Former New York Times correspondent and best-selling author David Shipler '64 said yesterday that conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews is a result of both groups' belief that they are victims.
The lecture on "The Psychology of Peace" examined the roots of strife between Arabs and Jews.
"The situation in Israel is basically that two groups of people have assumed the roles of victims," Shipler said. "Each [side is] a victim of the other in an effort to redefine a rival past that both sides have denied," Shipler said.
Both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs are minorities within the larger world, Shipler said, and their denial of particularly violent pasts makes reconciliation difficult.
For example, Shipler said, Israeli classroom textbooks treat the Palestinian expulsion of 1948 as voluntary, and Palestinian texts do not acknowledge victimization of the Israelis.
He said each side wants to stop hating the other, but centuries-old stereotypes make peace a challenging goal.
Shipler asked the audience to consider whether stereotypes fuel conflict -- or whether conflict fuels stereotypes.
He compared the Arab-Israeli situation to race relations among blacks and whites in the United States. Both situations contain a long history of animosity and violent confrontations, he said.
But he said the new peace agreement will diffuse tensions and help overcome social taboos.
"Ultimately, though, peace among Arabs and Israelis will not be found in treaties or agreements, but by looking into each other's eyes," he added.
Shipler, who is writing a book in Washington, D.C. about race relations in the U.S., plans to travel to Israel next week to observe the peace process.
Shipler's speech at Dartmouth Hall was the third of a six-part lecture series called "The Search for Peace in the Middle East" sponsored by the Dickey Endowment for International Understanding.
