Psychology of (Israeli-Palestinian) Conflict

There is a trauma response playing on both sides. Israel is a product of the Holocaust and the Palestinians have their Naqba.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a form of competitive victimhood: a clash between two entitled and self-centred dysempathic victimhood movements.

Like every conflict in history, it gives rise to:

Paranoid ideation and conspiracism

Narcissistic defenses (cognitive distortions such as grandiosity),

Impaired reality testing,

Magical thinking,

Splitting (dichotomous thinking): We are all good, our enemies are all bad.

Reactance (defiance and contumaciousness),

Recklessness,

Mood lability and emotional dysregulation,

Suicidal ideation coupled with religious righteousness (Masada, shahada)

The parties to the conflict abuse and manipulate each other by

externalizing aggression,

gaslighting,

and projective identification (provoking the other party to behave in a way that conforms to expectations and negates a negative self-image).

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