Eyes Wide Shut: Political Ideology as a Tool of Discursive Avoidance Among Israeli-Jewish Students in the Context of Escalating Conflict

Recent years have witnessed a significant escalation in Israel's relations with the Palestinians, as well as in the internal political divide and discourse between left and right. The current research asked how these processes of escalation that occur on the sociopolitical level came into play in interpersonal political discussions held among a group of Jewish-Israeli young adults that partook in an annual academic course exposing them to Palestinian narratives, right after the 2014 war in Gaza. Particularly, it demonstrated how internal political discourse served as a strategy to cope with threats to moral perception of social identity. Critical discourse analysis conducted on transcripts of the process revealed that the internal political discourse between left wing and right wing served as a platform for group members to establish fight/flight practices within the group discussion. Research findings discussed in light of the sociopolitical context highlight how the focus on the political Other—left or right—drew attention from the Palestinian Other and by that from the moral consequences of harm doing.