The interdependence of Israeli and Palestinian national identities: The role of the ether in existential conflicts

The interactions between identity groups engaged in a protracted conflict l ack the conditions postulated by Gordon Allport in The Nature of Prejudice (1954) as necessary if contact is to reduce intergroup prejudice. The artic le examines the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from this perspective. After s ummarizing the history of the conflict, it proposes that a long-term resolu tion of the conflict requires development of a transcendent identity for th e two peoples that does not threaten the particularistic identity of each. The nature of the conflict, however impedes the development of a transcende nt identity by creating a state of negative! interdependence between the tw o identities such that asserting one group's identity requires negating the identity of the other. The resulting threat to each group's identity is fu rther exacerbated by the fact that each side perceives the other as a sourc e of some of its own negative identity elements, especially a view of the s elf as victim and as victimizer. The article concludes with a discussion of ways of overcoming the negative interdependence of the two identities by d rawing on some of the positive elements in the relationship, most notably t he positive interdependence between the two groups that exists in reality. Problem-solving workshops represent one setting for equal-status interactio ns that provide the parties the opportunity to "negotiate " their identitie s and to find ways of accommodating the identity of the other in their own identity.