The Challenge Between Conflicting Narratives of Peace in the Middle East

Peace is one of the most widely used and significant concepts in the field of politics. Every year, numerous political negotiations, conferences, and agreements are undertaken to establish peace in the Middle East. However, these initiatives often end in failure or, at best, succeed only in temporarily managing tensions without bringing an end to armed conflict or achieving sustainable peace. The literature on peace studies has evolved around the concept of peacebuilding and seeks to answer the fundamental question of how peace is established and sustained. This literature generally encompasses three major approaches. According to the radical perspective, the prospects for peace in the Middle East are extremely limited due to the inherent characteristics of the region’s existing political, economic, and cultural structures. From this viewpoint, durable peace cannot be achieved without fundamental structural transformation. In contrast, the liberal perspective argues that peacebuilding can be realized through institution-building, international intervention, and the cooperation of regional governments. Both perspectives have been challenged by a third approach—the local perspective—which contends that peace is not achieved through top-down processes, as advocated by the liberal approach, but rather through bottom-up initiatives led by local actors, social networks, and intergroup reconciliation.