Sinking into the honey trap of the intractable conflict: The case of the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict. By Daniel Bar‐Tal, Washingtinton, DC: Westphalia Press. 2023

• Published date: 01 March 2024
• Author: Samy Cohen
• Date: 01 March 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21417

BOOK REVIEW

Sinking into the honey trap of the intractable

conflict: The case of the Israeli-Palestinian

conflict

By Daniel Bar-Tal, Washingtinton, DC: Westphalia Press. 2023

Samy Cohen

Center for International Studies, Sciences Po-Paris, Paris, France

Email: samy.cohen@sciencespo.fr

One of the central questions that preoccupies Daniel Bar-Tal, Professor Emeritus at the School

of Education, Tel Aviv University, is why such a bloody and protracted conflict has not been

resolved peacefully, after so many years? Moreover, how come that the Israeli society has man-

aged to live with it comfortably, without being aware of its heavy costs, and even participated in

escalating them after attempts to resolve them peacefully.

The book aims to show the general processes that apply to every intractable conflict and at

the same time penetrates deep into the specific developments of the Israeli-Jewish society in the

context of the conflict with the Palestinians. It describes the developments that have taken place

inside it and have led to the situation as it exists in the country at present. The analysis is based

on a psychological sociopolitical approach with a multidisciplinary perspective, which has been

received by the scientific community as a major contribution to the investigation of intractable

violent conflict.

The author argues that the Jewish public, led by chief state office holders, has developed

perceptions and narratives about the conflict in all its aspects, based on real events, but also sig-

nificantly on their sociopolitical construction. The perceptions and narratives thus reformulated

constitute the “glasses”through which the public absorbs information, processes it, evaluates

events and makes decisions. The book puts these narratives at the heart of the discussion. It

presents their content, their wording, the way they function, and their effects on daily life. The

book demonstrates convincingly how they penetrate social institutions, how political forces sup-

port for them, and how many types of resources are invested for this purpose.

One of the central arguments of the book is that these official conflict supporting narratives

of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship are one of the main obstacles to find a solution by peace-

ful means. They serve as «building blocks »of the conflict culture which gradually has devel-

oped. The socio-psychological mechanisms and processes that construct this view of the conflict

maintain it, routinize it and eventually serve as barriers to its peaceful resolution.

A second argument developed is that constructing narratives that become hegemonic in a

conflict culture necessarily leads to social processes that change the structure of society and its

identity and infiltrate its institutions and organizations. In addition, the book suggests that the

Received: 27 October 2023 Accepted: 30 October 2023

DOI: 10.1002/crq.21417

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