Summary
In Perceptions of Palestine, the Israel-centered body of assumptions and preconceptions within which the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been contained in U.S. public and diplomatic discourse: it defines and sets boundaries around thinking on the issue, approaches the conflict from an Israeli perspective, and seldom recognises the existence or legitimacy of a Palestinian perspective (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 153-157).
Details
- The frame’s two Palestinian elements, taken from Malcolm Kerr’s 1980 account: Palestinian national claims are “artificially and mischievously inspired” and thus may be ignored, and the only real issue in the conflict is an unreasonable Arab refusal to accept Israel’s existence, not a real grievance arising from the Palestinians’ displacement (lines 145-149).
- Within the frame, the Palestinians’ 1948 dispossession is “an unrecognizable episode”, and a unique U.S.–Israel bond is assumed from a common biblical heritage, the Holocaust and identification with Israel’s “national style”; the emotional bond, Israel’s presumed strategic importance, policymakers’ reluctance to spark controversy, and the militant Arab reaction combined to push concern for the legitimacy of Palestinian claims to the background (lines 153-167).
- The frame is self-reinforcing in the manner Edward Said describes for authoritative texts, which “can create not only knowledge but also the very reality they appear to describe”; it is built from terminology, from false knowledge such as the Broadcasts myth, and from knowledge withheld, Palestinians having been politically invisible since the Balfour Declaration referred to them merely as “non-Jews” (lines 169-227).
- Policymakers operate inside the frame: they absorb the dominant values of their formative period, which then “structures the interpretation of later events”, seek only reinforcing opinions, ignore expertise, and lack continuity between administrations (lines 229-277).
- Christison traces the frame’s formation to mid-nineteenth-century Orientalism and travel writing, before Zionism or Israel existed, and its hardening administration by administration from Wilson through Truman in the part read (lines 281-375, 377-860).
Related pages
Perceptions of Palestine, Kathleen Christison, Malcolm Kerr, Orientalism, Broadcasts myth