Padraig O'Malley > Quotes

“Narratives are subjective and selective. They frame and filter concepts, images, and information according to desirable beliefs, values, symbols, traditions, and preferences. They are motivational tools that reinforce existing social identities and uniqueness. They arouse deep passions and allegiance.”
― Padraig O'Malley, The Two-State Delusion: Israel and Palestine--A Tale of Two Narratives

“Collective memory, the foundation of any culture's narrative, is a historical; mythology, laces with figments of truth, is essential to forming a country's founding identity and maintaining social cohesion.”
― Padraig O'Malley, The Two-State Delusion: Israel and Palestine--A Tale of Two Narratives

“However, in asymmetrical warfare, whether or not “demands” are met (i.e., whether you “win” or “lose” in the conventional sense) is secondary to perception of the intangibles in the globalized world of tweets and instantaneous information and disinformation. Hamas”
― Padraig O'Malley, The Two-State Delusion: Israel and Palestine--A Tale of Two Narratives

“Low-intensity authoritarianism corrodes pluralism; new economic and political elites emerge, and their agendas take precedence over the best interests and the needs of their people.”
― Padraig O'Malley, The Two-State Delusion: Israel and Palestine--A Tale of Two Narratives

“Parity of esteem,” in the parlance of negotiation experts, is a simple concept but requires a fundamental reorientation of behavior on both sides. Each says to the other: “I know your narrative and I reject it in its entirety, yet I accept your right to define your own narrative as you wish, and I will respect that right and its aspirations.” The important component is respect; respect is more embracive than trust. Until each side reaches a level of understanding of the other’s narrative that facilitates a willingness to accord parity of esteem, peace agreements will likely falter, perhaps not immediately but in a corrosive ambience that slowly emerges and is conducive to disregarding some of their provisions. Peace agreements are pieces of paper. The task of translating them into sustainable reconciliation is a long and difficult process; former protagonists are in “recovery.” Unless they nurture that recovery, their peace agreement will fall apart or lapse into “frozen” pacts. In Israel and Palestine there is no parity of esteem for the respective narratives and therefore no trust. This is why the onset of any negotiation is often not welcomed by either the leadership or the constituencies of either side. Instead, the prospect brings latent fears to the foreground, and the leaderships play to these fears, feeding their constituencies the same stale and divisive pronouncements about “the other” that have been repeated ad nauseam over decades. They engage in debilitating tit-for-tat exchanges, talk only about what the other side has to do, what the other side needs to tell its people, never about what they themselves have to do, what their own people need to understand. All this prepares the way, should the talks collapse, for one more repetition of the blame game and violence, which becomes self-fulfilling and self-motivating.”
― Padraig O'Malley, The Two-State Delusion: Israel and Palestine--A Tale of Two Narratives

“Israel itself has been “redesigned” since 1948, with every vestige of a Palestinian presence erased: street names, neighborhoods, artifacts all scrubbed clean of any Arab association and replaced with Hebrew nomenclatures.16 History is perceived as one of continuity.17 Jews were forced out of Palestine and after two thousand years they returned. The space between is a blank.”
― Padraig O'Malley, The Two-State Delusion: Israel and Palestine--A Tale of Two Narratives

“But war, as we will see, creates its own motives as combat escalates, and it rarely follows a course that does not have unintended consequences that subordinate its original purpose.71”
― Padraig O'Malley, The Two-State Delusion: Israel and Palestine--A Tale of Two Narratives

“Not only has distrust hardened and deepened, but it has increasingly become a source of hatred and paranoia. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is rife in both societies and with it the socio-psychological convulsions it generates. Both sides see the conflict as existential, zero-sum, and therefore seemingly irresolvable. It is psychologically embedded in their DNA. Both Palestinians and Israelis “double down” on their respective historical narratives of the roots of the conflict, take refuge in their collective memories, disparage the other party’s narrative, and luxuriate in the righteousness of their respective cause, creating what experts in conflict resolution label an “ethos of conflict”—an ethos that entraps both sides.19 The conflict becomes a compelling, in some ways psychologically fulfilling, way of life. The moral clarity of blaming the other entirely is intoxicating. They have become addicted to it.”
― Padraig O'Malley, The Two-State Delusion: Israel and Palestine--A Tale of Two Narratives