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The Peacebuilding–Counterinsurgency Nexus in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

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Reconfiguring Intervention

Abstract

This chapter argues that there is a nexus between western donor-led peace building and counter-insurgency: both promote forms of governance, development, and security to instil acquiescence and control. This is explored in two ways: first, through an analysis of the philosophy and practices of counter-insurgency and western peace building; and second, through an analysis of western peace-building strategies in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), a site also subject to techniques of dispossession and colonisation by its occupier, Israel. The more subtle methods of counter-insurgency that have eluded Israel—the ones designed to immunise a population against unrest through instituting a form of self-policing—have been more successfully applied by western peace builders. The chapter therefore concludes that there are two forms of counter-insurgency operating in the oPt: the first one is being implemented by Israel, the second by western peace-building agencies. Both, structurally, work towards dismantling Palestinian resistance to Israel’s colonisation practices.

We can’t do our mission only with military tools … Diplomacy and economy are very relevant.

—Brig. Gen. Nitzan Alon, October 2011 (Bronner 2011)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kenyon Institute, East Jerusalem, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Israel

    Mandy Turner

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  1. Mandy Turner
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Louise Wiuff Moe

  2. Freie Universitaet (FU) Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Markus-Michael Müller

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Turner, M. (2017). The Peacebuilding–Counterinsurgency Nexus in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In: Moe, L., Müller, MM. (eds) Reconfiguring Intervention. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58877-7_5

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