interaction between today’s Zionist movement in the end of the 19th century and the Arab indigenous population of Palestine.

 

Coming to the role of identity in protracted conflicts, the recognition of a legitimate Israeli identity is not a direct result of the conflict but of the worldwide acceptance and recognition of their claims of national aspirations by approval of the UNGA Resolution 181 of 1947, creating two national states one Arab and the other Jewish. The partition plan ignored the existence of the autochthonous population of the Arab as a separate and distinct identity group with their national aspiration and this is why the contemporary situation of the conflict which asks for the two-state formula in the context of peace processes include the international recognition of the Palestinian identity since the First Intifada in 1987.

 

This book consists of two main parts, focused on identities in conflict and indulges in the construction of identities in protracted conflict. It studies the relation between the nature of protracted peace processes and the identity of the society in relation to cultural violence, the negative dimensions of identity in protracted conflict, it includes the study of dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation. And the other part indulges in the study of the case of Israeli – Palestinian conflict in the context of the effects of protracted peace process on identities in conflict.

 

This book provides insight on significant issues which rise during a conflict, but the case study taken up that of the conflict in Israel and Palestine consists of lots of issues which are not talked about due to the existence of the protracted nature of the conflict and the protracted peace processes which has taken shape into a social setting, the destruction, discrimination, asymmetrical violence, poverty, war crimes, this senseless and costly cycle of violence can now only be ended by a rigid political solution. And what this book portrays is a major reason which keeps the conflict far from ending. This book is recommended to readers who want to understand the cultural and societal condition of the conflict in contemporary Israel and Palestine and understand why identity is important as it gives the basis for the right to self-determination of a human being.

 

Debsarang Biswas

Intern, Asia in Global Affairs

 

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