A Practical Theory for Optimal Intergroup Initiated Encounters: The Arab Jewish Case

Abstract

The social, political and geographical reality in Israel dictates the inevitable coexistence of Arabs and Jews. Although the socio-political forces of the macro level have been crucial in shaping Arab-Jewish relations in Israel, the impact of occurrences at the micro level—in natural situations or in initiated, planned and manipulated settings—on Arab-Jewish interpersonal and intergroup relations, should not be ignored. Moreover, appropriate and constructive micro-level intervention programs aimed at improving Jewish-Arab relations should be considered as important means of counteracting the increasingly negative impact of the highly complex, unresolved political problems at the macro level. Such programs—if expanded in scope and properly handled—may change the attitudes and behavior of individual Arabs and Jews towards each other for the better. Mutual trust, respect and understanding, the main goals of the intervention programs, are necessary cornerstones for a working peaceful and normal coexistence between the people of the two nations destined to live together in the State of Israel.