This post returns to a theme I’ve discussed before: Events that evoke fear in the population, and the publicity given to those events, can cause conservative shifts in public attitudes and work to the advantage of right-wing politicians. In previous posts, I’ve reported on the effects of terrorist attacks and the spread of the Ebola virus. A new study by a group of Israeli and American psychologists headed by Daphna Canetti looks at the effect of reminders of the Holocaust on Israeli public opinion. As they point out, in spite of the passage of over 70 years, the collective trauma of the Holocaust is still a central component of Jewish identity, and Israeli politicians often refer to alleged “lessons” of the Holocaust.
In the first of four studies, a community sample of 57 Jewish Israelis was asked to complete a packet of questionnaires. They were randomly assigned to the Holocaust-salience condition or or one of two control groups. The Holocaust salience group was given this instruction:
Please think about the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust. What thoughts do you have about the Holocaust? Please briefly describe the emotions that you have when you think about the murder of six million Jews during the holocaust.
In one control group, they were asked to think about “your personal death” rather than the Holocaust. In a second control group, the Holocaust was replace by “severe physical pain.” Subsequently, participants were asked to what extent they defined themselves as Zionists, and filled out an 11-item questionnaire measuring support for military rather than diplomatic solutions to Israel’s conflict with Iran, i.e., “Israeli Defense Forces should strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.”
The results showed that participants in the Holocaust-salience condition showed greater support for an aggressive foreign policy than participants in either the Death or Pain conditions, and that the effect of Holocaust salience on militancy was mediated by ideological support for Zionism. That is, Holocaust salience increased endorsement of Zionism, which in turn increased support for a militant foreign policy. (Please see this previous post for an explanation of how mediation is tested.)
Experiment 2 was designed to demonstrate that thinking about the Holocaust does not inevitably increase support for warlike solutions to problems. It depends on how the Holocaust is framed. Framing refers to the way in which information is presented. It involves selecting some aspects of a situation and making them more salient. For example, people are more likely to choose to have an operation if they are told that there is a 75% chance they will live than if they are told that there is a 25% chance they will die.
In this study, participants were assigned to either the Holocaust-Jewish condition, in which the Holocaust was framed as “a crime against the Jewish people,” the Holocaust-Human condition, in which it was described as “a crime against humanity,” or the Pain control group. In addition to the previous questions, participants were asked about their willingness to compromise in order to achieve peace with the Palestinians. The results showed that only the Holocaust-Jewish frame increased support for warlike policies toward the Iranians and the Palestinians, and once again, the effect was mediated by identification with Zionism.
The final two studies attempted to bring a touch of realism to the previous laboratory experiments. On January 27, Israel celebrates Holocaust Remembrance Day. At midday, a siren goes off and everyone is asked to stop whatever they’re doing and think about the Holocaust for a minute. There are also Holocaust-themed events and programs in the mass media. In Study 3, 157 participants completed a questionnaire about their participation in Holocaust Day activities. As expected, the greater their personal participation in Holocaust Remembrance Day, the greater their support for Zionism and a militant foreign policy.
It should be noted that this study does not support the claim that participation in Holocaust Remembrance Day causes pro-war attitudes. It is equally possible that more conservative Israelis participated in more Holocaust Day activities.
Study 4 was a survey of a representative sample of 867 Israeli Jews. Although the first three studies involved temporary increases in the salience of the Holocaust, the authors were also interested in long-term exposure to Holocaust imagery. Holocaust survivors and their descendants can be expected to think about the Holocaust more often than average Israelis. Therefore, they compared a Holocaust group, consisting of Holocaust survivors, or the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, to a non-Holocaust group. The second variable was personal exposure to political violence. It was measured by asking participants whether they had suffered an injury to themselves, a family member or a friend as a result of a rocket or terror attack, or whether they had personally witnessed a terror attack or its immediate aftermath.
Neither Holocaust survival nor personal exposure to terrorism alone predicted attitudes toward war and peace, but those respondents who were both from Holocaust survivor families and had personal experience with political violence held Zionist attitudes, were more politically militant and were less willing to compromise for peace. The authors concluded that both short-term and long-term exposure to Holocaust imagery encouraged Israeli citizens to generalize from the Holocaust to Israel’s current conflicts with its neighbors, and to support aggressive military solutions to those conflicts.
It would be presumptuous of me to suggest what lessons Israelis should take from the Holocaust. However, it is not obvious that the only conclusion that follows from the Holocaust is that they should refuse to negotiate with their adversaries, or that they should engage in preemptive attacks on them. War crimes can sometimes be prevented by making peace.
In October 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech that Adolf Hitler had not intended to exterminate the Jews, but that the idea had been personally suggested to him by a Palestinian, the grand mufti of Jerusalem. His comments were denounced by Israeli historians as a lie and a disgrace, but, given his current political stance, it’s easy to see why Netanyahu would want to encourage such a belief. If Canetti’s studies are widely publicized by the Israeli media, Israelis can be forewarned about the cynical misuse of Holocaust imagery for political advantage.
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