Changing Rationales for Political Violence in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Abstract

An historic transformation in the Arab-Israeli conflict has occurred. It can be identified by tracing change in the target audience of the violence employed by Zionists/Israelis and Arabs/Palestinians, as well as in the political rationale of that violence. The argument here developed is that there has been a substantial shift from solipsistic rationales (directed toward the beliefs, intentions, and behavior of one's own group) to other-directed violence (directed at the beliefs, intentions, and behavior of the adversaries). This shift signals, more dramatically than any declarations can, a new potential for melioration of this protracted dispute. It is a striking fact that in the development of both Zionism and Palestinian nationalism the purpose of inflicting death and destruction on the enemy was seen, prominently though never exclusively, as serving the psychological needs of the group on whose behalf the violence was undertaken. In this sense, both movements exemplify Franz Fanon's theory of the psychological and political role of violence. According to his account of how historically oppressed peoples gain their liberation, perpetration of violent acts against others is a necessary therapeutic device. Fanon saw violence as an expression of freedom and power, and the ability to kill as the great equalizer. It was a necessary element, he argued, in the destruction of the inferiority complex that he viewed as the colonizer's most de