It is precisely because the oPt is such an extreme and atypical example of SSR that it lays bare the underlying discourse of power, on both the micro-level of Israeli colonialism and the wider macro-level of the inter- action between the colonial center and the colonized periphery whereby the outcome has been one of dysfunctional securitization. [...] SSR has created a paradox on the ground in the oPt whereby the PA and to a certain extent the de facto government of Hamas are in control of a territory, but not a ter- ritorial entity resembling a state in the Weberian sense, and where the princi- ples of democratic governance and the rule of law have been undermined, not entrenched (Schnabel and Ehrhart 2005, 67). [...] The new security forces created after the Oslo Accords attempted to draw on the symbolic power of the Fidayee, the freedom fighters who personified the ultimate form of sacrifice in the name of liberation and were considered the protectors of Palestinian society before the creation of the PA. [...] Hence, the initiation of the process of securitiza- tion is intrinsically tied not to achieving what the concept of SSR promises in terms of security, good governance, and the rule of law for the local popula- tion, but to the production and perpetuation of a plurality of hegemonies that accept this discourse, and their oligopolies of violence in the oPt that enforce its corollaries. [...] It is precisely because the oPt is such an extreme and atypical example of SSR that it lays bare the underlying discourse of power, on both the micro- level of Israeli colonialism and on the wider macro-level of the interaction between the colonial center and the colonized periphery.
- Pages
- 20
- Published in
- Lebanon
