An analysis of the communication patterns in any society can often
provide insight into the underlying changes within a society, even
before they surface or become apparent to the population as a
whole. In the case of Palestinian society, several significant
changes have occurred in its communication patterns following the
signing of the Oslo agreement. This paper will focus on three of
them.
External to Internal Focus
This first major change in the communication patterns of the
Palestinian society appears to be a shift from an externally
directed communication to an internally directed one. Instead of
focusing primarily on communication with the public from the
exterior, or the world community, Palestinian society now appears
more concentrated on improving and strengthening communication
within itself.
This shift is most obvious in the requests for training in
communication. Up until the summer of 1993, training requests
focused exclusively on externally directed communication
activities, such as public relations, media relations, fund
raising, and promotion and publicity. The training participants
were public relations officers from the various Palestinian social,
health, educational and political institutions who were interested
in learning how to better present their respective institutions to
the foreign media, funding agencies, and visitors.
The desire for such training was motivated by the prevailing
economic and political conditions caused by the continued Israeli
military occupation. From a Palestinian perspective, the most
urgent and pressing communication need An analysis of the
communication patterns in any society can often provide insight
into the underlying changes within a society, even before they
surface or become apparent to the population as a whole. In the
case of Palestinian society, several significant changes have
occurred in its communication patterns following the signing of the
Oslo agreement. This paper will focus on three of them.
External to Internal Focus
This first major change in the communication patterns of the
Palestinian society appears to be a shift from an externally
directed communication to an internally directed one. Instead of
focusing primarily on communication with the public from the
exterior, or the world community, Palestinian society now appears
more concentrated on improving and strengthening communication
within itself.
This shift is most obvious in the requests for training in
communication.
Up until the summer of 1993, training requests focused exclusively
on externally directed communication activities, such as public
relations, media relations, fund raising, and promotion and
publicity. The training participants were public relations officers
from the various Palestinian social, health, educational and
political institutions who were interested in learning how to
better present their respective institutions to the foreign media,
funding agencies, and visitors.
The desire for such training was motivated by the prevailing
economic and political conditions caused by the continued Israeli
military occupation. From a Palestinian perspective, the most
urgent and pressing communication need was that of presenting their
plight to the international community. Thus, both the content and
intent of all Palestinian communication were essentially political:
End the Israeli military occupation in the Palestinian territories.
Regardless of the sector to which a Palestinian institution
pertained - health, education, social - its message was
predominantly political, and the targeted audience external, or the
international community. Such a focus was apparent in the
communication patterns of both the Palestinian leadership and the
Palestinian people. In fact, the Palestinian leadership initially
established this pattern with its stated goal of bringing world
attention to the Palestinian cause.
In recent years, however, there has been a gradual shift from this
predominantly external, political focus to a more internal, social
focus. Now, instead of public relations training, all the current
requests are for training in basic communication skills,
interpersonal communication, and organizational communication. This
need for different communication skills reflects the political
changes that have affected Palestinian society.
Firstly, the Oslo agreement and ongoing political negotiations
between the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships appear to have
provided a vehicle for political expression, enabling the
Palestinians to communicate their political message in a concrete
and direct manner with the expectation of concrete, direct results.
The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) has assumed the primary
role in communication, while the Palestinian institutions are
playing a secondary supporting role and have turned their focus
inwardly to the various social, informational, or educational
messages directed at the local Palestinian community.
Secondly, the new political reality has shifted from one focused
exclusively on fighting political oppression to one of building a
nation. This change has uncovered new communication problems and
needs. It appears that with the attempt at a more stabilized
political situation, the social repercussions of the years of
occupation and political uncertainty are beginning to surface
within Palestinian society.
During the long years of severe political repression, the
communication "survival" skills often necessitated deliberate
distrust, manipulation, and secrecy. On a very basic level, one did
not know if a "friend" was a political patriot or a political
informant. Thus, deliberate mistrust and misinformation were
warranted. Additionally, if the primary political organization was
banned - as was the case of the PLO - membership and communication
activities demanded secrecy.
While such communication strategies might have been highly
effective under political repression, they can be extremely
counterproductive in building a social infrastructure.
Nation-building, such as the Palestinians are engaged in now,
demands large amounts of cooperation, coordination, and
communication in order to complete tasks on a large scale, and to
avoid duplication of efforts. The prerequisites for such
cooperation include trust, openness, and direct communication of
one's intent with the skills directly opposed to those developed
under political repression. The demands of nation-building have,
then, prompted the need for a less politicized and a more
society-oriented type of communication.
Decentralized Communication to Coordinated
Communication
The second major shift is that from an ad hoc, decentralized
communication emanating from a multitude of different Palestinian
institutions to a more coordinated message emanating from the
various PNA institutions.
Prior to the establishment of the PNA, the primary sources of
information for the foreign media, agencies, and individuals were
the various Palestinian institutions. For example, a foreign
researcher seeking information about health conditions in the West
Bank would usually visit area hospitals, health institutions and
clinics, or a physician who was willing to talk about the health
situation.
During this time, Palestinian universities, as a readily
identifiable source of information and expertise, played a very
prominent communication role. The universities' public relations
departments often spoke on behalf not only of the universities, but
of the local community as well. Palestinian universities now play a
much less prominent role, and the PNA institutions and ministries
have emerged as a more coordinated and centralized source of
information. Instead of relying on area hospitals for information
on health, the foreign media and researchers may, now, begin their
search at t he Palestinian Ministry of Health, and so on.
Efforts at "coordination" are also evident among the various
sectors of Palestinian society. The Ministry of Higher Education,
for example, is endeavoring to introduce and coordinate curricula
at the university level, while the Ministry of Education is seeking
to do the same at the elementary school level. Similarly, the
Ministry of Youth and Sports has initiated efforts to coordinate
the activities of the many Palestinian sports clubs. This focus on
"coordination" serves to cultivate an even more centralized
communication pattern, reinforcing the need for an enhanced
internal, interpersonal communication.
Symbolic Image to a More Human Image
For the first time since the late Sixties, when the Israelis banned
the PLO and barred many of its followers from the territories, the
Palestinian people now have direct, continuous and daily contact
with their leadership. For the image of the leadership, this has
been a mixed blessing. In many ways, the arrival of the leadership
on July 1, 1994, in Gaza marked the beginning of the new realities
of day-to-day life. Prior to that, both parties held somewhat
romantic images of each other and the communication between the two
parties reflected those images - patient, forgiving, undemanding,
loving, etc.
This type of cautious, controlled communication has a way of
fostering and preserving symbolic images. For the Palestinian
people, the leadership in exile was seen as the champion of the
Palestinian cause on the international arena, with Chairman Yasser
Arafat as the symbol of the Palestinian revolution. The
Palestinians in the territories were seen as the heroic, steadfast
people struggling against the brutality of Israeli occupation and
repression. The "children of stones," or the Palestinian youth of
the Intifada became, for the Palestinians in exile, the symbol of
Palestinian resistance.
Furthermore, the absence of direct, uncontrolled contact also has a
way of spawning exaggerated expectations in any human relationship.
Because the communication is controlled, both parties are better
able to hide their limitations from each other and feed their own
positive symbolic image. Thus, when the Palestinian leadership
arrived in Palestine, both its image and the people's expectations
of it were exaggerated.
The change in the overly idealized image of the Palestinian
leadership to a more realistic, human and flawed one was not only
natural, but inevitable. Direct, continuous communication with the
leadership has exposed the limitations inherent in any human
enterprise, and the unfulfilled expectations have exposed the
vulnerabilities of the people who held them and the leadership who
struggled to meet them. As a result, the communication between the
two parties has become less cautious, less controlled, more
demanding and, at times, bitterly critical. While such
communication is typical of the frustrated and the struggling, it
is not a communication pattern that political entities can easily
endure. Thus an added challenge facing the Palestinian leadership
will not be to regain the luster of its former image, but to
reconstruct a more viable and realistic image within the context of
direct and continuous communication with the Palestinian people.