Last chapter developed the argument that identity and violence, and therefore, identity and peace, are mutually constitutive in cases of protracted conflicts. This argument has two main implications. The first is that identity is central for the maintenance of conflict. The second is that identity is key for conflict transformation. When focusing on the negative dimension of identity construction in protracted conflicts—the detachment from others and the consequent representations of the ‘other’—two main elements appear as central to this analysis: processes of dehumanization, on the one hand, and reconciliation, on the other. The negative interdependence between identities (Kelman 1999) in conflict promotes, legitimates and justifies violent behavior toward the ‘other’, thus becoming ingrained within identity in the form of processes of dehumanization, what creates and fuels the cycle of protractedness. However, the mutual constitution of violence and identity also implies the co-constitution of violence and peace, meaning that processes of reconciliation represent an avenue for transforming the impact of violence on identities in a way that might promote positive peace instead. Since reconciliation is usually referred in the literature and approached in policies as the final stage of the consolidation of peace, instead as the point of departure for its construction, this book borrows the term “peace-less reconciliation” (Biletzki 2013) to designate processes of reconciliation whose dynamics are developed in the context of ongoing conflicts.

As a structure in intergenerational conflict, protracted peace processes have a deep impact on the dual and simultaneous processes of dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation that are developed with the passing of time. Therefore, this chapter is dedicated to understanding the genealogy of processes of dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation that are empirically observable in the contexts of protracted conflicts, as well as the dynamics influencing one or the other, using as example the case study of this book, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It dives deeper into the theoretical framework proposed in this book by identifying, characterizing and proposing concrete indicators at the observable level for assessing and analyzing these elements of identity in conflict. Section 3.1 deals with the negative dimension of identity, de-identification, which leads to social detachment expressed as dehumanization processes. Section 3.2 proposes a framework for understanding and analyzing practices of reconciliation in ongoing conflicts, what is called in this book ‘peace-less reconciliation’. Section 3.3 connects these dimensions by drawing the cycle of protractedness, which is both a concept and an analytical tool that contributes to the assessment of dynamics that allow for the perpetuation of conflict over time. The argument developed is that an empirical examination of the processes of identity building in protracted conflicts shows that these feature two main elements which can be seen as opposing poles that might contribute to deepening the conflict or promoting its transformation instead. By identifying the dimensions and observable indicators that allow for an assessment of these processes of dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation, this chapter offers a tool for empirical analyses of protracted conflicts and policy development toward their positive transformation.

1 Dehumanization

The concept of dehumanization appears mainly in postcolonial literature, aiming to explain the violence of colonialism and contemporary slavery (Fanon 1963: 42; Dussel 1974: 35–36; Levinas 1998) and within social psychology frameworks, oftentimes transposed to the field of Peace and Conflict Studies in order to provide analyses of the conditions that allowed for the Holocaust (Malley-Morrison et al. 2013; Lang 2010; Totten and Bartrop 2007). The former usually refers to dehumanization as a type of direct violence, as the act of treating the other as an animal, deprived of human status and, therefore, subject to slavery, forced work, and extermination due to their supposed inferiority (Maldonado-Torres 2008), while the latter refers to a psychological process that has to do primarily with identity and recognition (Kelman 2001). Nevertheless, both frameworks identify dehumanization as an intersubjective meaning that is created through a process of social interaction and thus reflects—and informs—social practices and policies.

Dehumanization as a feature of identity is a dimension of protracted conflicts that has been insufficiently explored from both the empirical and theoretical perspectives on conflicts and their transformation, contributing to the maintenance of negative practices, policies and understandings of peace.Footnote 1 The literature in the fields of International Relations (IR) and Peace and Conflict Studies has drawn extensively on social-psychological research and theory when it comes to studies on enemy image, identity and reconciliation. This is also true for the concept of dehumanization since it leads to emotional and psychological perceptions that relate essentially with the realm of human behavior and emotions. As Kelman argues, although it brings new approaches and introduces other dimensions to analyze certain phenomena, social psychology should be seen as a way to complement other approaches in IR rather than substitute them (Kelman 2007: 61).

The importance of social-psychology frameworks for the study of dimensions and causes of conflicts has increasingly been explored by IR scholars. John Burton argues that in the case of conflicts like the Israeli-Palestinian, which can be well-defined as an identity and ethnic conflict, the needs of people include not only the obvious material ones, such as food, land, security and well-being, but also psychological ones, such as identity, recognition and social justice (Burton 1990). In fact, all protracted conflicts share this characteristic of psychological needs and dimensions, emphasizing the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to Political Science and International Relations. As mentioned before, Edward Azar’s definition of protracted social conflicts also identifies these dimensions. According to him, protracted conflicts are the product of unmet basic identity needs such as political legitimization and social justice (Azar 1990: 2).

The relevance of bringing the psychological dimension to the study of identities in conflict scenarios lies in the perception that dehumanization is an element of the negative dimension of identity building that is incorporated in official discourses and narratives in conflict scenarios to help create the image of the enemy. Moreover, dehumanization processes in protracted conflict situations must not be read as circumstantial, as episodic manifestations of social interaction. Instead, dehumanization is a reiterated practice that is consolidated over time, getting so structured and ingrained, that the actions and interactions within the very peace process reproduce this practice, which becomes a structure on its own. An integral and structural part of the relationships between societies and dehumanization is not only visible at the individual and societal levels across generations but is translated also into policies and practices connected to the very peace process at the higher political level. Therefore, practices of dehumanization echo across generations, multiple levels of analysis, official discourses and documents connected to the conflict, thus becoming an empirical observable reality in the everyday actions and reactions within societies. Hereof, dehumanization contributes to the legitimization and continuity of the conflict through the reinforcement of cultural violence, creating what this book refers to as the cycle of protractedness.

When the processes of normalizing certain structures and practices like dehumanization become stable, they can get to the point in which we consider them structural elements of politics. This happens because the “primacy of epistemology” (Pouliot 2010) makes, through discourses and practices, shared understandings become norms, which, in their turn, constitute social reality (Williams 2005; Tannenwald 2007). Social facts are constituted by the structures of language and rules (Kratochwil 1989) and they depend on the collective understanding and the attachment of collective knowledge to reality (Searle 1995). In other words, and as explained in Chap. 2, the social world is made of intersubjective understandings, subjective knowledge and material objects (Popper 1982).

The normative implication and impact of this structuration has to do with how people borrow from those structures and contexts the epistemic, normative and ideological understandings that allow them to act as agents in the world (Gould 1998: 81). As socially constructed, realities are a product of the interaction between multiple layers of actors, from individuals to communities and from communities to states. Those levels of analysis are seen as interdependent from one another in the construction of the world. Notwithstanding, there is a power element that determines which actors are more relevant in creating this world due to their place within the social structure. According to Michel Foucault (1980), discourse is power, in the sense that it determines the ways we look into social realities and our interpretations and understandings of certain problems. In Emmanuel Adler’s words, “when drawn upon by individuals, the rules, norms and cause-effect understandings that make material objects meaningful become the source of people’s reasons, interests, and intentional acts; when institutionalized, they become the source of international practices” (2013: 123).

Herbert C. Kelman (2017a: 41) defines dehumanization as the act “of depriving those placed in the category of ‘other’ of dignity by denying their identity and excluding them from one’s own moral community, in other words, from the community with whose members one shares a sense of mutual moral obligation” [the italic is mine]. In this process, individuals or societies are seen as less than human by others, therefore lacking the sense of identity and community that separate humans from other beings. Oelofsen (2009: 181–182) points to the consequences of this identity-driven character of dehumanization, stating that those processes might become normalized and be passed through generations due to educational practices and moral framing, becoming an important feature of cultural violence in conflicts.

The effects of dehumanization in reinforcing conflict and violence can also be illustrated through Umberto Eco’s writings about the construction of the enemy. He argues that this is an essential dimension of identity and unit, impacting directly on power and legitimization (Eco 2011: 13–15). In the context of protracted conflicts and a normalized state of war, this observation takes even bigger proportions. From the point of view of the individual that is not directly taking any part in the war efforts, dehumanization acts as a coping mechanism, a way of dealing with what seems to be impossible to change. It helps evading responsibility and accountability from the atrocities that are committed during times of conflict, thus promoting continuity by removing the idea of agency from oneself and collaborating for the normalization and deepening of the status quo. According to Lebow,

Self-identifications help shape behavior, and behavior helps shape self-identifications. Self-identifications also serve as rationalizations for actions motivated by other reasons. Rationalizations can nevertheless have important behavioral consequences when they encourage important audiences to frame a problem in a particular way. (Lebow 2016: 3)

The impacts of dehumanization for the construction of interests and the maintenance of conflict have to do with two main processes that are interrelated. First, it has to do with how dehumanization relates with identity and behavior. For Kelman (1973) dehumanization of both victims and victimizers impacts agency since it transforms intersubjective understandings of morality, allowing for a practice of “violence without moral restraint”. It also contributes to the construction of narratives and roles of victims and victimizers, legitimizing political positions and the very rationale of existence and maintenance of the conflict. As the author puts it,

Insofar as the other can be demonized and dehumanized, it becomes easier for each party to minimize guilt feelings for acts of violence and oppression against the other and to avoid seeing itself in the role of victimizer, rather than only in the role of victim. (Kelman 2008: 26)

In other words, dehumanization processes impact identity both in its positive and negative dimensions, contributing to the construction of perceptions of the ‘self’ as well as of the ‘other’. Dehumanization thus becomes a central part of one’s own identity and therefore plays a central role in influencing interests and behaviors regarding the conflict. Second, by impacting identity and behavior, dehumanization also provides an explanation for the continued violence toward the ‘other’. Denying identity and humanity to the ‘other’ provides with “some degree of moral justification for violence” (Kelman 1973: 25), placing the interactions between societies in conflict into the psychological realm. Consequently, dehumanization becomes one of the “factors reducing the strength of restraining forces against violence” (Kelman 1973: 25), strongly contributing to the continuation and deepening of the conflict. John Paul Lederach also perceives this process as deeply connected with the cycle of protractedness. According to the author,

the process by which this happens has its roots in long-standing distrust, fear, and paranoia, which are reinforced by the immediate experience of violence, division, and atrocities. This experience, in turn, further exacerbates the hatred and fear that are fueling the conflict. (1997: 13)

The psychological explanation for the loss of moral restraints against violence according to Kelman has to do with three processes: the process of authorization, the process of routinization and the process of dehumanization, which comprise the latter and the former. A consequence of the first process is that individuals’ ability to contest or obey authorities’ orders diminishes. As argued by Kelman (1973), in those cases standard moral principles seem not to apply, thus leading to an individual feeling of absolution of responsibility for the consequences of personal actions.

This was precisely the perception that emerged from the first phase of the fieldwork developed for this book in 2015 that focused on Israel. To begin with, most individuals in informal conversations seemed to ignore the role of personal agency not only for performing potential changes in leadership but also in terms of personal responsibility for giving legitimacy to such authorities, as if authority was an inherent condition rather than a by-product of collective choices in a democratic environment. Those people were as diverse as scholars, politicians, civil society leaders and regular individuals whose place of residence either ranged from big cities—such as Haifa or Jerusalem—to small communities—such as Kibbutzim like Mizra in the Galilee region—or villages in the Negev Desert. What called my attention was the generalized feeling that most people felt both that they could not be held personally responsible for actions taken under condition of obedience to an authority and that they were not personally responsible for authorities’ choices. According to Kelman (1973: 44–46), one of the ways through which processes of authorization counteract the moral scruples of society is by invoking a transcendent mission. This can also be considered the case in Israel and Palestine, as both governments claim for themselves the right to establish their state in an indivisible historical Palestine as their territory.

The second process that leads to dehumanization is routinization, transforming the “action into routine, mechanical, highly programmed operations” (Kelman 1973: 46). The author refers that the process of routinization has two main functions, to reduce the necessity of decision-making and therefore minimizing the tendency to ask moral questions and to obscure the implications of actions by taking the focus of the individual away from the meaning and toward mechanical actions. This was also confirmed by empirical experience and literature reviews on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On the one hand, a highly militarized society such as the Israeli, in which military service is compulsory for most people regardless of gender and social status, definitely creates a process of routinization of both violence and the conflict. On the other hand, Palestinian society suffers from both the conflict with Israel and deep structural inequalities that are also related with the protracted conflict and corrupted political elites, which creates its own internal oppressive structures, thus normalizing violence. While “authorization processes override standard moral considerations [and] routinization processes reduce the likelihood that such considerations will arise” (Kelman 2017b: 15), processes of dehumanization are the glue that keep all this together. Although those two processes help explain the psychological mechanisms through which individuals cope with and justify being part of atrocity crimes against human beings, they are not enough to explain the process through which people accept killing other people.

Kelman argues that in order to fully understand dehumanization, we need to engage first with the meaning of granting humanity to another human being, in the sense of applying to someone the intersubjective moral norms that govern relations between people. According to him,

To perceive another person as fully human we must accord him identity and community, concepts that closely resemble the two fundamental modalities of existence termed “agency” and “communion” by Balkan (1966). To accord a person identity is to perceive him as an individual, independent and distinguishable from others, capable of making choices, and entitled to live his own life on the basis of his own goals and values. To accord a person community is to perceive him—along with one’s self—as part of an interconnected network of individuals who care for each other, who recognize each other’s individuality, and who respect each other’s rights. (1973: 48–49)

All this could be better subsumed if, put differently, we consider that granting humanity to the ‘other’ equals recognizing the other as someone like ‘us’. The ultimate expression of this relates with recognizing the value of the ‘other’. Therefore, dehumanization is also somehow attached to objectification and failing to recognize the meaning attached to the ‘other’.

Looking back at the manifestations of the categories of identity that were drawn in Table 2.2, it is possible to identify several concrete indicators of dehumanization expressed in the denial of identity and community. The first one relates with competing—and opposing—narratives about the past, such as different perceptions regarding developments of the conflict which are sustained in the denial and/or erasure of the narrative of the ‘other’. For instance, the Nakba (from the Arabic catastrophe) for Palestinians, that is depicted as the ‘Day of Independence’ for Israelis, impacts the category of cultural/historical identity. On the other hand, the slogan of the Zionist Movement, “a land without people for a people without land” relates with regional/geographic identity, historical/cultural identity, ethnic identity and, therefore, national identity. The Palestinian Liberation Movement (PLO), on its turn, reacted by denying for decades the right of existence for the consolidated State of Israel. And, finally, as was mentioned before, the Israeli government has increasingly approved in the last couple of decades more and more legislation that connects citizenship and legal rights with ethnic or religious considerations, turning the State of Israel into a Jewish State only. Denying identity is, therefore, an important indicator of dehumanization processes that, in conflict scenarios, also impact peoples’ aspirations and the legitimization of their struggle. Those are just few examples that show how dehumanization relates with the protractedness of the conflict by producing and feeding cultural, and therefore also, structural and direct, violence.

In fact, Galtung recognizes some features in the religious domain of culture that might also be interpreted as dehumanization. His example lies directly on the specific case study for this book, arguing that the Israeli policies toward the Palestinians are many times justified and legitimized by the idea that Jews are the chosen people and that Eretz Israel is the Promised Land:

They behave as one would expect, translating chosenness, a vicious type of cultural violence, into eight types of direct and structural violence […]. There is killing; maiming, material deprivation by denying West Bank inhabitants what is needed for livelihood; there is desocialization within the theocratic state of Israel with second class citizenship to non-Jews; there is detention, individual expulsion and perennial threat of massive expulsion. There is exploitation (…). (Galtung 1990: 297)

His considerations in the domain of ideology, using the example of nationalist regimes such as Nazism and Stalinism, lead specifically to the consequences of dehumanization and its effects in terms of concrete structural and direct violence:

A steep gradient is then constructed, inflating, even exalting, the value of the Self; deflating, even debasing the value of Other. At that point, structural violence can start operating. It will tend to become a self-fulfilling prophecy: people become debased by being exploited, and they are exploited because they are seen as debased, dehumanized […] the stage is set for any type of direct violence. (Galtung 1990: 298) [the italic is mine]

The mutual negation of the ‘other’s’ identity is not necessarily central to all cases of conflicts, but it is always “somehow embedded in the identities of the conflicting parties and must be addressed in the reconciliation process” (Kelman 2008: 24). It is also important to emphasize that in the case of Israel and Palestine, this is indeed a central element of each party’s identity as “the other’s claims to peoplehood and to rights in the land are seen as competitive to each party’s own claims and rights” (Kelman 2008: 26). This will influence the actions of agents toward the conflict and thus relate with continuity and change. The relationship between a constructivist theoretical approach and the insights that social psychology brings to this book is precisely in the understanding that this behavioral phenomenon is translated into discursive, social and political practices, sustained over time and thus establishing patterns of accepted and legitimized behavior. As a consequence, a cycle of protractedness is created so that dealing with conflict transformation and reconciliation necessarily implies approaching identity change in the form of peace-less reconciliation. The latter is the task of next section.

2 Peace-less Reconciliation

Reconciliation is a concept normatively translated into peacebuilding activities and social practices regarding conflict. It was incorporated in the political agenda in the aftermath of the Cold War, which operated a deep change in the international environment impacting policies and practices regarding conflict and international interventions to them. The idea of reconciliation first appeared in 1992 in the UN Secretary General’s document ‘An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-keeping’. Boutros Boutros-Ghali proposed an approach to post-conflict societies toward sustainable peace through the development of “post-conflict peacebuilding” initiatives that should culminate with the ultimate reconciliation of societies affected by conflict. Although not explicitly referring to this term, the Secretary General brought about the idea of reconciliation processes when he proposed the development of “cooperative projects”, arguing that “reducing hostile perceptions through educational exchanges and curriculum reform may be essential to forestall a re-emergence of cultural and national tensions which could spark renewed hostilities” (UN 1992). His proposal inserted reconciliation in the framework of post-conflict peacebuilding that consisted in an “action to identify and support structures which will tend to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid relapse into conflict (…), [and to] prevent the recurrence of violence among nations and peoples” (UN 1992). Ever since, reconciliation became part of what is considered to be the final path toward sustainable peace—or ultimately as an indicator of the achievement of sustainable peace—being incorporated in policies and practices developed in post-conflict societies, after the signature of a negotiated agreement within political elites or, in other words, after the establishment of negative peace.

In the academic literature on peacebuilding and conflict transformation, the most famous usage of the term was coined by John Paul Lederach in his book Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies, published in the late 1990s. In this work, the author seeks to develop an approach to conflicts that goes beyond traditional statist diplomacy toward a more comprehensive model to enduring peace, defined as a “dynamic social construct [rather than] a stage in time or a condition” (Lederach 1997: 20). This definition of peace-as-process encompasses a broader understanding of violence and the root causes of conflict, thus inserting reconciliation in a larger timeframe. For the author, “reconciliation is understood as a process of relationship building” (Lederach 1997: 151). Challenging Boutros-Ghali’s vision, Lederach (1997: 151) proposes that this process “is not limited to the period of post settlement restoration”, since his idea of peacebuilding “involves a wide range of activities and functions that both precede and follow formal peace accords” (Lederach 1997: 20). Reconciliation, he adds, “is promoted by providing space and opportunity for encounters at various levels, bringing together people from opposing sides and encouraging them to articulate their past pain and to envision an interdependent future” (1997: 150).

Lederach’s proposal recognizes the importance of rejecting standardized formulas for approaching conflict, as every conflict scenario has its own particularities. Nevertheless, although he argues for a definition of reconciliation that goes beyond negative approaches connected with formal peace, his work ultimately maintains the vision that reconciliation lies in the realm of institutional peace. The author develops an analytical framework, graphically expressed as a pyramid, to describe the levels within society that are affected by conflict and the approaches to building peace developed by each type of actors placed in this pyramid. Those levels are thought in terms of the leaderships, being inserted either in the grassroots, in the middle-range or in the top level of a society. Not only his approach focuses on elites within each level, the approaches to building peace that he identified within each levelFootnote 2 are mostly related with negative understandings of peace (Lederach 1997: 37–61). If it is necessary to eliminate direct violence before approaching structural and cultural violence, this framework still maintains an ontological perspective that gives precedence to the peace by the state and elites—and, therefore, a negative approach to it—before being able to address root causes that can be, on their turn, fostering direct violence in the societal level and allowing for it to persist over time.

Approaches to reconciliation whereupon peacemaking is privileged over the transformation of attitudes and behaviors (Bloomfield et al. 2003; Kriesberg 1998: 184; Crocker 2003: 54) also misplace the locus of reconciliation in conflict transformation. The existence of conflicts in which a peace agreement could not be reached through negotiations makes the notion of post-conflict settlement unfit to outline the very concept of reconciliation. In these views, reconciliation appears as an outcome, rather than a process. This makes reconciliation a rather intangible notion and also misplaces its role in dealing with identity issues, root causes of conflicts and relationships in general. A consequence of these minimalist approaches to reconciliation is that an intergenerational conflict that becomes protracted is automatically excluded from any framework dealing with reconciliation as a post-conflict endeavor.

Accordingly, the idea developed in this book is that reconciliation is not just the end of the process of building—or, more precisely, consolidating—peace but a means to it. Sharing this perspective, Anat Biletzki proposes an alternative role for reconciliation during times of conflict, arguing that, in certain cases, it might even be the very first step out of hostilities. Biletzki’s (2013: 91) concept of “peace-less reconciliation” offers precisely a criticism of the before mentioned understanding of peace, rejecting the conventional approach to reconciliation that is reduced to transitional justice efforts.

This is the conventional wisdom: first, war or violent conflict, then cessation of hostilities (termed cease-fire, truce or armistice), then a somewhat-peace, then a transitional period during which warring parties aspire to arrive at justice—i.e., to make the peace a just peace (…). The conventional assumption that accompanies such wisdom holds that during a time of war, during violent conflict, there are no normal, explicit manifestations of peaceable relational co-existence between the parties. It is after war, in post-conflict time, during a period that aspires, perhaps, to peace though not yet a just peace, that reconciliation makes its entrance. (Biletzki 2013: 94)

The author’s reflections point to the necessity of challenging temporal rigidity when addressing conflicts, meaning that the sequential approach that views the stages of conflicts as a linear timeline is in fact plagued with contradictions. In this view, reconciliation is both a necessary condition for a just peace and a final stage to ensure the very same peace. That is precisely why it must precede the former. Although Biletzki’s approach drives us into a more comprehensive path on the conceptual and practical developments of reconciliation, her work addresses political reconciliation marginalizing the role and importance of individual and societal reconciliation in terms of identity change. The necessity of approaching reconciliation transversally within all levels of analysis has to do with dehumanization’s impact in the construction of interests, behaviors, values and norms that fuel the conflict and promote continuity of the status quo.Footnote 3 As a feature of collective identity in its various categories, it is therefore necessary to address initiatives that range from the international to the top, middle range and grassroots levels of a society, as proposed by Lederach.

First, it is important to note that in the literature definitions of reconciliation that connect the dimensions of identity and dehumanization are lacking.Footnote 4 It was possible to identify two main trends, on this matter. The first refers to reconciliation as positive behavior and relationship building that bring about the idea of moral/cultural and societal reconciliation (Hamber and Kelly 2009; Bar-Tal and Bennink 2004; Bronéus 2008). The second proposes an approach in terms of a political or institutional process (Kriesberg 1998; Crocker 2003). While the former invokes the transformation of perceptions regarding the ‘other’ without necessarily engaging with the idea of dehumanization, both are deeply connected with identity (or, at least, with the positive dimension of identity building) either explicitly recognizing it or not.

By extrapolating some of the literature on reconciliation, it is possible to establish resemblances with the framework proposed in this book. As an example, Daniel Bar-Tal and Gemma Bennink’s (2004: 15) definition of reconciliation can be considered closer to dehumanization in the sense that it is approached as “mutual recognition and acceptance, invested interests and goals in developing peaceful relations, mutual trust, positive attitudes, as well as sensitivity and consideration for the other party’s needs and interests” [the italic is mine]. The same is true for Lisa Strömbom, whose work does not engage with the concept of dehumanization but brings about more tinted dynamics of recognition defined as thin or thick. Lederach (1997: 26) also deals indirectly with dehumanization by proposing that “reconciliation […] is built on mechanisms that engage the sides of a conflict with each other as humans-in-relationship” [the italic is mine]. And, finally, Hamber and Kelly (2009: 291–292) connect reconciliation with identity and, although superficially, with the negative dimension of identity building, by defining it “as the process of addressing conflictual and fractured relationships”.

A more complete definition that can be considered to encompass both identity and dehumanization can be found in Ermesto Verdeja’s (2012) work. In his chapter “The elements of political reconciliation”, the author defines reconciliation in terms of identity change:

I argue that reconciliation is best understood as a condition of mutual respect among former enemies, which requires the reciprocal recognition of the moral worth and dignity of others. Political reconciliation is achieved when previous, conflict-era identities no longer operate as the primary cleavages in politics, and thus citizens acquire new identities that cut across those earlier fault lines. [the italic is mine] (2012: 166)

The idea of recognizing “the moral worth and dignity of others” can be connected with Kelman’s (1999) definition of dehumanization, presented above, which is considered to be a type of violence without moral restraints that denies agency and identity to the ‘other’. Insofar as Verdeja’s proposal implicitly deals with granting/recognizing identity, community and agency to the ‘other’, it can be put in dialogue with the concept of dehumanization. In fact, Verdeja’s (2012: 178) work even mentions explicitly dehumanization processes: “political violence and rhetoric surrounding depend on a strongly binary logic of identity. In-groups use language that constructs a tightly knit community while simultaneously disparaging and dehumanizing out-groups”.

Accordingly, rehumanizing or, in other terms, reconciling means focusing on morality and recognition, in order to respect the rights and aims of others. Nevertheless, for Verdeja, reconciliation is a process that is developed mainly in the political realm, within political elites, and that impacts society and their interaction in terms of identity through a changing of perception from the top-down regarding the conflict. In other words, political reconciliation for him would be able to perform changes in the representations of the ‘self’ due to the modification of narratives and official discourses regarding the ‘other’. Moreover, according to the author, conditions for reconciliation are an accurate understanding of the past, accountability, victim recognition and the rule of law, all inserted in the institutional realm. Other empirical cases like Mozambique show that those conditions alone are not enough (Bueno 2019).

Although Verdeja relates reconciliation with identity, his work does not go further in connecting clearly identity with reconciliation by developing the ways in which an identity is denied, its dimensions, how this process works and who are the actors that perform this dehumanization and, on the other side, how they can reconcile. Also, Verdeja’s (2012) framework can be placed in the group of those who consider reconciliation as a post-conflict endeavor, since he focuses on its political/institutional dimensions. Nevertheless, there are several important and useful analytical tools developed in his work that must be considered. To begin with, Verdeja suggests that the literature and practice on reconciliation can be divided into two trends, being the minimalist and the maximalist approaches to reconciliation. The latter focuses on basic, liminal conditions for coexistence rooted on the rule of law and the end of overt violence, while the former emphasizes strong social solidarity and often mutual healing and forgiveness. He argues that neither is enough for deeply divided societies.

The approach to reconciliation developed in protracted peace processes is inserted in the context of a liberal/legalist framework (Osiel 1999; Hampshire 1989) that can be connected with Verdeja’s perception of minimal reconciliation, insofar as they focus on the conditions for coexistence premised on the rejection of violence. Since it focuses on a minimalist approach that aims at achieving a common basis for coexistence anchored in institutional/legal mechanisms to contain (direct) violence toward the other, its impact is defined mainly in negative terms, thus privileging the political/institutional level. For this reason, this approach is insufficient to promote positive peace, lacking structural and cultural change that can affect societies and individuals in terms of an identity transformation. Those approaches are mainly related with establishing the basis for negotiations although they do take into consideration post-conflict settings.Footnote 5

On the other hand, peace-less peacebuilding efforts that take place in Israel and Palestine due to the historical developments of the conflict that led experts, brokers and the international public opinion to believe that the conflict was over—that is, the Oslo Accords—also fail to deal with cultural change. While there exists in fact a multitude of instruments deployed in order to tackle issues related with structural violence (educational support such an UN schools, health care and development projects) most of them are depoliticized due to the technical bias of liberal peace social engineering (Campbell et al. 2011) and to the current stage of the conflict in terms of negotiations. Without a clear commitment with achieving a common ground in terms of the historical memory and a progressive education, the peace process creates social detachment insofar as it does not involve the main actors in the conflict in the efforts for transforming it. Notwithstanding, the main argument of those who defend this approach is that institutional/legal coexistence with guarantees of limitations of direct violence is the best we can hope for.

On the other side of the coin, there are those who defend a maximalist approach to reconciliation. Those are the approaches that defend truth and reconciliation commissions and a transformation based on structural change and forgiveness, mainly focused on post-conflict settings. Some argue that this might lead to an apolitical form of reconciliation (Moon 2008: 118) since coexistence is created through “theological conceptions of moral renewal and community” (Verdeja 2012: 169) within a narrative of return to a condition of harmony (reconciliation) that understands the past in simplistic and idealized terms. On the one hand, the emphasis on transformation through forgiveness in an institutional manner is not only artificial but also leads to the danger of lacking accountability. On the other hand, the idea of forgiveness remotes to a harmonious condition of some sort in the past, which is not only a misleading way of reading the historical relations between peoples in a conflict, but also risks underplaying dissention and failing to describe what post-atrocity societies should look like. Others point to the coercive potential of such institutionalized forms of forgiving and creating forgiveness (Brudholm 2008). Verdeja suggests that minimalist reconciliation risks underplaying dissension by treating reconciliation as the mere product of moral agreements and a fallacy of homogenization of real and legitimate differences, while maximalist reconciliation might create a deficit of accountability through official apologies. Therefore, in order to achieve an equilibrium within those two trends, it is proposed that political, social, material and cultural challenges must be taken into account by an encompassing theory of reconciliation.

Therefore, Verdeja argues that we must move beyond formal conceptions of proceduralism within reconciliation that equates it “with the presence of institutionalized rights and formal democratic praxis” toward morally accepted forms of reconciliation “but resistant to an apolitical idea of forgiveness” (Verdeja 2012: 170). His approach is more related with reconciling identities as he argues that reconciliation should be seen as “mutual respect, which entails reimagining the Other as a bearer of moral worth and dignity”, but not in a holistic way such as a “conception of reconciliation through forgiveness or similarly ontologically transformative faculties” (Verdeja 2012: 170). The author defines reconciliation in terms of mutual respect across societies and tolerance of others based on an individual ontology that pivots on a particular conception of moral personhood. According to him,

A healthy identity develops from intersubjective recognition among equals, which includes reciprocal recognition of claims to moral worth and dignity. Dignity is a fundamental property of what it means to be a person, as it points to the value of autonomy that is at the core of a healthy sense of self, and its restoration is particularly important to victims and others who have suffered political abuse and stigmatization and remain mistreated and devalued. A society that seeks to be reconciled must create conditions for the recognition of all citizens as bearers of moral worth and dignity. (Verdeja 2012: 170)

This definition brings us back to John Paul Lederach’s work. According to Lederach and Burton, reconciliation is in fact a process of negotiating identity (Lederach 1999; Burton 1990). Bridges between those two approaches can be built by bringing into this dialogue the framework of Herbert C. Kelman (1999) that suggests the necessity of developing a transcendent identity in the cases of conflict. The author analyzes the negative interdependence of identity that is present in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and which leads one group to assert its identity through negating the ‘other’s’. He argues that there must be created spaces for negotiating identity in order to highlight the positive interdependence that also exists. Klotz (1995) also recognizes the identity-driven character of reconciliation. He has shown that the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa became possible because of the emergence and institutionalization of a global norm of racial equality. This is similar to what John Paul Lederach (1997: 34) defines as the relational dimension of conflicts, that “involves the emotional and psychological aspects of the conflict and the need to recognize past grievances and explore future interdependence”, being reconciliation precisely the locus to do so:

Beings become full individuals through mutual recognition, which emphasizes the essentially intersubjective (or social) nature of identity formation” […] “thus, rather than resuscitating problematic reductive notions of ethnic political identities (Serb, Croat, etc.) as a way of recognizing victims, societies should engage in securing what Fraser and Honneth (2003: 29) calls ‘reciprocal recognition and status equality’, a goal that is unachievable if victims continue to find themselves excluded, marginalized, devalued and forgotten. (Verdeja 2012: 174)

Drawing from these perspectives, this book proposes that peace-less reconciliation comprises the whole set of initiatives developed in all levels of societies that aim at identity change by promoting the recognition of the ‘other’. It is not just an outcome but rather a process that coexists with dehumanization and must be addressed even before the signature of formal agreements. Dealing with peace-less reconciliation as the other side of dehumanization means that its main indicator corresponds to what counteracts the dimensions of denial which are incorporated in the narratives that form one’s identity in competing environments. While this section has shown that reconciliation was not formally incorporated into approaches toward peacemaking until the 1990s, a historical analysis anchored on the idea of peace-less reconciliation shows that this dimension of the peace process has always existed, although, as we will see, with changing meanings over time.

As a means to evaluate the connections between identity and violence, dehumanization and reconciliation, this book proposes that both dehumanization and reconciliation are composed by five main dimensions (see Table 3.1). To each dimension corresponds a manifestation of dehumanization or peace-less reconciliation that relates with one or more categories of identity and violence developed in the last chapter. First, there is the moral/cultural dimension of dehumanization and reconciliation. On the one hand, conflicting narratives about the past, competing historical traditions and memories and, therefore, the practice of denying identity and legitimacy to the ‘other’ are manifestations of this dimension that lead to processes of dehumanization. It is not by coincidence that this dimension is the one more closely connected with cultural violence since it creates the justification, and also narratives that function as a coping mechanism, for structural and direct violence to operate. This dimension is connected with all categories of identity showed in Table 2.2 of last chapter, since it impacts perceptions regarding the right of existence to national identity, ethnic identity, religious identity and geographic identity but defying the historical/cultural identity of the ‘other’. In the realm of political/institutional processes, dehumanization appears in official discourses regarding the ‘other’, on militarism and securitization of identities but also on direct violence per se and on war, being the most visible manifestation of violence in this framework. Both the economic dimension and the social dimension create deep structural violence since the former has to do with denying community, rights and access to state services and the latter with inequality, lack of access to resources and basic needs. And, finally, the geographic dimension that is connected with restriction of movement, the occupation and demolitions of houses relate with all components of violence and with all categories of identity.

Table 3.1 Dimensions of dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation
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On the other hand, manifestations of each dimension of dehumanization can also be seen in the correspondent dimensions of reconciliation. All of them represent processes, practices and policies that counteract the dimensions of dehumanization mentioned above. They are apologies, common moral and history education and identity recognition in the moral/cultural dimension; reparation programs, truth commissions and other type of legal responses in the context of political/institutional processes; promoting employment, reducing inequality and promoting affirmative actions are all structural reforms that impact the economic real; freedom of access and movement and the territorial recognition in terms of the state are inserted in the geographic dimension; and giving access to basic services for individuals forcedly displaced as well as granting citizenship are attitudes in the domain of social processes.

Finally, even though reconciliation literature refers to distributive justice, that is, redistribution of resources and reparations to victims, as an indicator of reconciliation in a post-conflict societies, in the cases of protracted conflicts such mechanisms cannot take place. However, peacebuilding mechanisms deployed in the context of humanitarian relief in cases of protracted conflicts such as human rights’ monitoring, education, health, housing, etc., help mitigate the dimensions identified as promoting dehumanization. In this sense, analyzing the peace processes’ mandates and actions that deal with those dimensions is a way to measure the impact of peace processes to dehumanization or reconciliation. Nevertheless, focusing on reconciliation through material capabilities is unreal in cases in which one wishes to address peace-less reconciliation, that is, reconciliation in ongoing conflicts. All mechanisms deployed in this sense tend only to mitigate the situation and not perform a deep, structural change.

3 Drawing the Cycle of Protractedness

This book has developed thus far the conceptual and theoretical frameworks of this study using constructivism and insights from Peace Studies and Social Psychology literatures. On the one hand, it defined, characterized and discussed the consequences of protracted peace processes to conflicts (Chap. 2). Meaning to fill the gap in the literature regarding the conceptualization of those kinds of processes, this chapter suggested that their primary focus on present manifestations of the conflict, instead of dealing with its root causes and future challenges, have led to a contradictory and unintended consequence of contributing to the perpetuation of the conflict. By arguing that peace processes, once established as protracted, become a social structure that influences the attitudes, interests, behaviors and identities of actors connected to the conflict, last chapter concluded that they occupy a central position in the cycle of protractedness, thus fueling the conflict instead of promoting peace.

Following this line of argumentation, last chapter also discussed the mutually constitutive nature of violence and identity in conflict. By assuming Johan Galtung’s definition of violence as opposed to peace, it is also possible to frame identity and peace as mutually constitutive. Connecting these ideas with the framework developed in this chapter, this means that the process of constructing identity in protracted conflicts is twofold: the potential for dehumanization in the process of de-identification does not exclude the other pole, as there is the potential for reconciliation. As explained in the last section, since reconciliation is usually dealt with as a final stage of peacebuilding, after the signature of a negotiated accord between the parties to the conflict, this book refers to ‘peace-less reconciliation’ as the dynamics, activities, policies and practices that aim at reconciliation but are developed within the context of latent or ongoing conflict.

The main objective of Part I of this book was to unravel the mechanisms through which identities—and more specifically the negative dimension of identity, the detachment from others or the representations of the ‘other’—might be impacted by the protracted conflict and the protracted peace process. Accordingly, this chapter dove deeper into two elements of the negative dimension of identity construction, suggesting that this process ranges from two poles: it might promote dehumanization or allow for the development of peace-less reconciliation instead. These are parallel dynamics which are developed simultaneously within the context of protracted conflicts, leading to the need to explore the conditions that allow for one process to prevail over the other in the course of the dispute.

The consequences of this analysis point to the elements that comprise the cycle of protractedness being violence, peace and identity. While peace and violence can be interpreted as a continuum represented in the form of a circle, the cycle of protractedness also includes the elements of identity that were identified in this chapter as paramount for understanding the root causes of conflict and addressing its transformation. Therefore, the cycle of protractedness (Fig. 3.1) is a graphic representation that places identity as the core issue sustaining protracted conflicts.

Fig. 3.1
The cycle diagram of protractedness depicts violence, peace, and identity. In this, violence and peace are represented in the form of a circle which includes elements of identity.

The cycle of protractedness. (Source: Elaborated by the author)

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Its application outlines the hypothesis that the positive transformation of identity leads to a decrease in the levels of cultural violence, promoting the development of practices of peace-less reconciliation, while processes of dehumanization, when manifested in the identities of societies, promote the increase of violence and the perpetuation of conflict dynamics through time. By connecting this cycle with the main object of this research, the protracted peace process, the consequence and practical application of this conceptual framework is that it establishes a direct relationship between the peace process and the protracted nature of the conflict, positioning the peace process and its associated discourses, practices and policies in the center of this cycle.

Put differently, both conflicts and peace processes can create the conditions for certain norms, rules and identities to be considered legitimate or illegitimate in a specific context. On its turn, agents’ behaviors and interests, which are also a product of the latter, have an important role in redefining those structures and changing their meaning through time. This means that there exists a cycle of interactions in which structures influence the behavior of agents while agents reflect these behaviors on the ways they act within structures. Simply put, if conflicts and peace processes associated with them influence the behavior of actors in a way that reinforces or normalizes meanings such as enmity and dehumanization, those will be reflected in the very way actors act regarding the conflict and the peace process. Therefore, the tendency is that enmity will be perpetuated and reflected in the negotiations creating a cycle of protractedness. For this reason, it is important to analyze the interactions between main actors and peace processes that become protracted alongside conflicts in order to realize how those processes deal—or do not deal—with the negative dimension of identity construction.

Illustrating these dynamics, next chapters will draw a genealogy of processes of dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation, exploring the conditions that allow for one to prevail over the other, as well as their coexisting dynamics. Part II develops a historically based analysis of the construction of identities in this conflict from the establishment of the Zionist Movement in the beginning of the twentieth century to nowadays. It will provide a narrative-based account of identity building with a closer look into the identification dynamics (the construction of a collective ‘self’) but into the de-identification process (the detachment from ‘others’) in light of the protracted peace process and its developments.

4 Conclusion

The rich intellectual heritage of Peace and Conflict Studies developed by authors such as John Burton and Edward Azar brings about questions such as human deficits and the possibility of conflict transformation to the core of the thought and practice about peace. Those scholars focus on issues such as the importance of culture, history and identity to conflicts. By combining social psychology contributions on dehumanization with the theoretical and practical work already developed in conflict transformation approaches, this chapter aimed to set the basis for analyzing the impact of the Israeli-Palestinian protracted peace processes on identities in conflict. Accordingly, this chapter suggested that dehumanization and peace-less reconciliation should be addressed as the main elements influencing identity building in protracted conflicts. These two opposing poles are directly connected with the narratives, norms, practices and discourses that promote conflict or its transformation. However, as explained in this chapter, the complexities associated with protracted conflicts lead to the coexistence of both dehumanization and practices of peace-less reconciliation, which work in parallel in these kind of conflicts.

Edward Azar’s theoretical development of protracted social conflict draws on the recognition of social groups’ prolonged struggle for their basic human needs, social justice and social welfare. It also reflects on how this is often obscured by state-centric approaches that tend to analyze conflicts from the perspective of the nature and organization of the international system rather than from the individual and societal levels (Azar 1990: 12). What Herbert C. Kelman calls dehumanization is a process that leads to the weakening of moral restraints against violence, in which the victims are deprived of their human status through the removal of their identity—agency—and community (Kelman 1973). In other words, it means ignoring that the individual has value and is valued by others, thus allowing for his or her objectification. On the one hand, this acts as fuel for the conflict in a way of a political and societal legitimization of violence toward the ‘other’ and, on the other hand, it appears as a coping mechanism for societies that will most likely become militarized and/or accustomed to deal with everyday violence and disruptions.

This framework emphasizes the importance of intersubjective meanings to identity building, in the form of narratives, norms and social practices that are constructed through time in specific historic and geographic contexts. In other words, it helps us analyze the impacts of long-term conflict on the identities of societies and vice-versa, contributing to a better understanding of the relationships between rival societies. This is particularly useful to address cases of protracted conflicts, in which violence and animosity tend to be normalized, being the dominant reality for different generations and even a constitutive aspect of one’s very identity (Burton 1990; Ramsbotham 2005: 114–116). While John Paul Lederach “views peace as centered and rooted in the quality of relationships” (Lederach 1997), his proposal fails to recognize the central role of dehumanization processes to the deterioration of such relationships and to the maintenance of the protracted nature of conflict.

Despite the changes in the peace agenda that have operated with the end of the Cold War, the liberal peace model of international interventionism still focuses primarily on the dynamics of negative peace and state-level negotiations, thus neglecting the importance of identity issues to conflict transformation. While the concept of reconciliation was coined in the context of those debates in the 1990s, most literature on reconciliation refers to this process as a final step of conflict resolution, thus introducing it in the context of post-conflict peacebuilding, after formal peace is established. This chapter built on the works which counteract this tendency to frame an understanding of the processes of peace-less reconciliation that take place in protracted conflicts, as well as its manifestations, which are indicators for the analysis that will be developed in the next chapters.