The Other as a Nightmare: The Israeli-Arab Encounter as Reflected in Children's Dreams in

Israel and the West Bank

Author(s): Yoram Bilu
Source: Political Psychology, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Sep., 1989), pp. 365-389
Published by: International Society of Political Psychology
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Political
Psychology,
Vol.
10,
No.
3,
1989
The Other as a
Nightmare:
The Israeli-Arab
Encounter as Reflected in Children's
Dreams in Israel and the West Bank
Yoram Bilu'
More than 2000 written dream
reports
were collected
from
Jewish and Arab
fifth
to seventh
graders living
in various
settings
in Israel and the West Bank.
From this
general
dream
sample
212 encounter dreams
(dealing
with the other
side on the
manifest level)
were extracted. The content
analysis of
the dreams
supports
Calvin Hall's
"continuity hypothesis": judging from
the
prevalence
of
encounter
dreams,
their
stereotypical
characterization
of
the
other,
and
the overabundance
of aggression
and violence in their
interactions,
it
appears
that the children under
study
have
internalized the contents
of
the
conflict
as well as its
affective
tone. While the
major
axis
of comparison
is Jews vs
Arabs,
some
group
variations within each sector are noted as well. In an
attempt
to let the dreams
speak for
themselves the
presentation
is embedded
with
many
illustrations
from
the data.
KEY WORDS: Israeli-Arab
conflict; children;
dreams.
INTRODUCTION
Dreams, appearing
to be attuned to those life
aspects
which are
per-
sonal, intimate,
and
subjective,
have not been
commonly employed
to
study
the
impact
of macro-level social and
political processes
on involved individu-
als. Calvin
Hall,
a
prominent
dream
researcher,
has
given
this omission an
empirical
validation. After
studying
thousands of
dreams,
he concluded that
'Department
of
Psychology, Department
of
Sociology
and Social
Anthropology,
The Hebrew
University
of
Jerusalem,
Jerusalem
91905,
Israel.
365
0162-895X/89/0900-0365$06.00/1
?
1989 International Society of Political
Psychology
events
pertaining
to the
political sphere,
even of
paramount significance,
are
barely registered
in nocturnal
experiences (Hall, 1966:11).
But the bulk of
Hall's data was
gathered among university
students in the United States. Does
his conclusion hold true for countries like
Israel,
beset
by
a chronic and
per-
vasive violent conflict that
endangers
its
very
existence?
Some
anthropological
studies have shown that in
settings fraught
with
intergroup tension,
encounters with
representatives
of the
antagonistic group
are
amply represented
in dreams.
Among
the Yir
Yoront,
an
aboriginal group
of Northern
Australia,
dreams of Whites constituted 20% of the dream sam-
ple
collected
by Sharp
in the 1930s
(Schneider
and
Sharp, 1969).
In the dreams
of the
Mehinaku,
an Amazonian Indian
group,
more than one-third of the
dreamed assaults for both sexes were
by
Brazilian
men, "reflecting
the
deep-
seated
insecurity
that the Mehinaku have toward Whites"
(Gregor, 1981:384).
However,
studies of this
kind,
limited in
number,
are
usually enveloped
in
a much wider
context,
as
they attempt
to
encompass
the universe of dream
contents as a
whole,
without
focusing
on the
political
or
intergroup
dimen-
sion
per
se.
The effects of
political
events and concerns on children's dreams have
been
barely
studied
despite
the bounteous literature on
political
socializa-
tion
(Dennis, 1973; Greenstein, 1965; Hermann, 1986;
Hess and
Torrey, 1967;
Knutson, 1973).
In
studying
children's views of
foreign peoples (Lambert
and
Klineberg, 1967),
and their
emerging
sense of
nationality (Davies, 1973)
and
images
of the
enemy (Hesse, n.d.),
researchers have relied on
interviews,
questionnaires,
and
projective
tests rather than on dreams.
Even in
Israel,
where the
impact
of the Jewish-Arab conflict on chil-
dren has been
meticulously
examined
through
various means
(see,
for exam-
ple, Benyamini, 1969, 1981; Hofman, 1970;
Ichilov and Even
Dar, 1984;
Punamaki, 1985), only
one
study
used dreams to that end. Lewin
(1980)
com-
pared
the dreams of children
living
in two Israeli
development towns,
one
near the Lebanese
border, exposed
to
ongoing perils
of
guerrilla
attacks and
rocket
launching,
the other
safely
located in the center of the
country.
He
found that manifestations of
stress, anxiety,
and
aggression
were less fre-
quent
in the dreams of children in the first
group, indicating
in his view the
development
of a
repressive personality type
in the border town.
[A
sensi-
tive
analysis
of war-related
dreams,
told and enacted
by
Israeli students dur-
ing gestalt therapy sessions,
was done
by
Lieblich
(1978).]
The
study reported
here is an offshoot of a
large-scale investigation
of-children's dreams in Israel conducted
during
the
years
1980-1984
(Tehilla
Blumental,
Ora
Dill,
Bella
Hasal,
and Yousef
Nashef,
all
graduate
students
at the Hebrew
University
who
completed
their M. A. dissertations under
my
supervision, participated
in various
stages
of the
study.
This
paper immensely
benefited from the
insights
of Blumental and
Nashef,
whose works touched
366 Bilu
The Israeli-Arab Encounter as Reflected in Children's Dreams
directly
on Israeli and Arab encounter
dreams.)
The
participants
were 11-
to
13-year-old
children from different ethnic
groups
and residential
settings.
In
analyzing
the dreams we focused on the manifest
content, i.e.,
the dream
text as
reported,
without
delving
into the more
profound,
latent
aspects
of
the dream
(cf. Freud, 1900).
An
abridged
form of Hall and Van de Castle's
scoring
system
(1966)
was used for the
analysis
of the dream
reports.
This
reliance on manifest content reflects
methodological
constraints rather than
theoretical
preferences, given
the
paucity
of
background
information about
the dreamers we were able to collect
(see below).
It should be noted that most
of the data in the
original study
had been
gathered before
it was decided
to
pinpoint
the Israeli-Arab confrontation as a
special subject
for
investiga-
tion.
Methodologically, then,
the dream
population
(n
=
2003)
from which
manifestations of this
subject
were extracted seems to constitute a valid
gener-
al baseline.
RESEARCH POPULATION
Table I
presents
the seven
groups
of children included in the
study
ac-
cording
to ethnic
identity
-
Jews vs Arabs
-
and location of residence
-
within
the "Green Line"
(the pre-1967
borders of
Israel)
vs in the
Israeli-occupied
West Bank.
Beyond
these two main
axes,
the
groups
can be
differentially placed
on a continuum
designating
the
intensity
of the involvement with the
politi-
cal issue at
stake,
as defined
by ideological
attitude and
geographical prox-
imity
to the other side. In what follows the
major background
characteristics
of these
groups
are outlined.
Jews
Kibbutzim
204 dreams were collected from 65 children
living
in 6 kibbutzim
(pl. form)
in Southern Israel. All the kibbutzim under
study
be-
long
to the same
ideological movement, HaKibbutz
Ha'Artzi,
which is al-
lied with Israel's Socialist-Zionist United Workers
Party (Mapam).
In this
movement the
egalitarian-collectivistic
values of the kibbutz are more
strongly
preserved
than in the
other, bigger
United Kibbutz Movement
(Takam).
Unequivocally
on the left side of the
political spectrum,
this movement
recognizes
the
rights
of the Palestinians to a state of their
own,
west of the
Hashemite
Kingdom.
This
stance, together
with the relative remoteness of
367
Bilu
Table I. The
Groups
under
Study
Israel West Bank
Jewish
groups
Kibbutzim The "Bloc" settlements
Middle class
community
Urban settlement
Immigrant
town
Arab
groups
Village Refugee camp
the kibbutzim under
study
from the foci of the conflict in the West
Bank,
place
them near the moderate
pole
of the
political
continuum.
Middle Class
Community
319 dreams were collected from 113 children
living
in a town
near Tel Aviv. The town is
part
of the dense urban fabric of the
coastal zone. The
majority
of the children in this
group
come from mid-
dle class families of Ashkenazi
origin.
The
political
orientations of the
par-
ents, mostly
old timers and
professionals,
are
very heterogeneous
and
may
well
encompass
the whole
political gamut
in Israel. The
community
is locat-
ed in an all-Jewish
environment,
far removed from Arab
population.
Immigrant
Town
276 dreams
pertaining
to 75 children were
gathered
in a
big immigrant
town situated in the southern
part
of the
country.
All the children in this
group
were native Israeli of North African
(mostly Moroccan)
extraction.
Their
parents
came to Israel with their families
during
the 1950s and the ear-
ly 1960s,
as
part
of the massive exodus from the Muslim orbit to the new
Jewish state. Most of the
parents belong
to the
working
class or lower-middle
class.
Politically
this
particular profile
of socioeconomic and ethnic back-
ground
variables is
typical
of the
right-of-center
Likkud
party supporters.
While
safely
within the "Green
Line,"
the town is less remote than the form-
er settlements from concentrations of Arab
populations
in Israel
(Bedouins)
and the West Bank.
The "Bloc" Settlements
360 dreams were
reported by
114 children
living
in a cluster of 11 settlements
located
beyond
the "Green Line" south of Jerusalem. These
settlements,
the
first to be established in the West Bank
following
the Six
Day War,
are situ-
ated in an ex-Jewish
region,
taken over
by
the Arabs in the 1948 War. There
is a
strong linkage
between the old and the new settlements as reflected in
368
The Israeli-Arab Encounter as Reflected in Children's Dreams
territory,
site
names,
and even
intergenerational continuity,
as some of the
new settlers are descendants of the
pre-1948
residents. The
population
of the
cluster is
quite homogeneous: Many
of the inhabitants
belong
to "Gush Emu-
nim"
("The
Bloc of the
Faithful"),
a militant nationalistic
religious
move-
ment
preaching
for Jewish
permanent presence
in all areas of the Biblical
Land of Israel. The
population
of the
region
is
exclusively Jewish, although
it is surrounded
by
Arab towns and
villages.
Urban Settlement
279 dreams were collected from 95 children in a Jewish
neighborhood
adjacent
to the Arab town of
Hebron,
in the southern
part
of the West Bank.
The first settlers
envisaged
the establishment of the
neighborhood
as the first
step
in
reviving
Jewish life in a town second
only
to Jerusalem in holiness.
The old Jewish
quarter
of Hebron was evacuated in
1929, following
a
po-
grom perpetrated by
the local Arabs. The
population
here is more
heterogene-
ous than in the
"Bloc,"
and therefore not as
"purist" ideologically, although
in recent
years
the
political weight
of the extremists
supporting
Rabbi Meir
Kahana's
ultra-rightist party ("Kach")
is more
strongly
felt. The
neighbor-
hood is situated amid dense Arab
population,
therefore contacts with Arabs
are more intense than in
any
other Jewish
group.
Arabs
Village
249 dreams were collected from 85 children
living
in one of the
biggest
Muslim Arab
villages
in
Israel,
located in the central Hinterland of the coun-
try.
In recent
years rapid processes
of modernization and urbanization have
corroded the traditional
organization
of life in the
village,
based on the
sovereignty
of the
patriarchal
extended
family
and on the reliance on small-
scale
agriculture.
A
large
number of male adults have
quit farming
for more
lucrative
jobs
in the
neighboring
Jewish urban
settings. Although
at the time
of the
study
the
village
was a
stronghold
of the anti-Zionist Communist
Party,
the Jews constitute a
significant
reference
group
for the
villagers
in domains
concerning lifestyle
and standards of
living.
Refugee Camp
316 dreams were
gathered
from 94 children
living
in a
refugee camp
near
Ramalla,
north of Jerusalem. Most of the old members of the 600 fa-
369
370
Table II. Numbers of Dreamers and Dreams
According
to Gender
and Ethnic
Background
Males Females Total Arabs Jews
Dreamers 292 352 644 179 465
Dreams 853 1150 2003 565 1438
milies here are
refugees
who fled their
villages
near
Jerusalem, Jaffa,
and
Ramleh
during
the 1948 War. The
camp
is
administratively
run and finan-
cially supported by
the United Nation Relief and Welfare
Agency (UNR-
WA).
In terms of social
organization, family
structure and
size, gender
relations,
and
religious
observance the
camp
is more
traditionally
oriented
than the
village.
The adversities of
daily
life in the
camp, coupled
with the
stigma
attached to the
refugee status,
increase the
solidarity
and radicaliza-
tion of its inhabitants and make it the
setting
of a constant turbulence.
Table II
presents
the overall number of the
participants
in the
study
(dreamers)
and their dreams
according
to
gender
and ethnic
background.
METHOD
The
populations
studied were
composed
of fifth to seventh
graders
who
were addressed in their local schools. The children were
given special
"dream
notebooks" with the instruction to write down
up
to four dreams in their
free
time,
at
home, preferably
after
waking.
The
objective
of the
study
was
presented
as an
attempt
to learn about children's lives
through
their dreams.
No allusion was made to
any specific content,
let alone Jewish-Arab encoun-
ters. As mentioned
before,
the decision to extract this
type
of material was
made after most of the data had been collected. While the schools served
as the
settings
for
circulating
the notebooks and
collecting
them back 4 to
8 weeks
later,
a
special
effort was made to minimize the school administra-
tion's involvement with the
project.
The children were not
required
to write
down their names or
any
other
personal
information
except age (grade)
and
sex. The
option
to remain
anonymous,
introduced to minimize the need to
distort or eliminate
unflattering
dream
reports, practically
determined the
level of
analysis
in this
study.
Sensitive
in-depth interpretations striving
at
the latent contents of the dreams could not be
attempted
without the dream-
ers' associations and
personal
histories.
To
encourage participation
small
incentives,
in most cases decorated
stickers,
were
promised
to the children. In order to minimize
fabrications,
the same incentives were offered for
writing
down
"imaginary
stories" in-
stead of dreams. This alternative was
deliberately designed
for those chil-
dren who could not recall their dreams. The rate of
participation
varied from
Bilu
The Israeli-Arab Encounter as Reflected in Children's Dreams
30% to 60%. The amount of
reported
dreams
per
individual was also
quite
variable, ranging
from one to seven
dreams,
with a mean of three
per par-
ticipant.
This mean was
fairly
constant across the
groups.
In both sectors
girls
were somewhat
overrepresented among
the dreamers
(54%
of the Jew-
ish dreamers and 57% of the Arab
dreamers).
The dreams of the Arab children were collected
by
an Israeli-Arab
research assistant who later translated them into Hebrew. The translations
were
thoroughly
examined
by
another
bilingual
assistant. The collection of
the dreams in the
camp
school was
sponsored by UNRWA;
therefore the
first assistant's affiliation with the Hebrew
University
remained unknown
to the
participants
there.
Relying
on Hall and Van de Castle's
scoring system (1966),
the
major
manifest content variables examined included the
settings
or locations of a
given dream,
the
objects
and human characters that inhabited
it,
the nature
of the interactions between the
characters,
and the dream outcome in terms
of success/failure and
good
fortune/misfortune.
For the
purpose
of the
present study
we extracted from the
general
dream
sample
all those dream
reports,
hereafter
designated
encounter
dreams,
which dealt on the manifest level with the "other side."
Typically
these
reports
involved an interaction
(or interactions)
with one or more charac-
ters. A few dreams
may
be considered borderline cases as
they
did not refer
explicitly
to Jews or Arabs. Such dreams were taken as
germane
to the
study
when a reference to the other side could
easily
be inferred from the context
of the dream
plot.
Thus dreams of Jewish children in which the
protagonists
crossed the border between Israel and a "hostile
country"
or were
exposed
to an air raid conducted
by Mig fighters (found
in the air forces of
neigh-
boring
Arab
countries)
were included in the
study,
whereas dreams
general-
ly referring
to "wars" or
"gangsters kidnapping
children" were not.
It
might
be
argued
from a
psychodynamic perspective that,
since dis-
guise
is
ubiquitous
in the dream work as Freud
(1900)
has so
ingeniously
demonstrated,
some
dreams,
unrelated to the
subject
under
study
on the
manifest
level, may
still
represent
it in a
symbolic, displaced
manner. From
the same
perspective, however,
the
opposite argument
lends itself more easi-
ly, namely,
that an
overtly political
dream
report may
stand for an
altogether
different dream
thought.
The first
process
is
exemplified hypothetically by,
say,
a dream of an Arab child in which an imminent Israeli
aggression,
too
terrifying
to be allowed
expression,
is
displaced
onto a clash with a wild
animal. The inverse
process may
be
represented by
a
repressed hostility
toward
the father translated in the dream into a violent confrontation with an Israe-
li soldier. Given our adherence to the manifest contents of the dreams as
well as the reliance on written
reports,
assembled
collectively
without the
dreamers'
identifications, beckgrounds,
and
associations,
the
possibilities
un-
derlying
both
arguments
could not be
exploited
in this
study.
371
It should be mentioned in
passing, however,
that some dreams did
ap-
pear
to lend
support
to the
"displacement hypothesis."
In these dreams the
political
relevance of
seemingly
neutral dream elements became more evi-
dent as their
symbolic meanings
unfolded with the
progress
of the
plot.
Thus
a
boy
from one of the Bloc
settlements, attempting
in his dream to flee from
the
persecutions
of a band of
crows,
stumbled
upon
an Arab worker who
tried to block his
way.
The association between the birds and the human
adversary may
be deduced from the Hebrew
word-play
orvim
(crows)-aravim
(Arabs).
A similar association
may
be found in a dream of another
boy
from
the same locale who discovered a
big
slice of Arab bread after the
evening
prayer (Arvit)
and took it with him because he was
assigned
the role of an
Arab
(Aravi)
in a
play performed by
his
youth
movement. Without the ex-
plicit
references to Arabs at the ends of both dreams
they
would not have
been
included,
of
course,
in the
sample.
In what follows the
major
features of the 212 encounter dreams ex-
tracted from the
general
dream
population
are
depicted.
The discussion
centers,
somewhat
selectively,
on the
following
themes: the
prevalence
and
salience of encounters with the other side in the dream-lives of the
children;
the
images
of Arabs and Jews as
portrayed
in the
dreams;
and the nature
and
patterns
of dream interactions. In an
attempt
to let the dreams
speak
for themselves the
presentation
is interlaced with
many
illustrations from
the data.
THE PREVALENCE OF ENCOUNTER DREAMS
Table III
presents
the
frequencies
of encounter dreams in
percentages
for
boys
and
girls
in each of the
groups.
Since most dreamers in the
general population reported
more than one
dream,
the table includes two
separate, though closely
related sets of results:
(a)
the
percentage
of dreamers from a
given group
who
reported
at least one
encounter
dream, (b)
the
percentage
of such dreams.
The results
clearly
show that on both measures Arab children were more
preoccupied
with Jews in their dreams than Jewish children were with Arabs.
Almost
every
second child in the Arab sector
(composed
of the two Arab
groups) reported
at least one encounter
dream,
as
against every
fifth child
in the Jewish sector. Nineteen
percent
of the dreams of the Arab children
were encounter
dreams,
as
against
7% of the dreams on the Jewish side. Arabs
reported slightly
more encounter dreams
(n
=
110)
than Jews
(n
=
102)
despite
their
significantly
smaller
representation
in the entire dream
popula-
tion
(less
than
30%;
see Table
II).
372 Bilu
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TABLE III.
Frequencies
of Encounter Dreams (in
percentages)
Jews: kibbutzim m.c.
community immigrant
town The Block
dreamers dreams dreamers dreams dreamers dreams dreamers dreams
Boys
9 3 8 4 30 11 19 8
Girls 22 7 13 5 20 6 18 5
Totala 15 5 11 4 23 7 18 6
Urban
Community
Arabs:
village Refugee camp
dreamers dreams dreamers dreams dreamers dreams
Boys
33 14 39 16 59 30
Girls 29 11 31 11 54 26
Totala 31 12 34 13 56 28
aWeighted averages.
As Table III
shows,
there is a wide
variability
in the
prevalence
of en-
counter dreams accross the seven
groups.
The involvement with the other side
is lowest in the dreams of Jewish children from the middle class
community
and the kibbutzim. It is somewhat
higher, though surprisingly moderate,
in
the Bloc settlements located in the West Bank. The children there
reported
fewer encounter dreams than their
counterparts
in the
immigrant town,
within
the "Green Line." This
pattern may
be related to the actual
paucity
of con-
tacts with Arabs in the all-Jewish enclave of the Bloc. Arab
presence
is most
stongly
felt in the urban settlement
where, indeed,
more encounter dreams
are
reported
than in
any
other Jewish
group.
The Arab children in the Israeli
village
were as
preoccupied
with the
other side in their dream-lives as the Jewish children from the urban settle-
ment. About one-third of the dreamers in these
groups reported
at least one
encounter dream. The salience of these dreams is most
strongly
manifested
in the
refugee camp
where
every
third to fourth
report
was an encounter
dream. Since in this
group
more than half of the children had at least one
such
dream,
it
may
not be an
exaggeration
to conclude that
they
were almost
obsessively preoccupied
with Jews in their dream-lives.
The
pervasiveness
of this
preoccupation
is indicated also
by
the rate
of dreamers in each
group
who
reported
two or more encounter dreams. In
the Jewish
groups
this rate was
scanty: only
10
dreamers,
half of whom were
residents of the West Bank urban
community,
have
reported
two such dreams
each
(none
has
reported
more than two
dreams).
The Israeli Arab children
have also maintained a low level of
multiple
dream
reports (four dreamers).
But with the
refugee camp
children there was a dramatic rise in this
pattern:
more than half of the dreamers with encounter dreams have
reported
two
or more such dreams. Five children had three encounter dreams
each,
and
one
boy
had four dreams.
Thus,
involvement with the other side was not
only
most extensive in the
camp
but also most
profound.
As indicated in Table
III,
there is an interaction between male to fe-
male ratio of encounter dreams and the
general prevalence
of such dreams
in the
group.
Where this
prevalence
was low
(middle
class
community
and
kibbutzim), girls provided
more encounter dreams than
boys;
but as the
groups
became more
strongly
involved with the other
side,
this
tendency
was
reversed. These
contrasting
trends tend to
equilibrate
so that across the Jew-
ish
groups
the overall rate of involvement of
boys
with Arabs in their dream-
lives
(20% dreamers;
8% encounter
dreams)
was
very
similar to that of the
girls (20% dreamers;
7% encounter
dreams).
In the Arab sector
boys
were
overrepresented
on both
measures,
but the differences were not
striking (49%
dreamers and 24% dreams for the
boys;
42% dreamers and 16% dreams
for the
girls).
374 Bilu
The Israeli-Arab Encounter as Reflected in Children's Dreams
IMAGES AND STEREOTYPES
Arabs and Jews
appeared
in each other's dreams
stripped
of
any per-
sonal characterizations that would delineate them as distinctive individuals.
Of the 212 encounter dreams
only two, pertaining
to Jewish
dreamers,
in-
cluded nominal identification of the other side. In one
report
the
dreamer,
a Jewish
girl
from the middle class
community,
was
kidnapped
for ransom
by
someone who identified himself as Halim Jabbi
(an
Arabic
name);
in the
other
report
a
boy
from the
Bloc,
while
striving
to cross the border back
from
Syria
to
Israel,
confronted a
group
of Arabs led
by
Yasir Arafat. The
common
designations employed by
the dreamers were ethnic
(Jews
vs
Arabs),
national
(Syrians
and
Egyptians
but not Palestinians vs Israelis and
Zionists),
and
occupational (Arab garbagemen,
construction
workers,
and
supermar-
ket
employees
in the Jewish dreams vs. Jewish soldiers and
policemen
in the
Arab
dreams).
Terms which are value laden and
derogative,
such as "ter-
rorists,"
"the Jewish
oppressors,"
"Zionist
usurpers," "imperialists,"
were also
amply used, particularly by
the Arab children in the
refugee camp.
As
against
the
unhesitant,
sometimes rude and lavish
employment
of these
depreciato-
ry
labels
by
the latter
(cf. Patai, 1973),
the Jewish children
appeared
more
restrained and subtle in their
portrayals
of Arabs. In some of their dreams
the
negative
connotations attributed to the word Arab were disclosed
through
its facile association with criminals and
delinquents.
A
boy
from the urban settlement
opened
his dream
report:
"I lived in
an Arab town full of criminals." Another
boy
from the
immigrant
town
described how in his dream he went to
buy
a soft drink in a
grocery
store
and was
caught
there
"by
two
guys,
an Arab and a
gangster."
The associa-
tion between Arabs and
profligate
behavior was
naively
envisioned
by
a kib-
butz
girl:
"The terrorists are
coming...they kidnap
the children of the class
and
put
us all in
jail,
and
they
force us to smoke
cigarettes
and to consume
drugs
and alcohol."
Such associations
may
have led a
boy
from the urban settlement to im-
ply
that the moral
gap
between Jews and Arabs is related to the
knowledge
of Hebrew. In his dream the
police
seized two Arab criminals and
sought
to transform them into
law-abiding
citizens. The dreamer volunteered to
'tame' them:... "and I
began
to educate
them,
and I
taught
them to write
Hebrew until
they
became decent human
beings,
and
they
were released and
didn't make
any
troubles
any
more." This cultural domestication has found
a more direct
expression
in another
report
of a
boy
from the same
settlement who saw in his dream an Arab and his son
standing wrapped
in
prayer
shawls. The dreamer found out that
they
were
converting
to
Judaism.
375
When facial
expressions
of Arabs and Jews were described
by
Jewish
and Arab
children, respectively, they
tended to be
grim, tough,
and
fright-
ening.
In
contrast,
a
girl
from the urban settlement
questioned
in her dream
an Arab
girl
who chased her: ..."but
you, maybe you
are Jewish? I see that
you
have such a
gentle
face." An Arab
boy
from the
refugee camp
attribut-
ed the
gracious
facial
expression
to his fellow men.
Having
dreamed of the
ultimate battle between the Arabs and the
Jews,
he found out that "the faces
of the Muslims were
effulgent
due to their faith."
Colors, particularly
black and
white, played
a role in
building
the stereo-
typical images
of the other side. In
apocalyptic
dreams like the
latter,
Mus-
lim Arab dreamers dressed the infidel Jews in
black,
while the Muslim
warriors' moral
superiority
and
piety
were demonstrated
through
their white
garments. Contradistinctively,
for Jewish children black and Arab were eas-
ily linked, probably
because of the
relatively
dark skin of the latter.
As
might
be
expected, stereotypical images appeared
most
profusely
in the dreams of residents of the West Bank from both sectors.
THE NATURE OF INTERACTIONS IN ENCOUNTER DREAMS
Given the harsh
political reality
to which children in Israel and the West
Bank are
exposed,
it is not
surprising
that hostile interactions dominated the
scenes of encounter dreams. Yet the
scope
and
intensity
of this trend are over-
whelming.
The dreams were redolent with
aggression, appearing
in about
90%o of the
interactions,
while acts of friendliness are rare birds indeed
(4%o).
Against
this
huge asymmetry [According
to Hall and Van de Castle's norms
(1966:171, 176),
the
proportions
of
aggression
and friendliness in adult males
were not
markedly
different
(0.47
and
0.38, respectively). Among
their fe-
male dreamers the
proportions
of these two interactions were almost
equal
(0.44
and
0.42, respectively)]
the
major patterns
of encounter dream interac-
tions will be discussed in detail.
Aggression
in Encounter Dreams
In accord with Hall's
"continuity hypothesis" (Hall
and
Nordby, 1972),
aggressive
interactions were informed
by
and modelled on the actual vio-
lence that fuels the Israeli-Arab conflict. The basic structural features of these
interactions
similarly
recurred in all
groups, irrespective
of
ethnicity
and
residence. Rather than
taking
the role of detached
observers,
the dreamers
in both sectors were
actively
involved in the
aggressive
interactions.
They
tended to
perceive
themselves as the victims of
aggression, usually
initiated
against
them
by
adults. In most cases the
aggression
escalated to
high
levels
of
violence,
as
assailants,
whether initiators or
retaliators, sought
to inflict
physical injury
and death
upon
their adversaries. Given these basic charac-
376 Bilu
The Israeli-Arab Encounter as Reflected in Children's Dreams
teristics,
it is not
surprising
that
many
of the encounter
plots
bore distinctive
nightmarish qualities.
From this common matrix
aggression
took different routes
in Jewish and Arab dreams. Variations were also noted within each sector.
Aggression
in Jewish Children's Dreams
The Jewish
dreamer,
as a
rule, perceived
himself and his dream-
companions
as the
recipients
of
aggression,
levelled at them
by
Arab
per-
petrators
without
any provocation
on their
part.
While in some cases of mutu-
al
aggression (e.g., war)
the
instigator
could not be
identified, only
one Jewish
dream
report explicitly
deviated from this
pattern.
A
boy
from the urban
settlement dreamed that
he, together
with a
group
of
policemen,
bombard-
ed the
adjacent neighborhood
with a small cannon. When their commander
arrived on the
scene,
the
policemen
hurried to conceal their
weapon (which
they
used
illegally).
The
dreamer, however,
not as deft as the
others,
was
caught,
and his innocent
parents
were arrested. The toll of the
assault,
esti-
mated at 400 dead and
wounded,
seemed
exaggerated
to the dreamer: "It's
impossible!
We killed and wounded 20 at the most." Even this one
excep-
tional
dream, however,
was a case in
doubt,
since the identification of the
victims as
Arabs, strongly
indicated from the dream
context,
was not made
explicitly.
The sheer lack of self-initiated assaults in the dreams of the Jewish chil-
dren is
congruent
with the Israeli
deep-seated
view of the Arab
side, particu-
larly
the Palestine Liberation
Organization,
as the source and
perpetrator
of violence
(cf.
Zonis and
Offer, 1985).
In
addition,
the visible
presence
of
the
military
and other
security forces, designed
to handle Arab
violence, may
spill
over to dreams and deem such
spontaneous
initiatives
dispensable (and,
in
fact, illegal
and
punishable,
as indicated
by
the former "aberrant" dream
illustration.
Incidentally,
the urban settlement where this dream was
reported
also
gave
rise to its actual
counterpart,
the militant Jewish
Underground
in
the West
Bank).
Across the Jewish
groups,
the
typical
context of violent dream interactions
was an Arab terrorist attack
(58%o
of the encounter
dreams).
These attacks
were often launched at the children in locations
normally
deemed bounded
and safe such as the dreamer's
house,
his
neighborhood,
and his school. In
other dreams the hostile interactions were distanced from the dreamer's
familiar
territory, occurring
either in its immediate
proximity, e.g., "beyond
the entrance
gate"
or
"beyond
the fence" in some dreams from the West
Bank
settlements,
or far
away,
near or across the border with an Arab coun-
try.
In both locations the sense of
vulnerability
was exacerbated
by
the fact
that the assaults found the dreamers without the
protective
cover of their
parents
or other adults. The link between
reality
and dreams was manifested
when
places
like
Misgav
Am and Ma'alot in Northern
Israel,
the scenes of
377
notorious Arab terrorist attacks on
children,
were
incorporated
as the set-
tings
of violent dream interactions.
Notwithstanding
these
startling features,
the
typical
violent dream in
the Jewish
group
did not
develop
into a
nightmare
as the terrorist assault
was not left unanswered. An effective
retaliation,
mounted
by
the dreamer
or
by
others
coming
to his rescue
(e.g., friends, parents, soldiers), changed
the
picture
and sealed the dream with a sense of
relief,
if not a
happy
end.
In terms of
outcomes,
success and
good
fortune
clearly
outnumbered failure
and misfortune as the
consequences
of
aggressive
confrontations in Jewish
dreams: The
assailing
terrorists were
eventually
killed or
captured,
while the
dreamers and their
companions, although
not
spared
a
tantalizing ordeal,
were
eventually
saved.
A few dream summaries illustrate this
typical pattern:
Terrorists force their
way
into the
apartment. Dreamer, equipped
with knife and
bottle,
attacks one of them and retrieves his
gun.
He shoots another
terrorist;
the others
run
away
but
get caught by
the
police.
Dreamer receives an award for his
courage
(boy,
middle class
community).
One-eyed terrorist,
dressed in
black, penetrates
into the
apartment
and tries to
poi-
son dreamer and friends. Father fails to rescue
them,
but before the intruder carries
out his lethal
plan
he is killed
by
the
police (girl,
m.c.
community).
Three terrorists in a car sneak into the kibbutz.
They
hit the
sentry
at the
gate
and
a few other
members,
but the other kibbutzniks seize their rifles and kill two of the
assailants. The third terrorist takes the dreamer's friend as a
hostage
but is killed
by
dreamer
(boy, kibbutz).
A
group
of terrorists take hold of the children house. Dreamer and classmates es-
cape through emergency
exits and summon the adults who exterminate the invaders
(girl, kibbutz).
While on a
bus,
in a
journey,
dreamer and classmates are taken
hostage by
terrorists
but
manage
to
escape.
Dreamer and friend hide on
top
of the
bus,
then
jump
on
their assailants and wound one of them.
Everyone praises
their feat of
bravery (girl,
immigrant community).
Terrorists
penetrate
the settlement.
Dreamer,
alone at home with his little
sister,
sneaks
to his father's
room,
finds his rifle and uses it to disarm the invaders. He ties them
and calls the
security
forces
(boy,
the
Bloc).
A
young
woman is
kidnapped by
Arabs in Ma'alot.
By diverting
their attention dreamer
assists the
police
in
rescuing
the
kidnapped
woman and
capturing
the terrorists
(girl,
urban
settlement).
Another
type
of violence
perpetrated by terrorists,
more insidious than
the
former,
but no less
menacing,
involves the
setting up
of
camouflaged
detonating explosives
in
public places.
The
apprehension
of
"suspicious
ob-
jects,"
so
conspicuous
in Israel's
daily reality, permeated
the dreams of Jew-
ish children in all
groups, except
the more insulated kibbutzim
(12%
of the
encounter
dreams).
In accord with actual
cases,
the dream
plots
took
place
in
schools, department stores, buses, parking lots, theaters,
and houses. As
378 Bilu
The Israeli-Arab Encounter as Reflected in Children's Dreams
in the former context of
violence, however,
the
potentially
disastrous conse-
quences
of the terrorist acts
usually
did not
materialize,
as the
explosives
were defused on time in most
dreams,
often with the active
help
of the dream-
er. Some children involved in both
types
of violence received some
prize
at
the end of their dreams-a
special award, public praise
and
exposure
to the
mass
media,
even a vacation abroad
(see
first and fifth illustrations
above)-
for their brave and
ingenious
behavior
during
the incidents.
By adding
to
the
auspicious
outcomes of the
dreams,
these
epilogues may
have further
divested them of their initial
scary qualities.
To
conclude,
dreams of
aggression
in the Jewish sector were often con-
structed as
two-stage
dramas.
They typically
commenced as a
gruesome
ex-
perience
in which the dreamer was the
recipient
of an
unprovoked
assault
initiated
by
an adult
adversary.
In three out of four dreams in both violent set-
tings, however,
the
problem
was
resolved,
the tension
relieved,
as the terror
instigated by
the assailant was met with more
effective,
and no less fero-
cious,
countermeasure. This reversal of
passive
to active
(cf. Freud, 1920:16)
indicates that the Jewish dreamers were able to retain a sense of
security
and
mastery
vis-a-vis the adversities around them. As
agitated
as
they
were
by
these
perils
-a fact that was
amply
documented in the dreams
-
they
were
not overcome
by
them. This
general pattern
holds true for both sexes across
the Jewish
groups; but,
in accord with
traditionally perceived gender
differ-
ences,
the
positive
shift in the
boys'
dreams was
usually self-propelled,
while
in the
girls'
dreams it tended more often to be mediated. In other
words,
girls
were more
dependent
than
boys
on the assistance of adults to avert the
violence aimed at them.
In about one-fourth of the
aggressive
interactions in both
settings
the
abrupt
alteration
marking
the transformation of ordeal into deliverance and
relief was
absent,
and the
recipients
of the assaults
finally
became their vic-
tims. The
following
summarized
examples
illustrate these unrelieved dreams.
Arabs
kidnap
dreamer and friend.
They bring
them to a dark hideout and cut off
their arms and
legs.
The
girls
are
crying
for
help,
but to no avail
(girl,
urban
settlement).
Dreamer and friend leave the main
road,
outside the settlement. Arabs chase
them,
capture
the dreamer and kill her
(girl,
the
Bloc).
That these two
examples
were taken from the dreams of the West Bank
settlers is
hardly
accidental.
Although
the
general patterns
outlined above
apply
to all Jewish
groups,
it
appears
that children
living beyond
the "Green
Line,"
particularly girls, pay
a
higher psychological
toll for their
stronger
involvement with the conflict and its hazards. The
only
dream
report
in the
Jewish sector in which
aggressive
interaction resulted in the dreamer's death
(outlined above)
involved a
girl
from the Bloc settlements. The
only
two
dreams in which
explosives yielded
disastrous results were
reported by
chil-
dren of the West Bank
groups. Following
the
logic
of rare-zero differentials
379
(LeVine, 1973), pertinent
to
comparative intergroup research,
these occur-
rences, meager
as
they were,
seem
significant
because
they
failed to
appear
in
any
other Jewish
group.
In the same
vein,
two lucid dreams
unique
to
girls
from the settlements alluded to the
stronger
sense of
vulnerability
of
the West Bank
groups.
In one of these dreams the dreamer noticed a
pair
of
scary eyes gazing
at her. She could not
identify
the
gazer
but heard him
saying,
"ruh min hon"
("go away,"
in
Arabic). Horrified,
she ran
away
to
her father who calmed her down: "It's
only
a dream." In the second
report
the
dreamer, deeply asleep,
found herself surrounded
by
Arabs dressed in
red. Her
grandmother,
who was
coming
to
assuage her,
was herself assailed
by
one of the Arabs. The
trembling
dreamer's screams were met with the
grandmother's
derisive
response: "Oh, you
and
your
dreams."
Summoning
these
relief-restoring
dream
epilogues,
which serve to alleviate the dreamers'
horrors
by asserting
their
oneiric,
unreal
nature,
seem to stem from
deep-
seated, recurring
fears. These fears imbued the
dreams, despite
their final
reassuring messages,
with vivid
nightmarish qualities.
Another dream
report
of a
girl
from the urban settlement
dramatically
demonstrates these
quali-
ties,
even
though
the assailant's murderous
attempt
was not consummated.
The dreamer's mother has
disappeared
in Hebron.
Looking
for
her,
the dreamer is
seized
by
someone who takes her to his house and
attempts
to stab her. She screams
at him: 'Don't
you
touch me. Take off
your knife;
I am not
afraid,
I have faith in
God;
I will die as a
martyr.'
She
begins
to recite the 'Shema Yisrael'
('Hear,
Oh Is-
rael',
the
prayer every
Jew is
supposed
to utter at his
deathtime),
then the knife
drops
off the assailant's
hand,
and the dreamer is reunited with her mother.
As shall be seen
below, dying
as a
martyr,
a theme unencountered in
other Jewish
dreams, appeared
in a few Arab dreams as well.
Particularly
in the urban
settlement,
situated amid dense Arab
popula-
tion,
the stress inherent in close contacts with
potential
foes was
strongly
felt.
Being exposed
to the Arabs'
menacing gaze,
for
example,
was a recur-
ring
theme
unique
to female dreamers from this
group,
and
dangerous
en-
counters with Arab workers-on the
street,
in the
supermarket,
even at
home-were most
prevalent
in this
group.
Aggression
in Arab Children's Dreams
In the dreams of the Arab children the basic
pattern
of dreamer-as-
victim, although
dominant in
aggressive interactions,
was not as exhaustive
as in the Jewish
groups.
In 17% of the
reports
the dreamers or their com-
panions
assaulted the Jews without
any
immediate
provocation.
It is
likely,
however,
that from these dreamers'
point
of view their
aggression
was deemed
a
legitimate
retaliation to what
they perceive
as a
long-lasting oppression.
Beyond
this
commonality,
the
aggressive
encounters in the dreams of the
Arab children in the Israeli
village
and the
refugee camp
were
markedly
dis-
380 Bilu
The Israeli-Arab Encounter as Reflected in Children's Dreams
similar in
prevalence
and
content;
therefore
they
are examined
separately
for each
group.
Starting
with the
refugee camp children,
I have
already
mentioned their
preoccupation
with Jews in their dream
reports.
The nature of this involve-
ment is
painfully
clear:
unmitigated hostility, evidently
nurtured
by
the tur-
bulent events in the West Bank in recent
years,
dominated all the encounter
dreams of this
group
without
exception.
In most of these
reports
the
aggres-
sion was
brutally physical, resulting
in death on either side in
every
fourth
dream. Seven dreamers
(three boys
and four
girls)
found their own death
in their
dreams,
sometimes as
martyrs (sha'idin)
in a Muslim
holy
war
(Ji-
had),
as
against
one such case in the entire Jewish
population.
What were
the main courses that this violent
hostility
took?
In more than half of the
aggressive
interactions the dreamers
depicted
themselves as victims of terror and
violence, mainly instigated by
Israeli sol-
diers. Unlike the
parallel
Jewish dream
pattern
discussed
above,
the dreamers-
as-recipients
of
aggression usually
failed to retaliate.
Typically
the dream
plots, evolving
in the
stormy
context of such events as
demonstrations, strikes,
and
curfews,
took
place
in the dreamer's own
territory
-
the
house,
the
school,
the
camp
at
large-the
boundaries of which were
easily
dissolved
by
the
ag-
gressors. Support
of fathers or other
authority figures
was almost nonexis-
tent
during
these
plights.
The resultant tone was therefore one of
insecurity,
vulnerability,
and unrelieved
anxiety.
The dreamers were
harrassed, expelled,
arrested, beaten, injured,
or killed. The
following stenographic
dream
reports
illustrate these
horrifying experiences, equally
shared
by
Arab
boys
and
girls.
Boys:
Israeli
army
attacks at
night.
The house is surrounded. Brother is
put
in
jail,
where
he is
severely
beaten.
Two
12-year-old settlers,
armed with
guns, put
dreamer in
chains,
intimidate and
beat him.
Zionist
army
at home. The soldiers make a search but find
nothing. Helped by
a
neighbor-informer they
come back and find dreamer and relatives
hiding
in the closet.
Curfew in
camp.
Dreamer hides in a
quarry.
A soldier aims his
gun
at him. He throws
himself on the
ground, gets
hit
by
a
bullet,
but
manages
to
escape.
Israel and Sa'ad Haddad
(the
late commander of the
Army
of Southern
Lebanon)
come to
slaughter
the
people
of the
camp.
The blood flows in the streets like rivers.
Girls:
An
imperialist (Israeli soldier)
enters school. Dreamer stabs him with scissors. He
shoots
her,
and she dies as a sha'ida
(martyr).
Jews torture the
people.
Brother
gets
hit. Dreamer tries to
help
him but is herself
wounded in the head. The soldiers seize her and she wakes
up
in fear.
Soldiers shoot at demonstrators near Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock. The bullets shower
upon
the demonstrators like rain.
381
Israeli soldiers enter dreamer's home.
They
kill her
parents
and are about to kill her
as well when she wakes
up
in terror.
Jews force their
way
into the house.
They
take with them the male members of the
family
who
spend
the
night
in
jail.
Later
they
have to
pay
a
heavy
fine.
These dream
reports
seem to
convey
the idea that the Israeli soldier
has become the
nightmare
of the Palestinian children in the
camp.
As mentioned
before,
dreams of
unprovoked assault, entirely
absent
from the Jewish
reports, appeared
in both
groups
of Arab
children, though
in lower
frequency
than the traumatic dreams discussed above. These dreams
were
usually
more successful in outcome than the former dreams-and also
more
brutal,
as the
following examples
show.
Boys
Dreamer stabs an Ashkenazi (here an ultraorthodox
Jew).
He is arrested but
manages
to
escape.
He kills with his knife those who chase him.
Dreamer and
family becomefedayyin (freedom fighters). They
kill 10
soldiers,
take
their uniforms and
weapon,
and harrass the
enemy.
Girls
Dreamer shoots an Israeli soldier to death
during
a violent
demonstration,
but
gets
caught.
Dreamer sets a tire on fire to block the
army's
advance and throws stones at soldiers.
Her sister does not
keep
her mouth
shut,
and her activities are revealed. Father
apolo-
gizes
before the commander and beats her
up.
A
policeman
asks dreamer for bread. She
poisons him, usurps
his
gun,
and kills the
Israeli
conquerers. Eventually
she becomes the
governess
of Arab Palestine.
The last
report overlaps
with a third
type
of
aggressive encounters,
nonexistent in
any
other
group,
which
may
be
designated compensatory
dreams. In these future-oriented dreams the
emergence
of an
independent
Palestinian state was
envisioned,
often
following
a heroic and victorious clash
with the Jews. In some of these
dreams,
imbued with Muslim
religious
apocalyptic overtones,
the ultimate battle was broadened in
scope
to become
a
regional,
or even a world
war, involving Iraq, Iran, European nations,
and
the United States. Needless to
say,
these dreams were uncommon in their
optimistic
tone and desirable outcomes.
The three
types
of
aggressive
dreams are interrelated and form a
psy-
chological unity.
Whereas the
ongoing
adversities to which
they
are
exposed
stir in the
refugee camp
children acute sensations of
terror, panic,
and
help-
lessness,
reflected in the traumatic
dreams, they
also
instigate unmitigated
rage
and
hatred,
as well as an intense wish to
avenge, brutally expressed
in
the assault dreams.
Compensatory dreams,
in
particular, may
be conceived
as
wish-fulfilling fantasies, lulling
the children from
present
insurmounta-
ble
predicaments
to the comforts of an ideal future.
382 Bilu
The Israeli-Arab Encounter as Reflected in Children's Dreams
In the dreams of the Israeli Arab children
aggression
decreased in
quan-
tity
and
quality.
While
aggressive
interactions with Jews
persisted
here in
the same
patterns
of dreamer-as-victim and
dreamer-as-assailant,
in almost
half of the encounters the
adversary
was a
policeman
rather than a soldier.
Clearly,
this
permutation
softened the
political
overtones of the confronta-
tion,
since some of these
interactions,
hostile as
they were,
were
directly
relat-
ed to law
violation, reflecting
the
growing
rates of
delinquent
incidents in
the
village
in recent
years.
Based
again
on events from
waking reality, hostility
was often
experienced
in this
group through humiliating
and
discriminating
behavior on the
part
of the Jews.
Thus,
when a
girl
from the
village
visited
in her dream the Northern ski resort of Mount
Hermon,
the
guard
at the
gate
asked her whether she was Jewish or Arab.
Questioning
the
legitimacy
of his
probe,
she was answered
blatantly:
"If
you
are Arab I won't let
you
in;
but if
you
are
Jewish, you may
enter in
peace."
A
boy reported
a dream
in which he and his friends were
arrested,
without
any provocation
on their
part, just
because
they
entered a
pharmacy
in the town of
Nathanyah.
Note
that in both
examples
the
settings
of the encounters were remote from the
village.
Such a
distancing, implicitly preserving
the notion of home as a safe
place,
was almost nonexistent
among
the
camp
children.
Reports following
the
pattern
of the traumatic
dreams,
in which the
dreamers were
physically
threatened
by
Israeli soldiers in their own territo-
ry,
did
appear
but were not as
prevalent
as in the former
group;
nor were
they
dominated
by
the same
degree
of
helplessness
and
impotence. Moreover,
in accord with the trend illustrated above to distance the
conflict,
some of
the more brutal scenes were located in the West Bank. The dreamers'
responses
to violent scenes there varied from detached observation
through
strong
but inactive identification to involved
participation.
But at
any rate,
the fact that these
episodes
occurred out
there,
in the "wild West
Bank,"
in-
dicates some sense of secure self
territories,
absent from the
refugee camp
sample.
In the same
vein,
it is also
significant
that in three dreams here the
aggressive
clash was
effectively
resolved
through parental intervention,
nonex-
istent in the dreams of the former
group,
and that no
reported aggressive
interaction resulted in the dreamer's death.
In recent
years
"the
Day
of the
Land," commemorating
the
expropria-
tion of Arab lands in the Galilee
by
the Israeli
authorities,
has come to
sym-
bolize for Israeli Arabs their
grievances
and
plights
under Israeli rule. It was
hardly surprising
that this
specific
date constituted the
background
of three
encounter dreams in the
village. Note, however,
how varied are the dream
plots dealing
with the event. One male dreamer associated it with the mas-
sacre in Sabra and Shatila.
Consequently
he dreamed about soldiers
forcing
their
way
into the
house, shooting
its
inhabitants,
and
setting
it on fire.
Another dream
report
also embarked on the
potentially
hostile
properties
of that
date,
but in this case the
dreamer,
a
girl, fought
back
successfully,
383
killing
one of the
assailing
soldiers. The dream culminated in a
happy
end-
ing. During
a
wedding ceremony, taking place
in the
village
on the same
day,
a
special party
was held to honor the dreamer's' feat of
bravery.
The third
dream
conveyed
a
radically
different
atmosphere:
A
general
strike and demon-
stration
commemorating
"the
Day
of the Land" were
peacefully
conducted
under the
slogan
of law and order. The
participants,
determined to
prevent
a clash with the
police,
left the
place
in
peace,
calm and content. While refu-
gee camp
children
reported
dreams akin to the first two
examples,
the third
dream was
unique
to the Israeli
Arabs,
whose reactions to the Jews were
much wider in
scope.
As
against
the similar
high
rates of violence in the dreams of both sex-
es in the
camp,
the militant tone of the conflict
among
the
village girls
was
further attenuated. In
fact,
the Israeli Arab
girls reported
more nonviolence
encounter dreams than
any
other male or female
subgroup
in both ethnic
sectors
(see below).
This
general
attenuation in
aggression
in the dream lives
of Israeli Arab children fits well with earlier studies which found that Israeli
Arabs were more favorable than West Bank Arabs towards
images
related
to Israel
(Hofman, 1974).
Friendliness in Encounter Dreams
As
against
the
ubiquity
of
aggression
in encounter
dreams,
acts of
friendliness were rare indeed.
Only
in nine
reports (4%7)
were
friendly
inter-
actions
openly expressed.
As
might
be
expected,
8 of these dreams came from
children
living
within the "Green Line": The Arab children of the
camp
and
the Jewish children of the
ideologically purist
Bloc had no nocturnal ex-
periences
of friendliness with the other side. Two dreams of
girls,
one on
each
side, expressed
a wish for a
peaceful
solution to the Israeli-Arab con-
flict. The Arab dreamer envisioned a Palestinian state in the West
Bank,
side
by
side with
Israel,
while the Jewish dreamer
depicted "peace
with the ter-
rorists" as
part
of a
pax
mundi.
The other seven dreams
reported
micro-level
friendly
interactions which
took the
following
forms:
Dreamer and friends rescue an Arab from
drowning
in a
pool (boy,
m.c.
community).
Mother
prepares
food and drink for a
thirsty
Arab worker
(girl,
m.c.
community).
Dreamer informs an Arab vendor that an Arab woman stole
something
from his store
(boy,
urban
settlement).
Dreamer
helps
a Jewish woman to fix her
car; they go together
to a
wedding
ceremo-
ny (girl,
Arab
village).
384 Bilu
The Israeli-Arab Encounter as Reflected in Children's Dreams 385
Dreamer
participates
in a
party
in Tel Aviv
(girl,
Arab
village).
Dreamer and other Arabs
join
the Jews to
fight against
the Bedouins
(girl,
Arab
village).
An Israeli soldier who leaves his
gun
in a store
gets
it back
through
dreamer
(boy,
Arab
village).
In the last two dreams the
friendly
interactions were
preceded by
scenes
of
egregious hostility.
Aside from these scarce
expressions
of
simple congeniality,
friendliness
also
appeared
as a false
facade, ostensibly
exhibited and
slyly manipulated,
in order to
gain advantage
over one's foes. On the Arab side this tactic was
used to avoid
punishment:
Dreamer and friends lavish on the soldiers who
captured
them excessive
hospitality.
When the
unsuspicious
soldiers drink the coffee served
by
the
children,
the latter
manage
to
escape (boy, village).
On the Israeli side this sham friendliness was either
employed by
the
dreamer or attributed to an Arab
assailant,
as the
following
two
examples
demonstrate:
Dreamer is called to
help
friends attacked
by
an Arab in the
school-yard. Pretending
to make
peace
between the
parties,
he attacks the Arab in
surprise. Finally
a recon-
ciliation is forced
by
the teacher
(boy,
urban
settlement).
On their
way
home from the
synagogue,
dreamer and friends are followed
by
an Arab
who
pretends
to befriend
them,
then
begins
to chase them
(girl, immigrant town).
It is
hardly surprising
that the most blatant
display
of false friendliness
ap-
peared
in a dream
report
from the
refugee camp.
A
girl
there dreamed that
a
hungry
Israeli
policeman
asked her for bread. Her
response, putatively
charitable,
was
literally venomous,
as the bread she
piously
handed him con-
tained lethal
poison.
CONCLUSIONS
Since the dreams
speak
well for
themselves, any
further
analysis might
only
detract from their
significance.
It seems
clear, however,
that if Hall's
continuity hypothesis requires
further
corroboration,
the data discussed above
provide
it
profusely.
The harsh
reality
of the conflict was
amply registered
in the children's
dreams, casting
them in its mold. Given this
spillover
from
reality
to
dream,
it
might
be
argued
that the basic
patterns
of the encounter
dreams could be
easily predicted
or
simply extrapolated
from the turbulent
political
context which
engulfs
the children. Yet the
intensity
and
pervasive-
ness of the conflict as reflected in the dreams cannot be taken for
granted
even
by
those
well-acquainted
with the situation. It is
suprising
and
upset-
ting
that
every
fifth Jewish child and almost
every
other Arab child
reported
at least one encounter
dream;
that dream characters of the other
side,
stereo-
typically perceived
and
pejoratively labeled,
were
uniformly stripped
of their
individuality,
if not their
humanness;
that 9 out of 10 encounter dreams in-
volved
aggressive interactions,
often
highly violent,
while friendliness in
dreams was almost
nonexistent;
that in the
overwhelming majority
of the
reports
the dreamer was the
recipient
of adult
aggression,
of which he was
the victim
(more
often in Arab children's
dreams)
or
eventually spared (more
often in Jewish children's
dreams).
In
sum,
the children under
study appear
to have internalized the con-
tents of the conflict as well as its affective tone. Since
today's preadolescent
dreamers are the
politicians
and soldiers of the
coming decades,
these
firm,
well-established schemes and
images,
if taken
seriously,
bode ill for the sta-
bility
and
persistence
of the conflict. Three dream
reports
of Jewish chil-
dren have
vividly captured
this sense of
tenacity by charting
an endless
plot,
a
perpetuum
mobile of chase and
run,
with Arabs and Jews cast in fixed
or alternate roles of
predator
and
prey.
The
following
illustrates this
type
of dream:
Two
terrorists,
Bedouins in red
kefiyehs,
seize the dreamer. She
manages
to
escape
and run
away
to her
home,
chased
by
the
Bedouins;
there she turns
around,
con-
fronts her
chasers,
and beats them
up. They
run
away,
but after a while become the
assailants
again.
Now she
flees,
..."and the dream
goes
on with no end."
This dismal sense of ceaseless clash was not
unique
to Jewish
groups.
No other
group
of dreamers was as
strongly pervaded by feelings
of
help-
lessness and
immobility
as the
refugee camp
children. The
following
dream
excerpt,
which does not bear
directly
on the Israeli-Arab
conflict, conveys
a
poignant allegorical depiction
of these
feelings:
I am alone in a wadi with no
beginning
and no end. I want to
go
home but I can't
move from
my place:
each
step
forward is a
step backward;
and I am scared to death.
A
huge
animal I haven't seen before confronts me. It has a lion's
head,
human
hands,
legs
of a
beast,
and bear's feet. The monster attacks me and I
try
to
escape
but I
can't,
it's
quicker.
I utter a
cry
in the
wadi,
a
cry
that almost tears the
slopes
of the
mountains-so intense it is.
The current
emphasis
on the
ways
harsh
reality
is
processed
and reflected
in the
dreams,
while in line with Hall's
theory ("continuity hypothesis")
and
method
(manifest
content
analysis), may
seem deficient from a
psychodynam-
ic
perspective.
After
all,
Freud's classical dream
theory (1900)
accords re-
cent
reality
events a
relatively
minor role in
constructing
dreams. What
shapes
the dream's
peculiar plot
is the
struggle
between two
major
forces: an un-
conscious
fantasy-wish
from the
past pressing
for
expression,
and a defense
386 Bilu
The Israeli-Arab Encounter as Reflected in Children's Dreams
system working
to
disguise
the
fantasy-wish
and accommodate it to the sen-
sory perceptual
dream
language through condensation, displacement,
dram-
tization,
and
secondary
elaboration. In this
process "day residue,"
recent
experiences
still in
consciousness, may
be
paired
with the unconscious wish
and color its
particular
dream
manifestation; yet
it is conceived of as a secon-
dary source,
unrelated to the motive force of
dreaming.
Bearing
in mind this Freudian
formulation,
it should be mentioned once
again
that the
methodological
constraints in the
reported study-the
fact that
dreams were collected without the dreamers'
names, personal
histories and
associations-made it
very
difficult to
pursue psychodynamic hypotheses.
One
particularly significant question
left unanswered involves individual
differences within
groups: e.g.,
what makes some children on both sides deviate
from the
typical all-aggressive
dream
pattern
and
indulge
in
friendly
inter-
actions?
Focusing
on commonalities rather than on
differences,
it
appears plau-
sible that the
high
levels of
hostility
and violence demonstrated in the dreams
reflect, among
other
things,
the
amplification
and
channelling
of the universal
need to have enemies
(Boyer, 1986; GAP, 1987; Volkan, 1985, 1988).
Arabs
and
Jews,
as "mutual
antagonists," may
constitute "suitable
targets
of exter-
nalization" for each other
(Volkan, 1988:32). By projecting negative,
con-
tradictory
inner
representations
on these
targets
the sense of self is
protected
and the sense of
identity
is
strengthened
and stabilized.
Another
aspect
of
dreaming
which is not addressed in this work is the
issue of the cultural
stylization
of dream contents. Given the rich literature
on the central role of culture in
shaping
dream-narratives and in constrain-
ing
their
sharing (e.g.,
von Grunebaum and
Caillois, 1966; Tedlock, 1987),
it
might
be assumed that some of the differences between the dream
reports
of Arabs and Jews
may
be attributed to distinct cultural
patterns
in
organiz-
ing
dream
experiences.
While a
systematic
examination of the cultural dimen-
sion is
beyond
the
scope
of this
work,
we noted that at least one
group
of
aggressive dreams,
the Arab children's
compensatory dreams,
constitute a
distinctive dream
genre replete
with Muslim
religious symbols.
In accord with the Biblical tradition of
concluding
a
script
with a
posi-
tive
message
of
hope
and
comfort,
the two
reports
that seal this
presenta-
tion,
one written
by
an Israeli Arab
girl
and the other
by
a Jewish
girl
from
the
immigrant town,
were the
only
dreams of macro-level
friendship, preach-
ing
for
peace
and reconciliation.
Although
the
authentic,
dream-like nature
of these
passionate messages may
be
doubted,
the vision
they convey ap-
pears particularly precious against
the
general
mood of
hostility
and insolu-
bility
that dominates the encounter dreams. The two
dreams, presented
here
in one
sequence,
should be deemed therefore a cri du coeur to
change
the
reality
which so
lavishly germinates
nocturnal
experiences
of violence and
387
terror.
(Again,
the absence of
identifying
items makes it
impossible
to ac-
count for these
exceptional reports
in terms of the dreamers'
personal
back-
grounds
and
histories.)
I dreamed that
peace prevailed
between Israel and its Arab
neighbors,
and a Pales-
tinian state was founded in the West Bank. And there was also
peace
between Pales-
tine and
Israel,
no more wars. I dreamed that the
country
was serene and secure.
We had
peace
not
only
with
Egypt
but with the whole world. War has not
recurred,
and we had
peace
with the terrorists too. Disasters have
ceased, happiness prevailed
in the world.
Peace, only peace
and
tranquility.
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