A Psychological Analysis of Israel-Palestine

View from a West Bank Checkpoint. A fellow visitor described: “Everywhere we went, there’s walls and barriers; fence, barbed wire, and pain. Even if the walls came down, there’s still psychological barriers”.

With the recent explosion of violence in Israel-Palestine, I’ve been asked by a few friends for my opinion. I spent a large chunk of my graduate studies in Community Psychology, Liberation Psychology, and Ecopsychology researching the psychological dynamics of that conflict, particularly focusing on trauma, reconciliation, and post-Jungian theories of collective unconscious — including a month of fieldwork in Israel and the West Bank. I embarked on this research and this mission as a Jew, one who has been involved in perhaps a dozen synagogues, as a member or a board member or a Sunday school teacher. I experience a sense of responsibility regarding Israel-Palestine, my research program a function of ancestral encumbrance — as is this article.

I won’t get into all of the historical details of the conflict here, but will suggest to my readers — as I did to my friends — an incredible compendium of articles by Vox’s Zach Beauchamp titled Everything you need to know about Israel-Palestine: A comprehensive guide to the basics of the world’s most controversial conflict. I also really appreciated this source on Modern Jewish History: Traditional Narratives of Israeli and Palestinian History by Paul Scham, revised and excerpted from “Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue,” edited by Paul Scham, Walid Salem and Benjamin Pogrund. I gained great benefit from a number…