Intifada Hits the Headlines: How the Israeli Press Misreported the Outbreak of the Second Palestinian Uprising

8. Conclusion

8 Conclusion If the Likud were in office, all hell would break loose. The Left would accuse the government, the media would sound the alarm. . . . If the Likud were in office, the leaders of the Left, including Ehud Barak, would vehemently attack the prime minister and accuse him of leading us all to our destruction. Who are you, they would mockingly defy him, to decide that Arafat is no longer a partner? —Chemi Shalev, Ma’ariv, October 20 During the first month of the Intifada, the Jewish public in Israel went through a radical transformation in its perception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In social-psychological terms, this change can be characterized on the basis of the distinction between tractable and intractable conflicts (Kriesberg 1993; Bar-Tal 1998, 2000, 2001): In the Oslo period, from 1993 till the outbreak of the Intifada, a significant proportion of the Jewish public gradually came to view the conflict as a tractable one, in which “the parties in dispute attempt to resolve [the conflict] through negotiations, . . . avoid violence , recognize mutual interests, and accept each other’s identity and rights” (Bar-Tal 1998, p. 23). In October 2000, however, the Jewish public quickly retreated into a consensual perception of the conflict as totally intractable . Intractable conflicts “are prolonged, involve great animosity and vicious cycles of violence”; they are “exhausting, demanding, stressful, painful, and costly”; they seem to be “irreconcilable and self-perpetuating” (Bar-Tal 1998, p. 23). As Bar-Tal shows, societies immersed in intractable conflicts form particular sets of societal beliefs, which “strengthen the society to help it cope with the conflict as such,” but which also “constitute a certain psychological investment in the conflict and thus perpetuate its continuation” (BarTal 1998, p. 23). The following list comprises eight themes common to different societies in intractable conflicts—from the Protestant and Cath- olic communities in Northern Ireland to the Turks and Kurds in Turkey. The list impressively reflects the essence of the newspapers’ coverage throughout October 2000, as analyzed throughout this book: [a] Societal beliefs about the justness of one’s own goals: These beliefs not only “outline the goals and establish their justice” but also “provide the rationale for the eruption of the conflict”; they “rest on the assumption of the supreme and vital importance of those goals: failure to achieve them threatens the existence of the society” (p. 26). [b] Societal beliefs about security: “the issue of security becomes the main preoccupation of such society’s members and a central and determinative societal value” (p. 27). [c] Societal beliefs that de-legitimize the opponent: These explain, so to speak, “why the opponent has ‘far-reaching’, ‘irrational,’ ‘malevolent’ goals that negate the honorable and worthy goals of one’s own society, and why the adversary is intransigent and unwilling to reconcile.” They also help “explain ” the “violence, viciousness, and atrocities of the opponent,” and “serve as justifications for one’s own violence and destructiveness” (p. 28). [d] Societal beliefs that create a positive self-image: “attributes that are often used for this purpose are humaneness, morality, fairness, and trustworthiness , on the one hand, and courage, heroism, and endurance, on the other” (p. 28). [e] Societal beliefs about victimization: “The focus on the injustice, harm, evil, and atrocities of the adversary, in combination with the society ’s self-perception as just, moral and human, leads society to assume that it is a victim” (p. 28). [f] Societal beliefs about patriotism: “patriotism increases the cohesiveness of the society. . . . In the name of patriotism, members of the society can be asked to forget their personal convenience, wishes, or even needs” (p. 29). [g] Societal beliefs about unity: These “focus on the importance of setting aside any internal conflicts, controversies, and disagreements and unite the group’s forces in face of the external threat” (p. 29). [h] Societal beliefs about peace: These “present the society members, both to themselves and to the world, as peace loving and peace seeking. This peace, however, is usually conceived of in utopian terms as a vague dream or wish” (p. 29). A crucial question arises in connection with such beliefs: What comes first? Do societies develop these sets of societal beliefs in order to cope with an 156 | INTIFADA HITS THE HEADLINES already existing intractable conflict, or do they form such beliefs in the process of making the conflict intractable? In other words, do these beliefs actually contribute to...