Specificity of Strategic Communications of Muslim Countries in the Background of the Gaza Strip Conflict

Abstract

The article examines the strategic communications carried out by leading Muslim countries during the conflict in the Gaza Strip. The approaches of Western and Muslim experts to defining the essential characteristics of the phenomenon of "strategic communications" are considered. A structural and functional analysis of the strategic communications of the leading Muslim countries was carried out. The main methods used by Islamic political technologists during the conflict in the Gaza Strip are studied. The basis of the anti-Israel rhetoric of a number of Muslim actors is shown. Recommen dations for increasing the effectiveness of domestic strategic communications with both sides of the conflict are given, in particular, taking into account the complex religious and political processes taking place today in the Middle East. The research uses the comparative method, methods of sociology and political science, as well as expert evaluations. It is shown that the relevance of the article is determined by the fact that in the conditions of the next round of the confrontation between Hamas and Israel, which in terms of its intensity and tragic consequences for Israelis and Palestinians, many times surpasses all previous ones, a situation arose when almost everyone in one way or another was involved in the conflict. The world is divided again. Under such circumstances, Ukraine ended up in a rather difficult situation, when, for example, during the UN vote for the cessation of hostilities, the allies of official Kyiv from among Western and Muslim countries took opposite positions. In this regard, in order not to lose its important partners in the Middle East and other parts of the Islamic world, Ukraine must pursue a very careful foreign policy, the success of which will largely depend on the adequate interpretation of the signals sent by certain Muslim countries through channel of strategic communications. According to this, the importance of research on issues which relate the specifics of strategic communications of the leading Islamic countries during the unfolding of the conflict around the Gaza Strip, is significantly increasing.

Keywords

• strategic communications, palestinian-israeli conflict, narrative, information space.