 First I would like to thank the Friday Foundation for inviting me to give the annual Herbert and Bulma annual lecture on Vico III and tolerance and to new honorable audience for coming to listen to this lecture. I intend to take you to a somewhat unpleasant journey to analyze why it is so difficult to resolve peacefully intractable conflict. A subject which I devoted over 30 years of my life to study, obviously with the operation of many students. But today I can confess that I know much about the erection and escalation of bloody and protected conflict than about the resolution and reconciliation. I can thus be a very successful advisor to Pyromanians who desire to ignite a bloody conflict than to firefighters who try to extinguish the flames of the conflict. In reality, indeed, societies, as you know, much faster running under the umbrella of violence than are ready to embark on the road of peace. And nobody has a prescription how to move societies to this road. Still, I believe, so it is important to understand the dynamics and foundations of an intractable conflict. And I want to get in order if we want to get an idea how to resolve them peacefully. Two remarks before I begin. First, this presentation is supported by many empirical studies, so I will not be able to describe because I want to concentrate on a holistic story which I want to tell you. And second, I will present a very general analysis referring to a kind of prototypical conflict exemplifying it with particular real cases with a firm knowledge of specific conflicts shared to different extents, the characteristics of the prototypical conflict that will be described here. On November 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sada delivered a speech before the Knesset, which is Israeli parliament, so to mark the beginning of the Israeli-Egyptian peace negotiations. After referring to the wall of conflict, he then said, and I quote, Yet there remains another wall. This wall constitutes a psychological barrier between us. A barrier of suspicion, a barrier of rejection, a barrier of fear of deception, a barrier of hallucinations around any actions, needs and decisions, a barrier of cautious and erroneous interpretation of all and every event and statement. It is this psychological barrier which I described in official statement as constituting 70% of this whole problem. This wise insight is not surprising to researchers as well as practitioners who observes a high level of psychological intransigence exhibited by members of societies engaged in intractable conflict. It can be found in different conflicts that still range in various parts of the globe. It's Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Chechnya, Turkey or in the Middle East and it is extremely difficult to resolve them. Also, this type of conflict ranged from decades in the past, as for example, Algeria, South Africa, Northern Ireland, Guatemala, Spain and Salvador, and it took a long time and great efforts to move them to their peaceful resolution because of the psychological intransigence. So, first I will describe to you what are intractable conflicts because it is important to understand the context in which the involved societies live. And I have a number of these characteristics. These specific types of conflicts, first of all, are total because our thought over goals viewed as existential for the survival of the society. They are violent because not only soldiers are wounded or killed but also civilians including women and children and civil properties destroyed. Additionally, these types of conflicts frequently create refugees and often involve atrocities including mass killing, mass raping, ethnic cleansing and even genocide. They are perceived as being of zero sum, it's a psychological concept, saying that because neither of the parties agrees to compromise over the goals and tries to achieve all of them, they are viewed as unsolvable because there were unsuccessful attempts to resolve them and society members accept the deadlock as an unchangeable fact. They occupy its central position in the lives of the involved individuals and societies. Members of the society are involved constantly and continuously with the conflict in private and public discourses. They require immense investments of material and psychological resources. The material investments include mobilization of society members, training the military, development of military industries, a position of weapons and ammunition and in general development of supportive infrastructure in all the spheres of collective life, in essence development of the military, societal, economic infrastructure that supports the management of the conflict. But we have also psychological investment and it refers to building the epistemic basis that provides the justification for the conflict and development of the will to maintain the confrontation, all necessary for mobilization. And the last, this type of conflict lasts at least 25 years, a generation. The long period of time has meaning because the longer the conflict lasts, the more they involve societies invest psychologically in its continuation. I do not try to claim that all these conflicts are of equal parameters. They are not. They differ in the moral ground of the contentions of the parties involved, in the power symmetry, in the level of violence and atrocities and so on. But in all of them, there is similar social psychological dynamics and foundations that I would describe. Many of the involved society members were or are ingrained in their narratives or become ideologies that propagate the continuation of the conflict, dehumanization of the rival, glorification of the ingroup and collective self-perception as victims of the conflict. They are unable to embark on the road of peace, freezing with their conflict, supporting social, psychological and repertoire, being unable to change it as requires peacemaking process. So here you will have the description of my talk. First I describe the immense cost that the societies involved in intractable conflicts pay for their continuation. Then I will discuss the way those societies cope with the situation to meet the challenges of the conflict by constructing functional narratives. Next I'll analyze the nature of these narratives and you will be able to hear a partial answer to the pop's question. In the next part, I'll extend my response to other factors also served as obstacles to peacemaking. And finally, I will try to end with an optimistic note. So let's begin the journey. It is well observed that the passionate inherits in different societies to continue intractable, bloody conflicts takes place despite great losses, destruction and personal suffering. Societies pay a tremendous price for having and maintaining their violent conflicts on the individual and collective levels. If we take only the collective level, I will not talk on the individual level, I can note loss of the young generation. Sometimes the young generation is almost wiped out and especially males who care for their military actions, but also the civilian populations of pace always, always high price. The cost of taking care of the injured and their rehabilitation, traumatization of the societies of needs mental health services, destruction of physical infrastructures, high economic investment in the conflict and the result lack of investment in other areas, damages of social fabrics, for example, internal conflicts take place because often the rise groups which object to the conflict, disregard of acute social problems such as poverty, economic gaps, unemployment, the creation of educational system and so on. Degregations and violation of civil liberties, moral codes, democratic principles, such always, always a company intractable conflict, etc. You can see visually the cost of few intractable conflicts in Sri Lanka, Shreshnia, Northern Ireland and the Middle East. I am sure that no one can be indifferent to these images and empathize with the fate of these people that you see. I will give you just one specific example from the Turkish-Kirkish conflict. The Turkish-Kirkish conflict, which is going on violently since 1984, has a very high price in terms of human losses and suffering as well as economic investment. By the way, there are chances, as you follow, so maybe this particular conflict will be resolved as the negotiations are in well advanced stages at the moment. By the way, it is very hard to find statistics about the cost of conflict because all involved societies hide them, not once they will be punished. Then the key question is why these conflicts are still not resolved to save costs and suffering. It is possible that the suffering blinds most of the people and the results are stubbornly remaining in the burning house instead of searching a way out. We will see how true this observation is. Different perspectives try to provide different responses, economic, legal, political and so on. But I will focus on the social-psychological-political explanation and even in taking this few points, I will use in the responses a particular conceptual framework that is an outcome of my academic work and research. My favorite quotation from social psychology, that in the best way summarizes the fundamental assumption of social psychology, is, and I quote, Men acts upon his ideas. His irrational acts, no less than his rational acts, are guided by what he thinks, what he believes, what he anticipates. However bizarre the behavior of men, tribes or nations may appear to an outsider to the men, to the tribe, to the nations, their behavior makes sense in terms of their own worldviews. Now we can see how this assumption is represented in the conception I will present to you. The first proposition is simple. The harsh context in which societies involved in intractable conflict leave causes to serious tangible and psychological deprivation, hardship and impairment. I mean to insecurity, threats, chronic stress, grief, uncertainty, unpredictability, threats to positive self-view. I think I do not have to persuade you in the validity of this proposition. Second proposition, life in the harsh context of intractable conflict causes to the involved societies social psychological challenges that they have to meet on their individual and collective levels if they want to survive. This proposition requires some elaboration and I will elaborate what are these challenges. The first challenge, as you know, the societies need at least to withstand the rival group, but in reality they want to win the conflict, to achieve the conflict with others. Then, while the struggle, the violent struggle goes on, there is need to satisfy the basic needs of the society, on both levels, on individual and collective. And this begins with providing food and shelter and also satisfying basic psychological needs, such as needs of living in a meaningful and predictable world, which is a very, very important gift for every human being, sense of security, mastery, everyone wants to have positive self-view, positive collective identity as few examples. And the challenge of coping with stress that plugs the society members and is a major obstacle to normal life. So, we can go now to proposition three. Societies involved in intractable conflict attempt to evolve functional social psychological repertoire in order to meet the psychological challenges that I just described of the conflict. Here I mean, so the involved societies often intentionally, but also unintentionally, develop social psychological repertoire of beliefs, attitudes, motives, emotions, so it helps them to manage the conflict. But the most functional social psychological repertoire consists of conflict supporting master collective narrative. I'll say a few words about this concept. It's a real concept of social sciences, very well accepted. A narrative is a story, so it provides an outlook on the past and present and even on the future in a coherent and meaningful way. Of special interest is a master collective narrative, so it is shared by society members and is viewed by them as representing a reality and contributes contents to the collective identity. In the case of intractable conflict, it provides an ideological basis for the conflict, justification, explanation, and description. Almost in all the intractable conflicts, it becomes hegemony because of its importance for the collective, serving as a consensual rationale for collective actions. But I must note hegemony does not have to be stable. Hegemonic narratives not only change their contents from time to time, but also may have lost their dominance. In addition to this general master narrative about the conflict, there are also more specific narratives of concern, major events in the conflict such as specific wars in the ongoing conflict, and many narratives that refer to specific incidents such as battles or even a specific event in the battle, or personalities involved in the conflict. All these narratives have similar major themes, so I will describe in a moment. All these narratives fueled the conflict and maintained, so I will now describe the major themes. The master conflict narrative as well as other conflicts, as I say, consists of following eight themes. These themes are universal and can be found in every society engaged in intractable conflict, but obviously the specific contents of each theme are unique to the particular society. So first, the first theme, the master narrative justifies the involvement in the conflict and the course of its development, while at the same time the theme discredits the goal of the other side as unjustified and unreasonable. It outlines the goals and elaborates on their justification. The reasons provided as justification for the goals can be of different categories. They can be drawn from historical, economic, national, theological, even cultural spheres and they are frequently embodied in the national or ethnic ideology, which plays a vital role in the society's life. Some of the goals are due as reflecting sacred values, so the basic nature cannot be compromised. So if we take one example, for the Palestinians, compromising over the sovereignty of Jerusalem is unthinkable, because of its sacred status for them. Jerusalem is one of the three most important sacred cities for primary due to Muhammad's ascension. Muslim believes, as you may know, that he ascended to heaven from Temple Mount in Jerusalem to meet previous prophets of Islam. The second theme, delineates the nature of threats that emerge in times of intractable conflict. It stresses the importance of personal and collective safety and outlines the necessary conditions for their achievement. The need for security is one of the most basic needs of human being. Providing you one example, the question how to secure the personal life of Jews and the existence of the Jewish collective in Israel has been the fundamental problem that has preoccupied for over a century every Israeli Jew and also Jewish authorities. This challenge has become the most critical factor that has shaped the personal and societal life in Israel and has a terminated effect on the possible resolution of the Israeli conflict in the Middle East. The third theme is related to the delegitimization of the opponent. In essence, delegitimization denies the adversary's humanity and serves as a psychological term to harm the rival group. Delegitimization thus, on the one hand, explains why the rival is violent and on the other hand justifies his killing. For example, churches are delegitimized by the Russians as merciless Islamic fundamentalist terrorists and viewed as a uniquely criminal nation and as savages, wolves, thieves, bandits, murder crimes, and so on. Fourth, in contrast to the opponent, the master now presents a glorified image of the evil of his own society, usually as being moral, civilized, humanistic, heroic, more advanced, intelligent. For example, Greek Cypriot presents a group as coming from the superior ancient culture as behaving morally in the conflict with Turkish Cyprus. Also, another theme presents a group as a sole victim of the conflict and of the opponent. This view is independent of the powers the group has. So Russians, Israelis were more powerful, still sense the feelings of the other victims. Thus, in one of the studies in Northern Ireland as an example, each of the groups, Catholics and Protestants, reported that they are the victims of the conflict, focusing, always focusing on the violence perpetuated by the rival. And disregarding all violence, seeing it as a mere retribution. Sixth, patriotism, which is essential in order to mobilize people for achieving group, especially for confrontation with the rival, including readiness to make the ultimate sacrifice of life. Cool carrots as an example, impart from the very early age the value of patriotism. So it leads to the readiness of thousands of youngsters to leave their warm home, their families, and fight against Turks or Iraqis for self-determination with the knowledge that some may be killed or injured. Seventh, it emphasizes the importance of maintaining unity by ignoring internal discords and disagreements in the face of external threat. The importance of unity was well expressed in this excerpt from speech, which was delivered by the ex-president of past Yugoslavia on June 28, 1989, in the Kosovo field, and can serve as a prototypical speech expressing all the themes of the conflict master narrative. And I take just one theme, and I quote, the lack of unity and betrayal in Kosovo will continue to follow the Serbian people like an evil fate through the whole of its history. Even in the last war, this lack of unity and betrayal led the Serbian people and Serga into agony. The consequences of which in the historical and moral sense exceed even fascist aggression. And the final theme consists of the desire to live in peace, somewhat surprising. It is suggested that societies engaged in intractable conflict need a light at the end of the tunnel. So it provides them with some kind of positive expectations in the period of bloodshed and suffering. Presentation of peace as a supreme goal for society satisfies this need. So in one example, in Sri Lanka, when President Kuma Latunga shifted from dovish to hockish procession during 1995-96, deciding to crack down Zeta Mil's insurgency, she repeatedly pledged to wage a war for peace. I can summarize and say this narrative does not intend to provide a very inaccurate account of the reality. The presented themes of the master narrative are to serve the crucial needs that must be satisfied. If societies are to meet challenges, as I described, imposed on them by the conditions of the intractable conflict. And therefore in order to mobilize masses for violent conflict, there is need to construct a clear, meaningful, simplistic, one-sided, and moralistic narrative that satisfies basic individual and collective social needs. In order to achieve these teachers to be simplistic, to be unsightly, to be moralistic, the master narratives and other conflict narratives are constructed, as you can imagine, selectively. By selecting mostly supporting evidence, by magnifying certain facts, which means, let's say, exaggerating, repeating, emphasizing, and centralizing information, so he's supporting the master narrative, marginalizing and omitting facts that do not correspond to the narrative, and even fabricating events that never took place in order to support the narratives. I hope that you remember the three challenges that were outlined. So now I will elaborate more on the specific functions of this narrative. First, the narrative now knows the contents. They fulfill the systemic function of illuminating the conflict situation, which is characterized by uncertainty and unpredictability. And having this narrative, it is very clear what is going on. They also serve to justify the negative acts of the include towards an enemy, think about delegitimization, including violence against humans and destruction of profit. Additionally, the narrative prepares the society for threatening and violent acts by the enemy, as well for such difficult conditions. They attune the society to informations of signals, potential harm, and continuing violent confrontation, allowing psychological preparations for the lasting conflict and immunization against the negative experiences. By doing so, the narratives function as motivating forces for unity, solidarity, mobilization, and readiness for sacrifice on behalf of the nation. This is especially important for a society that lacks formal institution for mobilization, as in the cases of Tamils, Cherchains, or Palestinians. These themes also enable maintaining positive personal and social identities, with a sense of worthiness, esteem, and integrity, so every group strives to preserve on both individual level, which is very basic, really neat, and also a collective level. And often, they differentiate between the in-group and the rival, implying a sense of superiority to the in-group. Finally, this narrative serves the important function of providing positive self-presentation and victim status before the international community. These themes also feed consensus to social identity. And I'm coming to my last proposition, and my last proposition is that societies involved for a long time in intractable conflict, remember, at least 25 years, but sometimes even centuries, as for example the Northern Ireland conflict, the Cherchains conflict, that molds and imprints the life of the individuals and collectives, develop culture of conflict as a result of these prolonged experiences. In this country, the conflict-supporting narratives penetrate into institutions and communication channels of the society. They become pillars of the culture of conflict, because on the basis of these things that I described are constructed cultural myth, symbol, tradition, rituals that communicate a particular meaning about the prolonged and continuous experiences of living in the context of intractable conflict. So I would like to extend this point and describe to you what does it mean when the presented themes become foundations of culture of conflict. As a person that lives in such a society, all these points I can testify personally are valid, but also traveling through the world in every society that is engaging in the conflict you will find also there. They are required continuously in the socialization process. The conflict-supporting narratives are dominant, it transfers to the process of political socialization. This process begins in early age, and children thus acquire conflict-supporting narratives when they are very young. They acquire it through personal experiences, as well as learning from agents of socialization such as parents, teachers, and mass media. There is a firm evidence from the studies carried in areas engulfed by intractable conflict, so children by the age of three begin to absorb contents of the conflict. And so by age of five to eight possess most of the themes of the conflict-supporting narratives. Then as they grow, the themes become more concrete for them, identified, understandable, and meaningful. This repertoire is stored in the mind and becomes an inseparable part of their belief system. But when you live in intractable conflict, the socialization doesn't end in kindergarten or high school. It continues through the life of the society members involved in intractable conflict as long as it continues. Many of the societal institutions and channels of communication continuously and constantly function to impart, reinforce, and maintain the conflict-supporting narratives. The society members go through a kind of indoctrination that attempts to preserve and uphold their support in the continuation of the conflict. And moreover, encourage mobilization and active participation. The themes of the conflict-supporting narratives are widely shared by society members, especially during climax of the intractable conflict. They acquire and store this repertoire, as I said, as part of their socialization, and this carries through the life. It is impossible to live in intractable conflict without being exposed to the contents of the conflict-supporting master narrative with the themes so kind as prime. The cause are continuously and intensely available in every institution and channel of communication, because every member of the society acquires it. But moreover, the conflict-supporting narratives are not only held by society members, but also used in their daily conversation. This repertoire is chronically accessible and therefore offers features in their personal communication, because the conflict is part of the daily life of society members. In addition, in many societies, themes of the conflict-supporting narratives appear to be dominant in a public discourse via societal channels of mass communication. And they deal almost daily with the conflict, and the narratives serve as a frame for interpretation and assessment of the situation and events. Moreover, they are used for justification and explanation of decisions, policies and courses of actions taken by self-heaters. Finally, they are also expressed in institutional ceremonies, commemoration, memorials and so on. The conflict-supporting narratives appear also in cultural products, such as literary books for adults and children, TV programs, films, theatrical plays and even visual arts. The cultural products focus on them and they constitute major themes in artworks. Through these cultural products, the narratives are widely disseminated and can reach every sector of the public. Many of these products portray justness of own aspiration, the in-groups suffering and all-terrorism, and the peak, usually, is the brutality and inhumanity of the adversary. And finally, the conflict-supporting narratives appear also in educational systems, including even in the higher education. They appear in different models expressed in school textbooks, another material expressed by teachers and through other activities such as ceremonies, film trips, etc. I can show you one example of the cultural prevalence of the conflict-supporting narrative in the Jewish-Israeli culture, with which I am familiar. Some exhibits are taken from the climax of the intractable conflict in the 1950s, 1970s. But even today, it is possible to observe many of its manifestations, especially in political, educational and social spheres, while academic and artistic spheres are bastions of the alternative peace culture. You can see expressions of the themes in children books, ceremonies, posters, monuments, paintings, and even in advertisements. Of special importance in this analysis is an observation so that involved conflict-supporting master narratives serve as a prism. So with society-makers to process information experience, there are a kind of, I can say, glasses to see the world and to understand it. Meaning of the acquired information is interpreted in line with the themes of the conflict-supporting master narratives. This is a selective bias and distorting processing, and I further elaborate on this key proposition. At this point, I must note, which is very important, that there are differences in societies engaged in intractable conflict. In some societies, in certain times, there is one hegemonic master narrative, and under these conditions evolves a society with a single-minded agenda directed towards continuation of the conflict. For example, in the Singali society in Sri Lanka, Israeli Jewish society in the 50s and 70s, not today, the Turkish society or the Turkish society and the Palestinian society in the 1960s and 70s. In other societies, evolves also another alternative narrative, so propagates peacemaking. The latter narrative can expand and send the two or more narratives competing in the society, as for example in Northern Ireland, in both Catholic and Protestant societies, or in the Israeli society since 1970. But in most of the societies, at least during the climax of the intractable conflict, conflict-supporting master narrative is hegemonic, and we will concentrate on it because of its determinative importance. A number of factors determine its level of dominance, and I will note only a few of them. Level of indoctrination from mobilized educational system and mass media. Level of openness of the society to alternative information, or level of threat. So you can imagine if there is high level of indoctrination, low level of openness, high level of threat, you will see that the narrative is hegemony. I repeat the fundamental premise. Every society, when there is no light at the end of the tunnel, needs the conflict-supporting narratives because they enable successful adaptation to the conditions of the conflict to withstand the rival and fulfill the needs. Now, after providing you with the needed basis for understanding the dynamics of intractable conflict, I can begin, now I can begin to answer the post question in the title of my talk. So all this far, I needed in order to provide some kind of background. My claim is that when the conflict lasts for a long time and the conflict-supportive narratives are well imparted, maintained and reinforced, society members freeze with this repertoire. Freezing is a psychological term and his major segment of the society. The state of freezing as suggested by social psychologists is evidenced by the continued reliance on the help-master narrative that supports the conflict. The reluctance to search for the alternative information, the reluctance to be exposed to it when it is available and even presented, and even when eventually a person is exposed to it, he or she rejects it without seriously weighing and evaluating it, being motivated to reject arguments which contradict health narratives. Thus, members involved in intractable conflict tend to search and absorb information that validates their health conflict-supportive narratives while ignoring and omitting contractual information. The analysis applies to the situation when both societies are engulfed in violent confrontation without seeing any possibility of engaging in peace process. But when the prospect of peace process appears, an indication for constructive negotiation comes again. Then, the same conflict-supportive narratives embedded in the culture of conflict that were functional during the period of intense confrontation become a barrier to conflict resolution and detrimental to peace-making. This is a symbolic mental wall that the Egyptian president Sadat talked about in 1977 in the Israeli Knesset. This barrier inhibits and impedes progress towards a peaceful settlement of the conflict. It is found among leaders and society members. It is found and stands as a major obstacle to begin negotiation for a peaceful solution of the conflict and later to end some success. The social-psychological barrier, as noted, governs the ways that society members follow knowledge, develop emotional interaction, collect and interpret information, evaluate risks, set priorities, make decisions, and experience feelings of gain and losses. It is responsible for the closure that leads to adherence to the conflict-supportive repertoire. And as you know, minds are like passions. They function only when they are open. As barrier conflict-supportive narratives which are held with great confidence and revenue, exposure and acceptance of alternative information which could advance ideas about peace-making. Specifically, these frozen narratives block appearance and decimation of information or provide an alternative view about the conflict. Alternative view about survival, about own group, about conflict's goals. The alternative information is that there is a partner on the other side with whom it is possible to achieve peaceful settlement of the conflict. So it humanizes the rival and sheds a new light of the conflict. It blocks even as the views of goals can be compromised. So peace is rewarding while the conflict is costly. So the continuation of the conflict is detrimental to the society. And may even provide evidence that the group is also responsible for the continuation of the conflict and so has been caring also in moral acts. This process is caring on the individual level. But in addition, societies make tremendous effort to maintain the dominance of the master conflict-supportive narratives and to prevent or at least minimize dissemination among their members of the counter-narrative. So presents a different view supporting peace-making. Formal and informal societal institutions of the group, such as government, leaders, military establishment and conflict-supporting NGOs, attempt to block in various methods counter-narratives that are promoted by individuals and organizations which try to impart a new vision of possibility of peace-making. I will describe some of the principal methods that are used in different conflicts with a goal to prevent appearance, exposure and dissemination of information, so to contradict the conflict-supportive narrative. So let's start with the first one. Control of access to information. This is a practice whereby members of formal and informal societal institutions selectively restrict access to information related to conflict. They regulate access to information under their control in a way that sustains the dominant conflict-supportive narrative while preventing access to information that may challenge this narrative. This control is exercised, for example, by establishing a central organization responsible for disseminating official versions of information regarding current events, war, battles, by restricting or even preventing access to particular areas in order to prevent free collection of information. And by providing selective pieces of information only to transversely sources which later dissipated. An illustration of such control occurred during the Second Russia-Church War, especially in its initial phases, 1999 to 2003, in which the Russian established an information center so it briefed journalists on what was going on in the field with misinformation that was in line with the official narrative and controlled the journalist's entrance to the war zone while effectively cutting off the church and setters from the media. Sensor shift is a practice of preventing by irregularity means the public signing of materials to challenge the themes of the dominant narrative through media, cultural products and other channels of information. For example, in 1973, the government of Sri Lanka, in its struggle against the Tamil minority, enacted the press council bill so established a sensory council. Because members were appointed by the president and they were authorized to prohibit the discussion in the mass media of their sensitive policies in political and economic domains, topics directly related to the way the conflict was handled. Monitoring refers to the regular examination of the flow of the public information in order to find out whether it contradicts the themes of the master conflict supporting the narrative. With the aim of exposing and ostracizing sources of such information, the objects of such monitoring are typically mass media news, studies by scholars, research institutions, history books and peace-oriented NGOs. An example of use of monitoring can be found even in present in the Israeli Jewish society, where organizations such as Israel Academia Monitor and NGO Monitor use this practice very widely to single out individuals, groups or NGOs which in their view undermine what they consider Jewish Zionist interests. This crediting of information is a practice that unvalidates information supporting counter narratives and or denounces its sources as unreliable and even as presenting them as endangering the causes of the injury. The Greek society in Cyprus exemplifies extensive use of this practice in its conflict with the Turkish Cyprus. Conflicts supporting governments as well as political parties, NGOs and individuals often have tried continually and systematically to discredit and even delegitimize individuals, groups and organizations that have disseminated information that counters the conflict-supportive Greek narratives in Cyprus. Punishment, there is also a punishment, and this practice includes tangible sanctions against individuals and groups, so challenge the hegemony of the conflict-supportive narrative. This practice for example was used extensively in El Salvador during the civil war between 1979-1992, journalists, scholars and students who dared to challenge the official narrative were constantly harassed, arrested and physically attacked. And there is another trick, closure of archives. It prevents exposure of different documents that are stored in archives, especially state archives. For example, since World War I, the Ottoman and later Turkish archives were closed to the public in order to block access to documents that pertain to the Armenian Genocide. State officials had access to such documents, but only to search for materials supporting the Turkish no-genocide narrative. So you can see a graphic illustration of the result of the use of this method. If you are not convinced in my response to the post question why it is difficult to resolve this fully intractable conflict, I will add additional factors to inhibit and prevent the societal changes that potentially could bring the desired peace. First I would like to talk about threat. Threat in the context of intractable conflicts considerably contributes to freedom. It is well established in different states, so threat in conditions lead to closure and limitation of information processing. Society members close themselves from alternative information as the threat limits the possibility of entertaining different perspective views and information. Moreover, threats lead to fear. I decided in my talk to omit the detrimental effects of emotion, as I didn't want to overburden you with additional information. But just a few words about fear, which plays an important role in violent conflict. Fear is a primary aversive emotion that arises in situations of threat and danger. It is assumed that societies involved in intractable conflict develop collective fear orientation, because this situation is characterized by continuous threat and danger to society members and to the society as a whole. The collective fear orientation becomes embedded in the societal cultural conflict simply because fear is functional and adaptive. Fear prepares society members for better coping with a stressful situation on the primary level. This preparation achieved in number of ways. Fear mobilizes constant readiness for potential threats and unwished surprises. Fear directs attention and synthesizes society to use those signal dangers and to informations of implied threat. But the collective fear orientation also tends to limit society members perspective by binding the present into past experiences related to the conflict. By building expectation for the future exclusively on the basis of the past. A society usually offers sense of desire by the fear and tends to misinterpret use and information and signs of threat and danger searching for the smallest indication in this direction even in situations of signal good intentions. The fear causes the stabilization of the violent context and prevents launching peace making process. Second factor is happy situation. Another factor that increases freedom and leads to closure is happy situation. Happy situation indicates adaptation to the conflict situation and difficult to open to a new situation of peace making. So these individuals as well as collective learn through the years the conditions of the protected conflict, how to deal with the circumstances of violent confrontation and how to adapt to them. Eventually this learning leads to perceptions of conflict situation is understandable, meaningful and even manageable. The situation of violence is familiar, tried and predictable. In contrast, peace making requires change of well established way of coping and adaptation. It leads into unknown, uncertain, unpredictable and risk taking. Society members prefer to suffer with unknown, familiar, certain and predictable instead of taking risks that come with possible relief. In other words, society members become routineized to the life in the conflict and it becomes kind of part and parcel of their daily life without being able to imagine a different life. They even consider their life as being normal. It reminds me a story of the Scorpion who wanted to cross a river and approach a duck. Asking whether the duck would agree to carry him to the other side of the river. The duck asked, how do I know you won't sting me? And the scorpion said, because if I do I will die too. But when they were in the middle of the way, suddenly the scorpion stung deadly the duck. In the last breath the duck asked the scorpion, why did you do it? Now both of us will die. It is so pointless. There is no logic in your act. And the scorpion responded, it has nothing to do with the logic. This is my habitual way of life and I cannot change it. The Obama analysis is illustrated in the conflict between the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots. In the 2004 referendum, Greek Cypriots rejected the UN proposal to resolve the conflict. Various explanations can be given to this result. But one of them pertains to the habituation process. The majority of Greek Cypriots felt that the conflicted situation is more accepted to them than the proposed new situation of peace. Being habituated to the conflict situation, they refused to accept the proposed compromises that could lead to the peaceful resolution of the conflict and instead prefer its continuation and it continues till today. Another psychological reason that prevents peace-making is tangible and psychological investments. So the individuals and group participating in the conflict make it even. Once the investment is done, it is difficult to change the view. And take opposite directions that contradict the continuation of the conflict. A selling example of investment is the losses of society's intractable conflict encounter. It is always hard to explain the families who lost their dear, why the conflict could not resolve earlier. But there are also economic investments in the military, security, industry and so on. Those are the profitors from the ongoing conflict. These society members and sectors are well aware of their gains and act upon those interests. Those are the investors in the military-industrial complex as Eisenhower labored it. Military personnel gain status and prestige. And civilian sectors also acquire resources or other benefits. Often they are powerful interest groups and prevent peace-making. An example relates to the conflict in El Salvador between the military-led government of El Salvador and the Farabunda multi-tational liberation from. The Salvadoran army had significant gains from the continuation of the conflict. It acquired major power and status in its administration and elite as allegedly protected from the revolutionaries. In addition, senior officers gained wealth from the extortion they conducted during the war and payments received by the economic powerful elite. Consequently, they had an interest in the continuation of the conflict and tried to impeach the agreement so that it eventually was reached under the pressure of the United States and UN in 1992. And we have spoilers. In every conflict, there are ideologized individuals and groups who deeply believe in the conflict goals and despise the rival. For them, conflict-supporting master narrative is equal to the ten commandments of the Bible. They see the goals as second goals so that they cannot be compromised. Their individual life for them is of lesser importance than the goals of the conflict and are ready to continue the conflict for generations until the goals could be achieved. For example, part of the Israeli Jewish settlers who settle in the occupied territories of the West Bank believe that these territories are part of the Jewish homeland given by the gold and therefore it is forbidden to withdraw from them, even if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will go on forever. They have substantial support in the public and also in the government so it helps them to expand the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. They object vehemently to any attacks to reach peaceful resolution so it requires withdrawal from the occupied territories. The described ensemble of socio-psychological barriers and especially its integrated effects of information processing serve as a catalyst for continuation of the conflict and in fact it operates as part of the vicious cycles of intractable conflict considering that this process is mirrored image by two parties in the conflict. It can be well understood how the vicious cycle of violence operates in reality. Real and biased information reinforces the conflict-supporting narrative and they in turn lead to more bloodshed and vice versa in the other direction. So I am concluding why it is so difficult to resolve peaceful intractable conflict. We can learn from this in a using way that human beings were wrongly programmed and I have an evidence. I was told that when Einstein died he read the Heaven and asked to see the God himself. After some consultation it was decided to accept his request because Einstein is Einstein. So he was led to the room and when he entered he saw the God sitting before a large blackboard on which was written the equation that served to program the homo sapiens. He also saw the God in a kind of reflective state of mind and he tried the God to find the mistake in the equation. Einstein gave a look at the blackboard, thought for a few seconds and pointed out here the God looked at the guest and said, aha thanks but it is too late. I promised him optimistic ending and promised he has to be fulfilled. So we understand the peaceful resolution of the conflict requires a change of the conflict support mechanism. We know that this change is not simple but possible as various cases show as we can see here between French and Algeria, Spaniards and Basque, South Africa, Guatemala, El Salvador and even in Northern Ireland. In all of these cases, leaders and at least significant segment of the society went through a painful process of changing the conflict supported narrative so it required changing the God, changing the view of the rival, changing self-perception and most important changing the view of the conflict as being unsolvable and zero sum. This is really long and long process but usually begins with courageous minority but in the first stage of this journey is delegitimized as being unfaithful to the society. Peace is painful because it requires to part from the dreams and visions, requires shaking the hands with those who kill family members and friends. But I assume that you would like to hear more concrete ideas, how the views of the people and the majority of society members are changing. So I have bad news and good news. The bad news are, so almost never, leaders of majority of society members are persuaded by moral arguments about violation of human rights or crimes against humanity. They are closely minded to their belief because of seeing themselves as being victims. The good news are that they sometimes are moved to peacemaking when they eventually are able to observe immense costs for the society's pace for the last conflict. But it is not about the persuasive equations that leads to unphrasing suggestions and this is the equation that works. So society change occurs when there is realization that the continuation of the conflict may lead to losses caused which are greater than the losses and cause that are needed in order to achieve the peaceful resolution of the conflict via compromises. And there is a lot of evidence how the alert changing the view and the goal and Israel number of leaders. But I must admit, and so almost in all the cases so to resolve peacefully a third party played a determinative role in different ways. Making peace can be equated with great journey of discoveries within the globe and beyond. Both endeavors require courage, openness, risk-taking, determination, insistence and change of established conception. But not many individuals have these skills. Leaders as the goal and the plug have these skills. Also heads the Israeli leader, it's Hakrabeen who so well spent hours in needed way for the peace process. In his speech when he received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in December 1994 and I told military cemeteries in every corner of the world my silent testimony to the failure of national leader to sanctify human life. This is a very powerful observation and then he continues we will pursue the course of peace with determination and fortitude. We will not let out, we will not give in. Peace will triumph over all our enemies because alternative is grim for all of us and we will prevail. We will prevail because regarding the building of peace is a great blessing for us and for our children after us. Eleven months later he was assassinated by a fanatic Jews due because of his determination to bring peace to the conflict-ridden nation. His words serve as testament for all those in the world who struggle to bring peace to conflict-ridden societies. Thank you.