The wall and the nonviolent anti-wall movements: understanding the change in the politics of Israel-Palestine

Abstract

This study examines the relation between nonviolent social movements and the West Bank Wall in order to understand the changes that occurred in the politics of Israel-Palestine after the construction of the Wall. The relation between nonviolent anti-wall movements and the Wall created a chain reaction, affected other actors and changed the politics of Israel- Palestine. The research draws on two primary sets of data. The first is the discursive data collected from anti-wall movements' websites, newspapers and public statements of three anti-wall movements analyzed within this study. The second set of data is the in-depth interviews conducted with activists from each of three movements, The relation of these movements to the Wall and the related political changes are analyzed under the light of these data. The results of the study show that the construction of the Wall enforced actors of the politics of Israel-Palestine to find new positions. Especially the Wall's relation to social movements created unexpected political changes. This study gives the possibility of studying the conflict of Israel-Palestine from a different angle and opens a new field for political science studies by studying how the West Bank Wall can have an agency as a nonhuman actor and affect the politics of the region.