The question of why fear overrides hope in societies embarked on the road of peacemaking after years of intractable conflict is answered on the basis of accumulated knowledge in the psychology and sociology of emotions. This knowledge suggests that fear is an automatic emotion, grounded in the perceived present and often based on the memorized past (also processed unconsciously), that leads to freezing of beliefs, conservatism, and sometimes preemptive aggression. Hope, in contrast, involves mostly cognitive activity, which requires the search for new ideas and thus is based on creativity and flexibility. Because hope is based on thinking, it can be seriously impeded by the spontaneous and unconscious interference of fear. Both fear and hope can become collective emotional orientations that organize society’s views and direct its forms of action. It is assumed that societies involved in intractable conflict are dominated by a collective emotional orientation of fear, which is functional in their coping with the stressful and demanding situation. But such an orientation serves as a psychological obstacle to a peace process once it starts. The Israeli Jewish case of collective fear orientation is offered as an example. The presentation includes the roots of this orientation, the ways in which it is reflected and disseminated, and its expressions among the Israeli Jewish public; it ends optimistically with the suggestion that societies can determine to overcome their fear and establish a collective orientation of hope for peace.

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Why does fear override hope in societies engulfed by intractable conflict, as it does in the Israeli society?

Un essai de prendre en compte les consequences negatives du sionisme pour les Juifs orientaux, reduits au mutisme dans l'actuel Etat d'Israel et dans la societe israelienne

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/466176.pdf

Sephardim in Israel : Zionism from the Standpoint of its Jewish Victims

The evolution of international society

~ Concerns with preemptive war-war in which one side attacks to forestall what it sees as an impending attack on itself-have in recent years played a dominant role in discourse on the causes of war. In academic circles, preemption ties together two important theories of war, the spiral model and the offense-defense balance. In policy discussions, fears of preemptive war ran through the Cold War debate on U.S. strategy toward the Soviet Union, and continue to frame debates on a number of post-Cold War issues. Both academics and policy analysts have argued that preemption is in many environments the most likely path to armed conflict; they see the international system as a primed powder keg, waiting for a single spark to explode into war. However, the deep theoretical and policy interest in preemptive war has not been matched by extensive empirical scholarship. There have been no quantitative studies testing preemptive war hypotheses, and most case studies of preemption focus on the same small number of cases. As a result, our hunches about the dangers of preemption remain largely just that-hunches. This article fills this empirical gap to expand our understanding of preemptive war by focusing on the important question of how many preemptive wars have happened in the modern era. In other words, which modern wars have begun primarily because the attacking state feared it was about to be a target? In one sense, this is a rather limited ambition, as only the frequency of the event is measured, while hypotheses that predict its occurrence are not tested. However, providing a systematic account of the occurrence of preemptive war

Exploding the Powder Keg Myth: Preemptive Wars Almost Never Happen

Essence of diplomacy

Personal Witness: Israel Through My Eyes

In this wise and eloquent book, one of the world's preeminent senior statesmen presents his views on the challenges of diplomacy in the post-Cold War era. Abba Eban, who has been Israel's ambassador to the United Nations and to the United States as well as the foreign minister in several Israeli governments, draws on his years of experience and knowledge to offer an overview of diplomacy as practiced in today's world. Interweaving historical data with personal reminiscences, Eban reviews the Cold War period and its end in 1989, praising the diplomatic restraint in the years that have followed; discusses the ethical confrontation between power and conscience in a wide range of international decisions and actions; and points out the difficulty of reconciling the promotion of universal human rights with respect for national sovereignty. Eban goes on to deplore the lack of privacy in international negotiations that is the result of an increasingly intrusive media, shows that nuclear warfare is not a restraint against frequent military intervention, and warns against inflated views of what can be expected from the United Nations. He concludes with thoughts about the quest for peace in the Middle East. Instructive, erudite, and witty, Eban's tour through diplomatic history vividly demonstrates that the wisdom of the past can be immensely valuable as we seek to negotiate and maintain peace in the future.

Abba Solomon Eban

Papers

Personal Witness: Israel Through My Eyes

Diplomacy for the next century

Abba Eban: An Autobiography

The new diplomacy

The new diplomacy : international affairs in the Modern Age