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

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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).