This thesis presents a diagnostic of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) post-2007 political and economic agenda from bottom-up seeking to analyse the impact on Palestinian society. It focuses on the two key questions: (a) How did Palestinians in the West Bank experience the political and economic effects of the PA’s agenda during the period 2007-2011? (b) what were the consequences of the PA’s agenda (2007-11) for the way in which power is manifest and distributed within the West Bank? In addressing these questions, in the first instance this thesis makes a clear distinction between the impact of the PA’s post-2007 agenda in a material sense and the rhetorical narrative that accompanied it. Second, it presents the results of the research that was undertaken in a cross-section of Palestinian society, which used the different conditions within the West Bank as a result of geographical fragmentation as a key variable. (This included research in four different sites in the Nablus region; the city centre, Balata refugee camp and two villages in areas ‘B’ and ‘C’.) It was found that, while there was some evidence of popular consent towards the PA’s agenda, this is tied more closely to the PA returning in its role as a provider of basic services than to genuine belief in the legitimacy of the PA’s agenda. Third, it analyses the impact of these agenda on the power dynamics in the contemporary West Bank and concludes that, when judged against a meaningful standard of progress – such as concrete evidence of increasing Palestinian control over their own political and economic activity – the PA’s agenda has been deleterious. In particular, the impact of the post-2007 agenda has replicated many of the flaws that were present during the Oslo period (1993-99), though it has also extended some of those defects further and added new elements to the list of Palestinian concerns. The core contribution of this thesis is to challenge the prevalence of top-down external analyses and to lay the groundwork for further bottom-up analyses of the Palestinian political and economic agency in the future.

This study examines the discourse of a one-state solution and the Palestinian intellectuals who produce it. It draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory and uses a discourse analytic methodology to address the following questions. What is the function of the discourse of a one-state solution in Palestinian politics and why has it taken certain forms? Why do intellectuals intervene in political struggles, an intervention that in this instance has occurred at a transnational level? How is it that the contentious practice of these intellectuals remains largely abstract and not otherwise? And finally, what role can these intellectuals play in converting their critique into an actual generalised historical form? The central thesis of this study is that the discourse of a one-state solution is a competing vision of Palestinian social reality which opposes the dominant discourse in Palestinian politics and which incorporates the particular standpoints of those intellectuals who produce it. These intellectuals seek to impose this vision on the Palestinian political field through challenging the authority of established elites and so claiming a position of symbolic power for themselves. They do this primarily through claims to possess politically indispensable knowledge and through claims to be the legitimate spokespersons of the Palestinian people. The precise manner in which this bid for symbolic power is performed has effects that contingently deny the possibility of these intellectuals playing a political role beyond their present mode of engagement. This study contends that it is important politically to reflect on the limits of critical thought and knowledge production, though how one does this is problematised and taken as a starting point for future research on reflexive practice. In addition, this study suggests that different perspectives in a given social structure are necessary for the formation of a collective political subject.

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This thesis explores the various ritualised modes of being and doing that surrounded the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections. It observes how Hamas and the EU can be understood as performing within particular spaces, whereby an alignment of bodies to spaces delimited possible action. It observes how processes of recognition shaped the EU's response to Hamas's success in the elections, perhaps because of the EU's anxious attachment to a ritualised understanding of itself, or perhaps because of a fantasised understanding of Hamas. This thesis observes how institutional practices or regimented ways of knowing and doing placed particular imperatives to perform upon those acting bodies within the EU, and it explores how this may have barred a possible alternative response to the newly elected Hamas government. This work, therefore, engages a particular curiosity about an alternative relationship between Hamas and the EU through and after the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections. It examines this curiosity through Judith Butler's theory of performativity, which offers the possibility of observing how subjects are constituted through regulating discourses, while investigating how such discourses may be performed otherwise. Performative rituals are open to resignification and reconstitution. In this thesis I turn to rituals in my own life, and in the lives around me, to demonstrate how ritualised encounters are performed and experienced. I turn to various works in performance art and other artistic forms to provoke and illustrate the possible imaginings of alternative political arrangements, and in particular an alternative arrangement between Hamas and the EU. This project explores how the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections may have provided an opportunity for Hamas and the EU to reconstitute their political relationship. It tells of the expectations which surrounded the elections; expectations germinating from a performance of democracy. It tells of the disappointment which followed from the EU's response to Hamas's electoral success; a response which reproduced Hamas as an illegitimate actor. It tells of how the EU may have performed an alternative response to Hamas, fashioning a different relationship between them.

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Deterrence has played a large role in Israel’s management of its conflict with Hamas throughout three distinct periods (1987-2000, 2000-2007, 2007-present). To accomplish deterrence against an actor that has varied in form across distinct periods with different political contexts, it has utilized myriad forms of deterrence, some of which are not part of the everyday deterrence vocabulary elsewhere. After initial instability, each of the three distinct periods has so far featured extended periods of calm following Israeli tactical shifts and the establishment of new deterrence relationships. The shifts between periods themselves, however, have led relatively stable deterrence relationships previously established to collapse or become irrelevant. Explaining these shifts and illuminating the operation of deterrence during each of these periods is an integral part of the first aim of this thesis and is a primary focus of its body chapters. Israel’s myriad tactical successes have not thus far provided a stable, enduring situation of calm. After each significant shift in the political context within which Israel and Hamas operate, both sides have had to ‘re-learn’ deterrence. This calls into question the long-term effectiveness and stability of deterrence as a means for managing the conflict. Nevertheless, there does not currently seem to be a vision for moving beyond deterrence in some way. The conclusion contains a discussion of this and of Israel’s options for bolstering deterrence in the short- to medium term and perhaps moving beyond it in the longer term.

The Temple of Jerusalem was a very stable and traditional institution from the economic point of view during the whole of the so-called Second Temple period. The clergy with its strict hierarchy was the prominent class in Jewish society. Although the Temple apparently possessed no estates extensive enough to keep its personnel, as other Graeco-Roman sanctuaries did, it had a great economic impact on Jewish life. It exacted significant taxes from its worshippers, both for the needs of the cult and those of the building with its appurtenances, and for the support of its clergy, the only temple to do so in the Hellenistic period. The revenues from the main Temple-tax proper, the 8{8pax?ov or half-shekel, were enormous, especially in the last decades of the Hellenistic pe1iod, thanks to the great contribution from the Diaspora. They were complemented by numerous donations and votive-offerings. Private individuals also stored their fortunes in the sanctuary. The Temple incomes far exceeded its various expenditures, so that the Temple treasure was very large and consequently fell victim to the plundering of many foreign rulers and officers throughout time. The missing funds and objects were always speedily replaced thanks to the strong attachment of the Jews to their sole national sanctuary. Specific dues, both flat rates and proportional, in kind and money, were also handed over to the priests and Levites, the highest of which was a straight 10% of all crops, the so-called 'first tithe'. Although not unbearable on its own, perhaps around 26% of the value of an average peasant's crops in total, the whole religious tribute was a heavy burden when added to the very oppressive royal taxation of the Macedonian kings which was taking a minimum of 40% of the crops, plus a tribute and a multiplicity of other low-level taxes, out of a province which was not as fertile as Egypt or Mesopotamia, leaving the peasants with approximately 30% of their crops after payment of both systems. Under the Hasmonean rulers, however, it is likely that both taxation systems fell to a more tolerable level. The Temple, being a paramount customer for all kinds of goods, boosted both the internal and the international trade of the province of Judaea. The Judaean trade, especially that of Jerusalem, was also greatly boosted by the Temple three-yearly mass pilgrimage from the Judaeans and perhaps from Herod onwards also from the Diaspora, and by the religious obligation to spend the 'second tithe' in Jerusalem.

The collapse of the Soviet Union created a new region of instability. The former republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are situated in a strategic region that has garnered the attention of numerous actors in a competition for influence in Central Asia. It also saw the entrance of a most unlikely player; Israel. Since 1948, Israeli foreign policy has been directed at guaranteeing the security of the nation. Israel responded to the emergence of an independent Central Asia by evaluating the region's potential to impact its security and engaging the region to prevent the emergence of hostile regimes. Israel's strategic objectives in the region were to block Iranian inroads and to expand Israel's sphere of influence in order to secure the survival of the Israeli state. By constructively engaging Central Asia in diplomatic, economic, and security relations, Israel exerted its influence over the region. In the first ten years of independence, Israel achieved all its objectives. This thesis examines the reasons behind Israel's interests and evaluates its successes. It will explain what threat perceptions drove Israel's relationship with these states and evaluate these possible threats. This will be accomplished through an examination of the relationship and an evaluation of its successes in the advancement of Israeli national security interests. The focus of this study will be on the complex and multifaceted relations between Israel and the republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. This study will examine Israel's multifaceted relationship with these two republics within the framework of Israel's overall nation security policy and foreign policy objectives. This thesis will explore and evaluate Israel's principal relations with these states, including diplomatic relations, development assistance, commercial relations, and security cooperation. These aspects of the relationship will be explored in order to trace Israel's interest and exposure.

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