1 Kampf, Z. and Blum-Kulka, S. (2011). Why Israeli children are better at settling disputes than Israeli politicians? In: F. Bargiela-Chiappini and D. Kádár (Eds.). Politeness across Cultures (pp. 85-105). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Why are Israeli Children Better at Settling Disputes than Israeli Politicians? Zohar Kampf and Shoshana Blum-Kulka Introduction One of the most popular metaphors in political communication research is the game metaphor (Patterson 1993), whereby similarities are drawn between political practices and practices connected to sports. A related metaphor, probably unique to Israeli political culture 1 , and used especially for news coverage of parliamentary debates, is politics as a kindergarten 2 . For Israelis, this metaphor suggests a basic similarity in the behavior in conflictual situations in the two communities, evoking a derogatory view of the interactions between children. In this paper we examine conflict resolution mechanisms in two Israeli communities of practice—that of politicians and that of children —against the backdrop of the metaphors of "game" and "kindergarten". We follow Miller (1979) in arguing that such metaphors are essential for making manifest the ‘intelligible structure’ of a political reality. According to Miller, metaphors cannot be verified by direct comparison to reality. However, using “metaphorical thinking" can shed new light on the reality examined. Accordingly, we examine the nature of conflict resolution within two very different Israeli communities and their characteristic activities. 1 We would like to thank an anonymous reader for pointing out that this metaphor is not universal and our political science colleagues Tamir Sheafer, Sahul Shenhav and Gadi Wolfsfeld for confirming this observation, and Paul Frosh for his useful suggestions on the subject of " metaphorical thinking ". 2 For example, from Y-net, the most popular Israeli news website: “Kindergarten in the Knesset in the discussion on the ‘nurse law’” (headline, 13.7.09); and “the preschool of the education committee” (Y-net 8.7.08). Politicians also use the kindergarten metaphor for describing problematic interpersonal relationships. Members of the Labor party said about an argument between party chairman Ehud Barak and party secretary-general Raanan Cohen: “It’s a kindergarten” (Haaretz 16.4.00).