Peace and Conflict Studies - Spring 2014

Peace and Conflict Studies Volume 21, Number 1 7 it is sometimes hard to tell what is the real conflict and what are its consequences (Kriesberg, 1980). Its influence is rooted so deeply in the daily lives of the societies involved, that the tendency of Israeli-Jewish society (the in-group) to favor itself over the Arabs (the out-group) is seen in almost any comparison between the two groups (Maoz, 1996) and reaches a point where the in-group holds extreme positions like support for violation of human rights of the out-group (Maoz & McCauley, 2011). It is therefore argued that in order to end the conflict, a just and fair distribution of real infrastructures might not be enough, and that psychological and cultural dimensions should be overcome in order to solve it (Kelman, 1999). Therefore, the immense and widespread influence of this conflict on all sections of the Israeli society and culture makes the study of the role of cultural texts in the ethos of conflict all the more important. Methodology The methodology described in this article is an innovative combination of scholarly studies from two different disciplines: social political psychology and cultural studies. Looking at these two different academic fields, which are not too often studied together, provides a new and richer picture about cultures in conflict, narrative discourse produced by fiction texts, societies’ perceptions of conflicts and the relations between them. The research done on fictional texts derives its roots from interpretations of culture. Its origins can be summarized in Clifford Geertz (1973) well known sayings about the study of culture: “…the analysis of it… be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretative one in search of meaning” (Geertz, 1973, p. 5) in which the scholar “characteristically approaches such broader interpretations and more abstract analyses from the direction of exceedingly extended acquaintances with extremely small matters” (Geertz, 1973, p. 21). On the other hand, the data about the public perception of the conflict is mostly quantitative, based on interpretation and analyses of social science surveys and polls. By combining these two different approaches, it is possible to compare the discourse of the fictional texts about the conflict and society’s perceptions and ethos of conflict. The Context: Israelis’ Perception of The Israeli-Arab Conflict in the Late 1970s and the 1980s Major developments occurred in the Israeli-Arab conflict during the late 1970s through the 1980s. These changes – in the relationships between Israel and its neighbor Arab countries, Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and between Israel and its

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