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Recent political polarization has illustrated how individuals with opposing political views often experience ongoing events in markedly different ways. In this study, we explored the neural mechanisms underpinning this phenomenon. We conducted fMRI scanning of 34 right- and left-wing participants (45% females) watching political videos (e.g., campaign ads and political speeches) just before the elections in Israel. As expected, we observed significant differences between left- and right-wing participants in their interpretation of the videos' content. Furthermore, neuroimaging results revealed partisanship-dependent differences in activation and synchronization in higher-order regions. Surprisingly, such differences were also revealed in early sensory, motor, and somatosensory regions. We found that the political content synchronized the responses of primary visual and auditory cortices in a partisanship-dependent manner. Moreover, right-wing (and not left-wing) individuals' sensorimotor cortex was involved in processing right-wing (and not left-wing) political content. These differences were pronounced to the extent that we could predict political orientation from the early brain-response alone. Importantly, no such differences were found with respect to neutral content. Therefore, these results uncover more fundamental neural mechanisms underlying processes of political polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study takes a contrastive pragmatics approach to examine the ethical and moral discourses constructed around calls to condemn realized by journalists in two political linguacultures: Israel and the US. By studying the contents and the contexts within which Israeli and American news interviewers formulated 215 variations of do you condemn questions between 2006 and 2018, and the negotiations that followed interviewees' answers, the study aims to identify moral and ethical similarities and differences in the two political linguacultures. At the moral level, the study identified variations in the object of the calls. News interviewers in both linguacultures were mainly concerned with disloyalty to the nation, threats to national security, and incivility in public discourse. Interviewers from the two political linguacultures differed in their emphasis on moral issues: Americans framed incivility as the most imminent threat to society, while Israelis emphasized national security and loyalty. At the ethical level, American interviewers showed greater tolerance to non-mainstream views. Israeli interviewers tended to put greater pressure on their interviewees to condemn by formulating more follow-up questions, thus expressing less tolerance for alternative views. I conclude by discussing the benefits of studying political speech acts in contrast. • The study demonstrates the benefits of studying political speech acts in contrast. • Calls to condemn are ritualized speech acts of request for information realized during political interviews. • The calls are indicative to ethical and moral perception of news interviewers. • Calls to condemn made by Israeli and American news interviewers point to moral and ethical similarities and differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article offers the author's insights regarding the focus, clarity and grace of the speeches by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama presented before Congress on May 24, 2011 and at the State Department on May 19, 2011 respectively. He argues that President Obama might have little knowledge of Middle Eastern culture, history and strategy based on his speech. He adds that the presentation of Prime Minister Netanyahu has brought clarity to the issues.