The impact of historical victimization on policy legitimation: the case of palestinian occupation

The Impact of Historical Victimization on Policy Legitimation: The Case of Palestinian Occupation In this paper author analyzes if the constant and intense reminder of historical victimization suffered by in-group have any impact on current harmful policy against an out-group. The research problem appears from previous paper, which proves that reminder of the Holocaust is constantly being used in Israel throughout the history. But the fact that it is active, does not mean that it has a real impact on population’s opinion about Palestinian occupation or the use of force. So the problem is that even though Israel’s harmful policy against Palestinians, such as land annexation by building settlements is widely condemned by international community, the policy does not seem to change any time soon. The research question is asking if the constant and intense reminders of the Holocaust have an impact on Israeli Jewish population by creating a justification for Palestinian occupation which is being manifested by the settlement policy. Main goal of the paper is to find out if this reminder of historical victimization, which is formed by Israeli politicians and other means have a legitimizing effect on public opinion about Palestinian occupation. In order to reach the main goal some objectives are set, which also represents the structure of the paper: 1. To present chosen research method – the congruence method. This method can be used to analyze causal interpretation inside the concrete case. The main idea is that the researcher can take a theory and try to measure its potential to explain the result of a certain case. If the prognosis made by the theory fits the results of the case, it can be claimed that there is a big possibility that there is a causality. 2. The second objective, just as the second chapter is set for introducing the theoretical background. The chosen theory is social identity theory and its basic assumptions are that what people are is determined by their group membership. The most important part of theory is borrowed from Michael Wohl and Nyla Branscombe and their research in political psychology on the impact of historical victimization for the feeling of collective guilt. 3. The final objective and the final chapter is the case study. The dependent variable, support for Palestinian occupation, have to be analyzed in order to detect periods of a rise. Then independent variable, the use of Holocaust discourse, is analyzed during these periods. In order to see the change in public opinion the researcher has to dig into opinion polls on support for military campaigns and Palestinian occupation. The hypothesis then states that the reminder of the Holocaust does have an impact on Israeli Jews’ opinion about Palestinian occupation, by legitimizing harmful actions or passing responsibility to Palestinians themselves. It is later proven by the whole research, because it shows that the support for Palestinian occupation have a clear rise when the Holocaust reminder intensifies. A rise in support is seen precisely when the Holocaust discourse is most active – during international Holocaust Remembrance Day and Yom HaShoah, which is a Holocaust remembrance day in Israel. And the biggest rise in occupation support was during the anniversaries of Auschwitz liberation, when all the media was completely filled with reminders of Historical victimization