ABSTRACT
Context of the book and contribution The broader topic of this book might be well known to some readers as it concerns the most long-standing conflict in international politics history. So much has been written on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and in particular the Oslo Accords, that most people are aware of at least the broader context. Moreover, its character of continuity and its high profile make it an integral part of everyday news. What is of significance are the ‘voices from the field’ that will accompany the detailed facts on the ground and which will be presented here for the first time, and also the way in which they are linked with the high politics of this conflict. Consequently, the rich empirical material that has been collected through (semistructured) interviews will be incorporated in this book in order to demonstrate how EU, Israeli and Palestinian officials perceive state-building policies on the ground. In exploring the empirical data, an effort will be made to give clarity and make more explicit the link between initiatives on the ground and high-level decisions. How are initiatives on governance, security and development linked to decisions taken at the high politics level? What may also be of interest is the fact that this book does not aim to give a new description of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by just providing updated facts and events. Neither does it envision describing the nature and potential intractability of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Moreover, it does not aim at demonstrating how the European Union (EU) projects or even reproduces itself beyond its borders using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a test case for highlighting particular dynamics and restraints of EU policy. Although understanding the history of this conflict as well as placing its different episodes at the centre are very important factors for understanding its nature and dynamics, this book is not limited to these; it will link them with well-established theories and try to explain the different aspects through them. This book will engage with distinctive literatures on liberal peace, peacebuilding, the EU, and conflict resolution and state-building. By synthesising these literatures the book will try to test EU effectiveness on the state-building project in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs), an issue that forms its
central question. Thus, the broader liberal peace and peacebuilding literatures will help contextually to understand how state-building has been used as a tool for implementing the liberal peace and the distinctive literature on state-building will help to identify the ‘core’ state functions that established institutions should be able to run. Finally, the literature on EU and conflict resolution is crucial for the identification of the tools that the EU has at its disposal in order to be a ‘conflict resolver’ but also a state-builder. The literature on the EU and conflict resolution can thus offer important insights with regard to the EU’s role in the state-building project, despite the fact that conflict resolution and state-building are two distinct activities (though often interlinked). By offering an analysis of the different kinds of contributions of the EU to the state-building project as well as defining all those elements which make statebuilding effective or not, the book will focus on specific initiatives that the EU has taken in the OPTs in the domains of Security Sector Reform (SSR), Judiciary Sector Reform (JSR) and broader rule of law and good governance initiatives. The aim of this synthesis is to make a contribution to the EU and statebuilding literature. The problem with the existing state-building literature is that in its majority it deals with the United Nation’s (UN) role in state-building and it also engages with post-conflict societies and dilemmas. Moreover, a fundamental difference can be observed between the UN and the EU in their approach towards the OPTs; while the UN opts for conflict resolution first, to be followed by state-building processes, the EU is opting for state-building as a means to conflict resolution in its approach to the Palestinian question. To that end, the book will investigate the distinctive EU role in state-building as well as draw lessons on how state-building can be conducted in a society that is still involved in conflict. In addition, because state-building is a parameter of the broader issues of Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), the book will also analyse these policies because of their relevance to the EU’s overall role in the OPTs and its recent efforts to boost its capacity to engage in civilian administration in post-conflict societies.
