Conflict Resolution Through Feminist Lenses: Theorizing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict From the Perspectives of Women Peace Activists in Israel

This dissertation raises questions concerning a number of central theoretical assumptions that inform conventional conflict resolution scholarship on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By introducing a wide range of feminist scholarship and by looking at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the perspectives of women peace
activists in Israel, the dissertation seeks to move beyond dominant understandings of this particular conflict and its possible resolution to expand the range of topics and concerns for conflict resolution theory, research and practice.

The first chapter outlines a research strategy and research methods grounded in the contention that knowledge is socially constructed, partial and context-dependent and that research, particularly conflict research, should be understood as itself a political intervention. The second chapter examines some of
the central assumptions that underlie conventional conflict resolution scholarship on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and calls for alternative modes of theorizing designed to accommodate the development of feminist and other critical approaches to the study and practice of conflict resolution. Chapter three focuses on the relationship between feminism and conflict resolution and explores a broad range of feminist perspectives on questions of war and peace and on theory and practice.

Chapter four presents an overview of the historical and sociopolitical context of women's peace activism in Israel and examines three particular women's peace groups: Women in Black, the Women's Organizations for Women Political Prisoners, and Shani ~ Israeli Women Against the Occupation. Chapter five examines the perspectives of women peace activists, particularly those who identify themselves as feminists, on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and explores alternative frameworks for conflict resolution that have emerged in the context of the encounters between Israeli-Jewish women in Israel and Palestinian women in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The final chapter discusses the potential contribution of the dissertation to the analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and offers new directions for the study and practice of conflict resolution. These new directions include a more serious consideration of the role of gender in conflict resolution and a tentative
agenda for the study and practice of conflict resolution "from below."