Conflict Psychology Quotes

Viewing Israelis and Palestinians from a psychological perspective, they would both be seen as victims of abuse; that is how they both understandably feel, and it's how they both understandably behave. The Jewish psyche is in victimized reaction to the Holocaust, and the Palestinian psyche is in victimized reaction to the Israelis.

War is a drug…. Maybe the supreme drug of human existence…. It creates a landscape that is almost beyond human imagination…. You have that adrenalin rush….

I think attacks on civilians in fact boost morale.

The participation if women in some armies in the world is in reality only symbolic. The talk about the role of Zionist women in fighting with the combat units of the enemy in the war of 5 June 1967 was intended more as propaganda than anything real or substantial. It was calculated to intensify and compound the adverse psychological effects of the war by exploiting the backward outlook of large sections of Arab society and their role in the community. The intention was to achieve adverse psychological effects by saying to Arabs that they were defeated, in 1967, by women.

The enemy is like a woman, weak in face of opposition, but correspondingly strong when not opposed. In a quarrel with a man, it is natural for a woman to lose heart and run away when he faces up to her; on the other hand, if the man begins to be afraid and to give ground, her rage, vindictiveness and fury overflow and know no limit.

In accounts of men in battle, there is an incredible adrenaline rush from group-versus-group conflict. The fervor and passion of partisans is clearly rewarding; and if it's rewarding, it involves dopamine; and if it involves dopamine, then it is potentially addictive.

The body of a dead enemy always smells sweet.

The enemy lies to make the problems we face appear larger than the solutions we carry.

Other than the bombs they strap to their chests, Ive got no idea what makes the Palestinians tick.

So great are the psychological resistances to war in modern nations, that every war must appear to be a war of defence against a menacing, murderous aggressor. There must be no ambiguity about whom the public is to hate. Guilt and guilelessness must be assessed geographically and all the guilt must be on the other side of the frontier.

In wartime we identify ourselves with the nation, and its interests are the interests of our primal selves.

Humans feel deeply the suffering of their friends and allies and easily discount/dismiss the comparable experience of their enemies.

What kind of people are these with such low self-esteem that they need a war to feel better about themselves?

No one ever goes into battle thinking God is on the other side.

Remember that the enemy is just as frightened as you are and probably more so. They are not supermen

Most of us, if we're not careful, tend to dehumanize the enemy.

The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.