Activists in Israeli Radical Peace Organizations: Their Personal Stories About Joining and Taking Part in These Organizations Meytal Nasie, Daniel Bar-Tal, and Orit Shnaidman Tel Aviv University The present study aims to examine the personal stories of activists in radical peace organizations to understand their prejoining socialization experiences, their perception of the conflict and the changes they are trying to make, as well as the meaning of the activism for them. In-depth interviews with 16 female and male activists in 4 radical peace organizations were conducted in Israel, within the context of the Israeli- Palestinian intractable conflict. A qualitative content analysis of the interviews revealed that radical peace activists share certain prejoining socialization experiences that account for their collective activity. These include socialization in the family, social and political activities, exposure to alternative information about the conflict, and crucial life experiences. In addition, the activists share a common perception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They see it as an issue which has been repressed and disregarded by Israeli society. They share the common goal of solving the conflict peacefully and, therefore, they try to raise awareness in society of the conflictive reality. We observed that joining radical peace organizations provides activists with a new collective arena with which they can identify and in which they can act to express their unique values and beliefs, and finally adopt a new, distinctly activist identity. The findings contribute to a better understanding of peace activists’ collective action, undertaken with the knowledge that peace activists are at the forefront of attempts to make meaningful societal change. Keywords: peace activists, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, radical peace organizations, collective action Peace activists play an important role in the struggle for peace in the world (Schwebel, 2008), especially in societies involved in intrac- table conflict, 1 because they often constitute the spearhead of the peace movement. However, investigation of these activists has received rel- atively little attention. Limited research has il- luminated which members of society become peace activists and specifically, what character- istics are related to their joining and taking part This article was published Online First July 14, 2014. MEYTAL NASIE is currently a doctoral candidate at the School of Education at Tel Aviv University, Israel. Her current research focuses on the role of respect and disre- spect in intergroup conflicts through the Israeli-Palestinian case study. She is interested in constructive and obstructive socio-psychological processes in human relations, both in the general and specific context of conflict. DANIEL BAR-TAL is a Branco Weiss Professor of Re- search in Child Development and Education at the School of Education, Tel Aviv University. His research interest is in political and social psychology studying socio- psychological foundations of intractable conflicts and peace building, as well as development of political under- standing among children and peace education. He has published 20 books and over 200 articles and chapters in major social and political psychological journals, books, and encyclopedias. He served as a president of the Interna- tional Society of Political Psychology and received various awards for his work, including the Lasswell Award and the Nevitt Sanford Award of the International Society of Political Psychology and the Morton Deutsch Conflict Resolution Award of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence (Div. 48 of APA). ORIT SHNAIDMAN holds a master’s degree in social psy- chology from the Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University. In her master’s thesis, she studied the life stories of activists in radical peace organizations in Israel. WE THANK THE ANONYMOUS REVIEWERS who provided very useful comments and helped to improve the article. Meytal Nasie is grateful to the Azrieli Foundation for the Award of an Azrieli Fellowship. CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING THIS ARTICLE should be addressed to Meytal Nasie, School of Education, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel. E-mail: metalnas@post .tau.ac.il This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology © 2014 American Psychological Association 2014, Vol. 20, No. 3, 313–329 1078-1919/14/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pac0000040 313