1
Final
Challenges for Constructing Peace Culture and Peace Education.
Daniel Bar-Tal
School of Education
TelAvivUniversity
Chapter to be published in the book E., Matthews, D., Newman, M., Dajani, (Eds.), The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Parallel Discourses. London: Rutledge
Challenges for Constructing Peace Culture and Peace Education
The relations between IsraeliJews and Palestinianswill not changeuntil both societies will go through major socio-psychological transformation. This is so because both societies have developed a socio-psychological infrastructure that stands as a major obstacle to the peaceful process and constitutes the cornstore of culture of conflict. This culture feeds continuously the animosity and hatredthat plague the relations between these two societies. The present chapter will first describe the societal psychological repertoire that develops in the intractable conflict and serves as a basis of the conflict culture. Then it will outline the nature of the needed peace culture that has to substitute the dominating culture of conflict in order to change dramatically the relations between Israelis and Palestinians. Next, the chapter will elaborate on the peace education that is an important mean for the needed change and at the end few conclusions will be drawn.
Israeli-Palestinian Intractable Conflict: Development of Conflict Culture
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as otherintractable conflicts[1] that have been going on for a long time, deeply involves the society members, who develop socio-psychological repertoire of beliefs, attitudes, and emotions about their goals, about causes of the conflict outbreak, its course, about the rival and about the desired solution (Bar-Tal, 1998;Coleman, 2003; Kriesberg, 1998a). This repertoire consists of three elements: collective memory of conflict, ethos of conflict and collective emotional orientations, which are in mutual interrelations and constitute socio-psychological infrastructure. They serve as foundations of the developed culture of conflict. The developed infrastructure is functional during the climax of the conflict as it allows adaptation to the very demanding and stressful prolonged conditions that challenge the involved societies. It facilitates satisfaction of basic deprived individual and collective needs, helps to cope with the chronic stress and creates proper conditions for withstanding the enemy (Bar-Tal, 2007, in press).
Socio-Psychological Infrastructure of Conflict
Collective memory. Collective memory of intractable conflict presents its history in a coherent and meaningful way(Cairns, & Roe, 2003; Halbwachs, 1992). It creates a socially constructed narrative that has some basis in actual events, but is biased, selective and distorted in ways that meets societal present needs. It focuses on four following themes: First, it justifies the outbreak of the conflict and the course of its development. Second, it presents own society in a positive light. Third, it describes the rival society in delegitimizing ways. Fourth, it portrays own society as the victim of the opponent. Nevertheless,Israeli and Palestinian society members treat their collective memory as truthful history of the conflict.
Ethos of conflict. In addition to the narrative of collective memory, during prolonged intractable conflict, Israelis and Palestinians, as other societies involved in intractable conflict, develop a particular ethos –ethos of conflict (Bar-Tal, 1998, 2000a). Ethos is defined as theconfiguration of shared central societal beliefs that provide a particular dominantorientation to a societyat present and for the future (Bar-Tal, 2000a). Ethos of conflict provides a clear picture of the conflict, its goals, its conditions, requirements, images of the own group and of the rival. It represents a coherent picture of the society, provides a particular orientation to society members, indicates a direction and goals for individual and society behavior, imparts legitimacy to the social system, and explains and justifies leaders’ decisions.
Ethos of conflict consists of eight themes of societal beliefs[2] (Bar-Tal, 1998, 2000a). It includes: Societal beliefs about the justness of own goals, which outline the goals in conflict, indicate their crucial importance and provide their justifications and rationales. Societal beliefs about security refer to the importance of personal safety and national survival, and outline the conditions for their achievement. Societal beliefs of positive collective self image concern the ethnocentric tendency to attribute positive traits, values and behavior to own society. Societal beliefs of own victimization concern self-presentation as a victim.Societal beliefs of delegitimizing the opponent concern beliefs which deny the adversary's humanity. Societal beliefs of patriotism generate attachment to the country and society, by propagating loyalty, love, care and sacrifice. Societal beliefs of unity refer to the importance of ignoring internal conflicts and disagreements during intractable conflict in order to unite the forces in the face of the external threat. Finally, societal beliefs of peace refer to peace in general and amorphic terms as the ultimate desire of the society.
Collective emotional orientation. In addition, during the intractable conflict Israeli and Palestinian societies developed collective emotional orientations because the shared context together with information, models, and instructions arouse particular set of emotions shared by society members. The most notable is the collective orientation of fear (Bar-Tal, 2001), but in addition, can be assumed that also appeared hatred and anger(Halperin, 2007).
Functions. The above described infrastructure of collective memory, ethos of conflict and emotional collective emotional orientations fulfill important functions,especially when the conflict is in its climax and no signs of possible peace process appear. First, it provides meaningful and coherent picture of the conflict to society members. Second, it serves to justify the acts of the ingroup towards the enemy, including violence and destruction. Third, it prepares the society members to be ready for threatening and violent acts of the enemy, as well as for difficult life conditions. Fourth, it has the function of motivating for solidarity, mobilization and action. Finally, it creates a sense of differentiation and superiority.
Institutionalization and Culturation.
In view of the important functions of thesocio-psychological infrastructure during intractable conflict, its institutionalization takes place. The process of institutionalization is suggested to be characterized by four features: 1. Extensive sharing; the beliefs of the socio-psychological infrastructure and the accompanying emotions are widely shared by society members. Society members acquire and store this repertoire, as part of their socialization, from an early age on. It becomes lenses through which society members interpret new information and explain their experiences. 2. Wide application; institutionalization means that the repertoire is not only held by society members, but also put into active use by them in their daily conversations, being chronically accessible. In addition, it appears to be dominant in public discourse via societal channels of mass communication. Moreover, it is often used for justification and explanation of decisions, policies and courses of actions taken by the leaders. Finally it is also expressed in institutional ceremonies, commemorations, memorials and so on. 3. Expression in cultural products; the institutionalization of the socio-psychological infrastructure also takes place through cultural products such as literary books, TV programs, films, theatres plays, visual arts, monuments, etc. It becomes a society’s cultural repertoire, relaying societal views and shaping society members’ beliefs, values, attitudes and emotions. Through these channels it can be widely disseminated and can reach every sector of the public. 4. Appearance in educational materials; the socio-psychological infrastructure appears in the textbooks used in schools and even in higher education.
These general described socio-psychological dynamics are suggested to be found in the Israeli and Palestinian society, in kind of mirror image reflections. But while there is much accumulated evidence to their existence on the Israeli side, there is much less studies on the Palestinian side (see for example on the Israeli side, Firer, 1985 and Podeh, 2002, analysis of the school textbooks, Cohen, 1985, of the children literature,Ramras-Rauch, 1989 of adult the literature, Shohat, 1989, of the films, and Urian, 1997, of the theatrical plays—on the Palestinian side see Brown, 2003 analysis of the Palestinian school textbooks and Firer & Awan, 2004 on the Israeli and Palestinian school textbooks). In any event, it proposed that the described socio-psychological infrastructure became part of the political, social, cultural and educational context in which Israeli and Palestinian society members live and thus is stable and easily available. In essence, it is suggested that during intractable conflict a culture of conflict evolved that encompassed all the domains of individual and collective life of the Israelis and Palestinians. This culture contains the described repertoire that facilitates adaptation to the condition of conflict, but at the same time it fuels its continuation, being rigid and resistant to change. Moreover, with time, the beliefs of collective memory and ethos of conflict served as contentual basis for the formation of social identity of bothsocieties (Oren, Bar-Tal, & David, 2004).
This was the situation up to the eighties when the Israeli and Palestinian societies engaged in intractable conflict and there was no sign on both sides to the willingness to move to peaceful resolution of the conflict. But, when the explicit signs appeared and then both societies in 1993 openly embarked on the road to peace, the described shared psychological repertoire and especially culture of conflict has constituted the major obstacle to the political transformation. With the movement towards the peaceful resolution of the conflict, which has been carried by leaders, political parties and NGOs there is simultaneous need to gain a support of at least significant part of the Israeli and Palestinian society members and mobilize them for the cause. Such mobilization can take place only if members of both societies begin to change their psychological repertoire of conflict that dominated them for years and begin to adopt an alternative repertoire. The new psychological repertoire provides the seeds to the emergence of the new culture, the culture of peace.
Development of Peace Culture.
In the present context, the culture of peace focuses on the new goals for both societies and the relations between the past rivals, Israelis and Palestinians. It is recognized that peace culture, in general, can be seen as a very wide scope phenomenon that encompasses many different elements. Nevertheless, the present conception concerns only construction of peaceful relations between former rivals which were dominated by conflict culturethat perpetuates animosity and violent confrontations.
Reconciliation and Peace Culture
The process through which societies form their new repertoire during peace process is called reconciliation and it aims at achieving mutual recognition and acceptance, invested interests and goals in developing peaceful relations, mutual trust, positive attitudes as well as sensitivity and consideration of other party’s needs and interests(Bar-On, in press;Bar-Siman-Tov,2004;Bar-Tal & Bennink, 2004;Maoz, 1999; Kelman, 1999; Lederach, 1997). The psychological essence is change of motivations, goals, beliefs, attitudes and emotions by the majority of society members (Bar-Tal, 2000b).). Psychological change is vital because without it the rival parties do not establish lasting peaceful relations. Reconciliation is then the necessary condition for establishing culture of peace[3], in which ethos of peace is the core foundation. It provides epistemic foundations, which are of necessary importance to the maintenance of stable peace.
Ethos of Peace
It is suggested that ethos of peace contains the following themes of societal beliefs.
Societal Beliefs about Peace as a Goal. The new beliefs about peace must present the new goals for the Israeli and Palestinian societies that have been shaped by minorities in them and that center on constructing and maintaining peaceful relations between them. In addition, these beliefs have to provide rationalization and justification for the new goal of peace, including new symbols and myths. They have to outline realistically the costs and benefits of achieving peace, connote the meaning of living in peace, and specify the conditions and mechanisms for its achievement (for example, use of compromises), and especially for its maintenance. The new goals indicate that both societies leave some of their old dreams and visions and accept goals that are achievable and also satisfy the needs and aspirations of both societies.
Societal Beliefs about Peaceful Resolution of Conflicts. These beliefs provide a new way of life, as they suggest new ways of dealing with conflicts, which are inseparable part of human intergroup relations. They indicate that conflicts should be alwaysresolved via peaceful means of negotiations, mediation of other methods. There is need to evolve beliefs and attitudes that negate use of violence. Violence was during the intractable conflict the preferred way to deal with disagreement and the new culture has to make clear that use of violence is absolutely illegitimate. In this ethos, peace stands as an alternative to violence and wars. Therefore there is need to develop institutionalized means of resolving conflicts that may appear in the relations between Israelis and Palestinians. Any possible disagreements should be dealt with the institutionalized mechanisms of conflict resolution.This way of life turns the relations between Israelis and Palestinians to be of mixed motives nature, as both societies have to understand that conflicts bring damage to both societies and peaceful resolution of conflicts is in the long run always rewarding to both of them.
Societal Beliefs about the Past Opponent. Another determining condition for reconciliation is change of the very negative mutual images that the Israelis and Palestinians carry about the each other. It is important to legitimize and personalize the past opponent: legitimization grants humanity to members of the adversary group, after years of its denial. It allows viewing the opponent as belonging to category of acceptable groups, with which it is desired to maintain peaceful relations. Personalization enables to see members of the rival group as humane individuals, who can be trusted and have legitimate needs and goals. In addition there is need of equalization that makes the rival into an equal partner with whom it is possible to establish new relations. This requires recognition of the principle of status equality between the groups, a principle that is brought to bear first in negotiations and later in all types and levels of intergroup interactions. Finally, the new beliefs should permit seeing the other group as a victim of the conflict as well, since its members also suffered in its course. These new beliefs should also contain a balanced stereotype consisting of positive and negative characteristics and a differentiating perception of the other group that acknowledges its heterogeneous composition.
Societal Beliefs about Own Group. The change must include also the societal beliefs that Israelis and Palestinians carry about themselves, which propagated self-righteousness, self-glorification and self-praise. In this change, each society must take responsibility for its involvement in the outbreak of the conflict, as well as its contribution to the violence, including immoral acts, and refusal to engage in peaceful resolution of the conflict. Thus, the new societal beliefs present the Israelis and Palestinians in own society in a more “objective” light, more critically, especially regarding their past behavior.
In addition, within the framework of own presentation and the presentation of the past opponent there isneed to stress commonalities between Israelis and Palestinians after years of stressing only differences. It goes beyond the emphasis of common goals of achieving lasting peace, but it has to encompass domains of common values and especially similar and common lines of culture.
Societal Beliefs about the Relationship between the Israelis and Palestinians. There in need to form new societal beliefs about the relations between the Israeli and Palestinian societies that were engaged in intractable conflict for many years. These beliefs should stress the importance of cooperation and friendly relationships with the past rival. Of special importance is the stress on equality of relations and mutual sensitivity to each other needs, goals and general well being. That is, there need in the recognition that for lasting peace the well being of the two sides is in the interest of both parties and hence peaceful relations also require ongoing sensitivity, attention and care for the needs and goals of the other group. In this vein of special importance is developing trust between the Israelis and Palestinians which is a fundamental basis for building peaceful relations.These new beliefs about the relationship should also concern the past. The new beliefs should present the past relations within new framework that revises the collective memory and forms an outlook on the past that is synchronized with that of the former rival.