In the past few decades, planned contact interventions between groups in conflict have played an important role in attempts at improving intergroup relations and achieving peace and reconciliation. This article focuses on such reconciliation-aimed intergroup encounters between Israeli Jews and Palestinians that seek to reduce hostility and increase understanding and cooperation between the two nationalities. Like other contact interventions conducted in settings of intergroup conflict, encounters between Israeli Jews and Palestinians represent a paradoxical project: this is a project that aspires to generate equality and cooperation between groups that are embedded in a protracted asymmetrical conflict. Though existing research teaches us valuable lessons on the effectiveness of contact conducted under optimal conditions, little is said about contact between groups involved in asymmetrical protracted dispute. The goal of this analysis is to examine the evolution of reconciliation-aimed contact interventions between Israeli Jews and Palestinians in the past 20 years. The research method is qualitative, relying on ethnographic data assembled during the relevant period of time. The findings identify and trace the evolution of four major models of Jewish-Palestinian planned encounters: the Coexistence Model, the Joint Projects Model, the Confrontational Model, and the Narrative-Story-Telling Model. The strengths and limitations of each model in transforming intergroup attitudes in asymmetric conflict are discussed.

Public opinion can permit or encourage retaliatory aggressive state policies against vulnerable but threatening out-groups. The authors present a model in which public support for such policies is determined by perceived threat from and dehumanization of the target group. This two-factor model predicts Israeli Jews' support for two retaliatory aggressive policies: the more hypothetical notion of Palestinian population transfer and concrete, coercive actions toward Palestinians. The authors find (1) that threat and dehumanization are distinct constructs, each having unique contributions to explaining support for aggressive retaliatory policies, (2) that threat and dehumanization significantly explain support for aggressive retaliatory policies when respondents' hawkishness, socioeconomic status (SES), and education level are taken into account, and (3) that the association of hawkishness and SES with support for aggressive retaliatory policies is largely mediated by threat perception. Results are highly consistent across two studies, suggesting the two-factor model may be useful for understanding support for aggressive action in situations of asymmetric conflict.

A representative national sampling of Israeli Jewish adults (n = 550) reported attitudes toward solutions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that were salient in Israeli public discourse in 2002. Negative attitudes toward compromise were associated with zero-sum threat perceptions of the conflict with Palestinians, such that improvement for the Palestinian side can only come at the expense of the Israeli side. Positive attitudes toward compromise were associated with feelings of sympathy toward Palestinians, but, surprisingly, attitudes toward compromise were not associated with feelings of fear toward Palestinians. The possibility is advanced that it is fear of harm to the group, not fear of harm to self and family, that is related to willingness to compromise. Zero-sum perceptions of collective threat were not strongly related to affective reactions, and, contrary to a realist analysis of intergroup conflict, sympathy for Palestinians predicted support for compromise beyond what zero-sum perceptions of threat could predict.

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This article presents a paradigm of process evaluation of intergroup contact interventions that has two objectives: (a) to classify intergroup encounters by their ideology and (b) to define and apply criteria that evaluate the quality of intergroup interaction, focusing on symmetry between members of both groups in active participation in the encounter. This paradigm was applied to evaluate 47 encounters programs between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs that were classified into two major approaches-those that emphasize coexistence and similarities between the sides and those that emphasize conflict and confrontation. Equality in participation of Jewish and Arab participants was found in the vast majority (89%) of programs. However, symmetry between Jewish and Arab facilitators varied and was higher in programs including confrontational elements.This article presents a paradigm for evaluating intergroup contact interventions that focuses on symmetry or equality in the interactions between the two groups in these encounters This paradigm is applied here to evaluate a sample of 47 different programs of planned encounters between Jews and Arabs in Israel that were conducted in the year 1999-2000 and supported by the Abraham Fund for Jewish-Arab coexistence. The first part of the article presents the conceptual