Since the extensive terrorist attacks against the USA on September 11, 2001, the war on terrorism has become an increasingly prevalent phenomenon. Despite the controversy surrounding warfare against terrorist organizations on foreign state territories, world-leading politicians have repeatedly attempted to legitimize and justify extensive military counteroperations by invoking the right to self-defense under the UN Charter. As the UN Charter is designed to regulate warfare between states, it may be considered outdated in relation to the contemporary issue of international terrorism. Following Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, we have witnessed significant devastation and a high number of civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip as a result of the counteroperation led by Israel with support from the USA. The purpose of this work is to investigate whether states have the right to self-defense against non-state actors outside their territory and how this right has changed since the September 11 attacks on the USA. The study also aims to clarify the extent to which armed self-defense against terrorist organizations can and has been justified by examining rhetorical strategies. This is to investigate and thoroughly discuss the consequences suffered by the civilian population as a result of an expanded right to self-defense. A critical discourse analysis, based on van Dijk's understanding of power dimensions, is the tool used in the study to examine the speeches of Presidents Bush, Biden, and Prime Minister Netanyahu. The results of this study show that used rhetorical strategies contribute to and enable the dehumanization of the civilian population living in territories where terrorist organizations operate, decrease ethical responsiveness towards the civilian population and enable physical attacks on a vulnerable population. Responsibility for the civilian population is shifted onto attacking terrorist organizations, indicating the need for clearer moral obligations for nation-states utilizing the right to self-defense to combat international terrorism.

This work is concerned with The Spiritual Teachings of St. Dorotheos of Gaza and also with Palestine monasticism of the 6th century, about the life of St. Dorotheos and his teachers and it explains his teachings and its influence in the following centuries. This work deals with the Orthodox Christian Spirituality and it presents its results using historical and hermeneutical method. St. Dorotheos belongs to the Fathers of the Desert. He lived in the sixth century and with his spiritual instructions proved himself to be a personality of exceptional greatness for all ages. He used in his works the Septuagint, Apophthegmata Patrum and The Fathers of the Church and Greek philosophers, and so on. The Spiritual Teachings of Abba Dorotheos are to be foud in monastic libraries of whole Christianity and are constantly published. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

The diploma thesis explores how the selected Czech and French media inform about the Israeli- Palestinian conflict using the operation Protective Edge, from summer 2014, as an example. Theory of the thesis is based on the relationship between power and media in society and examines reciprocal impact between political and media power. Two national daily newspapers from each country were chosen for the analysis. These two newspapers also present opposite poles of the political spectrum in each country. Media contents of the daily newspapers Mladá fronta DNES, Právo, Le Figaro and Le Monde are analysed with combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. This methodology helps to create a comprehensive image of the conflict represented by the researched media. Quantitative analysis aims to describe the balance of the coverage and differences between French and Czech media in context with the representation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The research also focuses on the impact of the foreign policy of France and the Czech Republic on media contents of the analysed media. Qualitative analysis works with smaller sample of texts and aims to present the representation of the war by the French and Czech media.

This research questions whether Israel and Palestine should be divided into two states. Viewed through the International Relations (IR) theories of Realism and Liberalism, the ‘Two-State’ solution is the orthodox policy for Israel and Palestine. But Israelis and Palestinians are interspersed and share many of the same resources making it difficult to create two states. So, this research critiques the aforementioned IR theories which underpin the ‘Two-State’ solution. The conclusion reached is that there ought to be new thinking on how to resolve the Israel-Palestine issue.

Next year will the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories celebrate the 50th Anniversary. European Union, the most significant trade partner of Israel as well as the biggest donor of Palestine, was for a long time a mere observer of a situation of deepening of the occupation and postponing of its end because of building of Israeli settlements on the one side and of gradual division of Palestinian territories between radical Hamas and Fatah. Just in the autumn of 2015 the European Union decided to take a restrictive step towards Israel by setting clear rules of labelling of Israeli goods produced in those Israeli settlements. However, a harsh response has come both from the Israeli government and from some of EU member states. Therefore this work focuses on evaluation of the legitimacy of this move and on trying to assess the reason of its partial failure.

This thesis research concerns women’s social entrepreneurship in Gaza Strip. Itsmain purpose is to provide a better understanding of how women socialentrepreneurs experience social entrepreneurship in Gaza Strip. Also, it digs deepinto their motives and challenges. The main methodological approach is thenarrative approach. Five women social entrepreneurs from Gaza Strip areinterviewed, and their full narratives are presented as empirical material so that theirvoices are heard and their fluctuating experiences are recognized. The narratives areanalyzed based on the three pillars of social entrepreneurship, social mission,sustainable profit, and social change. Also, the motives and challenges are analyzedbased on the socio-cultural and economic contexts of Gaza Strip. According to thisthesis research, family support and education are fundamental factors in enablingwomen’s social entrepreneurship in Gaza Strip. Also, women social entrepreneurschoose social entrepreneurship because they are inspired by their education, thedesire for personal development and recognition, and helping others through socialentrepreneurship. Moreover, their significant challenges are socio-cultural barriers,poor entrepreneurial education, lack of awareness, deteriorating economic situation,blockade, electricity outage, and favoritism. Finally, this thesis research fills someliterature gaps regarding the nexus between women social entrepreneurs in GazaStrip, patriarchal societies, and regions with conflicts and social entrepreneurship.Also, it highlights the importance of contextualizing women social entrepreneurs inresearch.

The social media platform TikTok is becoming an increasingly emerging space akin to a search engine, where news and information are shared and discovered, particularly amongst young adults. Whilst the majority of scholarly research on media trust in TikTok has concentrated on practices by professional journalists and news organizations, the entities represent only a fraction of the diverse actors, contributing to the platform's news-sharing media landscape. Notably, citizen journalists play a pivotal role in generating and disseminating war-related content on TikTok. TikTok personae have the ability to build strong relationships with followers. Such relationships, which carry great audience loyalty potential, are investigated through parasocial interaction in combination with the uses and gratifications theory. This study is a reception study of a young audience based primarily in Austria and Sweden which aims to investigate media trust in war-related content amongst ordinary individuals. Through focused interviews with 18 to 28-year-old TikTok users, reactions to viral videos will be assessed in order to establish trust factors and gain insights into their user behavior and news consumption habits on the app. Findings indicate that the TikTok algorithm influences young adults and they approach citizen- generated news content cautiously due to potential viral motives amongst creators, particularly when addressing sensitive topics such as the Israel-Gaza crisis. However, they recognize the value of opinionated content as a tool for young people to build an opinion on political topics. Keywords: Citizen Journalism, TikTok, War, Social Media Trust, Israel-Gaza Crisis, Para Social Interaction, Uses and Gratifications

This sociological study explores the past and current higher education (HE) experience of educationalists at Gaza’s universities and how this experience may be evolving in the shifting socio-political context in the Arab World. The thesis is motivated by three questions: 1. What are the perspectives of academic staff in the Faculties of Education at Gaza’s universities on their own past HE experiences? 2. What are the perspectives of students and their lecturers (academic staff) in the Faculties of Education at Gaza’s universities on students’ current HE experiences? 3. How do educationalists in the Faculties of Education at Gaza’s universities perceive the shifting socio-political context in the Arab World, and what current or future impact do they think it will have on the education context at Gaza’s universities? To examine these questions, I conducted an inductive qualitative study. Using 36 in-depth, semi- structured interviews which lasted between (90-300 min), I collected data from educationalists (15 academic staff; 21 students) at two of Gaza’s universities. Due to difficulties of access to the Gaza Strip, the participants were interviewed via Skype from Cambridge. Informed by the literature review, and triangulated with other research activities, such as reviewing participants’ CVs, browsing universities websites, and keeping a reflective journal, a thematic analysis was conducted on the interview data. Theoretically, although this study has benefited from conceptual insights, such as those found in Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and in Pierre Bourdieu’s work on symbolic violence, it is a micro-level study, which is mainly data driven. The findings of this research show that in the past, educationalists were relatively more passive in terms of shaping their HE experiences, despite efforts to become resilient. In the present, students and their lecturers continue to face challenges that impact negatively on their participation and everyday life at Gaza’s universities. However, how the HE experience will evolve out of this context in the future is uncertain. The Arab Spring revolutions have had an influence on Gaza HE institutions’ campuses as they have triggered more awareness of students’ grievances and discontent. Because of some political and educational barriers, however, students’ voices are a cacophony; they remain split between “compliance” and resistance (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 471; Swartz, 2013, p. 39). Previously, Sara Roy (1995) rightly indicated a structure of “de-development” in the Gaza Strip (p.110). The findings from this research show that the impact of occupation and of the changes in the Arab World on the educational context in Gaza are more complex than previously thought. There is a simultaneous process of construction and destruction that is both external and internal to educationalists and which undermines academic work at Gaza’s universities. Based on this, the study concludes by explaining six implications of this complex structure for academic practice at Gaza’s universities, offering nine policy recommendations for HE reform, and highlighting six areas for future research.

Palestine is known as the birthplace of Christianity. However the Christian population of this land is relatively insignificant today, despite the continuing institutional legacy that the 19th century Western missionary focus on the region created. Palestinian Christians are often forced to employ politically astute as well as theologically radical means in their efforts to appear relevant within an increasingly Islamist-oriented society. My thesis focuses on two ecumenical Christian organisations within Palestine, the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre in Jerusalem (headed by the Anglican cleric Naim Stifan Ateek) and Dar Annadwa Addawliyya (the International Centre of Bethlehem-ICB, directed by the Lutheran theologian Mitri Raheb). Based on my field work (consisting of an in-depth familiarisation with the two organisations in Palestine and interviews with their directors, office-staff and supporters worldwide, as well as data analyses based on an extensive literature review), I argue that the grassroots-oriented educational, humanitarian, cultural and contextual theological approach favoured by the ICB in Bethlehem is more relevant to the Palestinian situation, than the more sectarian and Western-oriented approach of the Sabeel Centre. These two groups are analysed primarily according to their theological-political approaches. One, (Sabeel), has sought to develop a critical Christian response to the Palestine-Israel conflict using the politico-theological tool of liberation theology, albeit with a strongly ecumenical Western-oriented focus, while the other (ICB), insists that its theological orientation draws primarily from the Levantine Christian (and in their particular case, the Palestinian Lutheran) context in which Christians in Israel-Palestine are placed. Raheb of the ICB has tried to develop a contextual theology that seeks to root the political and cultural development of the Palestinian people within their own Eastern Christian context and in light of their peculiarly restricted life under an Israeli occupation regime of over 40 years. In the process, I argue that the ICB has sought to be much more situationally relevant to the needs of the Palestinian people in the West Bank, given the employment, socio-cultural and humanitarian-health opportunities opened up by the practical-institution building efforts of this organisation in Bethlehem.

The thesis "Framing of the conflict in the Middle East in Czech Daily Newspapers" explores how Czech print media report on the conflict in the Middle East through the analysis of Mladá fronta Dnes and Právo news coverage of the Second Lebanon War (2006) and the Gaza war (2008- 2009). The theoretical part of the thesis deals with the role of the media in times of war and focuses mainly on the popular even though somewhat fragmented concept of media framing, which became the basis for the analysis of the above mentioned newspapers. The research draws on the extensive literature on media framing as well as foreign research on framing of the Arab- Israeli conflict, combining quantitative and qualitative analytical tools. The aim of the quantitative part of the analysis was to obtain hitherto missing data about the framing of the conflict in the Middle East by Czech media that could be compared to similar data that are already available for foreign media. Quantitative analysis also focused on news sources and topics used while referring about the Middle East conflict. The purpose of the qualitative analysis was to gain a deeper insight into the problem and generate a list of specific frames used to interpret the conflict in the Middle East by Czech print media.