Culture clash narratives frame the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a battle between modernity and stasis.

Evidence

When Zionist idealists first returned to Israel-Palestine, what ensued was not merely a clash between white-skinned Europeans and dark-skinned Arabs. The clash that ensued – and that continues still – was also between modernity and a hidebound traditionalism that had not changed for twelve or thirteen centuries; between active doers and passive survivors; between secularists and religionists as well as between followers of different extremist religions; between those who wanted to bring modern medicine, agriculture, industry, government, and jurisprudence to the region and those who rejected such possibilities. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 226

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays out the constituent binaries of the ‘culture clash’ framing — modernity vs. hidebound traditionalism, doers vs. passive survivors, secularists vs. religionists.
• XREF: The binaries here recall the Orientalist framework in Things Fall Apart and the civilizing-mission narrative in general postcolonial critique. — connects to: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s religious framing is recent rather than primordial — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 51; Catastrophic conflict can rest on visible or cultural difference. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 700