Tag: Daniel Bar Tal

• February 4, 2009

  An Israeli Diagnosis of the Deteriorating Psychology of the Country

  Akiva Eldar reports on the critical work being done on Israeli Jewish psychology and the war against the Palestinians. Eldar’s title, “Is an Israeli Jewish Sense of Victimization Perpetuating the Conflict with the Palestinians”, says it all, and he marshals significant evidence. Daniel Bar Tal is one of Israel’s premier psychologists.

  The sweeping support for Operation Cast Lead confirmed the main diagnosis that arises from the study, conducted by Daniel Bar-Tal, one of the world’s leading political psychologists, and Rafi Nets-Zehngut, a doctoral student: Israeli Jews’ consciousness is characterized by a sense of victimization, a siege mentality, blind patriotism, belligerence, self-righteousness, dehumanization of the Palestinians and insensitivity to their suffering….

  “Most of the nation retains a simplistic collective memory of the conflict, a black-and-white memory that portrays us in a very positive light and the Arabs in a very negative one,” says the professor from Tel Aviv University. This

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