Cross-cultural argument interactions between Israeli-Jews and Palestinians

Intercultural Conflict from a Multilevel Perspective: Trends, Possibilities, and Future Directions

“…Awareness and understanding of the intercultural interaction processes and of the role of cultural codes can help control and even hinder escalating cycles of negative and destructive communication in diverse communities. Ellis and Maoz (2002;Maoz & Ellis, 2001) utilized a communication and cultural codes approach to Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. Interactive conflict resolution workshops between Israeli-Jews and Palestinians often escalate into cycles of mutual blame in which each side presents itself as the innocent victim and the other side as the perpetrator (Ellis & Maoz, 2002;Maoz & Ellis, 2001).…”

“…Ellis and Maoz (2002;Maoz & Ellis, 2001) utilized a communication and cultural codes approach to Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. Interactive conflict resolution workshops between Israeli-Jews and Palestinians often escalate into cycles of mutual blame in which each side presents itself as the innocent victim and the other side as the perpetrator (Ellis & Maoz, 2002;Maoz & Ellis, 2001). In order to control this escalation and make a shift into more constructive communication, facilitators can direct participants to talk about their own group and its responsibility for the situation, or to relate to how they feel about and experience the situation rather than focusing on blaming the other group.…”

Argument and Ethnopolitical Conflict

“…Ellis & Maoz, 2002. In addition to the substantive findings of such research, efforts to theoretically extend the issues of argument and deliberation to ethnopolitically divided groups also have been of primary interest.…”

“…This effect is particularly strong when one side of an argument has to defend itself as a result of hearing the other side. Palestinians, for example, are associated with elaborating evidence for their arguments in one study using the CACS (Ellis & Maoz, 2002). They are defending themselves against charges made by the Israelis.…”

“…My goal here is not to restate Habermas but to tie his communicative action, which is deliberative in nature, to problem solving between ethnopolitically divided groups. I also want to focus on coding argument that represents different constituencies, even those that are politically divided and particularly resistant to conflict resolution (Ellis & Maoz, 2002.…”