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The Arab-Israeli Conflict and the Victory of Otherness IIan Peleg David K. Shipler, Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land, London: Penguin Books, 1986. Ehud Sprinzak, The Ascendance of Israels Radical Right, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. he Arab-Israeli conflict, one of the most complicated of all conflicts in the contemporary world, has been approached by analysts from numerous angles: broad historical analysis, legal perspectives, personal observations, security dilemmas, attitudinal prisms, and more.1 The perceptions and attitudes that Jews and Arabs have of and toward each other are among the most interesting aspects of the long-standing dispute; they may very well be the ultimate key to the resolution of the conflict, since political processes and governmental policies are rooted, in the final analysis, in perceptions and attitudes. Both the Shipler and the Sprinzak books are important contributions to the understanding of how Arabs and Jews view each other. It is the contention of this chapter that the political and societal picture painted by the two volumes, their description I 227 The Arab-Israeli Conflict and the Victory of Otherness 1lan Peleg David K. Shipler, Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land, London: Penguin Books, 1986. Ehud Sprinzak, The Ascendance ofIsrael's Radical Right, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. I ~he Arab-Israeli conflict, one of the most complicated U of all conflicts in the contemporary world, has been approached by analysts from numerous angles: broad historical analysis, legal perspectives, personal observations, security dilemmas, attitudinal prisms, and more. 1 The perceptions and attitudes that Jews and Arabs have of and toward each other are among the most interesting aspects of the long-standing dispute; they may very well be the ultimate key to the resolution of the conflict, since political processes and governmental policies are rooted, in the final analysis, in perceptions and attitudes. Both the Shipler and the Sprinzak books are important contributions to the understanding of how Arabs and Jews view each other. It is the contention of this chapter that the political and societal picture painted by the two volumes, their description 227 Ilan Peleg 228 of the emerging reality in Greater Israel (Israel and the territories ), could best be termed the "victory of otherness." It is a reality of growing hostility, estrangement, and hatred that governs the relationships between Arabs and Jews, and although neither Shipler nor Sprinzak uses the concept of otherness, their accounts of that reality go a long way toward the substantiation of this chapter's claim. The Shipler book, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, focuses (despite its broad coverage) on the way in which Arabs and Jews see each other, their thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and particularly their mutual images and stereotypes. The Sprinzak volume, although much narrower in scope and very different in analytical style, also deals with attitudes as determinants of this conflict. It dwells specifically on the Jewish side and, within it, on what the author terms the "radical right." The strength of the Shipler volume is in vividly describing the reality of otherness, in allowing the reader to feel the atmosphere of mutual rejection, in exposing, albeit merely anecdotally, the depth of hatred in Greater Israel. No other book in the market better conveys the estrangement between Arabs and Jews. Shipler dwells on the forces that contribute to Arab-Jewish hostility (forces such as nationalism and "religious absolutism"), devotes considerable space to a description of the images held by the two conflicting groups vis-a-vis each other, and analyzes the interaction between Jews and Arabs and its consequences. Sprinzak, in effect, complements Shipler's journalistic account by covering the material in a more systematic manner, by offering a social science perspective , by carrying the analysis all the way to the early 1990s, and by focusing on the forces responsible in Israel for the negativism toward the Arabs, the radical right. II Otherness is the end result, the product and the consequence , of perceiving someone else as the complete negation of oneself, the perceiver. It is a condition in which certain individuals or groups are seen as irreconcilably different when 228 Ban Peleg of the emerging reality in Greater Israel (Israel and the territories ), could best be termed the hvictory of otherness." It is a reality of growing hostility, estrangement, and hatred that governs the relationships between Arabs and Jews, and although neittler Shipler nor Sprinzak uses the concept of otherness, th.eir accounts of that reality go a...

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