Bulletin: Military Occupation and Conflict, the West Bank, and Gaza

Books

• Andy Clarno, Neoliberal Apartheid
• Matthias Leese and Stef Wittendorp, eds. Security/Mobility. Politics of Movement
• Gershon Shafir, A Half Century of Occupation

Articles

• Nadia Abu-Zahra, Philip Leech, and Leah MacNeil, Resistance and the Israeli Wall in Palestine
• Omri Grinberg, Israeli State Discourses about Palestinian Child Labour
• Laura E. Miller-Graff and E. Mark Cummings, The Israeli–Palestinian Conflict: Effects on Youth Adjustment
• Deborah Nathan, Artsbridge: Conflict Mitigation with Israeli and Palestinian Youth
• Emily Schaeffer Omer-Man, Extrajudicial Killing with Near Impunity: Excessive Force by Israeli Law Enforcement against Palestinians
• Anne Sofie Roald, Empowerment and Agency for Palestinian Women in the West Bank
• Madalena Santos, Palestinian Narratives of Resistance: The Freedom Theatre’s Challenge to Israeli Settler Colonization
• Michelle Slone, et al, The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Meta-Analysis of Exposure and Outcome Relations for Children of the Region
• Rebecca L. Stein, GoPro Occupation: Networked Cameras, Israeli Military Rule, and the Digital Promise

Reviews

• Naama Blatman-Thomas, on Ahmad H. Sa’di’s Thorough Surveillance: The Genesis of Israeli Policies of Population Management
• Anissa Hélie, on Lihi Ben-Shitrit’s Righteous Transgressions: Women’s Activism on the Israeli and Palestinian Religious Right

Theses

• Daniel Moses, Billions of Dollars Lost along the Checkpoints? An Econometric Analysis of Labor Mobility, Economic Development, and Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (MA, Oklahoma)
• Aisha Phoenix, Palestinian University Students Narrating Life under Occupation
• Samah Saleh, The Politics of ‘Sumud’: Former Palestinian Women Prisoners’ Experience of Incarceration under Israeli Occupation (PhD, Goldsmiths)
• James Thompson, Social Activists for Palestine: who are they, what do they do and can they make a difference? (BA, Plymouth)

Reports

• Heather Aidy, Tanya Lee, and Meriel Watts, Human Rights and Toxic Chemicals in the Occupied West Bank

Events

• “Israel’s Second Founding: The Six-Day War 50 Years Later“, Michael Brenner moderates discussion with Alon Confino, Arie Dubnov, Yoav Gelber, Benny Morris, Yoram Peri, and Tamara Wittes. American University, April 4, 2017, 7:30pm.

New Article: Callan, Thinking through Duration

Callan, Brian. “Thinking through Duration.” Anthropology Today 32.3 (2016): 20-23.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8322.12256

 

Abstract

This narrative offers an alternative Jewish Israeli ‘duration’ of the abduction described by Dalsheim. It agrees that the weight of past experience shapes both present perception and future imagination, reproducing the sense of ‘intractable’ conflict but argues that subjective and collective experience is mediated by what C. Wright Mills called the ‘cultural apparatus’. Taking the case of Israeli Jews who work in solidarity with Palestinian activists, some of whom were raised in extremely right-wing Zionist backgrounds, it shows how subjectivity is shaped by the ‘received interpretations’ of others. More significantly, it shows how this acculturated sense of self can be transcended by the human faculties described by Hannah Arendt as thinking and judging. Drawing upon his own experiences with these activists in the summer of 2014, the author argues as a sign of hope, that thinking and judging enable a divestment of received interpretations of the cultural apparatus, which define and reproduce the conflict as intractable. Sadly, this duration also describes a period when thinking outside the collective became taboo and Jewish compassion for the deaths of Palestinian women and children was vilified and violently opposed by fellow Jewish countrymen and women. With Israel’s cultural apparatus unable to accommodate compassion, there may indeed always be a Gaza War.

 

 

 

New Article: Hameiri et al, Support for Self-Censorship Among Israelis

Hameiri, Boaz, Keren Sharvit, Daniel Bar-Tal, Eldad Shahar, and Eran Halperin. “Support for Self-Censorship Among Israelis as a Barrier to Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” Political Psychology (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/pops.12346

 
Abstract

Self-censorship, defined as an “act of intentionally and voluntarily withholding information from others in the absence of formal obstacles” often serves as a barrier to resolving intractable conflicts. Specifically, in order to protect the group, and in absence of objective constraints such as institutionalized censorship, individuals practice self-censorship and support its practice by other society members. This prevents free flow and transparency of information, within a society, regarding the conflict and the adversary. In an attempt to investigate the factors that contribute to the functioning of self-censorship as a sociopsychological barrier to conflict resolution, a longitudinal study was conducted among a large sample of Jews in Israel. The survey was administered in three waves: a few months before, during, and a few months after Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense in the Gaza Strip. The findings showed that armed confrontation can increase support for self-censorship. In addition, the findings revealed that personal characteristics (e.g., authoritarianism, ethnocentrism, siege mentality) predicted support for self-censorship, which, in turn, mediated the effect of personal characteristics on support for negotiations and for providing humanitarian aid. The theoretical as well as the applied implications of the findings are discussed.

 

 

New Article: Adwan et al, Portrayal of the Other in Schoolbooks

Adwan, Sami, Daniel Bar-Tal, and Bruce E. Wexler. “Portrayal of the Other in Palestinian and Israeli Schoolbooks: A Comparative Study.” Political Psychology 37.2 (2016): 201-17.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/pops.12227

 

Abstract

The present study examined how Israelis and Palestinians present their narratives related to their conflict in school textbooks used by the state educational system and the ultraorthodox community in Israel and by all Palestinian schools in Palestinian National Territories. The focus was on how each side portrays the Other and their own group. The content analysis was based on a developed conceptual framework and standardized and manualized rating criteria with quantitative and qualitative aspects. The results showed in general that (1) dehumanizing and demonizing characterizations of the Other are rare in both Israeli and Palestinian books; (2) both Israeli and Palestinian books present unilateral national narratives that portray the Other as enemy, chronicle negative actions by the Other directed at the self-community, and portray the self-community in positive terms with actions aimed at self-protection and goals of peace; (3), there is lack of information about the religions, culture, economic and daily activities of the Other, or even of the existence of the Other on maps; (4) the negative bias in portrayal of the Other, the positive bias in portrayal of the self, and the absence of images and information about the Other are all statistically significantly more pronounced in Israeli Ultra-Orthodox and Palestinian books than in Israeli state books.

 

 

 

Policy paper: O’Donnell, The European Union as a Mediator in Israel-Palestine

O’Donnell, Hugh. “The European Union as a Mediator in Israel-Palestine: Operations Cast Lead and Protective Edge.” EU Diplomacy Paper 01/2016.

 

URL: https://www.coleurope.eu/system/files_force/research-paper/edp_1_2016_odonnell.pdf (PDF)

 

Abstract
The European Union (EU) has played an important, yet inconsistent role in the Israel-Palestine conflict since the1980 Venice Declaration. This paper analyses how the EU’s role as a mediator has changed more recently in the Israel-Gaza conflict. Specifically, it examines how the ‘Concept on Strengthening EU Mediation and Dialogue Capacities’ adopted in 2009 and the creation of the European External Action Service and the High Representative by the Lisbon Treaty have changed the EU’s resources and strategies as a mediator as well as how these developments improved cooperation and coordination with other mediators. This analysis is done through a comparison of the EU’s role in the Israeli Operation Cast Lead in 2008/2009 and Operation Protective Edge in 2014. It is argued that the aforementioned changes made the EU a more capable mediator and facilitated internal coordination. However, these changes did not create more resources for the EU as a mediator, rather they changed how the EU used its resources.

 

 

 

New Article: Thrall, The Two-Stage Solution: Toward a Long-Term Israeli-Palestinian Truce

Thrall, Nathan. “The Two-Stage Solution: Toward a Long-Term Israeli-Palestinian Truce.” Mediterranean Politics (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2015.1126392

 

Abstract

There is growing consensus among Israelis and Palestinians that the paradigm of pursuing a two-state solution through bilateral talks has reached a dead end. Yet the widely discussed alternatives to this supposedly expired model have not posed a credible challenge to it. Instead they have been confined largely to academic discussions among activists who enjoy little support in their societies; the proposals are more a reflection of widespread desperation than a serious movement to bring change. In the absence of a negotiated settlement to the conflict, one possibility, though currently remote, is that Israel and a future Palestinian state will establish a long-term truce that settles some disputes, such as over territory, while leaving other issues unresolved.

 

 

 

New Article: Natanel, Militarisation and the Micro-Geographies of Violence in Israel–Palestine

Natanel, Katherine. “Border Collapse and Boundary Maintenance: Militarisation and the Micro-Geographies of Violence in Israel–Palestine.” Gender, Place & Culture (early view; online first).

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2015.1136807
 
Abstract

Drawing upon subaltern geopolitics and feminist geography, this article explores how militarisation shapes micro-geographies of violence and occupation in Israel–Palestine. While accounts of spectacular and large-scale political violence dominate popular imaginaries and academic analyses in/of the region, a shift to the micro-scale foregrounds the relationship between power, politics and space at the level of everyday life. In the context of Israel–Palestine, micro-geographies have revealed dynamic strategies for ‘getting by’ or ‘dealing with’ the occupation, as practiced by Palestinian populations in the face of spatialised violence. However, this article considers how Jewish Israelis actively shape the spatial micro-politics of power within and along the borders of the Israeli state. Based on 12 months of ethnographic research in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem during 2010–2011, an analysis of everyday narratives illustrates how relations of violence, occupation and domination rely upon gendered dynamics of border collapse and boundary maintenance. Here, the borders between home front and battlefield break down at the same time as communal boundaries are reproduced, generating conditions of ‘total militarism’ wherein military interests and agendas are both actively and passively diffused. Through gendering the militarised micro-geographies of violence among Jewish Israelis, this article reveals how individuals construct, navigate and regulate the everyday spaces of occupation, detailing more precisely how macro political power endures.

 

 

 

New Book: Sharvit & Halperin, A Social Psychology Perspective on The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Sharvit, Keren, and Eran Halperin, eds. A Social Psychology Perspective on The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Celebrating the Legacy of Daniel Bar-Tal, volume 2. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2016.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been waging for decades, resulting in mass losses, destruction, and suffering with profound effects on the members of the involved societies. Furthermore, its effects reach beyond the involved societies and influence regional and global stability. Many attempts have been made to bring this conflict to peaceful resolution, but so far without success. Due to its intensity and extensive effects, this conflict has drawn the attention of scholars from numerous disciplines, who attempted to explain the causes of the conflict and the reasons for the difficulties in resolving it. Among these one can find historians, geographers, political scientists, sociologists, and others. Social and political psychologists have also addressed this conflict, and one of the most influential among them has been Daniel Bar-Tal.

This is the second of two volumes intended to pay tribute to Daniel Bar-Tal’s scholarly contribution upon his retirement from his position at Tel Aviv University. While the first volume was devoted to Bar-Tal’s general theory of the sociopsychological foundations of intractable conflict and the theory’s relation to other prominent theoretical frameworks, this volume is devoted to applying Bar-Tal’s theory to the specific case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In his most recent book, published in 2013, Bar-Tal acknowledges the immense effects that living in Israel, being exposed to this conflict, and taking part in it have had on his thinking, theorizing, and empirical research regarding intractable conflicts. We too, as his former students, have been inspired by living in Israel and by Bar-Tal’s work to continue to investigate the sociopsychological dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and through them to advance the understandings of intractable conflicts in general.

 

Table of Contents

• Sociopsychological Foundations of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Applying Daniel Bar-Tal’s Theorizing
  Keren Sharvit
• Stereotypes and Prejudice in Conflict: A Developmental Perspective
  Yona Teichman
• Young Children’s Experiences and Learning in Intractable Conflicts
  Meytal Nasie
• The Israeli Collective Memory of the Israeli-Arab/Palestinian Conflict: Its Characteristics and Relation to the Conflict
  Rafi Nets-Zehngut
• The “Silenced” Narrative of 1948 War Events Among Young Palestinians in Israel
  Eman Nahhas
• Perceptions of Collective Narratives Among Arab and Jewish Adolescents in Israel: A Decade of Intractable Conflict
  Anan Srour
• “Seeing Through a Glass Darkly”: Israeli and Egyptian Images of the Other During the Nasserite Period (1952–1970)
  Elie Podeh
• The Jewish–Israeli Ethos of Conflict
  Neta Oren
• Ethos of Conflict of the Palestinian Society
  Ronni Shaked
• Harmed by Our Protection: Exposure to Political Violence and Political Preferences in the Range of Fire
  Daphna Canetti
• Emotions and Emotion Regulation in Intractable Conflict and Their Relation to the Ethos of Conflict in Israeli Society
  Ruthie Pliskin
• When Jewish and Zionist Identities Encounter Otherness: Educational Case Study
  David Ohad
• Peace Education Between Theory and Practice: The Israeli Case
  Soli Vered
• Containing the Duality: Leadership in the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process
  Nimrod Rosler
• The Role of Peace Organizations During Peacemaking Processes: The Case of the Jewish-Israeli Society
  Tamir Magal
• The Road to Peace: The Potential of Structured Encounters Between Israeli Jews and Palestinians in Promoting Peace
  Ifat Maoz
• Addressing Israelis’ and Palestinians’ Basic Needs for Agency and Positive Moral Identity Facilitates Mutual Prosociality
  Ilanit SimanTov-Nachlieli
• Transitional Justice in Societies Emerging from Intractable Conflicts: Between the Right to Truth and Collective Memory
  Ofer Shinar Levanon
• Index
• About the Authors

 

New Article: Cochran, Israel in Lebanon (1982–1985)

Cochran, Shawn T. “Israel in Lebanon (1982–1985).” In his War Termination as a Civil-Military Bargain. Soldiers, Statesmen, and the Politics of Protracted Armed Conflict (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016): 71-93.

 

 
URL: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137527974_4 
 

Abstract

The Lebanon War of 1982–85, generally recognized as the sixth Arab-Israeli conflict, was the longest and most divisive war in Israel’s history, producing “a level of polarization in Israeli society not seen since the birth of the state.” Israel did not anticipate a lengthy war at the outset nor did this appear likely in the early stages of the conflict. After only a week of fighting, Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon announced to the Knesset Defense Committee, “The job is done in Lebanon,” a claim with some parallels to President George W. Bush’s “mission accomplished” statement made in relation to Iraq two decades later. Contemporary observers were quick to claim Israeli victory and tout the operation as a military success. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) General Avraham Tamir would later recall, “Nobody in Israel could imagine at that moment that the IDF would withdraw only three years later after what was meant to be a swift operation.” Over the next few months, however, Israel became embroiled in a protracted struggle with guerilla forces and terrorists as it tried to translate early military gains into desired political objectives. Pundits labeled the war a “quagmire” and “morass.” One popular Israeli commentator likened the IDF in Lebanon to Napoleon’s army in Russia. Whatever the reference, apparent by the fall of 1982 was that “Israel was in for a long and dark nightmare from which there was no simple escape.”

 

 

 

New Article: Waage and Stenberg, The 1949 Armistice Negotiations between Israel and Syria

Waage, Hilde Henriksen, and Petter Stenberg . “Cementing a State of Belligerency: The 1949 Armistice Negotiations between Israel and Syria.” Middle East Journal 70.1 (2016): 69-89.

 

URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/the_middle_east_journal/v070/70.1.waage.html

 

Abstract

After the Arab states’ devastating defeat in the 1948 war with Israel, Syria refused to give in without a fight. Syria held on to several bridgeheads inside the former Palestine. Proving as skillful as their Israeli opponents at the game of contradictory arguments, the Syrians steadfastly refused to concede to Israel’s demands. The negotiations in 1949 eventually resulted in a demilitarized zone on the Syrian-Israeli border, and with it a state of belligerency was cemented.

 

 

 

New Article: Peffley et al, The Impact of Persistent Terrorism on Political Tolerance

Peffley, Mark, Marc L. Hutchison, and Michal Shamir. “The Impact of Persistent Terrorism on Political Tolerance: Israel, 1980 to 2011.” American Political Science Review 109.4 (2015): 817-32.

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URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003055415000441

 

Abstract

How do persistent terrorist attacks influence political tolerance, a willingness to extend basic liberties to one’s enemies? Studies in the U.S. and elsewhere have produced a number of valuable insights into how citizens respond to singular, massive attacks like 9/11. But they are less useful for evaluating how chronic and persistent terrorist attacks erode support for democratic values over the long haul. Our study focuses on political tolerance levels in Israel across a turbulent 30-year period, from 1980 to 2011, which allows us to distinguish the short-term impact of hundreds of terrorist attacks from the long-term influence of democratic longevity on political tolerance. We find that the corrosive influence of terrorism on political tolerance is much more powerful among Israelis who identify with the Right, who have also become much more sensitive to terrorism over time. We discuss the implications of our findings for other democracies under threat from terrorism.

 

 

 

New Article: Kahn et al, Intergroup Sentiments in the Context of an Intractable Conflict

Kahn, Dennis T., Varda Liberman, Eran Halperin, and Lee Ross. “Intergroup Sentiments, Political Identity, and Their Influence on Responses to Potentially Ameliorative Proposals in the Context of an Intractable Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 60.1 (2016): 61-88.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022002714535250

 

Abstract

Two studies examined the association of particular sentiments and political identities with Jewish-Israeli students’ responses to a generic plan to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and to narrower proposals for cooperative undertakings. Three composites—hatred/anger, compassion/empathy (reverse-coded), and guilt/shame (reverse-coded), and also a global composite combining these three sets of sentiments, were generally associated with negative responses to those plans and negative attributions about the wisdom and patriotism of supporters of those plans. Most of the associations between the global sentiments composite and the relevant responses continued to be statistically significant even after controlling for participants’ political identity. The interaction between the relevant sentiments and the putative authorship of one of the proposals was also investigated. Issues of generalizability, replicability, robustness, and of the relevance of mediational analysis, as well as implications for conflict resolution and potential directions for future research are addressed in a concluding discussion.

 

 

 

ToC: Israel Studies Review 30.2 (2015)

Israel Studies Review 30.2 (2015)

Editors’ Note

Editors’ Note
pp. v-vi(2)

 

Articles

Labor Zionism, the State, and Beyond: An Interpretation of Changing Realities and Changing Histories
pp. 1-27(27)
Author: Cohen, Mitchell

Does Israel Have a Navel? Anthony Smith and Zionism
pp. 28-49(22)
Author: Berent, Moshe

The Women of the Wall: A Metaphor for National and Religious Identity
pp. 50-70(21)
Author: Lahav, Pnina

Yiddish, Israel, and the Palestinians: Yosl Birshteyn’s “Between the Olive Trees”
pp. 71-91(21)
Author: Mahalel, Adi

Beyond the Religious-Secular Dichotomy: Looking at Five Israeli Dystopias
pp. 92-112(21)
Author: Katz, Gideon

The Politics of Emotion: A Case Study of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
pp. 113-129(17)
Author: Gold, Dana

 

Book Reviews

Book Reviews
pp. 130-155(26)

New Article: Bodas et al, Perception of the Threat of War in Israel

Bodas, Moran, Maya Siman-Tov, Shulamith Kreitler, and Kobi Peleg. “Perception of the Threat of War in Israel – Implications for Future Preparedness Planning.” Israel Journal of Health Policy Research (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/110.1186/s13584-015-0026-7

 

Abstract

Background
It has been recently reported that the preparedness of the Israeli public to a war scenario is mediocre. These findings suggest a need to study the psychosocial mechanisms behind individual motivation to engage in preparedness behavior. One component of these mechanisms is the perception of threat. The purpose of this study is to portray the perception of the threat of war by the Israeli public and to deduce possible implications for resilience-promoting policies.

Methods
Portions of the data accumulated in a telephone-based random sampling of 503 households (representing the Israeli population) performed in October 2013 were utilized to examine the perception of the threat of war by Israelis. The questionnaire was used to examine the level of household preparedness, as well as attitudes toward perception of threat, preparedness responsibility, willingness to search for information, and sense of preparedness. Statistical analysis was performed to determine the correlations between different components of threat perception, and to evaluate the preparedness promoting features of specific perception factors.

Results
The data suggest that the perception of threat is influenced by different socio-demographic factors. In particular, age, religion and education seem to play an important role in the perception of threat. Compared to data collected almost a decade ago, the likelihood perception and threat intrusiveness rates were significantly reduced. The regression analysis suggests that perception of the severity of the impact on a family’s routine and willingness to search for information, two known preparedness promoting factors, can be predicted by various socio-demographic and threat perception components.

Conclusion
The data suggest that the Israeli public, post the Second Lebanon War (2006) and the Gaza conflicts of 2009 and 2012, perceives the probabilities of war and being affected by it as diminished. The Israeli public demonstrates what can be considered as the unique characteristics of a war-victimized population. Implications for a future resilience-promoting policy were discussed.

 

 

New Article: Gubler and Kalmoe, Violent Rhetoric in Protracted Group Conflicts

Gubler, Joshua R., and Nathan P. Kalmoe. “Violent Rhetoric in Protracted Group Conflicts. Experimental Evidence from Israel and India.” Political Research Quarterly (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1065912915608947

 

Abstract

How do messages from political elites interact with individual traits of citizens to spur intergroup aggression? Building on research in social psychology, we expect that in places of protracted conflict, violent rhetoric from elites will be enough to mobilize antagonism toward an outgroup, especially among those who are generally less apt to be hostile toward the outgroup. We present results from two large survey experiments, the first conducted with young Jewish-Israeli adults across Israel and the second with a nationally diverse sample of adults in India. The results show that mild “fighting” words (e.g. “battle,” “fight”), combined with a reference to the outgroup, provoke significantly greater support for policies that harm the outgroup among some citizens. This effect is largest among individuals low in outgroup prejudice and low in aggressive personality traits, people who are usually less inclined to support policies that hurt the outgroup. Effects of violent rhetoric persist even with policies and rhetoric to help the outgroup. This work highlights the importance of considering both individual traits and contextual factors together to understand their full impact in the study of intergroup conflict.

 

 

New Article: Sachs, Why Israel Waits. Anti-Solutionism as a Strategy

Sachs, Natan. “Why Israel Waits. Anti-Solutionism as a Strategy.” Foreign Affairs 94.6 (Nov/Dec 2015): 74-82.

 

URL: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/israel/2015-10-20/why-israel-waits

 

Extract

In the absence of a final-status agreement in the near or medium term, banishing anti-Israeli and anti-Palestinian incitement from public rhetoric will also become more important. During negotiations for peace in previous years, Israel’s demands for a halt to such talk among the Palestinians often seemed like a play for time. But today, with so much time likely to pass before peace is reached, calls for violence from either side can have a pernicious effect well beyond their apparent scope by encouraging terrorist attacks against both Israelis and Palestinians.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders are unlikely to take serious interim steps toward peace in the near term. Yet the conflict has had many ups and downs over the years, and there will be opportunities for creative policy before long. And because a full resolution is not likely soon, it is all the more important in the meantime that Israel, the Palestinians, and the United States devise coherent policies that are at once realistic about the immediate future and consistently committed to longer-term objectives.

Israel’s anti-solutionism is not absurd, especially in the context of the country’s current geopolitical situation. Yet Israeli leaders can nevertheless be blind to the long-term effects of their actions, and there is much that could be done to improve them. For the Israeli-Palestinian issue, as for many others, 
it is in the pragmatic middle ground between cynicism and idealism that the best policies can be found.

 

 

New Article: Ben-Artzi et al, Conflict Management and Conflict Resolution as Distinct Negotiation Processes

Ben-Artzi, Ruth, Moty Cristal, and Shirli Kopelman. “Conceptualizing Conflict Management and Conflict Resolution as Distinct Negotiation Processes in the Context of the Enduring Israeli–Palestinian Conflict.” Negotiation and Conflict Management Research 8.1 (2015): 56-63.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ncmr.12046

Abstract

Negotiations in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict are historically traced and compared through an analysis of conflict resolution (CR) and conflict management (CM), defined as distinct negotiation processes. The assumption that CM is a stepping-stone to CR is challenged: Linking the two processes has not only entrenched but exacerbated this enduring conflict. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

 

New Article: Nagar & Maoz, Jewish-Israeli Recognition of Palestinian Suffering

Nagar, Rotem and Ifat Maoz. “Predicting Jewish-Israeli Recognition of Palestinian Pain and Suffering.” Journal of Conflict Resolution (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022002715590875

 

Abstract

Recognition is vital for conflict resolution. This study was designed to learn more about the factors underlying the willingness to recognize the pain and suffering of the opponent in the asymmetrical protracted conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Data were collected through a public opinion survey conducted with a representative sample of Israeli-Jewish adults (N = 511). Perceptions of threat/distrust toward Palestinians and dehumanization of Palestinians each made a significant contribution to explaining Jewish-Israeli (un)willingness to recognize Palestinian pain and suffering (R² = .36). Hawkishness made an added significant contribution to the overall explanatory power of the model (R² = .38). Higher scores on the threat/distrust scale and the dehumanization scale, as well as higher hawkishness predicted decreased willingness to recognize Palestinian pain and suffering. The implications of our findings for understanding the role of recognition and of moral concern in conflict resolution are discussed.

New Article: Marcus, Military Innovation and Tactical Adaptation in the Israel–Hizballah Conflict

Marcus, Raphael D. “Military Innovation and Tactical Adaptation in the Israel–Hizballah Conflict: The Institutionalization of Lesson-Learning in the IDF.” Journal of Strategic Studies 38.4 (2015): 500-28.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2014.923767

 

Abstract

This article highlights a pattern of military adaptation and tactical problem-solving utilized by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while engaged in protracted conflict with the Lebanese militant group Hizballah. It discusses the IDF’s recent attempts to institutionalize their historically intuitive process of ad-hoc learning by developing a formal tactical-level mechanism for ‘knowledge management’. The diffusion of this battlefield lesson-learning system that originated at lower-levels of the organization is examined, as well as its implementation and effectiveness during the 2006 Lebanon War. A nuanced analysis of IDF adaptation illustrates the dynamic interplay between both ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ processes of military innovation.

 

New Article: Lavi et al., Protected by Ethos in a Protracted Conflict? A Comparative Study among Israelis and Palestinians

Lavi, Iris, Daphna Canetti, Keren Sharvit, Daniel Bar-Tal, and Stevan E. Hobfoll. “Protected by Ethos in a Protracted Conflict? A Comparative Study among Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 58.1 (2014): 68-92.

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URL: http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/58/1/68.abstract

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Abstract

Can endorsement of the ethos of conflict alter psychological effects of exposure to political violence? Israelis and Palestinians have been in a state of political and military turmoil for decades. We interviewed 781 Israelis and 1,196 Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. Using structural equation modeling, we found that among those with a weak adherence to ethos of conflict, exposure predicted higher levels of hatred. For Israelis with a weak adherence to ethos of conflict, exposure predicted higher psychological distress and fear. For Palestinians with weaker adherence to ethos of conflict, stronger exposure predicted stronger threat perceptions. Israelis and Palestinians with a strong adherence to the ethos showed steady and high levels of negative emotions and threat, regardless of exposure. These results indicate that ethos of conflict is a double-edged sword that both protects and protracts the conflict. Although it serves as an engine fueling the conflict, it also plays a meaningful role as an empowering force for people suffering the psychological burden of an ongoing conflict.