Coming to terms: a conflict analysis of the usage, in official and unofficial sources, of ‘security fence’, ‘apartheid wall’, and other terms for the structure between Israel and the Palestinian territories

Abstract

The official terms for the dividing wall are ‘security fence’ on the Israeli side and ‘apartheid wall’ on the Palestinian side. Both terms fuse two contextually charged notions to describe the construction project. Beyond the two official terms, the structure has been given other names by sources appearing in the media space (e.g. the International Court of Justice’s ‘West Bank wall’) or by news organizations covering the issue (e.g. ‘barrier wall’). Using data from Google News, which includes official NGO as well as news sources, this article offers a media monitoring method that also seeks to create conflict indicators from the shifting language employed by officials, journalists and others to describe the structure. The authors discovered that the Palestinians and Israelis choose their words differently: the Israelis are consistent (yet relatively alone) in the way they use their terms; the Palestinians adopt their terminology according to the setting, using different terms for the structure in diplomatic and international court settings than ‘at home’. Having identified ‘setting’ as an important variable in the study of language use as conflict indicator, the study also includes an analysis of diplomatic language in key debates on the obstacle at the UN Security Council. In all, it was found that, at particular moments in time, Israeli and Palestinian actors ‘come to terms’ most significantly around ‘separation wall’, coupling the Israeli left-of-centre adjective and the Palestinian noun, implying a peace-related arrangement distinctive from either side’s official position (as well as the current peace plans), and ultimately undesirable to those who share the term.