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This is the first English-language book ever to apply psychoanalytic knowledge to the understanding of the most intractable international struggle in our world today—the Arab-Israeli conflict. Two ethnic groups fight over a single territory that both consider to be theirs by historical right—essentially a rational matter. But close historical examination shows that the two parties to this tragic conflict have missed innumerable opportunities for a rational partition of the territory between them and for a permanent state of peace and prosperity rather than perennial bloodshed and misery. Falk suggests that a way to understand and explain such irrational matters is to examine the unconscious aspects of the conflict. He examines large-group psychology, nationalism, group narcissism, psychogeography, the Arab and Israeli minds, and suicidal terrorism, and he offers psychobiographical studies of Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat, two key players in this tragic conflict today.

Zionism was inspired as a movement--one driven by the search for a homeland for the stateless and persecuted Jewish people. Yet it trampled the rights of the Arabs in Palestine. Today it has become so controversial that it defies understanding and trumps reasoned public debate. So argues prominent British writer Jacqueline Rose, who uses her political and psychoanalytic skills in this book to take an unprecedented look at Zionism--one of the most powerful ideologies of modern times. Rose enters the inner world of the movement and asks a new set of questions. How did Zionism take shape as an identity? And why does it seem so immutable? Analyzing the messianic fervor of Zionism, she argues that it colors Israel's most profound self-image to this day. Rose also explores the message of dissidents, who, while believing themselves the true Zionists, warned at the outset against the dangers of statehood for the Jewish people. She suggests that these dissidents were prescient in their recognition of the legitimate claims of the Palestinian Arabs. In fact, she writes, their thinking holds the knowledge the Jewish state needs today in order to transform itself. In perhaps the most provocative part of her analysis, Rose proposes that the link between the Holocaust and the founding of the Jewish state, so often used to justify Israel's policies, needs to be rethought in terms of the shame felt by the first leaders of the nation toward their own European history. For anyone concerned with the conflict in Israel-Palestine, this timely book offers a unique understanding of Zionism as an unavoidable psychic and historical force.

Uses a social-psychoanalytic model to argue that collective identity shapes foreign policy changes. The International Self explores an age-old question in international affairs, one that has been particularly pressing in the context of the contemporary Middle East: what leads long-standing adversaries to seek peace? Mira M. Sucharov employs a socio-psychoanalytic model to argue that collective identity ultimately shapes foreign policy and policy change. Specifically, she shows that all states possess a distinctive role-identity that tends to shape behavior in the international realm. When policy deviates too greatly from the established role-identity, the population experiences cognitive dissonance and expresses this through counternarratives—an unconscious representation of what the polity collectively fears in itself—propelling political elites to realign the state’s policy with its identity. Focusing on Israel’s decision to embark on negotiations leading to the 1993 agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Sucharov sees this policy reversal as a reaction to the unease generated by two events in the 1980s—the war in Lebanon and the first Palestinian Intifada—that contradicted Israelis’ perceptions of their state as a “defensive warrior.” Her argument bridges the fields of conflict resolution, Middle East studies, and international relations.

This paper explores individual differences in perceptions of political violence, strategies for coping with violence, and adaptive outcomes. Data on political violence stress, personal variables, coping strategies, and stress reactions were gathered on a sample of 227 Israeli adolescents in Haifa and Northern Israel confronted with a prolonged period of terror attack in the course of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Political violence stress and trait anxiety were shown to be meaningful predictors of both coping strategies and adaptive outcomes. Although adolescents reported employing more avoidance coping, on average, than other coping modes, it was primarily the use of emotion-focused coping efforts that predicted stress reactions. The observation that problem-focused coping did not meaningfully alleviate stress reactions may have been a function of the uncontrollable nature and severity of the community stressor. The data were discussed and explicated in the context of stress and coping theory and research.

The International Self explores an age-old question in international affairs, one that has been particularly pressing in the context of the contemporary Middle East: what leads long-standing adversaries to seek peace? Mira M. Sucharov employs a socio-psychoanalytic model to argue that collective identity ultimately shapes foreign policy and policy change. Specifically, she shows that all states possess a distinctive role-identity that tends to shape behavior in the international realm. When policy deviates too greatly from the established role-identity, the population experiences cognitive dissonance and expresses this through counternarratives—an unconscious representation of what the polity collectively fears in itself—propelling political elites to realign the state's policy with its identity. Focusing on Israel's decision to embark on negotiations leading to the 1993 agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Sucharov sees this policy reversal as a reaction to the unease generated by two events in the 1980s—the war in Lebanon and the first Palestinian Intifada—that contradicted Israelis' perceptions of their state as a \"defensive warrior.\" Her argument bridges the fields of conflict resolution, Middle East studies, and international relations.

Some of these attractions are not likely to appeal to ideological settlers who believe in direct contact with the entire land of Israel - thatis, in the open spaces of the Judean Hüls - rather than in the crowded cosmopolitanism of Israel's coastal centre. Neither does Tel Aviv boast the overt spiritual significance of some of the biblical sites in the West Bank. But early Israeli voices waxed rhapsodic about the city. Consider this 1929 quote from Israeli poet Yehuda Kami: \"This city has much of the de vü in it, but this city has, like any other city, much of God. There is a great God in Tel Aviv. The God of love and work, and an aspiration of the people. Very soon Tel Aviv wül sanctify a tradition, wül shape forms, wül fulfill the commandments and wül bequeath a life of dignity to the next generations.\"24 In combination with other Israeli locales, the government might call up these existing narratives more prominently as part of its effort to resettle the settlers. 7 See Nathan Jeffay, \"'Land swaps': Is there enough land to swap?\" Jewish Daily Forward, 25 May 20?, www.forward.com. The most recent Israeli offerto the Palestinians, by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, called for 70,000 settlers to be moved into Israel while the rest remained, with their lands annexed to Israel. See Nadav Shragai, \"Settlers vow to fight PM's plan to quit West Bank,\" Haaretz, 13 August 2008, www. haaretz.com. 13 On constructivism, see Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999); and Jeffrey T. Checkel, \"The constructivist turn in international relations theory,\" World Politics 50, no. 2 (1998): 324-48. On identity and narratives, see Rodney Bruce Hall, National Collective Identity: Social Constructs and International Systems (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Normsand Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); William Bloom, Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); and Shibley Telhami and Michael Barnett, eds., Identity and Foreign Policy in the Middle East (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2002). On social identity theory in international relations, see Jonathan Mercer, \"Anarchy and identity,\" International Organization 49, no. 2 (spring 1995): 229-52; and Brent E. Sasley, \"Theorizing states' emotions,\" International Studies Review 13, no. 3 (20?): 452-76. On narratives in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, see Mira M. Sucharov, The International Self. Psychoanalysis and the Search for Israeli- Palestinian Peace (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005); Robert I. Rotberg, ed., Israeli and Palestinian Narratives of Conflict: History's Double Helix (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2006); and Paul Scham, Walid Salem, and Benjamin Pogrund, eds., Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2005).

Once considered a major catalyst for social development and nation building, the kibbutz in Israel has undergone structural and ideological changes since its inception in 1910. Isralowitz examined kibbutz members to determine the extent of change in their attitudes toward the immigration of Russian Jews that took place during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Zionism intended to make women more equal with men but that was not fully carried out when Israel was established. Women's wages were lower than men's and men tended to see women as housekeepers who satisfied male needs. The Zionist Labor Movement emphasized the kibbutz as a means to achieve equality, but this did not occur.

Political terrorism is a sophisticated form of psychological warfare which aims to accomplish political ends by bearing on individuals' emotions and attitudes. This article presents the results of a public opinion survey, conducted on an Israeli national sample, which was designed to evaluate the psychological impacts of terroristic activity and the basic assumptions that guide it. The results indicate that terrorism is highly effective in inducing fear and worry, even when the actual damage it causes is moderate. However, terrorism appears to have failed to produce the attitudinal change desired by its perpetrators, the high levels of fear notwithstanding. On the contrary, terrorism caused a hardening of attitudes, strong opposition to any form of political reconciliation with terrorists, and widespread support for extreme counterterrorist measures. Terrorism, in other words, proved to be counterproductive. These results provided a basis for an extensive analysis of the conditions that turn terrorism into a potentially effective tool of political influence, and those in which it is likely to fail.