Bar-Tal, D., Halperin, E., Porat, R., & Nets-Zehngut, R. (2012). Why society members tend to support the continuation of intractable conflicts and resist their peaceful resolution? In A. Golec de Zavala & A. Cichocka (Eds.), Social psychology ofsocial problems (pp. 254-279). Houndmills, England: Palgrave Macmillan Why Society Members Tend to Support the Continuation of I ntractable Conflicts and Resist Peaceful Resolution Daniel Bar-Tal, Eran Halperin, Rani Porat and Ra(l Nets-Zehngut , • e & V t M e w DG e•• • £ & 9 e On 20 November 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat delivered Q speech before the Israeli parliament that marked the beginning of Israeli·Egyptian peace negotiations. After referring to the 'wall' of conflict, he then said: iool 'let there remains another wall: This wall constitutes a psycholog bonier between us, A barrier of suspidon. A barder of rejection. A rier of fear of deception. Abarrier of halludnations around any action, deed and decision. A banier of cautious and erroneous interpretation of all and every event or statement. It is this psychological baItier which I described in official stalement as constituting 70 percent of this whole probiem. (Rabinovich 8< Reinarz, 2008, p. 366) ,,. Intractabte Confi[lli 255 Indeed, We concur with this observation of Sadat, suggesting thot con· flicts are real and they erupt over disagreements relating to tangIble and non.tangible goals, but they could be resolved Ifnot for psychologiool bar- riets that playa major role in the resistance to peaceful settlement. This chapter will rely on that assumption with the purpose of reveallng the psy· chological forces that both contribute to the continuation of intractable conflicts and hamper their resolution. Introduction Violent conflicts have been an inseparable part of human intergroup inter· action throughout hlstory \0 present times, For example, Sarkees, Wayman and Singer (2003) noted that just from 1816 to 1997 there have been 0 total of 401 WOts (79 Interstate, 214 civil and 108 extra·state that involved an actor that is not a state), bringing us to a surprisingly high average of almost 22 wars per decade_ Sarkees and colleagues also pointed out that there have been more wars In the twentieth century than in the nine- teenth century. Of special interest is the study by Harbam, Hogbladh and Wallensteen (2006), which reported that out of 352 violent conflicts that erupted after the Second World War, only 144 Were concluded with peace agreements (see also Bilewlcz 8< Vollhordt, this volume). Thus, the ques· tion as to why society members in an intractable conflict have such great psychological difficulty to embark on the rood of peace is one of the most challenging Issues for human beings in general, and for social sdentists in particular. The response to this question Is very wide in scope. In the present chapter, taking a social-psychological perspective, we will try to explain the dif- f,culties in persuading society members to terminate protracted conflicts peacefully, once they have been mobilized to partidpote In them. However, we will first provide" brief conceptualization and definition of conflicts in general, and intergroup intractable conflicts in particular. Intergroup conflicts There are various definitions of a conflict situation (see Coleman, 2003; Kriesberg, 2007; Pruitt & Rubin, 1986; Sherif, 1967). They all focus on incompatlbillty of goals. We define a conflict as a situation in which two or more parties perceive their goals, jntentions and/or actions as being mutually incompotlble and act in accordance with thls perception (Bar· Tol, in press). This definition applies to any conflict. However, this chapter