This article explores the theoretical bases of the Israel-Palestine peace process
to see how that impacts peacebuilding and everyday life in Palestine. It begins
by examining the lens through which classical and contemporary realist and liberal
thought approaches peace, nonpeace, war, and peacebuilding. Second, it examines how
knowledge production on peacebuilding has been applied in the Israel-Palestine peace
process based on selected confidential documents from the negotiations’ record that
was made available in the so-called Palestine Papers published by the Al Jazeera Transparency
Unit in 2011. My analysis of this source reveals how an embedded security and
market metaphor regulated the Israel-Palestine peace negotiations. I argue that in an
ambiguous context of decades-long negotiations, the results are in effect a “buyout” in
which security is understood in exclusionary terms by the powerful side.
Guest Editor Introduction: Embedded Security Challenge
