Shared Land/Conflicting Identity: Trajectories of Israeli & Palestinian Symbol Use

Shared Land/Conflicting Identity: Trajectories of Israeli and Palestinian Symbol Use argues that rhetoric, ideology, and myth have played key roles in influencing the development of the 100-year conflict between first the Zionist settlers and the current Israeli people and the Palestinian residents in what is now Israel. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is usually treated as an issue of land and water. While these elements are the core of the conflict, they are heavily influenced by the symbols used by both peoples to describe, understand, and persuade each other. The authors argue that symbolic practices deeply influenced the Oslo Accords, and that the breakthrough in the peace process that led to Oslo could not have occurred without a breakthrough in communication styles.
     Rowland and Frank develop four crucial ideas on social development: the roles of rhetoric, ideology, and myth; the influence of symbolic factors; specific symbolic factors that played a key role in peace negotiations; and the identification and value of criteria for evaluating symbolic practices in any society.

Robert C. Rowland is a Professor of Communication at the University of Kansas. He is the recipient of the 2003 Kohrs-Campbell Prize in Rhetorical Criticism, the largest and most significant book manuscript award in the field of rhetorical criticism, as coauthor of Shared Land/Conflicting Identity: Trajectories of Israeli and Palestinian Symbol Use. He is also the author of The Rhetoric of Menachem Begin.
     Dr. Rowland's major teaching and research interests are in rhetorical criticism, argumentation, and the public sphere. Dr. Rowland and his debate colleague were the 1976 National Debate Champions. He is a former director of forensics at KU and at Baylor University. Dr. Rowland received the Louise Byrd Award for Graduate Teaching at the Doctoral Hooding ceremony May 2000. He also is a recipient of the William T. Kemper Teaching Fellowship and the Bernard Fink Award for outstanding teaching, and is a two-time HOPE Award finalist. A recent survey of journals in the discipline ranked him among the thirty most published scholars.

David Frank is the author of Creative Speaking and the coauthor of Debating Values and The Lincoln-Douglas Debate. He is the recipient of the 2003 Kohrs-Campbell Prize in Rhetorical Criticism, the largest and most significant book manuscript award in the field of rhetorical criticism, as coauthor of Shared Land/Conflicting Identity: Trajectories of Israeli and Palestinian Symbol Use. He is a Professor of Communication at the University of Oregon.