From Civilizational Essentialism to Ethno-nationalist Struggle: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Beyond Huntington
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https://doi.org/10.66871/trf-j.v1i2.051##semicolon##
Clash of Civilizations, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Ethno-nationalism, Realpolitik, Structural Asymmetry, Abraham Accords, October 7सार
Samuel P. Huntington's 'Clash of Civilizations' hypothesis did not merely predict the post-Cold War world order; it sought to define it, asserting that global politics would revert to inter-civilizational strife. In both political discourse and elements of international relations literature, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its broader regional spillovers are frequently erroneously subsumed within this paradigm, characterized as a quintessential fault-line war between Western and Islamic civilizations. This paper problematizes that ontological assumption. Drawing upon the theoretical frameworks of comparative religion, political sociology, and conflict studies, the paper contends that the conflict is sustained not by a monolithic clash of macro-civilizations but by historically embedded political antagonisms that resist any singular civilizational explanation. The paper further demonstrates that the events of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent escalation towards direct Iran-Israel-United States military confrontation between 2024 and 2026 do not merely fail to confirm the civilizational thesis but actively dismantle it. The conflict is not an intractable civilizational determinism but a hyper-localized collision of competing ethno-nationalisms, sustained by structural asymmetries and the primacy of state-centric realpolitik over civilizational solidarity.
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