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This paper explores the possibilities of intercultural dialogue as a means of peace building on the people‐to‐people level. With its focus on the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict the work assesses a number of efforts, which have utilized cultural dialogue rooted in religion to facilitate dialogue, relationship building, and perception change during the period subsequent to the signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993 and prior to the outbreak of Israeli‐Palestinian violence in September 2000. Utilizing an interdisciplinary theoretical framework and questionnaire‐based quantitative data collected from Israeli and Palestinian students, the work suggests that the religiously based dialogue has the potential to move mutual perceptions to more favorable positions based on the similarities between Islam and Judaism. Such dialogue can also clarify to both sides the identification which each side has with the same land. We believe that our exploratory data might encourage the further use and study of religious cultural elements to facilitate peace building in both the Israeli‐Palestinian context and in other acute interethnic conflict venues.

The current work aims to introduce the concept of conflict perception and construct a scale that measures individual differences in perceptions about conflicts along religious, national and material dimensions. The concept and the measure are developed in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

The research design combines three methodological elements: 14 focus groups in Israel and the West Bank, which represent diversity in place of residence, religion, age and political background; an expert panel review; and a survey of 411 student respondents that was conducted between September 29 and October 9, 2013, among university students in Israel and Palestine.

The findings show that conflict perception is an individual’s subjective view regarding the essence of the conflict and its central issues, the identities of the parties involved and their motivations, which may include material, ideological or symbolic motives, or any combination thereof. A novel scale consisting of five statements that can measure conflict perception that was developed, validated and implemented via a survey sample showed that Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel have a religious perception of the conflict, whereas Jews have a national perception of the conflict.

First, the paper introduces a new concept that sheds additional light on the micro foundations of peoples’ attitudes in conflict situations. Second, it develops and validates a measurement tool for conflict perception that may be usable, with necessary adjustments, in other conflicts. Third, it demonstrates that parties to the conflict do not necessarily share similar perceptions about the conflict, a finding with far-reaching consequences for conflict resolution at both the scholarly and policy levels.

This article presents the results of a 15-year longitudinal study of the major educational peacebuilding initiatives in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, during times of relative peace and of acute violence (1993–2008). Using longitudinal field research data and surveys, it examines how peace initiatives, that work across conflict lines, adapt to hostile and unfavorable environments. Additionally, it investigates the criteria that allows some peacebuilding initiatives to survive and persist, when the large majority do not. Building on the organizational and social movement studies literature, I contend that organizations need to successfully attend to a variety of challenges such as maintaining resources, maintaining legitimacy, managing internal conflict, and maintaining commitment to have a significant chance for survival. Moreover, I argue that for organizations committed to working across difference and inequality in unfavorable and hostile conflict environments, it is critical for organizational effectiveness and survival to pay heed to the quality of the cross-conflict relationships, as well as, to matters of equality.

This paper describes a communication and cultural code approach to ethnonational conflicts. More specifically, it describes theory and research emerging from transformative communication events aimed at building constructive relationships betwetact necessitated by conflict. These are dialogue groups organized according to principles established by Allport's (1954) contact hypothesis including sustained contact, cooperative interdependence, and norms of equality. Secondly, we state the assumptions of an interactional approach to conflict, which assumes that conflict is, by definition, interactive making communication impossible to avoid. These assumptions also include an emphasis on the relational aspects of communication, and the fact that interaction sequences become patterned over time and become constitutive of the defining characteristics of the conflict. Moreover, the participants are influenced by communication codes, which are culturally based orientations to producing and interpreting interactions. These codes are grounded in the work of Katriel (1986), Carbaugh (1990), Ellis (1994, 1999) and Philipsen (1997) and have implications for the meaning potential of individuals in conflict situations. Finally, we explicate these issues by describing research that is representative of this communication approach to conflict. This research conceptualizes reconciliation‐aimed contacts and demonstrates how communication codes are modified by situational constraints.

This paper aims to explore if and how changes in social representations of conflict are designed and constructed in the formal political discourse.

Taking a psycho‐sociological approach and by relying on discourse analysis, it explores the discursive patterns used by the political leadership in order to legitimize either war or peace actions. Through the analysis of speeches that were given by Israeli prime ministers in the Knesset and in the context of warfare or peace processes, the paper traces changes in the historical narratives that frame Israel's cluster of societal beliefs in regards to the conflict, and further explores how these are being re‐narrated in light of the process of transition to peace.

The paper argues that both warfare and peace processes, representing the extreme options available in conflict, require broad public recruitment and immense rhetorical efforts on behalf of the political leadership to reason and legitimatize actions through the formal political discourse. The findings highlight the ways through which the political leadership in Israel justifies its actions and attempts to enlist public support as a prism to trace how societal beliefs have been narrated for the purpose of justifying warfare, and how the same beliefs are re‐narrated to justify conflict resolution.

The paper strives to shed light on the role played by the interplay between political discourse and societal beliefs in the context of transition to peace, and thus advances understandings of the linkage between internal processes and external circumstances, as mitigated by political discourse, in the context of conflict and conflict resolution.

This study aims to explore the topic of perceived terrorism risk and animosity as interrelated within the context of countries suffering from armed struggles and terror. The research investigates how these constructs influence the visitation decisions of millennials.

The investigation focuses on three countries in the Mediterranean basin with varied degrees of risk but who include a conflict area, for comparison purposes. The data was collected through an online questionnaire aimed at young millennial students.

The study confirms that animosity, for the millennial generation, is derived from conflicts and past historical events, or from political and social issues in the target country. In addition, the results show that animosity not only influences the perceived attractiveness of the destination, and through it the intention to visit the place, but also increases the perceptions of terror risk at the destination.

The research corroborates the importance of investigating animosity and perceived risk together. It also empirically verifies the influence of animosity on visitation intentions via the mediating role of perceived attractiveness of the destination and perceived risk of terror.

The study investigates animosity in countries that suffer from armed political conflicts resulting in terror attacks, a context different from that of other already existing studies. The research also examines how animosity and perceived risk interact with each other to influence visitation decisions, a topic which is lacking in the literature.

Social movement scholarship convincingly highlights the importance of threats, political opportunities, prior social ties, ideological compatibility, and resources for coalition formation. Based on interviews with Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists involved in two transnational coalitions in Israel/Palestine, this chapter illustrates the emergence of transnational coalitions, particularly those that cross polarized ethno-national divides, depends not only on such facilitators, but also, and critically, on the belief that such diverse cooperation is strategic. I argue these unique coalitions intentionally formed with individuals and organizations situated in different national communities out of a strategic decision by the Palestinian initiators, given the closed political opportunity structure they faced domestically, to enlarge the scope of conflict by drawing in new people and communities who may have some leverage on the Israeli government. Consequently, this chapter also makes clear that partners in the Global South make intentional choices about who to partner with, and that the agency is not solely linked with their more privileged partners in the Global North (cf., Bob, 2001; Widener, 2007). Finally, it illustrates that coalition partners are recruited not only because of social ties, prior histories of interaction, ideological similarity, and shared organizational framing, but also due to key considerations including perceptions of what the ethno-national diversity, varying networks, and differing privileges make available.

This article calls for closer attention to the Middle East in the wider debate on the purported rise of new modes of armed conflict following the end of the Cold War, particularly in relation to the notion of ‘regional conflict formations’ (RCFs). In so doing, it presents and analyses three main paradoxes. First, though the contemporary Middle East had its own share of intrastate conflicts that generally grew into regional constellations, a look at the region's post-colonial history suggests that such trends are not as novel as has often been claimed. Second, the striking longevity of regionally entwined conflict in the Middle East calls into question the common and generalizing argument that it was the end of the Cold War, together with the alleged disengagement of the superpowers, that constituted the radical shifts – including the rise of RCFs – that signalled the demise of old forms of politics and conflict involving weak states. Third, Middle Eastern states, mostly authoritarian in outlook, have over recent decades become stronger despite prevailing conditions of regionalized conflict; indeed, as tentatively suggested in this article, to some extent because of those factors.