Peter Coleman's (2011) Attractor Landscape Model (ALM) is a promising new framework for analysing and tackling intractable conflicts: conflicts that are highly destructive and highly resistant to conflict resolution. However, this thesis suggests that Coleman's ALM may be based on unreliable assumptions about homogenous group psychology. The aim is to test the reliability of the ALM from this perspective, and to suggest ways to successfully operationalise the ALM. The reliability of the ALM is tested using the case study of professional negotiators in the Israel- Palestine Track-I peace process 2007-2011. 12 interviews are conducted with negotiators from four key actors: the EU, the US, Israel and the Negotiation Support Unit (NSU). The transcripts of these interviews are coded for patterns of 'behaving' and 'thinking', and tested against five hypotheses derived from negotiation theories and the Conceptual Integrative Complexity Scoring Manual (Baker- Brown et al., 1992). It is concluded that the case study of the Israel-Palestine Track-I peace process 2007-2011 generally provides support for the attractor landscape model. However, negotiators from the NSU stood out as a significant exception. This suggests that future studies using the ALM should investigate potentially significant differences in...

This thesis examines the production and function of knowledge concerning security and Israeli security. A critical, post-positivist approach to analysing the constitution and practices connected to security knowledge is justified. From a broadly Foucaultian point of view, the thesis looks at the 'regime of truth' within which ideas of Israeli security concerning Palestinians are formulated. The connections between the Security Studies discipline, academic studies focusing on Israel's security, and the formulation of Israel's policy positions towards the Palestinians are examined. Overall, it is shown how the practices of a 'social scientific' Security Studies discipline engaged in producing 'useful' knowledge for state practitioners reinforces and legitimates official Israeli security discourse and practice based around a conception of a singular state-based identity seeking security, primarily through military-diplomatic means, against a recalcitrant and hostile enemy 'Other' in the Palestinians. This basic framework of security knowledge is traced through official Israeli security discourse and practice (the security dispositif) from 1988 to 2009, offering an in-depth analysis of the development and evolution of official security processes concerning the Palestinians. Adopting an explicitly critical ethos for reflexive research, the thesis disrupts and challenges official Israeli security dynamics, finding them to be repeatedly exacerbating conflictual relations. Through the deployment of the regime of truth, the repeated instantiation of the official Israeli security dispositif is shown to re-incite and re-confirm existing parameters of knowledge and knowledge production. The thesis therefore also provides a detailed and critical examination of the notion of a repetitive 'cycle of violence' at the heart of Israeli-Palestinian relations.

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This study was conducted in order to interpret claims of antisemitism in Malmö, Sweden, depicted as an effect of political events in Palestine/Israel. It is argued that contemporary antisemitism is a new phenomenon, where hostility towards Jewish people is argued to be motivated by hostility towards Israel by perpetrators identified as ”Muslims” and/or people with roots in the Middle East and North Africa. Using previous literature, this view is contrasted with arguments that antisemitism as a phenomenon should not be delimited to such group formations and rather that different arguments are often projected on Palestine/Israel, in relation to antisemitism for political agendas. This paper investigates the meaning making processes of two news reports depicting claims of antisemitism in Malmö, Sweden as an effect of events in Palestine/Israel in May 2021 by using the Discourse Theory of Ernesto Laclau & Chantal Mouffe. The analysis investigates the ideas and underlying assumptions found in the material and posits the depictions made, with alternative possible ascriptions of meaning, excluded from the discursive formations made in the material. The conclusion reached is that reproducing many arguments of “new antisemitism” and of Malmö as “antisemitic” may misdirect the “combat” of antisemitism at the disadvantage for pro-Palestinian movements and further strengthen arguments many of which are taken for granted within the empiric material, for the salience of the existence of Israel and Zionism, due to the prevalence of antisemitism. Due to the limited nature of this paper, the author hopes that it can inspire future research within the field, as more extensive research, according to the author, is highly needed.

This thesis explores intersecting processes of inclusion and exclusion among Palestinians in Tel Aviv, a city considered to be essentially Jewish-Israeli. It looks at Palestinians from diverse backgrounds and statuses who engage with the city in search of employment, higher education, political activism, or an urban lifestyle. Although this self-consciously liberal city creates social and economic openings, unequal power relations and conflict prevail over urban civility and citizenship. The Palestinians face a paradox: the deeper their inclusion into Tel Aviv’s political economy, the stronger their estrangement and the more serious their dilemmas. Because their urban inclusion is limited, mobility and constant adaptation become obligatory and eventually disempowering. As they oscillate between conflicting desires and senses of solidarity or identification, the Palestinians in Tel Aviv struggle with intersecting forms of cultural and political power. They seek individual opportunities within a political system they oppose, demand recognition of their identity and history but also seek urban anonymity as unmarked individuals. Their balancing acts resemble acrobats: they walk a tightrope between contradictory worlds, unable to reconcile both into a stable balance and simultaneously prevented from ever fully arriving at the other end. They live in exile ‘at home’.

The main focus of the dissertation is to examine the interactions between Egyptian foreign policy and the domestic, regional and international dramatic changes that shaped the environment in which that foreign policy was made and operated during the Arab Spring in Egypt from January 2011 to June 2013. The goal is to explore whether domestic, regional and international changes during the Arab Spring had resulted in a substantial change of Egyptian foreign policy in those three years regarding most foreign policy issues especially toward Turkey and Palestine. The dissertation's analysis, while rather qualitative and inductive in nature, employed the neoclassical realism as its theoretical framework. It allowed the researcher to identify major domestic players and issues such as ideology, strategic culture, political religion and the ability to mobilize national resources and study their impact on the foreign policy decision makers. The researcher concluded that the Egyptian foreign policy made several major changes during the Arab Spring especially toward Turkey and Palestine/Israel. These changes were due to domestic and regional variables more than to international systemic order's signals. Neoclassical realism proved to be ideal for the researcher's analysis. It helped him easily identify key...

The present study argues that the central notion and practice unifying Edward Said’s oeuvre is that of “secular” criticism, which he conceives of as the defining activity and tool of the humanistic intellectual. We also argue that Said sees the intellectual’s moral mission of “secular” criticism as based in Said’s understanding of “humanism” as intellectual production aimed at concrete change in the real world of human struggles for universal justice and human emancipation from oppression of all types. Related to Said’s particular and perennial upholding of a particular understanding of humanism, Said wields a religious-secular rhetoric as a weapon to expose and question the ironic fact of the “religiosity” of those persons, movements, and ideologies claiming their basis in the unswervingly “secular.” Within the overall body of Said commentary, Said’s effort to recover humanism as a useable praxis of human emancipation from oppressive systems has been largely neglected. This is largely due to the misrecognition of Orientalism as Said’s defining project and the consequent sublation of equally if not more significant, defining elements in the Saidian oeuvre than Orientalism , e.g. “secular” criticism. This study finds that the religious-secular trope conveys Said’s notion of what criticism is and does in a re-constructed humanism, a “humanism of liberation,” as Saree Makdisi has aptly called it, and not, as some commentators have seen it, an expression of a self-contradictory disdain for religion with a concomitant defensive posture toward Islam. In this thesis, Said’s religious-secular rhetoric is analyzed for its meaning, for its role in Said’s idea of criticism, and for its significance in Said’s effort to re-construct humanism as an emancipatory practice. Finally, this study argues that Said’s writing to and on the Arab-Islamic world, and particularly his writing on Palestine-Israel, exemplifies what Said means by the term “secular” criticism. In this sense, Said’s work on the problematic of Palestine-Israel is a synechdoche of his entire critical project. This interpretation is unique in that it challenges the idea that Said’s work on Palestine-Israel is an endeavor outside his professional vocation as a humanist and is motivated merely by Said’s passionate attachment to his homeland. This thesis aims to show how Said’s work on the problematic of Palestine-Israel is not only a model of what Said means by the term “secular criticism,” but avers further that, coupled with Said’s writing to and on the Arab Islamic world, his work on Palestine-Israel represents the most significant labor of his “non-humanist” humanism, or the “humanism of liberation” as a still valid practice, and as an intellectual, ethical framework, and a means of concretely furthering the struggle for universal human emancipation—which Said defines as completely in line with his work as a humanist. In other words, Said’s work on the problematic of Palestine-Israel is not a political side-line apart from his work as a man of letters but is a body of quintessentially humanistic production at the heart of the concept of “secular criticism.” The present study argues that the central notion and practice unifying Edward Said’s oeuvre is that of “secular” criticism, which he conceives of as the defining activity and tool of the humanistic intellectual. We also argue that Said sees the intellectual’s moral mission of “secular” criticism as based in Said’s understanding of “humanism” as intellectual production aimed at concrete change in the real world of human struggles for universal justice and human emancipation from oppression of all types. Related to Said’s particular and perennial upholding of a particular understanding of humanism, Said wields a religious-secular rhetoric as a weapon to expose and question the ironic fact of the “religiosity” of those persons, movements, and ideologies claiming their basis in the unswervingly “secular.” Within the overall body of Said commentary, Said’s effort to recover humanism as a useable praxis of human emancipation from oppressive systems has been largely neglected. This is largely due to the misrecognition of Orientalism as Said’s defining project and the consequent sublation of equally if not more significant, defining elements in the Saidian oeuvre than Orientalism , e.g. “secular” criticism. This study finds that the religious-secular trope conveys Said’s notion of what criticism is and does in a re-constructed humanism, a “humanism of liberation,” as Saree Makdisi has aptly called it, and not, as some commentators have seen it, an expression of a self-contradictory disdain for religion with a concomitant defensive posture toward Islam. In this thesis, Said’s religious-secular rhetoric is analyzed for its meaning, for its role in Said’s idea of criticism, and for its significance in Said’s effort to re-construct humanism as an emancipatory practice. Finally, this study argues that Said’s writing to and on the Arab-Islamic world, and particularly his writing on Palestine-Israel, exemplifies what Said means by the term “secular” criticism. In this sense, Said’s work on the problematic of Palestine-Israel is a synechdoche of his entire critical project. This interpretation is unique in that it challenges the idea that Said’s work on Palestine-Israel is an endeavor outside his professional vocation as a humanist and is motivated merely by Said’s passionate attachment to his homeland. This thesis aims to show how Said’s work on the problematic of Palestine-Israel is not only a model of what Said means by the term “secular criticism,” but avers further that, coupled with Said’s writing to and on the Arab Islamic world, his work on Palestine-Israel represents the most significant labor of his “non-humanist” humanism, or the “humanism of liberation” as a still valid practice, and as an intellectual, ethical framework, and a means of concretely furthering the struggle for universal human emancipation—which Said defines as completely in line with his work as a humanist. In other words, Said’s work on the problematic of Palestine-Israel is not a political side-line apart from his work as a man of letters but is a body of quintessentially humanistic production at the heart of the concept of “secular criticism.” The present study argues that the central notion and practice unifying Edward Said’s oeuvre is that of “secular” criticism, which he conceives of as the defining activity and tool of the humanistic intellectual. We also argue that Said sees the intellectual’s moral mission of “secular” criticism as based in Said’s understanding of “humanism” as intellectual production aimed at concrete change in the real world of human struggles for universal justice and human emancipation from oppression of all types. Related to Said’s particular and perennial upholding of a particular understanding of humanism, Said wields a religious-secular rhetoric as a weapon to expose and question the ironic fact of the “religiosity” of those persons, movements, and ideologies claiming their basis in the unswervingly “secular.” Within the overall body of Said commentary, Said’s effort to recover humanism as a useable praxis of human emancipation from oppressive systems has been largely neglected. This is largely due to the misrecognition of Orientalism as Said’s defining project and the consequent sublation of equally if not more significant, defining elements in the Saidian oeuvre than Orientalism , e.g. “secular” criticism. This study finds that the religious-secular trope conveys Said’s notion of what criticism is and does in a re-constructed humanism, a “humanism of liberation,” as Saree Makdisi has aptly called it, and not, as some commentators have seen it, an expression of a self-contradictory disdain for religion with a concomitant defensive posture toward Islam.

This thesis explores cosmopolitan and humanist literary interventions by Palestinian, Israeli, Indian and Pakistani writers to the rise of ‘ethnically’ defined cultural and political narratives of community. It uses a comparative framework to look at contemporary authors such as Amitav Ghosh, Raja Shehadeh, Kamila Shamsie, Uzma Aslam Khan and David Grossman, who deconstruct the biologically defined border as a repressive literary, cultural and political metaphor in favour of more open-ended categories of identity and community. I argue that in deconstructing the epistemology of the exclusive boundary through cosmopolitan and humanist philosophies, these international writers demonstrate the impossibility of shedding all borders in their own work. Their ‘borderless’ aesthetic that constantly conjures the border is thus indicative of the interrelated nature of cosmopolitan and sectarian identities in a globalized modernity. Moreover, it is suggestive of the ambivalent relationship between politically-conscious postcolonial texts (which draw political lines) and the emerging field of World literature that is coming to be defined by its ability to appeal to the 'universal'.

This thesis examines the ways in which the British mandate conceptualised, encountered, and sought to manage mental illness in Palestine between 1920 and 1948. The subject of mental illness has hitherto received partial consideration by historians interested in the Yishuv, who treat this period as formative for the Israeli mental health service. This thesis shifts the focus from European Jewish psychiatrists to the British mandate's engagements with mental illness, thus contributing to the well-developed literature on colonial psychiatry. Where this thesis departs from many of these institutionally-focussed histories of colonial psychiatry is in its source base; lacking hospital case files or articles in psychiatric journals, this thesis draws on an eclectic range of material from census reports and folklore research to petitions and prison records. In bringing together these strands of the story of psychiatry and mental illness, this thesis seeks to move beyond the continued emphasis in the historiography of Palestine on politics, nationalism, and state-building, and to develop our understanding of state and society by examining how they interacted in relation to the question of mental illness. This thesis thus widens the cast of historical actors from psychiatric experts alone to take in policemen, census officials, and families. In addition, this thesis seeks to situate Palestine within wider mandatory, British imperial, and global contexts, not to elide specificities, but to resist a persistent historiographical tendency to treat Palestine as exceptional. The first part traces the development of British mandatory conceptualisations of mental illness through the census of 1931 and then through a focus on specific causes of mental illness thought to be at work in Palestine. The second part examines two contexts in which the mandate was brought into contact with the mentally ill: the law and petitions. The final part of the thesis explores two distinct therapeutic regimes introduced in this period: patient work and somatic treatments.

This essay aims to begin to fill a potential gap in previous research when it comes to studying the political content of specific cultural practices, in this case the Freedom Theatre in Jenin. The theatre expressively refers to itself as a political theatre, calling themselves freedom fighters and places itself at the forefront of they call "cultural resistance". The creation of this cultural resistance is investigated here. This essay aims to explores, through examining the theatre's methods of practice, how cultural resistance could be transformed into political action and what problems that may hinder their political aspirations from becoming a true potential for political influence. The essay concludes that the theatre uses identity and narrative for political purposes in order to unite and strengthen the Palestinian collective identity, creating a civil resistance towards the Israeli occupation. This is however not an unproblematic process, and many of the same problems facing other nonviolent resistance movements are also present within the theatre. / Minor Field Studies, SIDA