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Summary Introduction to Conflict Studies Lectures (9-13) Final exam
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This is a summary of the last five lectures of the course Introduction to Conflict Studies. These lectures are part of the final exam.
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Introduction to Conflict Studies Lectures Final ExamLecture 9: Bridging the gap: Analysis and Intervention…………………………………………..2
Lecture 10: Boots on the ground…………………………………………………………………..10
Lecture 11: Improvisation in Mediation…………………………………………………………...15
Lecture 12: Media & hate speech……………………………………………………...………….19
Lecture 13: Counterinsurgent militias in civil war…………………………………………...…...22
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,Lecture 9: Bridging the gap: Analysis and Intervention
Human Right Watch Report
A report was published that was called: Two Authorities, One Way, Zero Dissent. HRW is
talking about human rights violations, in particular in Palestinian territories.
Security Fabric
“the composition of a definite territory in terms of its security architecture, meaning the actors
involved, their (sometimes self-imposed) mandate and actual duties, territorial boundaries in
which they operate and the level of influence they exert over that area, and their respective
ethnic religious, social, and cultural affiliations.”
There is a lot of focus on formal organisations and formal institutions and not so much on
informal and lower scale initiatives that people take. To create a holistic view of security, we
should talk about ALL the actors that are involved. So not just state actors or international
organisations, but also people on the lower level.
The security fabric tries to paint a picture of all of the actors that are involved and tries to
maintain this particular web of relationships, in this case revolving around security.
A lot of research has been done about this and there are similar concepts like: security
assemblages / hybrid security governance / rebel governance. So there are different studies
that look at the relationship between actors involved in providing in one way or another
security.
Security from above and below
● Human security from above
State institutions, international supranational actors
These are all the formal actors. And this is the main way of looking at security.
● Human security from below
Security communities; families, political organisations, tribal/informal law
This is what people do themselves.
The width of the arrow hints at the trust that
people have in those kind of actor. And the height
of the arrow has something to do with the level of
influence they exert. So in this particular context
you can see that clans are trusted quite well and
that they also have a lot of influence, while the
security forces of the Palestinian authorities are
not considered to be that trustworthy.
Security communities
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,Security communities: groups of people, living within or across states, with clear, socially
constructed borders, of which members with a (imagined) shared identity associate their
security, and physical, as well as, cultural and economic well-being with membership of the
community. Their shared identity may evolve around political affiliation, religion, kinship,
geographical vicinity or any other unifying characteristic.
There are quite a lot of communities in different contexts who link their well-being and their
security to one particular part of their identity. Interesting in that is that often in armed
conflict, that part of their identity is often the reason for them to not be insecure. So they are
for example persecuted because they belong to a certain group, which often triggers
self-defence mechanisms to improve human security from below. So at the same time this
part of your identity is a sort of security and insecurity.
Context matters and context makes some parts of your identity more salient. And especially
in terms of conflict, ethnic identity or religious identity or political affiliation may become very
prominent because you are threatened for that very aspect of your identity. It may lead you
to find people who are like-minded or share that part of your identity and then it may trigger
mechanisms where you organise your own security.
Research
Dekker wrote his research proposal in 2007 and what he originally wanted to do was to
study in Gaza how certain neighbourhoods had been shielded off from the Palestinian
authorities. In Gaza it was specifically Hamas that was ruling the territory. He wanted to
understand why certain families had been able to shield off certain neighbourhoods and
protect them.
When Dekker started his research, the dynamics changed, which meant that he had to adapt
his plan. After president Arafat died, there was a new president (Abbas) and he was seen as
a person that especially foreign actors could do business with. So there was a lot of funding
and expertise flowing into the Palestinian territory to help Palestitnian authorities.
When Dekker arrived in the Westbank in 2009, he found that the situation had completely
changed. These armed families were no longer in existence: they were all disarmed. So the
Palestinian authority as the formal authority that also provided security, had completely
reinstated and re-established the monopoly on the use of force. So all of these informal
security mechanisms had more or less ceased to exist.
When Dekker got into the Westbank he found out that the Palestinian authority had the
monopoly on the use of force, however there were still some kind of informal mechanisms
that either competed with the Palestinian authority or complemented what the Palestinian
authority was doing. Dekker became interested in the dynamics between these two, between
human security from above and human security from below.
He did participant observations, semi-structured interviews.
He did most of the fieldwork in and around Hebron & Nablus.
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,Israeli – Palestinian conflict
Two phenomena that were important in the 19th century and that help understand the
current situation are nationalism and anti-semitism.
People started to consider themselves as a separate group, as a nation, and they also
longed for sovereignty: they wanted to make decisions over their future as a group.
Another important phenomena is anti-semitism. Jews were being arrested and excluded
from all kinds of occupations in Europe
These two phenomena led to the rise of Zionism. The Jewish people wanted a state of their
own, Jewish nationalism. The first Zionist congress was organized in Basel, Switserland in
1897. All kinds of Jews from Europe were invited to discuss the future of the Jewish people,
and especially linking that to the establishment of a state for the Jewish people.
Several locations were discussed. For example: Argentina, Uganda.
But at the congress they understood that linking the establishment of a Jewish state to
history made a lot of sense. So the main goal was to establish a state in Palestine. At that
time it was still part of the Ottoman Empire.
And from that time on, when they decided the land, there is an increase in migration. In the
late 1900s the population of Palestine was a couple of 100 thousand people: 8% Jewish,
11% Christian Arabs, 81% Muslim Arabs. So the Jews were a small minority. Thirty years
later, the Jewish part of the population is 17% and in 1947/1948 it was 32%. So there is an
increase in the Jewish part of the population in Palestine.
In 1914 the First World War broke out and it was clear that the Ottoman Empire would
probably not survive this war. So in 1917 two people came together (Sykes and Picot) and
together they made an agreement, the Sykes-Picot agreement, in which they carved up the
Middle East (parts of the Ottoman Empire) and divided it amongst themselves. So the
French would get control over certain areas and the British as well.
There was a Jewish lobby organisation. Rothschild wrote a letter to the British minister of
Foreign Affairs Balfour, asking about the establishment of a Jewish state in the Middle East.
Balfour wrote back and said that when the British would gain control over this area, they
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, would support the establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine. And that promise led to an
increase of migration to the Ottoman Empire.
When the Empire collapsed, the British and the French took over. The idea was that they
would gradually help develop these areas into states, together with the League of Nations.
So they came up with the concept of mandate states. Most of these states gained
independence. Palestine, however, turned out to be difficult. The British mandate of
Palestine saw a lot of difficulties between the groups that were living there, mostly between
the Arabs and the Jews. This led to a lot of violence and they were fighting each other all the
time. The British felt not capable of managing this and they weren’t that positive about the
development of Palestine from a mandate state to an independent state.
After the Second World War the UN was established, for the purpose of keeping peace in
the world among other things. And they presented the issue to the UN and they asked the
UN to come up with a solution for Palestine. The UN established a special commission for
this and in 1947 they came up with a proposal to split the area in two. It would be split into a
Jewish state and an Arab state. After this plan was proposed to both parties, the Jewish
community agreed with this partition plan, but the Arab community didn’t. One reason for this
is that at that time 60% of the population was Arab, but they would only receive 45% of the
territory, which is unfair. So this partition plan failed.
But the British still wanted to leave and in May 1948 they decided to end the British
mandate. The day after the Jewish left, the Jewish community, led by Ben-Guiron, declared
the state of Israel.
From the very beginning, Jewish settlement in Palestine was aimed at creating a state and
state institutions. So it was highly centralised. The Arab population not so much. Security
there mostly arrived at villages and families. This is one of the reasons why after the
Declaration of Independence the highly centralized Jewish population was able to carve out
quite a big piece of land.
The Jews tried to claim as much land as possible by forcing out the Arabs. The result was
that after the independence 700.000 Arabs left and fled to Gaza and the Westbank, but also
to Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. When Palestinians nowadays are talking about the right to
return, they are talking about these 700.000 people that fled these areas.
After the declaration of indepence, the surrounding countries attacked this newly established
Jewish state and this led to what the Jews call the War of Indepence. In Israel people talk
about 1948 as the Declaration of Independence and the War of Independence, while the
Palestinians refer to the same moment as the Nakba, the catastrophe :(
In 1967 Israel decided to act preemptively by attacking the airforce of Egypt. Other countries
also got involved; they wanted to assist Egypt. Israel managed to conquer Syria, Egypt and
Jordan in six days ( → Six Day War). Israel also managed to capture other parts of
Palestine: the Westbank, Gaza and the Golan Heights → the occupied territories. And the
UN called upon Israel to leave these occupied territories, but until now this has not
happened.
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