CHAPTER 7 Conflict, Identity, and Ethos: The Israeli-Palestinian

This chapter focuses on the relationship between identity and conflicts, which we believe is mutual and complex. On the one hand, elements related to identity can collide and cause eruption and evolvement of a conflict, but on the other hand, protracted and intense conflict that lasts many decades has a profound effect on identity. In fact, these relations can be seen over time as circular because elements of identity may cause conflict, and then, as the intensive conflict continues through the years, it has great influence on the shaped identity, which in turn has an effect on the conflict’s continuation. With regard to the effect of identity on the evolvement of intensive conflicts, it is well noted that in most cases, contradictions in identity elements played a crucial role in the eruption of conflicts (seeAgnew, 1989; Ross, 1998). However, we will primarily focus on the latter part of the equation. We claim that, through the course of an intensive conflict, each of the rival parties evolves an ethos of conflict which supplies content to the meaning of the group’s social identity, and serves as the epistemic basis for the conflict. Moreover, the societal beliefs of the two ethoses are in opposition and provide contradictory views to group members, and these views fuel the continuation of the conflict. In this chapter, we first describe the nature of social identity and its relations to ethos. Then we describe opposing societal beliefs in the ethoses as held by rival groups. Next, we illustrate the present conception by describing the contradictory parts in the ethos of conflict held by the Israeli Jews and the Palestinians. Finally, we conclude by pointing out the necessary steps to be taken when groups in intensive conflict begin the long process of reconciliation