Peace and Conflict Studies - Spring 2014

Peace and Conflict Studies Volume 21, Number 1 20 1985) – it is fair to believe that while the texts contain a complex view of a conflict, the audience sees only parts of it. For example, while a text can show that characters of both sides are to blame – the reader might only see that one side is to blame. Therefore, texts can be canonical, mainstream and loved by their society just because they can be interpreted differently and because different people and different portions of society understand them in different ways. In practice, the members of society reading or watching them might perceive these texts as strengthening their beliefs, as proving their cases, and as enforcing their perspectives – even if the texts have other (more controversial) sides to them as well. In the case studied above, it is fair to believe that the change in the representation of Arab characters went in the path of changes of Israelis perception of Arabs (Oren, 2009; Smooha, 1998). But the readers did not notice that this supposed change still keeps the texts’ Orientalistic approach (Oppenheimer, 2008). 3. There are certain elements in these texts that do correspond with the ethos of conflict and psychological inter-group repertoire. Even when presenting a different perspective, these cultural texts do share common elements with the public discourse. For example, the pessimistic endings of the texts discussed above do not show a light at the end of a tunnel for society or a brighter future as the Israeli public started to perceive it. But at the same time, their unhappy endings are completely logical and reasonable for a society that at this decade went through two wars that were on-going and without a clear ending (The Lebanon War and the Intifada). Likewise, their confusion and their tendency to deal with the fact that they cannot deal with the conflict does not present an illuminated picture of the conflict which could help members of the in-group understand the conflict and provide a coherent picture of it (see, for example: Burton, 1990); however, they might comfort the audiences’ feeling of misunderstanding and show them a fictional-reality in which the confusion does not make the situation wrong or weaken society’s national narrative. It is possible that in this specific conflict, texts which say out loud that the conflict is unresolved and problematic, and which do not wholeheartedly support one side, but at the same time still retain elements of the national narrative – are the kind of national texts which preserve the culture of conflict. And so, although not completely consistent with expectations, cultural texts do have some characteristics which are part of the culture of conflict. These are difficult to generalize and almost impossible to make inductive