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CIAO DATE: 12/99
Conducting Research in a Divided Society: The Israeli-Palestinian case
Seminar on Research in a Divided Society
October 22, 1997
Abstract of address presented to INCORE/CCRU Seminar on Research in a Divided Society, Malone House, Belfast, 22 October 1997.
The Israeli-Palestinian case is often placed in the “divided societies” category together with, for example, South Africa and Northern Ireland. However, relations between the Israeli Jewish collective and the Palestinians residing in the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 War hardly fit into this analytical classification. While the notion of a divided society applies perfectly to the Jews-Arabs relations within the State of Israel in its pre-1967 borders, these relations are of lesser political and academic interest at the present although they will undoubtedly come to the forefront when the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is eventually settled. Hopefully, studies of divided societies conducted elsewhere will then prove instrumental in mitigating the destructive potential of these relations.
The Israeli-Palestinian reality is often referred to as a “divided society” due to the superficial resemblance it bears to other cases correctly listed under this umbrella term. Israelis and Palestinians reside in the same land, depend upon each other in a variety of issues and on many levels, and communicate across the line dividing them by numerous modes of interaction. Palestinians and Israelis, while constantly relating to each other, have developed contradictory historical narratives of the past and interpretations of the present. Most importantly, like the Protestants and the Catholics in Northern Ireland and blacks and whites in South Africa, they bitterly and violently clash again and again over scarce, highly desirable material and non-material resources.
Yet, contrary to authentic divided societies, the two collectives, Israeli and Palestinian, do not constitute one society, as the latter term infers a basic sense of shared destiny or “togetherness”, even if overshadowed by bitter domestic contentions. The distinct Israeli and the Palestinian national identities are, to a large extent, defined and strengthened by the conflict between them. No unifying historical, cultural, religious or linguistic factors which could bridge the rift, are present here, besides, perhaps, some shared war fatigue. Israeli Jews and Palestinians do not live together and children of the two nationalities never attend the same schools. Even a common language, which exist in most other divided societies and serve there as a means of communication between the two sides, is absent here. Most Israelis do not understand, read or write Arabic, while the Palestinians try to limit their use of Hebrew to functional purposes. Social and cultural interactions between members of the two national communities, separated by a gap in their levels of modernization as well, are fairly rare. In fact, these interactions have become even more infrequent in recent years, with the escalation in violence and mistrust following the bankruptcy of the Oslo process.
Thus Israeli-Palestinian relations do not represent a divided society, but rather a situation of antagonistic occupancy, of a tight control by one party over the other which has created a manifest bond between the two collectives. However, this bond, based on force and an inequality of power, has often misled outside observers to define the Israeli-Palestinian case as a “divided society”. This erroneous impression has been strengthened by the fact that the Oslo process gained momentum at about the same time as the downfall of Apartheid in South Africa and the cease-fire in Northern Ireland. It should be noted, however, that when Israeli researchers, closely familiar with the situation, employ the definition of “divided society”, it should be read as a political statement; i.e., the “Two States for the Two People solution” is virtually unworkable or undesirable.
The reality of antagonistic occupancy undoubtedly interferes with efforts to conduct research across the Palestinian-Israeli lines of division. It is particularly difficult to conduct research on attitudes at the grassroots level, since practical considerations at the elite’s level, such as a message delivered to the leaders or public on the other side, often bridge the inter-societal rupture. The main problem in conducting research amidst this unfortunate state of affairs is the interference of the researcher’s national identity. This problem has several manifestations:
For the procedures and outcomes of a study to be impartial, the identity of the researcher should theoretically be “transparent”. Here, however, unmistakable identities dominate the scene. The researcher’s Israeli or Palestinian identity unavoidably makes him or her a protagonist in the conflict to be studied, regardless of his or her political opinions. An Israeli researcher will always be regarded by the Palestinians as the representative of the occupying force while Israelis will always view a Palestinian researcher not only as the representative of the weak side of the conflict, but also of the side ready to commit violent acts of despair. Fear and mistrust are ever present, and the prospects of getting the co-operation of respondents of the other side at the broad public level are very weak. Therefore, direct studies of one side by researchers on the other have become rare in Israel/Palestine in recent years (Joint projects will be discussed below).
The researcher’s national identity is often translated into practical impediments when conducting research. Freedom of movement is perhaps the most obvious example. The often imposed closures on the territories make it virtually impossible for Palestinian researchers to enter Israel for the purpose of conducting ongoing academic work, nor do Israeli Jewish researchers move about freely in the West Bank. Such activity was particularly dangerous during the lntifada (1987-1993), but it is still considered too high a risk now, when large parts of the West Bank are governed by the Palestinian Authority.
Furthermore, Israeli researchers in particular, but often Palestinian ones as well, are unable to communicate directly with members of the other community due to different languages and other cultural obstacles. The need to use local language and culture “translators” makes the research project much more expensive and complicated. However, the services of these ‘translators’ are indispensable, as in their absence important linguistic nuances, body language and other subtle indicators could be very easily missed, leading to the loss of information of primary importance.
Access to information is also often a function of the researcher’s identity. When Israel completely controlled the territories, much economic, demographic and other data about the Palestinian population was collected by the military government and the security agencies. Some of this information was available to Israeli researchers, particularly to those who worked with the various governmental agencies, for example, as a part of their military service in the reserve forces. This information was hardly available to most Palestinian researchers. Today, updated information on the Palestinian population is gathered by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and is not available to most Israeli researchers, or even to Palestinian researchers who oppose PA policies. Gathering information on the Israeli side is easier, as much of the statistical data is published by the Central Statistics Bureau. More specific kinds of information are gathered by professional pollsters and private research institutes and are available upon request to any researcher willing to pay for it.
In order to somewhat mitigate the ramifications of the researcher’s identity problem, a number of joint Israeli-Palestinian research projects have been launched and completed, more or less successfully. The most common method was to divide the project into two segments—Israeli and Palestinian. Thus, while the planning and final analysis of the findings are conducted by the joint team, the field work is performed separately—researchers of each side being responsible for collecting the information in their own respective communities. Still, the “post mortems” of several of such projects has revealed some disappointment. The Palestinian partners were rather disappointed because they felt that the power relations within the teams virtually replicated the unbalanced power relations between Israelis and Palestinians in general; in other words, they felt patronized and marginalized. Their Israeli partners, on the other hand, often felt they had to be oversensitive towards their Palestinian colleagues, sometimes to the extent of compromising on academic standards. This problem of inequality of power within research teams was not kept secret; in fact, its publication caused the PA Committee of Higher Education to approve the decision known as the “non-normalization resolution” some years ago which forbids Palestinian academics to launch joint projects with Israeli colleagues.
Clearly, the researcher’s identity problem is not the only one standing in the way of “across the lines” research projects. There are other problems which make proper research difficult under these conditions, such as the political motivations of the funders, or the sudden influx of financial resources for research following the signing of the Oslo Declaration of Principles, but without the strict demands requiring the researchers to meet minimal ethical and professional standards. The brighter side of the picture is that the importance of such research projects is now widely recognized. In-depth knowledge of non-military facets of the other side is considered crucial today in helping the ailing peace process recover. Furthermore, it is now commonly believed in Israel that political agreements signed by the leaders cannot be translated into the reality of peace if such agreements contradict the public’s gut feelings. Published products of “across the lines” research projects are, therefore, in great demand by government officials, the media and opinion makers, although the practical impact of these projects on the decision making is still a matter to be explored.
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