Security and discourse: the Israeli–Palestinian water conflict

Abstract

When conflictive viewpoints are discursively strengthened, they develop into a ‘conflict discourse’ with a specific discursive structure which perpetuates conflict, like the discursive securitisation of an issue for varying audiences. When they are weakened, however, societal discourse can potentially change so that agreement becomes possible again, thus achieving discursive conflict transformation. This article analyses the Israeli and the Palestinian water discourse. On both sides, the dominant discourse structures underscore the conflictive issues regarding the distribution of water between Israelis and Palestinians, thus making communication, let alone negotiation, downright impossible. While Palestinians regard the natural water resources as sufficient in principle and the existing scarcity as entirely politically induced, Israelis perceive the natural water resources as absolutely scarce while receiving major de-securitisation impulses from the possibility of desalination. In the respective (minor) counter-discourses, however, possible starting points for dialogue and conflict resolution are visible.

Notes

Dr Christiane J. Fröhlich holds a PhD in Sociology from Marburg University. She is a fellow at the Centre for Democracy and Peace Studies at Osnabrueck University, and specialises in discursive conflict transformation and resource conflicts, currently with a regional focus on the Middle East.

 1. Tajfel and Turner, ‘Social Identity Theory’.

 2. Buzan et al., Security.

 3. Buzan et al., Security, 5 and chapter 2. The securitisation theory was first formulated by Ole Wæver (‘Security, the Speech Act’ and ‘Securitisation and Desecuritisation’) and has become an integral part of security studies. See Mauer and Cavelty, Routledge Handbook; Wæver, ‘Aberystwyth, Paris, Copenhagen’; Gad and Petersen, ‘Concepts of Politics’, 316ff.

 4. Gad and Petersen, ‘Concepts of Politics’, 317. See also Wæver, ‘Security: A Conceptual History’; and Buzan et al., Security.

 5. Buzan et al., Security; Bonacker and Gromes, ‘Concept of Securitization’, 19.

 6. Diez et al., ‘European Union and Border Conflicts’, 6.

 7. A good overview can be found in Shuval and Dweik, Water Resources in the Middle East.

 8. For instance by de Châtel, ‘Perceptions of Water’. See also de Châtel, Water Sheikhs. The author does not, however, provide any theoretical or methodological framework. Lowi, Water and Power; Sherman, Politics of Water; and Warner, Images of Water Security, underline the significance of perceptions of water for the Israeli–Palestinian water conflict, but do not offer a deep discourse analytical verification of this hypothesis.

 9. Jägerskog, ‘Why States Co-operate over Shared Water’; Selby, ‘Joint Mismanagement’. See also Jägerskog, ‘Functional Water Co-operation’ as well as Selby, Water, Power and Politics, ‘Dressing up Domination’, ‘Governance and Resistance’ and ‘Geopolitics of Water’.

10. Zeitoun, ‘Violations, Opportunities and Power’, 222. Zeitoun works with Buzan's securitisation theory (Buzan et al., Security) and points to a research gap which this paper aims to fill.

11. Even though this academic void has been identified early, especially in Political Geography. See, for instance, Emel et al., ‘Ideology, Property and Groundwater Resources’, 38 and 45f; or Ó Tuathail and Agnew, ‘Geopolitics and Discourse’, 191ff.

12. Naff, ‘A Case for Demand-Side Water Management’, 83.

13. Jabri, Discourses on Violence, 12.

14. See Hayward, ‘Environmental Science’; and Shellenberger and Nordhaus, Death of Environmentalism.

15. Jäger, Kritische Diskursanalyse.

16. Link, Jürgen and Ursula Link-Heer, ‘Discourse / Interdiscourse and Literary Analysis’.

17. Leont'ev, ‘Der Allgemeine Tätigkeitsbegriff’.

18. Jabri, Discourses on Violence, 134.

19. Jäger, Kritische Diskursanalyse, 158.

20. Rouyer, ‘Zionism and Water’, 5.

21. Bar-Tal, ‘Societal Beliefs’, 34.

22. Main topics are printed bold, topics bold and in Italics, sub-topics in Italics.

23. Such quantitative data can only give a rough indication of trends. This text does not claim to fulfil statistical, quantifying methods, especially since the different discourse fragments differ in length, often refer to more than one topic, and are of differing value for the stabilisation or creation of the water discourse strand. Since even the systematisation in topics and sub-topics is relatively arbitrary, these numbers are already interpretations. Jäger, Kritische Diskursanalyse, 330.

24. Capitals mark a loud voice; numbers in brackets count pauses in seconds. Interview 17 IL: Lines 117–127.

25. Interview 16 IL: Lines 235–245.

26. Interview 11 IL: Lines 402ff.

27. Interview 01 IL: Lines 113–144.

28. Interview 01 IL: Lines 181–188.

29. Interview 01 IL: Lines 243–253.

30. Interview 11 IL: Lines 510–524.

31. Interview 16 IL: Line 575f.

32. Interview 05 PAL: Lines 41–45.

33. Interview 08 PAL: Lines 38–78.

34. Interview 04 PAL: Lines 196f.

35. Interview 09 PAL: Lines 74–77.

36. Interview 14 PAL: Lines 213–253.

37. Interview 04 PAL, Lines 380–389.

38. Interview 02 PAL: Lines 478–482.

39. Interview 12 PAL: Lines 517f.

40. Interview 15 PAL: Lines 401–417.

41. Interview 08 PAL: Lines 147–152.

42. Jabri, Discourses on Violence, 7.

43. Buckley-Zistel, ‘In-Between War and Peace’; and Diez et al., ‘European Union and Border Conflicts’, 4.

44. Ochs et al., ‘Detective Stories at Dinnertime’, 109.

45. Vasquez, ‘War Endings’, 672.