The Four Frameworks of the Israel-Palestine Conflict Revisited

Abstract

This article critically examines the four frameworks commonly utilized to interpret the Israel-Palestine conflict: Israeli self-defense, apartheid, genocide, and sociocide/ethnic cleansing/settler colonialism. The article follows a pattern of presenting the political, legal, physical, economic, and social realities in Israel/Palestine that support each framework followed by a discussion of the realities that delegitimize the suitability of each framework for describing the ongoing conflict. The article concludes with a description of the fourth framework, the sociocide framework, arguing that this framework is the most suitable of the four for describing the present situation in Israel/Palestine since it acknowledges the importance of allowing the Palestinians to name their own experience.