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This article explores Jewish-Israeli attitudes toward human rights (HR) activism and patriotism, based on responses to a questionnaire answered by 503 people. We examined how Jewish-Israelis percei...

This study explored attitudes of 501 Israelis – Jews and non-Jews – and Jews and others from western countries concerning Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and the Palestinian Academic and Cu...

Purpose The study aimed to investigate how Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and others from around the world present their views on boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). The quality of discourse was examined along with the implications of the rhetoric for social-justice and conflict resolution frameworks. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative study analyzed 257 texts (newspaper articles, opinion pieces, YouTube videos, emails. Facebook posts, Twitter tweets, campaigns and websites) for content and quality of discourse and for their implications for social-justice and conflict resolution work. Findings Most texts divided into those in favor of the boycott and those opposed. The content was also polarized − most pro-BDS texts saw Israel as a settler-colonial enterprise, and emphasized issues of social-justice, whereas opponents perceived Israel as a legitimate nation and were skeptical of the human rights angle. The main types of discourse discerned included: ethnocentric talk, attack and intellectual discussion, regardless of national/ethnic origin of the writer or stance toward the boycott. Research limitations/implications Different types of texts were analyzed, which did not always fit easily into the discourse categories. Because this was the first study of its kind and looked at limited years, results should be approached with this in mind. Practical implications The rhetoric leaves little place for dialogue between those in favor and those opposed. Specific suggestions for combining social-justice work and conflict resolution work are offered. Social implications BDS discourse in its present form hampers finding a solution to the conflict and abuse of Palestinian rights. A new approach is needed to try to resolve these issues. Originality/value Because there are few systematic studies on BDS, this article provides insight into how people discuss the strategy and how it connects to frameworks for resolving conflicts.

This qualitative study explored the long-term significance ofaliya(Jewish immigration) to Israel for 32 immigrants/refugees who settled along the Israeli-Gaza border. The participants shared their life stories and discussed life in this war-torn region. We found that the interviewees presented three major meanings ofaliya: (1) Zionist ideology, sustained throughout life; (2) the need for finding a safe haven, and seeing their region as such a place in spite of the rocket attacks; and (3) immigration as a forced choice, connected to feelings of discontent with how their lives evolved. We conclude that by better understanding the long-term psycho-social meaning of immigration for Israelis, we can also better understand why and how they continue to live in an area marked by ongoing political conflict, and use this knowledge to inform individual and community resilience and socio-political policy.

This article explores the psycho-social space between autobiographical and collective memory concerning massive social traumas. It is conceptualized that there is a third type of memory image, termed “my-their.” Individuals appear to “remember” autobiographical memories of elder family members, even though they could not, either because they were born after the trauma happened or because the autobiographers were extremely young at the time of the experience. These emotional “memories” furthermore connect to collective memories of social traumas of ethnic/national groups. Examples from memories of the Holocaust and al Naqba are examined. Furthermore, the roles that “my-their” memory images can play in peace building and reconciliation are discussed.

This qualitative study explored concept of self and its connection to resilience among 35 elderly Israeli men and women, who live in a war zone along the border with Gaza. The participants were asked to tell their life stories and to answer questions that dealt with hardships they have faced, including the security threat that characterizes the area. Analyses of the interviews revealed 13 overall themes. The major theme discussed in this article centers on the interviewees’ self concept of being ideological pioneers, who have a strong belonging to the settlements they created in the desert. We conclude that this self-concept relates to resilience among this population, in spite of the hardships they have faced on the personal, familial, communal and social-political levels.

This article explores political tourism to Israel–Palestine that focuses on supporting peace and social justice activities. These tours visit locations of contention and meet with organizations working to end the conflict and social injustices. I provide an overview of thirty-one organizations that carry out political tours, and discuss sociopolitical issues and psychosocial factors that are important to address in such trips, providing examples from tours. It is suggested that when tours take these issues into consideration, a potential is created to build a cadre of better-informed and culturally sensitive activists who can support the peace process.

A largely neglected area of study in the field of trauma and its effects is the way a collective trauma of a majority group influences a minority group that lives in the same region. Such an investigation is especially relevant within the context of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict concerning the Holocaust—the defining trauma of Jewish Israelis. This pilot study focused on the thoughts, feelings, and interpretations concerning the Holocaust of 56 young adults, Palestinian citizens in Israel. The semi-structured questionnaires and interviews demonstrate that the young adults express an inherent conflict when dealing with the Holocaust—one that emanates from the tension that exists between universalistic and particularistic interpretations of the Holocaust within the Palestinian narrative. At the universalistic end of the continuum, the Holocaust is acknowledged as a crime against humanity; whereas, at the particularistic end of the continuum, the Holocaust is interpreted through political lenses of the Isr...

This article explores how Palestinian and Israeli emigres to the United States understand their sense of collective identity and belonging. Our qualitative study found that these immigrants ‘belong’ to the conflict and that the violence between the two peoples continues to impact them, even years after their emigration. All of the first generation immigrant interviewees perceived the Middle East conflict as a major anchor for their life stories. The participants organized their recollected memories around the conflict, as well as their understandings of self and ‘other’. We present one example from a Palestinian and one from an Israeli which demonstrate this tendency, and offer ideas for conceptualizing collective identity among these and other immigrant groups who have escaped war-torn regions.

This study assessed how Jewish Israeli young adults perceive the impacts of the Holocaust on themselves, their family and Israel society. The written responses of 180 respondents, 90 of which were grandchildren of Holocaust survivors (GHSs) and 90 which are not grandchildren of survivors (NGHSs), connected the Holocaust with issues of security, education and culture, and the impact, or lack of it, on family and self. These responses also suggest that NGHS relate to the Holocaust only through sociocultural mechanisms and that GHSs are influenced by the same sociocultural mechanisms, yet are also divided by the perceived impact of intergenerational processes on their personal and family lives. The overall results of the study suggest that regardless of family connection to the Holocaust, in Israel there are sociocultural mechanisms at work that impact the perception of the Holocaust on the third generation of Holocaust survivors as a cultural trauma.

There is a belief that victims of extreme violence should be sensitive to the suffering of others although most of the psychosocial literature points to the opposite. We examine this belief by looking at work that we have carried out on the psychosocial effects of the Holocaust and on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. We assert that being a victim of collective violence often inhibits empathy toward others and creates continued animosity. We focus on intergenerational aspects connected to victimization and their negative impact on the expression of empathy among descendants of victims in order to explain why the sense of victimhood and justification of repeated violence is often expressed by individuals born years after the original violence took place.

This article explores qualitative research issues that arise when researchers engage in study within their own ambiguous, unstable, conflictual, and rapidly changing society. We explore the topics of the relationship between the researcher and the context, the difficulty in choosing relevant research questions under such conditions, and the relevance of generalizing or transferring findings from such contexts to other sites and populations. We present two research cases from the Israeli context: one that demonstrates an external conflict (between Israelis and Palestinians) and one that demonstrates an internal conflict (between Israelis and Israelis), analyzing them according to these three main issues. Our conclusions focus on the methodological implications that researching one's ambiguous and conflictual "backyard" have for qualitative researchers. Key Words: Research and Context, Reflexivity, Researcher as Instrument, Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, and Generalizability and Transferability ********** ... Despite our recent attempts to historicize what we write about, our choices tend to settle on relatively stable objects of study: objects that will look more or less the same at least from the time of the ethnographic encounter until the time of its publication and a few years beyond. What needs to be acknowledged, however, is that what really matters to the anthropologist-ethnographer is not the relative stability of the ethnographic object but rather the relative stability of the theoretical claims made upon the object of study. Can our ... ways of seeing an object survive into a second edition? Will our books be read for more than their value as period pieces? These are the questions which seek for a response that assures relative stability ... In the Sri Lankan situation, events have changed and continue to change so rapidly that one does not need a span of fifty or even twenty-five years to relegate something to "history". Concerns and issues that were characterized as burning become irrelevant within months or even weeks ... E. V. Daniel (1996, p. 11-12), an anthropologist and Sri Lankan who has studied the violence in his homeland. Preface Traditionally, social science research has explored phenomena that stand the (relative) test of time. That is, as a rule, researchers choose to reserve their limited resources of time, energy, and money for the study of social phenomena that appear to be a "lasting" part and parcel of the society and culture under study, and that also appear to have important implications for their sites of inquiry. Therefore, researchers tend not to engage in the study of "passing," one-time episodes: While they may be interesting, they are not generally considered as "worthy" of in-depth study. This state of affairs is especially true of qualitative research, which by its nature, a long-term endeavor, one that often involves prolonged immersion in the field and reflective and complex processes of data collection, interpretation, and representation. However, how does the researcher know what events are "worthy" of study when the context in which s/he is working is uncertain, ambiguous, and constantly changing? Also, once a topic of inquiry is chosen, and the field abruptly and significantly changes on the researcher, how s/he deals with these rapid changes; changes which might result in a severe revision, or even worse, the end of the planned research. In this article, we will address these issues, by looking at methodological topics central to qualitative research and by demonstrating their problematics through examples from one such dynamic context--Israel. Israel can be characterized as a society in which change and uncertainty are the norm and stability remains an oft-dreamt of ideal. The country is distinguished by on-again-off-again wars and peace initiatives and relations with her neighbors (Bickerton & Klausner, 2002), frequent elections, and the establishment and disruption of fragile coalition governments that are built on often-changing relationships between the political left and right, and secular and religious parties ("Political Forces. …

In spite of the fact that the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki occurred nearly 60 years ago, there has been very little psychosocial research on the long-term effects of these unprecedented nuclear attacks on its victims. In this qualitative study, we use psychosocial literature from the Holocaust in order to help understand the effects of this man-made tragedy. We analyzed semi-structured interviews taken with 8 survivors of the bombs--5 from Nagasaki and 3 from Hiroshima. Our research questions were: When the survivors talk about their experiences, what do they focus on and with what are they preoccupied? What can we learn about the long-term effects of the experiences from both psychological and physical aspects? And, where does the A-bomb experience "fit" into the survivors' lives? Our analyses showed that there were 9 main themes that emerged from the interviews that could be grouped into two main categories--themes connected to the experience itself and themes connected to life afterward. We discuss the implications of these themes on the personal, social, and cultural levels and offer suggestions concerning ideas for dealing with the trauma.

Considering the immense efforts invested in Holocaust education in Israel and around the world, there is very little published research which looks at the impact of this education on teenagers' modes of understanding. This qualitative study addressed two questions: When adolescents learn about the Holocaust, what are the themes they see as central to an understanding of it? And, do these issues remain stable during the learning period? Forty‐seven Jewish‐Israeli teenagers (33 girls, 14 boys) were asked to write about their thoughts, feelings and attitudes about the Holocaust, both before and after participation in a Holocaust seminar that included a trip to Poland. The most salient themes that they wrote about at both time periods were: learning about the Holocaust, the evaluative theme, emotions, the link between the Holocaust and Israel and the Holocaust as the most horrific world event. We found little stability of thematic frequency and some stability in thematic meaning. Our results also show that th...

This article describes a method of data collection and analysis that was developed for the tracing of processes of identity construction and perception of others among young Jewish adults – citizens of Israel. In order to learn how young adults perceive different ‘others’ and construct their sense of collective identity, a semi-structured interview was developed that was comprised of five moral dilemmas concerning internal as well as external others that contribute to the construction of Jewish-Israeli identity. This article traces the process of instrument development and presents the types of analyses that were used in interpretation of the dilemmas. We then demonstrate the analyses by presenting examples from four interviews with Jewish-Israelis. Based on the results of our study, ideas for future research and utilization of the research method are offered.

��� This article examines the attitudes of a group of Jewish Israeli adolescents who participated in a Holocaust seminar that included an optional trip to related sites in Poland. The authors sought to determine whether youth who participate in such a seminar still consider Jewish Israeli identity important, which lessons of the Holocaust they value, and whether belonging to a survivor’s family makes a difference when considering these lessons. The results show that, regardless of participation in the trip and affiliation with Holocaust survivors, the youth hold a strong sense of Jewish Israeli national identity and tend to support Jewish and Zionist lessons more than universalistic ones, although a complex interplay exists between identity and those lessons. Adolescents whose family members included survivors connected a more “power-oriented” interpretation of the Holocaust to a strong sense of national identity; participants not related to survivors developed a more complex frame of reference that combined both power-oriented and humanistic lessons of the Holocaust. Researchers working inside and outside Israel have studied empirically the issues of Israeli identity and the “lessons of the Holocaust.” The topics, though separate, are closely linked, scholars have pointed out. To date, however, few efforts have been made to assess how and if belonging to a family of Holocaust survivors affects the lessons learned and the sense of national identity. In this article, we look at this threeway connection by beginning with a review of literature on Holocaust education within Israel and on lessons of the Holocaust. We then turn to the topic of national identity within Jewish Israeli society and a short review of the literature to date on the “third generation”—the grandchildren of the survivors—before presenting our research results.

Undertaking research on individuals who have experienced social traumas, such as being a victim or perpetrator of genocides and wars, presents difficult decisions for qualitative researchers. Deciding how to deal with these issues becomes more problematic when the researcher is a member of the society in conflict. To do this work, and to work collaboratively with researchers from the other side, sensitive ways to collect data have to be chosen. Interpretations of the materials can be no less difficult: Analyses often lead to information and understandings that may be difficult for the researcher to deal with from ethical, moral, and personal standpoints, especially when he or she is a member of the society and culture under study. In this keynote address, the author explores methodological and ethical issues connected to these topics. She brings examples from her work on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and focuses on use of the life story methodology.

This exploratory study looks at how families of Holocaust survivors work through the traumatic past by considering the coping patterns adapted by family members. Life-story interviews (Rosenthal, 1993) with 57 individuals from 20 families, in which there were two to three generations, were used in order to learn about the significance they attach to the Holocaust past. The interviews were analyzed using Rosenthal's methods and Danieli's (1988) typology of post-war adaptation (victim families, fighter families, those who made it, and numb families). Results showed that in order to differentiate between the coping styles exhibited by the families, two new categories had to be added to Danieli's typology. These were entitled "life goes on" and "split families." It was concluded that survivor families exhibit heterogeneity in the ways in which they cope with the Holocaust past.

This article examines the ways in which one's perception of the other contributes to processes involved in the construction of collective identity. This study presents analyses and comparisons of semi-structured interviews using a dilemma concerning ownership of a house that was undertaken with 20 Jewish and Palestinian university students, citizens of Israel, who participated in a 1-year seminar that dealt with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Analyses of the entire sample showed that, during the year, all of the participants enhanced their self-awareness of the complexity of the conflict. Each group emphasized the processes that reflect the role of the conflict in the construction of its collective identity. The Palestinians appeared to be in the process of constructing their identity and the Jews in the process of deconstructing theirs while trying to cope with their need for security during the on-going conflict. In-depth analyses of interviews with 2 women students highlighted the processes of ident...

This article presents a report summarizing a pilot study conducted by the Israeli-Palestinian research team of the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East (PRIME). Sixteen Israeli and twelve Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that were engaged in cooperative work were analyzed to measure the degree of their effectiveness in their societies, and obstacles encountered in their cooperative work. In addition, this report presents these NGOs' interpretation of the causes of environmental damage and its connection to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. NGOs data were collected from field interviews, their publications, and web sites. Results showed that while the Israeli and Palestinian NGOs agreed that joint work is needed to address ecological problems, they differed in their reasons for working together. This difference also appeared in their interpretation of the sources of environmental deterioration, relationship of the political conflict to the state of the environment, and the effect of the peace process on solving ecological problems. At the end, it was concluded that “environmental narratives” of both sides differ greatly, and that the establishment of a “culture of peace” is a protracted process.

This article examines psychosocial aspects of family/parent-child relationships during the Holocaust by focusing on the emotional memories of such relationships. Global and thematic analyses were undertaken on 93 life story interviews and testimonies with Holocaust survivors. Results showed that survivors who lived through most of the war with parents/family and those who had lived approximately an equal time with loved ones and without them were able to recall and narrate more emotional memories, both positive and negative, than people who had experienced the traumatic period mostly on their own. However, going through the war with family did not guarantee the narration of emotional memories; close to half of these victims could not recall/narrate such memories. In general, when the survivor recalled relative emotional security, she or he felt safe, even when physical danger was imminent. However, this feeling did not always continue when the physical situation worsened or when the survivor was separated...

This study looks at how three generations in Israeli families of Holocaust survivors work through the past. Fifty-seven people (23 survivors, 22 from the second generation, and 12 from the third) from 20 families told their life stories. The interviews were analyzed for central themes and values. For all generations, family relationships and the emotional difficulty of dealing with the Holocaust were important. The survivors emphasized family cohesiveness and unity, but distrusted nonfamily members. Their children emphasized conflictual family relationships; for them, working through was connected to interpersonal family relationships. The grandchildren stressed both close family ties and conflict, but also emphasized the importance of teaching younger generations about the Holocaust. It was concluded that the working through process poses different problems for each generation.

This article explores the uses of personal narratives of massive social trauma in conflict, most specifically as they relate to the Palestinian-Israeli context. It is asserted that there are types of narratives, fixated on persecution, hatred, and fear, that can obstruct peace, and different types that encourage peace and reconciliation. The article discusses the impacts of sharing personal narratives on the victims and others in society, the connections between personal and master narratives, and ways in which dialogue that incorporates personal narratives can encourage peace. A theoretical categorization of 4 types of personal narratives of massive social trauma is proposed: narratives of vengeance, victimhood, confusion, and embracing the other. Examples from Israelis and Palestinians that reflect this conceptualization are discussed. It is concluded that a more nuanced understanding of types of personal narratives is needed when engaged in peace-building endeavors in an ongoing conflict.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand and compare two immigrant families whose children perceived their families to be well-functioning, and two families whose children perceived them to be poor-functioning. The method of analysis used for studying the values of the families is based on SYMLOG. Four families, who immigrated to Israel during the early seventies from the former USSR, and whose adolescents were born in Israel, were interviewed. The results show that in the two “well-functioning” families, there is a high degree of consensus on their values — those that they accept, as well as, those that they reject. The two “poor-functioning” families did not exhibit identical value patterns — neither in the values that they favor, nor in those that they reject. In terms of content, in the well-functioning families, there was a strong expression of two values: friendliness and the desirability of self-sacrifice in order to reach family goals. In contrast, in the poor-functioning families, the value of conservatism was salient. Finally, all four families expressed strong opposition to the values of strong individualism and nonconformity. Suggestions for family intervention are offered.

Knowing how to speak and what to say, but perhaps most importantly, to listen, is no easy task for Jews and Arabs in Israel/Palestine. As discussed in the first two chapters, Jews and Palestinians in the country live separate, parallel lives, rarely meeting at all, and when they do, it is usually for instrumental purposes, in universities, shops, or hospitals. The relations between Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are much worse; they almost exclusively center on soldier-citizen encounters—at the checkpoints or during military invasions—or between settler-citizen encounters that are either instrumental, as when the Palestinians work for Jewish-Israelis who are settlers, or during a violent encounter (Miftah, April 30, 2010; United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, December, 2008). The laws concerning freedom of movement between Israel and the Occupied Territories (Hamoked, Center for the Defense of the Individual, 2007) also make finding the space and time for dialogue between Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians extremely difficult, nearly impossible. As a result, we peoples who live in the region cannot escape the ways in which the realities of the ‘outside’ always intrude upon our communication.

One of the hallmarks of conflict resolution and peace-building is that these fields integrate scholarly work with grassroots work (Deutsch, Coleman, & Marcus, 2006). The role of the scholar-practitioner is a very important one, because in order to be good theoretician in this field, one also needs to be connected to the arenas in which conflicts are actually unfolding. Good, sensitive, and creative practitioners, who help facilitate conflict resolution and peace-building efforts, are well versed in the theories and concepts of the discipline of peace research and also able to conceptualize cases and phenomena that they are confronted with “on the ground” (Lederach, 2005).

The Gaza Strip is often referred to as the most densely populated piece of land in the world with one of the poorest populations (UNRWA-Gaza, December 31, 2009). It was occupied by Israel in the Six Day/June War of 1967, when Israel defeated Egyptian forces, the country that had controlled the area since 1948. The territory, which is 360 square kilometers, has a population of slightly over 1.5 million—1.1 million of which are registered refugees (UNRWA-Gaza, December 31, 2009; The World Factbook, August 25, 2010). Although it is officially part of the Palestinian Authority, Gaza is completely separated geographically from the West Bank, and also politically separated since June 2007, when the Hamas violently took control from the Fatah.

This book explored psychosocial phenomena that perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and presented five kinds of grassroots initiatives—dialogue groups, research groups, political tourism, women’s empowerment groups, and Gaza/Sderot activities—that aim to support just peace efforts. As noted throughout, my academic, grassroots, and life experiences in the region have led me to the conclusion that the only way that a sustainable peace can be attained is by Israelis and Palestinians working together on multiple levels within multiple groups. Furthermore, it is imperative that this knowledge and work reach political leaders in our countries, and in the world, who have the power to make lasting structural changes.