Conflict Theory, Temporality, and Transformative Temporariness: Lessons from Israel and Palestine

This article examines the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in an effort to theorize the centrality of time in the inception and resolution of conflict. It argues that since time and temporality, which are central dimensions of all power relations and conflict, remain insufficiently explored on theoretical and practical levels, it is worth exploring how time is utilized as a central avenue of domination and resistance, and as a result has to be reconstructed in any reconciliatory process. It also argues that such a process between conflicting parties must address the mutual constructions of time, as history and memory, and as continuous flow of the present, before addressing their material manifestations. Since temporal perceptions are spheres of conflict reflecting power relations, parties in conflict develop and utilize different conceptions of time in their competing narratives. This is mostly apparent in asymmetric conflicts, where the powerful party seeks to rob the weak party of its time and its control, seeking to institutionalize temporal hegemonic schemes. Dominated parties resist not only through their efforts to return to history, but also by delegitimizing the time frame of their opponents and rendering it temporary. For reconciliation to take place, it is argued that conflict resolution must entail transformative temporality as a form of accommodating historical oppression, deconstructing past injustices and addressing existential threats. Transformative temporality refers to acknowledgement and action based on the notion that there is no fixed direction of the flow of time, nor is there a rigid ahistorical and apolitical beginning that orders events and the developments following it, granting these events and developments natural legitimacy or historical factuality. Rigid and fixed time frames that determine the relationships between groups or individuals are human constructions that, in conflict, should be replaced by more flexible and fluid ones that enable mutual recognition and understanding. The shift to transformative temporality is about admitting that there was no coherent self-identity prior to conflicting temporalities and that conflict that is based on this assumption can be overcome if such temporalities are reconstructed. This change questions one of the basic principles of national time expressed in all theories of nationalism, something that makes post-national formulas the only path to reconciliation in such conflicts. To demonstrate this argument and explain its complexities and its social, political, and existential implications, I analyze the Israeli–Palestinian dispute. I shed light on the meaning and implications of the temporal dimension for each of the parties, without claiming to write their history or to establish a parallel or equal picture of both. On the contrary, this is a modest contribution to understanding one of the reasons behind the negative dialectics between these two movements, pinpointing the dissimilarity in their historical circumstances, while emphasizing the consequential resemblance in their exclusive, mutual, and temporal selfconstructions. The rise of critical discourses of time on both sides of the conflict helps demonstrate the importance of transformative temporality for conflict resolution.