The Palestinian-Israeli peace process and transnational issue networks: The complicated place of the Israeli NGO.
By Richard Rogers and Anat Ben-David The study investigates the potential consequences of the predominance of the human rights frame in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The human rights framing of issues is increasingly prevalent amongst actors working in transnational advocacy networks, often collaborating or aligned with Palestinian groups. Indeed, especially on the Internet, official Palestinian bodies have assumed a style of communication of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), blurring the Palestinian official positioning (and its styling, or "formatting") with that of the transnational advocacy stance (and its look). On the Israeli side, there is little blurring of the line between the official and the unofficial, albeit with a pitched terminological (and policy-related) battle underway between the left and the right to frame the purpose of particular measures, such as the "security fence" (to the right-of-center actors) and the "separation fence" (to the left-of-center). Whether it is for security or for separation (a distinction that is crucial), the term "fence," it is argued, stands in for a regional approach to conflict mitigation, where the connotation could be 'neighborly.' To use the term "wall" is to frame the conflict in the language of human rights. There are a few Israeli groups that use the term "wall," in solidarity with the Palestinian cause. No Palestinian groups term it a "fence." Thus, in an important respect, one may monitor the state of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict - its intractability, its openings - through watching language use over time. The analysis opens inroads in the study of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, preparing the ground for such a media monitoring practice. Reflecting the main title of the paper, "the Palestinian-Israeli peace process and trans-national issue networks," the study maps the network of actors working on the conflict, using special Internet-based tools. We found not only the predominance of the human rights frame in the Palestinian-international networks, but also the absence of linkages from Palestinian and transnational network actors to Israeli groups. In fact, as the subtitle of the paper indicates, "the complicated place of the (left-leaning) Israeli NGO" lies in its isolation, despite its solidarity with the Palestinians. The isolation of the Israeli left-leaning groups by Palestinian and transnational network actors is attributed to its choice of a regional over an international approach, and, in the study, is elaborated by its distinct use of language to describe the "fence." The Israeli groups find themselves in an issue space and conflict approach of their own making, distinct from the human rights frame that dominates the transnational networks aligned with the Palestinian. The implications of the work are three-fold, apart from the methodological conflict monitoring practice (with the Internet), addressed in greater length in an accompanying work (in preparation). First, we make a plea for care to be taken in the consideration of the human rights frame by focusing on the question of its expanding reach into issue areas. We make a further plea for the study of local NGOs in conflict situations, especially when the local groups do not readily assimilate their approach to that of the transnational advocacy networks. Finally, the work suggests a means to assess conflict work between peace-seeking groups from both sides of any "fence." Download the study. Richard Rogers and Anat Ben-David, "The Palestinian-Israeli peace process and trans-national issue networks: The complicated place of the Israeli NGO," 2005, http://www.govcom.org/publications/full_list/rogers_ben-david_1.pdf -- About the authors Dr. Richard Rogers is Director of the Govcom.org Foundation, Amsterdam, and University Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam. He is author of Information Politics on the Web (MIT Press, 2004). Anat Ben-David holds an M.A. in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Acknowledgment The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Advanced Network Research Group, Cambridge Security Programme, University of Cambridge, U.K. In Preparation Anat Ben-David and Richard Rogers, "Conflict Indications in Media. An analysis of the usage, in official and unofficial sources, of the ?security fence,? ?apartheid wall,? and other terms for the structure between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory." To appear, in early form, on http://www.govcom.org/publications/full_list/ (September 2005). # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
