How Fear Drives the Arab-Israeli Conflict

While hitchhiking through Texas in the 1980s, Londoner Simon Lawson, now contributor to Common Ground News Service, was offered words of wisdom by a kindhearted truck driver who had given him a ride:

"Let me tell you something Simon; people round here are kinda ignorant - ignorance breeds fear and fear breeds violence - so watch your ass."

Lawson relates this axiom to the Arab-Israeli conflict. In his latest article for Common Ground News Service, he articulates the ways in which ignorance, fear and violence play major roles in the way Israelis and Palestinians perceive each other. Lawson focuses specifically on how the second Intifada has exacerbated the levels of ignorance, fear and violence, especially among the younger generation of both Israeli and Palestinian societies:

Through many conversations I had with Israelis and Palestinians the relationship between ignorance and fear was brought sharply into focus.

I noticed a difference in attitudes to 'the other' expressed by both Palestinians and Israelis who had experienced adult life before the first Intifada and those who had been too young to remember much before then.

What was the difference? Most people over 40, had friends or business associates from the 'other side' before the Intifada.

They do not fear 'the other'; they know they share not just the common interests of humanity - but also much of their cultural heritage.

While older Israelis and Palestinians remember a time when they worked alongside, dined alongside, and maintained legitimate friendships with members of the "other side," those who grew up in the midst of the second Intifada are ignorant to what were once commonalities of life:

Young Israelis and Palestinians, through no fault of their own, have little knowledge of 'the other'. If they encounter each other at all it is across a check-point or during a military operation - situations that don't illuminate their common humanity, but re-enforce ignorance, prejudice and fear.

Violence between Israelis and Palestinians, Lawson argues, is a manifestation of the peoples' fears for their safety, security and survival. However, Lucy Nusseibeh and Shelley Ostroff argue in their article for Common Ground News Service, that there is another dimension of fear that permeates Israeli and Palestinian societies: a fear of a resolution of the conflict.

Nusseibeh and Ostroff's argument is one rooted in psychology and morality. They explain:

Israelis and Palestinians often view each other in stark, polarised terms of "we are good, they are bad". This is actually an expression of a mechanism we use to cope with fear whereby we project unwanted aspects of ourselves or our own group onto the other. Each side tends to attribute all the violence, inhumanity and injustice to the other, while claiming complete moral authority for itself. While this mechanism may help people feel better because it generates a sense of moral strength and clarity in the face of danger and confusion, it does not necessarily have any bearing on reality and therefore does not help alleviate the fear. In fact the opposite is true; it reinforces the fear by making the other side seem worse than it is.

Both Israelis and Palestinians see themselves as victims, albeit for different historical and current reasons. Regardless of the immense inequalities of power and control, there is little acknowledgement by either side of their roles as persecutors in the conflict.

The victim role is more complicated than it seems. While the focus might be on suffering, it also generates a profound sense of self-righteousness and a justification for excessive amounts of violence and inhumanity towards the other. Just think, how much violence is committed in the name of self-defence or security?

Sometimes, the need to preserve the sense of self-righteousness that comes with victimhood can be even more important than safety. This need has brought Israelis and Palestinians in different ways to provoke each other into intensifying the role of persecutor. The violence that is consequently provoked reinforces the "evidence" of the monstrous and inhumane nature of the enemy. When this happens we can see how the fear of violent conflict is often better tolerated than the fear of a loss of one's moral bearings and the resulting guilt and shame that arise from an acknowledgement that one is not only a victim but also a persecutor.

Ultimately, these processes can be linked to a generally unacknowledged fear of peace. Continuing conflict where one's own side is totally good and the other is all bad can be less frightening than the complex world that is offered by the prospect of peace with one's neighbour. War is often recognised as a way to unite a people in fear around a common enemy. It is also a way to protect people from having to face their own dual role as persecutors and victims, and all the moral ambiguity and painful internal personal conflict that implies.

Perhaps the prospect of peace also generates a fear of the unknown nature of the relationship that would develop within this new reality (although in different ways for the Israelis and the Palestinians), and the impact this might have on each side's identity.

Lawson, Nusseibeh and Ostroff all agree that fear, both of violence and of peace, needs to be mitigated in order to achieve a permanent resolution of the greater conflict.

Nusseibeh and Ostroff contend that:

For the fears to be overcome, it is important to take an eagle's-eye view and shift to a higher systemic perspective that acknowledges both Israelis and Palestinians as interdependent parts of a larger whole within which neither part can be eliminated, controlled or fully extricated from the other. Such a perspective would focus on how best to manage this relationship in its many dimensions and with real reciprocity. It would take the needs of all parties into account and would cultivate the well-being not only of both Israelis and Palestinians, but of the Israeli-Palestinian system as a whole.

Lawson also believes in creating an integrated society:  

I and some of my B.I. [Before Intifada] friends believe that the only viable solution will be one in which Muslims, Jews, Christians and others live together as equals, seeing each other as neighbours, acting on their commonalties and celebrating their differences.

The fears of the Israeli and Palestinian people must be addressed in order to see progress in the region.