Support for Conciliatory Policies in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Role of Different Modes of Identification and Territorial Ownership Perceptions

Abstract

Understanding people’s attitudes toward conciliatory policies in territorial interethnic conflicts is important for a peaceful conflict resolution. We argue that ingroup identification in combination with the largely understudied territorial ownership perceptions can help us explain attitudes toward conciliatory policies. We consider two different aspects of ingroup identification—attachment to one’s ethnic ingroup as well as ingroup superiority. Furthermore, we suggest that perceptions of ingroup and outgroup ownership of the territory can serve as important mechanisms that link the different forms of ingroup identification with conciliatory policies. In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, among Israeli Jews (N = 1,268), we found that ingroup superiority, but not attachment, was negatively related to conciliatory policies. This relationship was explained by lower outgroup (but not by higher ingroup) ownership perceptions of the territory. Our findings highlight the relevance of studying ingroup superiority as a particularly relevant dimension of identification that represents a barrier to acknowledging outgroup’s territorial ownership, and is thus indirectly related to less support for conciliatory policies in intergroup conflict settings.

Territorial ownership perceptions and reconciliation in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict: A person‐centred approach

“…Reconciliation intentions were measured with two items used in previous research (Storz et al., 2021): ‘I am willing to promote good relations between Israeli Jews and Palestinians’ and ‘I am willing to participate in a workshop that brings Israeli Jews and Palestinians together’. Participants indicated their level of agreement on a scale from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree).…”

“…Those who consider the land as only belonging to their group might feel exclusively entitled to decide about its future. Conversely, shared ownership perceptions are associated with support for joint decision‐making to resolve territorial disputes (Storz et al., 2021). Hence, we expect that those in the ‘Ingroup Ownership Profile’ will be more in favour of solutions reaffirming ingroup rights over the land (H5a), and less supportive of solutions that grant such rights both to the ingroup and outgroup (H5b) than those in the ‘Shared Ownership Profile’ .…”

Majority group attitudes toward Indigenous and immigrant peoples: The role of group identifications and territorial ownership perceptions.

“…In the social psychological literature, a sense of ownership on behalf of one’s group is labeled collective psychological ownership (CPO; Pierce & Jussila, 2010). Social psychologists have only recently started investigating the relevance of CPO for intergroup relations, and there is initial evidence that perceptions of ingroup and outgroup territorial ownership are distinct constructs that independently inform intergroup relations (Nooitgedagt et al, 2022; Storz, Martinović, & Rosler, 2022). With the present study that focuses on the perspective of the settler majority, we aim to explore the nuanced ways in which group identifications of the settler majority relate to their sense of who owns the land and, by extension, to their attitudes toward both Indigenous peoples and newcomers to the country.…”

“…In line with realistic conflict theory (LeVine & Campbell, 1972; see also Brewer, 1999), higher ethnic identifiers might then view ethnic outgroups that are seen as a source of this threat as less entitled to the territory in question. In this vein, stronger ethnic Jewish identifiers, and particularly glorifiers, have been found to be less willing to recognize Palestinians’ territorial ownership (Storz, Martinović, & Rosler, 2022).…”

“…Second, research on how perceptions of ingroup and outgroup ownership together explain outgroup attitudes is scarce, yet both of these perceptions might be relevant in settler societies where both the Indigenous groups and the descendants of settlers can and have historically put forward claims to the land. Two recent studies on rival groups in conflict regions of Kosovo and Israel/Palestine have shown the benefits of outgroup ownership perceptions for conflict resolution (Storz, Martinović, Maloku, & Žeželj, 2022;Storz, Martinović, & Rosler, 2022), and there is also recent evidence from Chile, South Africa, and Australia about perceptions of Indigenous ownership being linked to more support for territorial restitution among the non-Indigenous inhabitants (Nooitgedagt et al, 2021(Nooitgedagt et al, , 2022. In this article, we focus on intergroup attitudes rather than concrete territorial solutions, and we study perceptions of settler and Indigenous ownership in concert.…”