Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2007, pp. 209--211

Book Review

Can Social Psychology Depoliticize the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?

Salinas, M. F. (2007). Planting Hatred, Sowing Pain: The Psychology of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. ISBN: 0-275-99005-2 (200pp., $49.95).

Moises F. Salinas seeks in Planting Hatred, Sowing Pain: The Psychology of theIsraeli-Palestinian Conflict to outline “some of the social and psychological fac-tors that are central to the conflict and its resolution.” The author deserves creditfor bringing this sensitive subject to an undergraduate psychology audience. Per-haps unsurprisingly for such a complex conflict, though, this brief book promisessomewhat more than it delivers.

After a useful introductory overview emphasizing competing historical nar-ratives, the book’s four main chapters review research findings demonstrating theimpact of stereotypes and prejudice, hate (extremism, dehumanization, and vi-olence), pain (trauma), and hope (reconciliation and the psychology of peace).Some of the summarized research is particularly revealing of Israeli and Pales-tinian attitudes and perceptions, and the level is appropriate to the target audiencein social psychology, Middle East studies, and similar courses. Each chapter endswith two illustrative interview transcripts, one of a Jewish Israeli, one of a Pales-tinian from either Israel, Gaza, or the West Bank. A brief epilogue reiterates thebook’s main point: “the obstacles to achieving peace are more psychological thanpolitical.”

Despite its helpful literature review, Planting Hatred, Sowing Pain has severalperplexing omissions. At the methodological level, Salinas tells us almost noth-ing about his “dramatic ethnographic interviews (p. xxv).” Instead of an extendeddescription of what must have been a challenging enterprise, a single paragraphnotes the “innovative methodology” and the help of “250 Palestinian and JewishIsraeli student interviewers.” Eight transcripts, varying widely in scope, method,and style, appear after the relevant chapter without explanation or assessmentof interviewees’ statements, some of which are confusing, disjointed, and even

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shocking. Student readers accustomed to standard research reports will wonderabout many details, such as whether the interviewers received course credit andwhat their instructions were. The author does not explain how he used these in-terviews to help identify his themes or whether, instead, they merely illustrate thetraditional social psychological points he intended to make anyway. I could findno citation to a more extensive research report.

Also left hanging is the 32-page appendix, which presents the full text of theGeneva Accord, a peace agreement proposed in 2003 by prominent Palestinianand Israeli political figures without official authorization. Salinas explains thatthe proposal parallels similar efforts supported by “the majority of both peoples[who] agree (or at least are resigned) on the broad parameters” of “a two-statesolution with borders approximating the pre-1967 armistice lines; compensationto all 1948 and 1967 Palestinian refugees, while only a smaller group of themwould be allowed to return to Israel proper; [and] a joint solution for Jerusalemthat will allow both sides to claim some sovereignty (p. xiii).” Instead of usingthis document’s many controversial specifics and omissions to demonstrate howa future reconciliation process might fare, however, Salinas does little more thanpoint to the proposal as the basis for a solution.

A more substantive concern is that the book’s even-handed tone studiouslyavoids the politics behind its analysis. Some will consider this an advantage, re-quired by academic norms demanding at least the appearance of objectivity. Some-times, though, avowed neutrality deflects the gaze from much that is relevant.Readers should always wonder how an author’s background and commitmentsaffect choices about what evidence to credit and what lessons to draw.

In this case, the author’s insistence that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is socialpsychological rather than political and that “perception is more important thanreality” may reflect more than just straightforward reading of the research andtraditional academic awareness of complexity. Indeed, the best clue to Salinas’sown views comes not in his endorsement of the Geneva Accord but in the book’sconcluding “About the Author” page. Here we learn that the Mexican-born Salinas,who lived in Israel for several years and took part in left-Zionist peace activitiesbefore moving to the United States, was “one of fourteen young Zionist leadersworldwide to be honored with the first Herzl Awards from the World ZionistOrganization [in 2004] . . . for his contributions to the Zionist movement.” At therisk of impoliteness, it is worth asking if this personal history might affect thebook’s structure and conclusions. Salinas doesn’t say.

One example is the book’s shunting aside Middle East history after the briefintroduction. That makes sense if one considers all perceptions equally valid oreven equally invalid, or if conflict is defined as a technical problem rather than anindication of injustice and oppression, or if the proposed ahistorical process leadsto a politically preferred result. It might make less sense to Ibrahim, one of Salinas’sinterviewees, who says the only “really unlikely” alternative to permanent total

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war is that “the large countries will force Israel to sign and agree with internationallaw.”

Salinas doesn’t tell us if Ibrahim’s appeal to an external legal standard shouldmatter. Instead, the chapter on reconciliation emphasizes relevant but incompletesubjects: paying more attention to different negotiation and communication styles,creating more effective procedures, providing alternative cultural and educationalsettings, and so on. Although Salinas notes Israel’s superior negotiating power,he does not address a central issue: whether meaningful reconciliation requiresacknowledging past injustice and committing one’s side to end it. It is not just theviolent extremists the author criticizes who reject splitting the difference throughdecontextualized dialogue and then moving on.

What form reconciliation might take is particularly touchy now that Israel’sArab citizens increasingly define themselves as Palestinian and insist that theircountry become a “state for all its citizens” rather than a state for the worldwideJewish people, while Palestinian society in Gaza and the West Bank continues tofragment. Which assumptions are up for grabs? Which aren’t? A text designedto help students understand complexity should broaden exploration rather thannarrow it.

The problem is not that Salinas is a Zionist activist. The problem rather isthat he does not consider how his own political identity might shape his argument,a possibility very relevant to the book’s discussion of negotiation complications.Knowledgeable readers on both sides, thus, are likely to find the author’s approachfrustratingly off the mark. More troubling, those less knowledgeable won’t be ableto dissect Planting Hatred, Sowing Pain’s ideological underpinnings unless theirinstructors also assign more varied supplemental readings. Those supplementsmight help students recognize that Moises Salinas may be his own best example ofhow preexisting assumptions can shape both political and social scientific analysis.

—Dennis Fox

DENNIS FOX (df@dennisfox.net) is emeritus associate professor of legal stud-ies and psychology at the University of Illinois at Springfield. In 2006 he was aFulbright Senior Specialist in Peace and Conflict Resolution at Ben Gurion Uni-versity, Israel, and a consultant in Law and Society at Birzeit University, WestBank. Background: dennisfox.net.