Hegemony - Counter Hegemony: A Gramscian Analysis of Israeli Settlement Activity

The settlements, today a fact on the ground, had certain effects both on the Palestinian life and on the peace process and they have become obstacles to two-state solution as the irreversible entities. This article is an attempt to analyse the settlement activity in the occupied territories via the Gramscian concept of hegemony.  In the first hand, the study would apply the concept of hegemony to the Israeli settlement policy via demonstrating the changing political climate within the country and the ideological attitudes towards the occupied territories. By doing so, the study would seek to reveal how Israel’s settlement activity has become hegemonic and additionally, it would examine whether Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians in the occupied territories that culminated with the First Intifada in 1987 have created a counter-hegemonic alternative in a Gramscian sense.

The settlements, today a fact on the ground, had certain effects both on the Palestinian life and on the peace process and they have become obstacles to two-state solution as the irreversible entities. This article is an attempt to analyse the settlement activity in the occupied territories via the Gramscian concept of hegemony.  In the first hand, the study would apply the concept of hegemony to the Israeli settlement policy via demonstrating the changing political climate within the country and the ideological attitudes towards the occupied territories. By doing so, the study would seek to reveal how Israel’s settlement activity has become hegemonic and additionally, it would examine whether Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians in the occupied territories that culminated with the First Intifada in 1987 have created a counter-hegemonic alternative in a Gramscian sense.