Changing perspectives and their impacts

Psychology - Perspectives

THE INFLUENCE of PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Two subjects were asked to watch the same news report and then to characterize and explain the current conflict between the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and the members of Hamas in the Gaza Strip in the Middle East.

"Israel has no choice but to defend her homeland and her citizens. Israel returned the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority in 2005 hoping to facilitate a lasting peace. Israel first captured the territory in a purely defensive war in 1967 after first being attacked by five Arab countries simultaneously. In modern times, territory captured in wartime (especially in defensive wars not initiated by the victors) is not ordinarily ever returned to the instigators of war. Nevertheless, Israel vacated the Gaza

Strip specifically to reduce tension and violence against Israel perpetrated by Palestinians and their sympathizers.

Instead of seeking peace, Hamas has been using the Gaza Strip to launch thousands of missiles at Israeli population centers. Israel has exercised tremendous restraint for years, but eventually had no choice but to take the necessary steps to protect her citizens from these unprovoked attacks. Because Hamas refuses to stop launching missiles and because Hamas purposely does so from civilian facilities (in addition to hiding weapons caches in schools and mosques), Israel has no choice but to destroy these facilities. As a civilized nation, Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties, even going so far as to make phone calls to civilians in targeted areas notifying them to evacuate before launching retaliatory attacks on facilities and buildings from which Hamas rockets have been launched. Unfortunately, civilian casualties still occur, but the fault lies with Hamas for purposely using civilians as human shields for their offensive attacks on a peaceful nation.

In general, the same Arab countries who have continually attacked the peaceful nation of Israel since 1948 are responsible for the plight of the so-called Palestinian refugees.' Those refugees are descendants of the Arabs who were living peacefully in Israel until Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria implored them to leave Israel to avoid becoming casualties of their aggressive wars intended to capture the entire country of Israel. Instead of welcoming those Arab 'refugees' into their countries, after losing their unprovoked wars against Israel, those Arab countries have purposely refused to do so for more than 40 years because of the political value of leaving their own people in refugee camps to inspire hatred of Israel wherever possible.

The United Nations 1948 resolution to establish the Jewish homeland in Israel after World War II was necessitated by the fact that the European Jews who survived the Nazi Holocaust were not welcome anywhere else. The ridiculous Palestinian demand for a right of return for all the descendants of those Arabs who voluntarily left Israel before 1967 would effectively eliminate the Jewish homeland by virtue of their sheer numbers" (Evans, 2008).

Subject #2 - "Israel is committing war crimes against innocent civilians in Gaza, as well as throughout the Palestinian Territories. Israel has illegally occupied Palestinian land which it captured using American arms to expand her territory and expel Arab citizens from Israel since 1967. Israel has subjected several generations of innocent

Palestinian civilians to life in refugee camps while Israeli citizens build new towns of their own on these lands taken illegally from their rightful Palestinian owners. Jews frequently remind everyone about the holocaust they supposedly survived but they are the perpetrators of another civilian holocaust in modern times.

Palestinian refugees are unfairly restricted in their movements in and out of their refugee camps and subjected to checkpoints everywhere and to invasive searches by IDF soldiers without cause. The cause of Palestinian violence against Israel is the illegal occupation by that nation of Palestinian territory, leaving Palestinians with no choice but to defend themselves against their hostile occupiers. During World War II, the Allies praised the efforts of the European partisans and the armed resistance against the Nazis, but today, the world condemns the same efforts of Palestinian civilians fighting against their illegal occupiers and oppressors.

The Palestinian people deserve their rightful territories and violence against Israel will continue until Israel returns all the land taken from Arab countries since 1967 and also allows all Palestinian refugees the right of return to Israel. Just like the Nazis,

Israel conducts military operations against their neighbors and does so without any regard for civilian casualties" (Evans, 2008).

Analysis:

Subject #1 is an American-born Jew whose parents survived the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. Her parents took her to Israel several times as a child and always hoped to retire their eventually. Her parents' experience during the Holocaust contributed substantially to her perspective of the world, and particularly to her Jewish identity and her view of Israel as the rightful homeland of the Jews. This upbringing also contributed to a personal commitment never to allow herself to tolerate anti-Semitism or persecution because of her religious and cultural identity and she greatly admires the bravery of Israeli citizens who all serve in the IDF beginning at age 18. In 2003, she was informed that a childhood friend from a kibbutz in Israel was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber in an outdoor market in Jerusalem.

Subject #2 is a Lebanese-born naturalized American citizen whose father and older brother were killed fighting against Israel in 1973 and 1982, respectively. Her mother always told her that her father and brother were martyred trying to protect their people from Israel's many expansionist wars to capture more and more territory, leaving her Arab neighbors no choice but to fight back. Though educated in the U.S., this subject's mother supplemented her American education with Arab children's textbooks that portrayed Israelis as violent persecutors of innocent Arabs.