Speaking with violence: An exploration of violent dialogue in Israel-Palestine.

摘要

This dissertation contributes to scholarly understandings of violent conflict as well as the Israeli-Palestinian fight for Jerusalem. I draw primarily on Veena Das's theory of violence, Hans-Georg Gadamer's dialogical hermeneutics, and Jacques Derrida's "différance" in order to advance a dialogical analytic for the study of violence. In contradistinction to instrumentalist conceptions of violence, the dialogical analytic does not speak on/of/about violence as a mere instrument; but rather, it speaks with violence. The analytic essentially seeks to understand what is left unsaid "over and above" those who proclaim and employ violence, which I argue is where the theorized dynamic of violent dialogue takes shape. I assert that the appearance of violent acts does not represent the end of a dialogue between the protagonists, but rather the emergence of a specific form of dialogue around the subject matter of violence. An analysis of violent dialogue basically reveals how violence creates a certain type of communion between those engaged in violent conflict. The case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is viewed as a window into the very workings of the theorized dynamic of violent dialogue. I explore, first, representations of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (specifically, (a) the instrumentalist/objectivist writings of Benny Morris and (b) the critical work of Edward Said), and second, I examine the violent events that took place in October 1990 at the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif Square, Jerusalem. In the first instance I examine how violence the "thing itself' escapes the two modes of representing violence, revealing (albeit differently) a dynamic of violent dialogue in the process. I build on this analysis in the second instance, where I explore how each side's supposedly singular space-time conception of the Holy City is transformed in and through the very violence that is intended to encase and protect such singular conceptions. I conclude that this transformation is marked by postures of incommensurability that continuously produce incommensurable positions. I argue that it is these postures that must be deeply explored, understood, and analyzed if we are to comprehend this conflict and the nature of the interaction between those caught in its midst.