The Palestinians and Their Claim for the State of Their Own: Construction of Identities and Interests in Relation to Security/Insecurity.

Abstract

This thesis deals with one of the most prominent issues in the current international affairs: the Palestinian claim for the

establishment of the state of their own, planned to be created in the West Bank and Gaza. This claim is one of the most

prominent features of the politics in the Middle East, and it is what is currently at stake in the conflict between Israel and

the Palestinians.

Considering the likely lack of viability of this state, if established on the currently existing foundations, and also the

discussion rather prominent in the field of International Relations about the withering of the modern territorial and sovereign

nation-states and the international state system, it can be asked then "Why, instead of pursuing other options, the

Palestinians are aiming to create an independent state of their own in the West Bank and Gaza, as they are now doing?"

This is the question to which I am aiming to provide a possible answer.

Social constructivism provides a general analytical framework and the methodological framework for the thesis. It directs

me to look at the means that enable us to conceptualise and talk about things in a way we do, and then to explore how

these 'means' - socially constructed institutions - have been constructed and reconstructed.

The theoretical framework of the thesis consists of two elements: the broadened concept of security and the institution of

nation-state. This broadened concept of security views the human individuals as the primary referents of security, includes

both negative and positive connotations of the term, and relates the questions of security to the questions about identity

and interests. As a socially constructed institution, nation-state has emerged as a way to secure the relationship between

'self' and its social environment. By offering a certain narrowed set of identities and interests for actors to choose from it

both enables and constrains the behaviour of the actors and hence provides a chance for order. This order does not however

necessarily generate sense of security for all. Although being a product of the agency, nation-state as a structure has

become to greatly shape the actors' identities and interests, and hence the way the actors conceptualise the organisation

and the structure of their world.

Through utilising these aforementioned frameworks in analysing the research material, I come to the conclusion that the

reason for the Palestinians to seek for the creation of the state of their own is that they are trying, through creation of a

state of their own, to secure their collective identity as a nation.