Exploring the militarization of Palestinian society: Cynthia Enloe's framework of militarization and Palestinian children

Abstract

Recent literature has assessed the particular circumstances of Palestinian children, generally attempting to conceptualize them as either politically-charged and violent, or as marginalized citizens, victimized by dominating Israeli practices. This research attempts to broaden these conceptualizations, by exploring the relevance of Cynthia Enloe's (2000) concept of militarized maneuvering. Enloe postulates inter alia that militarization is a process which involves the obfuscation of the military's problematic nature for civil society and the almost taking for granted of military's (often violent) strategies; it occurs as societal conditions, discourses, definitions, attitudes, thoughts and expectations are produced (and re-produced). This thesis has employed an inductive qualitative study to explore the means through which Palestinian children may progress through the process of militarization, employing a coding approach to data analysis. It has studied Identity Card (1964), considered to be the "Palestinian national poem", written by "the Palestinian national poet", Mahmoud Darweish and has drawn reference to secondary literature detailing the impacts of the newly-constructed Israeli Separation Barrier on Palestinian populations. Palestinian populations may undergo the process of militarization through some of the available nationalist poetry, which offers discourses commemorating the historical connection of Palestinians with the land lost in 1948, and emphasizes the need for steadfastness, nationalism and resistance. This thesis has found that the barrier is a force which both directly and indirectly militarizes children's social conditions, exemplifying past (perceived) victimization, obstructing daily life, and oppressing Palestinians' future nation. It may also be interpreted to reinforce the desire for resistance, and therefore potentially garner support for militarized retaliatory acts against Israelis. This approach has illuminated an important and unexpected finding; the two seemingly disjoined realms of Palestinian society are undergirded by the abstract themes of collective memory and nationalism, suggesting that these are significant elements to the study of the militarization of Palestinian society, thereby offering a means to broaden the aforementioned traditional conceptualizations of Palestinian children.