ABSTRACT
Part III examines the “imagined peace” – the period between Rabin’s assassination and the second Intifada – that was characterized by effective military domination, relatively low levels of physical violence (except for two brief but intense periods in 1996), and high levels of symbolic violence (Israel’s non-and mis-recognition of Palestinian suffering). The tensions were contained by the Oslo II Accord, which divided the occupied territories into small, separated areas of Palestinian autonomy surrounded by the Israeli military. The absence of violent Palestinian resistance facilitated Israeli imagination of the agreement as “peace,” without having to dismantle the apparatus of military rule and economic domination and without halting the construction of settlements. The imagination of peace allowed Israeli political actors to open new agendas and address internal conflicts previously marginalized by the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The new agendas included economic, cultural, social, and religious struggles that replaced the “old” politics, which had been dominated by the cartel of two big parties representing national myths – Labor and the Likud. I refer to the new issues, claims, and identities as the “post-conflict” agenda, because they are the outcome of the imagination that the national conflict was no longer a central political issue.
