The Palestinian Public Diplomacy Towards the Israeli Society رسالة ماجستير

Abstract

This study tackles the Palestinian public diplomacy towards the Israeli society its formation. Furthermore, the descriptive analytical approach has been employed for its appropriateness to this study as well as the historic approach in order to clarify the historical development of this general concept in general and specifically in the Palestinian environment. This study investigates the level of the success of the Palestinian leadership since the adoption of the peaceful diplomacy in influencing and persuading the Israeli public opinion to adopt peaceful choices as a way of ending the Israeli- Palestinian struggle. Furthermore, it measures the success of the Palestinian leadership’s ability to expand the communication with the Israeli community through its public diplomacy and influential individuals and institution in the Israeli community. Also, it depicts the agreement between the official and unofficial mechanisms of using public diplomacy and their ability to promote such method. Finally, it highlights the influence of the program “From People to People” agreed upon in Oslo Accord applied on both the Palestinians and the Israelis measuring the success of the implementation of this program on the ground and the main challenges facing it. The researcher concludes that since 1974, the Palestinian leadership exerted great efforts despite the controversial opinions of the PLO. However, some Palestinian leaders believed that it was imperative to influence the Israeli public opinion. Also, they believed that the Palestinian version of the story and peace message couldn’t be delivered without delivering it to the Israeli community first. vii In other words, the Palestinian leadership has achieved a relative success before signing Oslo Accord. In short, this channel of communication has been one of the reasons for signing this agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Also, it has been found that communication and the Palestinian public diplomacy towards the Israeli community was affected negatively by Oslo Accord that the Palestinian leadership restricted the resolution of this conflict in the official communication channels with the Israelis. As for “From People to People” program, it hasn’t been an effective tool in resolving this conflict and clearing point of views between the Israelis and the Palestinians as a way to promote peaceful co-existence. Also, it has been found that Oslo Accord couldn’t take away the psychological block in both parties because of the Israeli measures on the ground including settlement expansion, Judaization, confiscation of Palestinian lands, the lock-down policy and electing the far right- wing party in Israel which doesn’t accept the existence of the other.