Rationalization of Terrorization: Analytical Investigation into the Israeli-Palestinian Political Communication (2008-2009)

Abstract

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a contributing factor to Middle East instability for the last six decades. Both Israelis and Palestinians have practiced terrorization against one another and more so, have engaged in the rationalization of terrorization to justify their desired goals. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the political communication through which Israelis and Palestinians have used tools to rationalize their acts of terrorization. Drawing on Hobbes's (1985) rationality, James' (1971) morality legitimacy on conflict and diplomacy, and Dilthey's (Hodges, 1974; Ermarth, 1978; De Mul, 2004) critique of historic reason, this thesis looks into modern theories of classical political realism (Morgenthau, 2006), rational actor and bounded rationality decision-making (Snyder & Diesing, 1977), Orientalism (Said, 1994), Occidentalism (Buruma & Avishai, 2005), cultural representation (Hall, 1997a), and state and non-state terrorism (Jaggar, 2005) in order to investigate the Israeli-Palestinian political communication during the Gaza War of 2008-2009 and the subsequent release of the Goldstone Report. This thesis utilizes quantitative and qualitative online media content analysis as a methodological design with historical-comparative components through which a sample of the Israel Defense Forces, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, and Arutz Sheva (Israel) as well as the Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades, the Palestine News Network, and The Palestine Telegraph (Palestine) has been selected. Findings explore the components of the decision-making processes by both adversaries in order to politically communicate their rationalization of terrorization of one another. These components demonstrate the different decision-making processes of each adversary in selecting strategies of rationalization (e.g., Israelis rationalize in order to defend themselves from eight years of Hamas rocket fire into Israel, while Palestinians rationalize as a means of seeking sympathetic support for their cause---with each adversary using different tools and tactics), resulting in unique patterns that can be applied to future instances of Israeli-Palestinian rationalization of terrorization.