Hope Amidst Conflict
Israel and the Palestinians are engaged in yet another round of hostilities, perhaps the deadliest one so far.
Read an extract from Hope Amidst Conflict by Oded Adomi Leshem, which discusses how to find hope even in conditions of violent and intractable conflict.
I began to write this book in May 2021, while Israeli Defense Force planes were bombing the Gaza Strip and missiles from the Gaza Strip were being fired at Israeli towns. My family and I were in and out of the bomb shelter for two weeks. The routine was simple. Once the sirens’ insistent cry was heard, we had ninety seconds to reach the shelter. That left me enough time to grab the kids and my laptop. And so some of my critical thoughts about hope for peace were written to the sound of missile explosions audible from the well-protected bomb shelter in our house in Tel Aviv. On May 21, when the ceasefire went into effect, Palestinians and Israelis counted their dead. More than 230 were killed in Gaza and 12 in Israel.
A relatively calm period followed in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), which naturally created some sense of positivity and hope. I admit it was easier to write about hope when the drums of war were not banging as hard, perhaps because the contradiction between the bloody reality of conflict and the hoped-for peace was less apparent. The chapters were coming along, and the book was slowly taking shape. Nothing prepared me for what happened on the night of April 7, 2022, when a twenty-eight-year-old Palestinian from the Jenin Refugee Camp went on a shooting spree 500 meters from our home. The shooter killed three civilians and was believed to be hiding in the backstreets of our neighborhood. Hundreds of police and military officers stormed the streets with locked and loaded guns, helicopters hovered over our house, and a loudspeaker ordered everyone to stay inside and lock all windows and doors. It was frightening for all of us, but for me, it was also very depressing. How can I, an adamant peace advocate, talk about resolution when tensions and hostilities are so high? How can I write about hope when blood flows in the streets of Jenin and Tel Aviv?
In the morning, they found and killed the shooter. Several days later, an Israeli general ordered to demolish the perpetrator’s house. Demolishing houses belonging to the families of Palestinian perpetrators is a brutal and impractical practice. However, it is a standard procedure implemented by Israel after lethal attacks such as the one near our home. The formal reason for these collateral punishments is deterrence, yet house demolitions have been shown to increase, not diminish Palestinian aggression (Hatz, 2019). Not surprisingly, the tensions in the West Bank grew as a consequence, as did the number of Palestinian casualties.
Does writing about hope for peace while people are burying their loved ones makes sense? Is hope a thing to be discussed when hope is essentially absent? If so, should hope be axiomatically considered beneficial (as is often the case) or something that should be avoided to help those enmeshed in conflict endure the never-ending violence? Perhaps hope does not matter at all. During the writing process, I asked myself these questions, questions I believe are unavoidable for any scholar and practitioner working on conflict and peace. Good scholarship and effective practice must always be connected to reality, not some sugar-coated version. In this book, I tried to generate an honest discussion about the link between the cruel reality of intractable conflicts and the wishes and expectations to transform them.
Good scholarship and effective practice must always be connected to reality, not some sugar-coated version.
The fundamental questions about hope’s merits, dangers, and contribution to conflict transformation arise not only in the case of Israel-Palestine but also in other contemporary international conflicts, such as the evolving war in Ukraine or the frozen and intractable dispute in Cyprus (Heraclides, 2011). Fundamental questions about hope are first contemplated in the minds of those most affected by the conflict, namely, citizens and leaders living amidst conflict and violence. Basic questions about hope for peace are also asked by third-party actors and international stakeholders who wonder how the conflict will unfold and whether they will profit from its resolution. Notably, if, as I asserted throughout the book, hope is a bidimensional construct, we are inclined to ask these questions on each of hope’s dimensions: the motivational dimension (the extent the goal is desired) and the cognitive dimension (the extent the goal is expected to materialize).
Looking at the motivational dimension of hope, leaders, citizens, and international actors ask: How desirable is peace? This book reveals that strong desires for peace among both the masses and elites cannot be assumed. Results presented in this book show that a substantial portion of people have no desire or wish for peace, even when the definition of peace is entirely open-ended (Leshem, 2017). Moreover, looking at the wish for peace through the lens of asymmetrical power relations, it appears that strong wishes for peace are likely to be expressed more by disadvantaged parties and their allies because the urgency for resolution is more acute for those who pay the highest price in the conflict. The advantaged, on the other hand, are inclined to be more moderate in their desires for peace because, from their point of view, the price of conflict is bearable and, in extreme asymmetric cases, even negligible.
The question of hope is also asked on the expectation dimension of hope. When it comes to expectations, citizens, leaders, and other stakeholders are assessing the likelihood of peace. They evaluate the chances for peace and contemplate the conditions that make peace feasible. However, their answers are not only descriptive but, to a large extent, very prescriptive. If peace is described as something feasible, people might try to bring it about. If it is deemed impossible, no one would even try.
I have taken the task of de-romanticizing hope. In doing so, I believe hope’s advantages and pitfalls emerged more clearly.
Rethinking hope is, therefore, crucial for understanding conflicts and the possible ways to transform them. For at least two reasons, revisiting the topic of hope is also essential for basic social science theory and empirical research. In terms of theory, problematizing hope was needed because, almost without exception, hope is a priori assumed to be a positive thing, something humans should always cherish and strive for, no matter the cost. However compelling, this view is partial and culturally presupposed and so deserves further scrutiny if we seek to fully understand hope and its boundaries. In this book, I have taken the task of de-romanticizing hope. In doing so, I believe hope’s advantages and pitfalls emerged more clearly. The book’s chapters reveal that, alongside its merits and unique power, hope has shortcomings and blind spots that should be acknowledged and accounted for in broader theoretical investigations.
In terms of empirical research, reexamining the concept of hope was needed to reveal inconsistencies in the existing empirical investigation of hope. Empirical investigation requires measuring tools. When these tools are inaccurate, results and their interpretations can be misleading. The recent increase in scholarly attention to the question of hope during conflict made it even more necessary to offer a comprehensive and concise conceptualization that can be used in the empirical study of hope. One of the ways this book contributes to the research is by providing the bidimensional model of hope and presenting its utility in quantitative and qualitative studies on hope amidst conflict.
Oded Adomi Leshem is a Senior Research Associate at the Psychology of Intergroup Conflict and Reconciliation Lab and The Harry S. Truman Research Institute for The Advancement of Peace, both housed at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Located at the nexus of political psychology and conflict resolution, his research explores how the beliefs about the future shape the political attitudes and behaviors of people mired in conflict.
Hope Amidst Conflict: Philosophical and Psychological Explorations is available to read on Oxford Academic via institutional access.
