How Do We Educate for Peace? Study of narratives of Jewish and Palestinian peace activists

The present analysis focuses on the personal narratives of peace activists, the facilitators of reconciliation-aimed dialogues between two ethno-national groups in a situation of asymmetrical conflict: Jews and Palestinians. It puts forward the idea that these peace activists bring a wealth of knowledge from their personal and professional narratives to bear on their strategies and practices of social transformation. We posit that foregrounding this knowledge through the analysis of these narratives not only affords a better understanding of their theoretical perspectives, their practices, aims and goals of social change but also can greatly contribute to our better understanding of peace education processes in general and in particular to a consideration of the ways peace activists experience and creatively deal with the dilemmas and challenges they confront in their transformational work

Psychological Correlates of Public Support for Reconciliation: The Israeli-Jordanian Case

This study examines psychological correlates of Jewish-Israeli support for post-conflict political reconciliation with Jordan. An analysis of data from a public opinion survey conducted with a representative sample of Israeli-Jews (n=1000) indicated that appraisal of outgroup collective threat, as well as hatred and (lack of) sympathy towards Jordanians, predicted Jewish-Israeli decreased support for peaceful reconciliation with Jordan. Our findings point to the crucial role of threat perceptions in hindering post-conflict reconciliation and to the importance of sympathy towards the other side in increasing support for such reconciliation

Gendering Human Rights: Threat and Gender Perceptions as Predictors of Attitudes towards Violating Human Rights in Asymmetric Conflict

We introduce, in this study, a gendering human rights model in which perceiving outgroups as having stereotypical feminine traits predicts decreased support for violating their human rights through the mediation of threat perception. This model is tested in the context of the asymmetrical protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict using Jewish-Israeli public opinion polling data (N=517). In line with our expectations, the findings indicate that Jewish-Israeli perceptions of Palestinians as having stereotypical feminine traits predict lower levels of threat perception from Palestinians and consequently less support for violating their human rights. We discuss the implications of our findings for understanding factors that attenuate support for violation of human rights of an outgroup in other situations of violent asymmetric conflict

Does contact work in protracted asymmetrical conflict? Appraising 20 years of reconciliation-aimed encounters between Israeli Jews and Palestinians

In the past few decades, planned contact interventions between groups in conflict have played an important role in attempts at improving intergroup relations and achieving peace and reconciliation. This article focuses on such reconciliation-aimed intergroup encounters between Israeli Jews and Palestinians that seek to reduce hostility and increase understanding and cooperation between the two nationalities. Like other contact interventions conducted in settings of intergroup conflict, encounters between Israeli Jews and Palestinians represent a paradoxical project: this is a project that aspires to generate equality and cooperation between groups that are embedded in a protracted asymmetrical conflict. Though existing research teaches us valuable lessons on the effectiveness of contact conducted under optimal conditions, little is said about contact between groups involved in asymmetrical protracted dispute. The goal of this analysis is to examine the evolution of reconciliation-aimed contact interventions between Israeli Jews and Palestinians in the past 20 years. The research method is qualitative, relying on ethnographic data assembled during the relevant period of time. The findings identify and trace the evolution of four major models of Jewish-Palestinian planned encounters: the Coexistence Model, the Joint Projects Model, the Confrontational Model, and the Narrative-Story-Telling Model. The strengths and limitations of each model in transforming intergroup attitudes in asymmetric conflict are discussed.asymmetric conflict; contact hypothesis; intergroup contact; intergroup encounters; intergroup relations; Israeli—Palestinian conflict; Jewish—Arab relations; reconciliation

‘The new Middle East’: Jewish-Israeli exclusion of Palestinians in Facebook advertising

Previous studies have pointed to practices of disconnectivity and disengagement on Facebook, both generally (Stroud, 2010; Sunstein, 2009) and in the specific context of the Israeli society as a divided society in conflict (John and Dvir-Gvirsman, 2015; John and Gal, 2017; Gal, 2019). Our study aims to expand on these previous findings by examining practices of disconnectivity and disengagement in a different setting: among a professional group of Jewish Israeli advertisers who discuss their attempts to exclude Arab-named profiles from responding to their Facebook campaigns. The analysis focuses on a major Facebook group of social media marketing experts in Israel. This group is an open group consisting of 15,789 members, most of them Jewish-Israelis. We examined posts that were published in this group between 2013–2017 and dealt with Israeli-Arab audiences. Our findings emphasize the moral and ethical aspects of practices of disengagement and disconnectivity that — in the case studied here — help normalize and justify exclusion

Palestinian journalists turn to social media: Experiences and practices of covering the asymmetrical conflict in Jerusalem

This study explores the use of social media platforms by Palestinian journalists covering events in Jerusalem within the context of the asymmetrical conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Our findings, based on data gathered from 10 in-depth interviews, reveal that social media platforms allow journalists to construct an autonomous space for sharing witnesses’ accounts while enabling them to partially avoid restrictions on reporting stemming from conditions of the asymmetrical conflict. The interviewees perceive social media platforms as a potential gateway for spreading alternative narratives to both local and international news arenas, however, our findings suggest that authorities in power still manage to impose restrictions on journalists that mirror the reporting restrictions that existed prior to the advent of social media

"Likes" for Peace: Can Facebook Promote Dialogue in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?

This study examines the ways in which social media is used to promote intergroup dialogue and reconciliation in the context of the protracted, ethnopolitical conflict between Israeli-Jews and Palestinians. We focus on content analysis of posts and comments on a Facebook page named "Tweeting Arabs" which was established and is administered by Palestinian citizens of Israel. This page states that its’ main goal is to publicize opinions, thoughts and beliefs of Palestinians, enabling the moderate voice to be heard and encouraging dialogue between Israeli-Jews and Palestinians. The analysis is based on a data set containing posts and comments collected from “Tweeting Arabs” since the page was founded in November 8th 2014 and until December 4th 2014. This data set contains 85 posts which gained a total of 9657 "likes", and 461 "shares", as well as 3565 comments and replies to these posts. Our findings reveal that while posts that presented the narrative of Palestinian suffering were mostly followed by negative comments from Israeli-Jews, posts that brought up the Palestinian moderate and peace seeking voice elicited higher Jewish–Israeli acceptance and sympathy. The research adds to our understanding of Facebook as a dialogue provoking platform that enables users from different ethnopolitical groups in divided and conflicted societies to perform peacebuilding actions. (author's abstract

Decision Framing and Support for Concessions in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The purpose of the study is to explore, in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the influence of framing a decision task as inclusion or exclusion on Israeli-Jewish respondents' support for the concession of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Respondents received a list of 40 Jewish settlements. Details such as the number of residents and geographical location were provided for each settlement. The respondents were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In the inclusion condition 55 respondents were asked to mark the settlements for which they recommended that Israeli sovereignty be conceded. In the exclusion condition 53 respondents were asked to mark the settlements for which they recommended that Israeli sovereignty not be conceded. The findings confirm the predictions tested and indicate that: (1) Framing the task in terms of inclusion or exclusion affects respondents' support for territorial compromise, so that respondents in the exclusion condition support the concession of more settlements than respondents in the inclusion condition. (2) Framing the task in terms of inclusion or exclusion has a greater effect on support for conceding options (settlements) that are perceived as ambiguous (less consensual in the climate of opinion) in comparison to options (settlements) that are perceived as more clear-cut (more consensual). The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.