This thesis provides an analysis of Israel&amp / #8217 / s security conceptions, discourses and practices, in the context of the Arab&amp / #8211 / Israeli conflict in general and the Israeli&amp / #8211 / Palestinian conflict in particular, between 1948 and 2000. The purpose of the study is, to explore those processes through which particular definitions and practices of security have been produced and changed, against the background of the domestic debates and competing worldviews among key political actors / and to highlight the overall impact of these points in different periods on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and, thus, on Israel&amp / #8217 / s overall security. In this context, it is observed that the debates among the political actors, regarding the future borders and the identity of the state, have played a key role in the construction and reconstruction of Israeli security policy particularly vis-&agrave / -vis the Palestinian problem. Nevertheless, it is also observed that the extent of these differences has been limited to the objectives of the security policy, and that a zero-sum conception of security, and the primacy of military means to confront the perceived threats have prevailed as common characteristics of Israeli security understanding, informing Israel&amp / #8217 / s related practices. Along these lines the thesis considers the Oslo peace process as an anomaly, and tries to assess it within the framework of the continuities and changes it has introduced to thinking and acting about security in Israel.

The news media serve as the Canadian public’s main source of information about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This thesis examines the ways in which the Canadian media portray the conflict, through a lens of Habermas’ (1962) public sphere theory, Foucault’s (1926 – 1984) ideas on discourse, and Rawls’ (1921 – 2002) conceptions of equality and justice. Building on these theories, Noelle-Neumann’s Spiral of Silence theory (1974), Said’s Orientalism (1978), and d’Arcy’s (1913 – 1983) conception of the right to communicate are examined to arrive at a framework for analyzing Canadian news. Looking at ideological representations, power manifestations, issue framing, and social responsibility within the media, this thesis explores whether the Canadian media portray the conflict in such a way that fosters a downward spiral of opinions within the Canadian public. A Critical Discourse Analysis of coverage in two national English Canadian newspapers, The Globe and Mail and the National Post, during three separate timeframes of increased violence in Israel and Palestine between 2000 and 2009 reveals that newspaper representations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are often entrenched in predefined ways of portraying the Other, fostering an Israeli-Palestinian spiral of silence in Canadian media.

The central question this thesis poses is how and why the modes of Palestinian political activism have changed from the first to the second intifada. The thesis will explore the underlying major political, territorial and social developments that created a new environment for the second uprising that was no longer conducive to the mass protests and acts of civil disobedience, which had dominated the first intifada in the late 1980s. The decline of civil society, the reassertion of Palestinian political factionalism and the unique geographical dislocation of the Palestinian territories, which created new physical obstacles to resistance but also caused division within society, were the key factors in reshaping the context of the second intifada. In addition, rising support for violent resistance among the population was rooted in the sense of hopelessness and frustration that re-emerged over the Oslo period. Much of the population’s frustration was directed at Israel’s colonial regime but in part it was also a response to the rule of the Palestinian Authority, which had failed to fulfil its commitments to its own population in view of its obligations under Oslo toward Israel. In the absence of alternative non-violent outlets within either politics or civil society, what took root instead was individual activism via militant organisations. As such, this thesis offers an account of the development of Palestinian political action (and in particular political violence) that is indebted to an effort to employ historical and contextual analysis in ways that deepen the insights available from explanations of behaviour drawn from political science.

Discussing, defining and engaging with ‘terrorism’ has long been limited to the narrowly framed situations in which parties to an asymmetric conflict resort to the use of force and to the legitimacy they have in doing so. The problem with the limited understanding of ‘terrorism’ and ‘counterterrorism’ as ‘facts of objective reality’ is the lack of attention to the role of the extreme asymmetry of power in conflicts involving ‘terrorism’ that does not lend itself to analysis readily. This thesis introduces a new theoretical concept, the Terrorism Complex that signifies the complexity of power/knowledge relations and the complexity of power/knowledge practices that operate on a discursive and non-discursive level through time and are affected by the mechanisms of power that stem from the asymmetry of power between the actors involved in a conflict. The research into the Terrorism Complex involves an ontological and epistemological widening of the research focus to account for these effects of the interplay between power and knowledge on the production, construction and perception of ‘terrorism’. I draw on postmodern scholarship and the Critical Terrorism Studies to present a theoretical and methodological framework that is used to examine the production of knowledge in relation to the asymmetries of power. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is used as a case study for the study of power asymmetry in the political field that determines who will be labelled a ‘terrorist’ and who will be able to claim the moral high ground. The research also reveals the surprising extent to which the power over discourse obscures the role of the systemic terrorising exercise of state power in inducing ‘terrorism’. The final chapter concentrates on the media’s role in the Terrorism Complex. It applies the findings from other chapters to observe the Terrorism Complex in action.

The news media serve as the Canadian public’s main source of information about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This thesis examines the ways in which the Canadian media portray the conflict, through a lens of Habermas’ (1962) public sphere theory, Foucault’s (1926 – 1984) ideas on discourse, and Rawls’ (1921 – 2002) conceptions of equality and justice. Building on these theories, Noelle-Neumann’s Spiral of Silence theory (1974), Said’s Orientalism (1978), and d’Arcy’s (1913 – 1983) conception of the right to communicate are examined to arrive at a framework for analyzing Canadian news. Looking at ideological representations, power manifestations, issue framing, and social responsibility within the media, this thesis explores whether the Canadian media portray the conflict in such a way that fosters a downward spiral of opinions within the Canadian public. A Critical Discourse Analysis of coverage in two national English Canadian newspapers, The Globe and Mail and the National Post, during three separate timeframes of increased violence in Israel and Palestine between 2000 and 2009 reveals that newspaper representations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are often entrenched in predefined ways of portraying the Other, fostering an Israeli-Palestinian spiral of silence in Canadian media.

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TITLE: Role of massmedia in Israeli-Palestinian question AUTHOR: Dagmar Pexová DEPARTMENT: Faculty of Electronic Culture and Semiotics SUPERVISOR: Mgr. Filip Poštulka ABSTRACT: This work discusses the way the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is presented and explained in the mass media. It focuses on the analysis of the media news on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, mainly during the Second Intifada. For this purpose, reports from newspapers, radio and television are analysed. The political situation and development of the media since the early state of Israel is briefly outlined. The analysis presents the patterns and structures used by the Israeli, Palestinian and international media to report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. KEYWORDS: Israeli-Palestinian conflict, media, Second Intifada, news

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The aim of this study is to establish a comparative perspective of the Church ofSweden and Finn Church Aid (FCA) as development actors. The research willconcentrate on the study of the similarities and differences of their methods andapproaches. As case studies I will focus on the principles of the EAPPI program andLabeling the Origins campaigns. Methodologically, I shall study the interrelatednessof the practices and methods of specific actors with values and ethical positions and,especially, concentrate on the discussions dealing with discourses ofcosmopolitanism, Christian ethics and their overlaps. Narratives are used tocomplement discursive analysis. The theoretical framework consists of variouscosmopolitan theories that are applied to analyze the ideological aspects of the faith-based organization’s methods. The ethical aspects are presented from differentperspectives to create an understanding of the diversity of how cosmopolitanism canbe comprehended in relation to Christianity. The comparative perspective has createdan understanding of how networks are formed and how the same themes are presentin different organizations but guided by different discursive formations. This alsopoints towards the understanding that the perspective of networks is more significantthan countries or actors.