‘Well, our goal is to achieve sustainable quiet and security for our people’: negotiating calls for ceasefires in the Gaza War of 2014.

Abstract

How are ceasefires rejected without being seen as actively pursuing violence? In this paper we examined this issue through analysis of Israeli spokespersons managed calls for ceasefire put to them in news media interactions during the Gaza War of 2014. More recent scholarship in peace studies has begun to question taken-for-granted versions of peace and violence. Instead, scholars argue for examining how ‘peace’ and ‘violence’ are variously constructed to advance vested positions. In this paper, we extend this focus through a close examination of another ostensibly desirable outcome in conflicts, namely ‘ceasefire’. We examine talk of ceasefire in one episode of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, namely the Gaza War of 2014. Using discursive psychology we examined Israeli spokespersons’ media interviews with international news media organizations. Analysis shows that interviewers treated non-acceptance of ceasefires as potentially accountable. Interviewees similarly oriented to issues in offering a ready rejection of ceasefires. Instead, Israeli spokespersons offered constructions of Hamas and their military actions in ways to downgrade ceasefires on offer for alternative measures. The alternatives were framed as ‘sustainable peace’ or ‘sustainable quiet’ involving further military actions of Israel with the aim to demilitarize Hamas/Gaza. In doing so, Israeli spokespersons could avoid being seen as wanting to engage in further violence to actively harm Palestinians.