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6 Klinische Sozialarbeit 4(Sonderausgabe) / 2008
Exposure to repeated acts of terrorism:
perspectives from an attacked community
*
Eli Somer
The beginning of the new millenni-
um has been characterized by the
emergence of a new era of glo-
bal terrorism. With approximately
3000 fatalities in New York City alo-
ne, the attacks of September, 2001
represented the largest single act
of terrorism in history. While con-
fined mostly to the Middle East be-
fore 2001, the Al Quaida attack on
the USA marked the beginning of a
new phase of radical Islamist bom-
bings of Westerners in Bali, Istan-
bul, Madrid and London and with
recently identified terror cells in
Germany. How does a civilian po-
pulation react when exposed re-
peatedly to similar events? The Is-
raeli civilian population might be a
relevant case study. This article de-
scribes scientific findings, clinical
observations, and personal pers-
pectives on the exposure of the Is-
raeli civilian population to the 2000-
2003 terror campaign.
Historical Background
The most recent hostilities Israelis
have faced were the 2006 Hezbol-
lah-Israel war in which 4000 rockets
were fired on the civilian popula-
tion and the 2001-2004 string of
random terror acts against civilians
and Israeli security forces, dubbed
by the Palestinians the »Al-Aqsa In-
tifada«. According to a Shabac re-
port (Israel’s Secret service) pub-
lished in Yediot Acharonot daily,
(29.9.2005, p. 11). The Intifada vio-
lence entailed:
! 26159 recorded terror attacks,
mostly shooting incidents;
! 144 suicide bombings (4 in 2000,
35 in 2001, 60 in 2002, 26 in 2003,
13 in 2004, 6 in 2005).
This campaign developed into a
low-intensity war against a civili-
an population, the worst era of civi-
lian bloodshed in the region’s histo-
ry. This surge of terrorism and the
military force utilized to curb it rep-
resented an unparalleled threat to
the two conflicted populations. The
2006 Hezbollah-Israel war provided
yet another opportunity to study
the reactions of civilians caught in
the cross fire.
Type IV environment
and civilian demoralization
Single stressor events potential-
ly leading to PTSD (e. g., rape) was
termed Type I trauma (Terr, 1991).
Repeated trauma potentially lea-
ding to personality problems and
dissociative disorders (e. g., incest)
was termed Type II trauma (ibid.).
Chaotic environments (e. g., intrafa-
milial or interpersonal relationships
with high levels of inconsistency
and unpredictability) were termed
Type III by Berk (1992). He posited
that Type III environments can also
lead to the development of PTSD
symptoms, dissociation, and per-
sonality changes. Wilson (1994) de-
fined a separate category of stres-
sors: Type IV stressors constitu-
te an alteration in a person’s basic
relation to the environment due
to exposure to anomalous events
that produce high levels of uncer-
tainty and profound adaptation di-
lemmas because victims are uncer-
tain about effective ways to protect
themselves. Wilson’s term probab-
ly fits best the sort of stress Israe-
lis have been facing during Intifada
and the Hezbollah attacks in 2006.
Repeated random attacks on civi-
lian centres by bombardments or
by terrorism are strategies designed
to create fear in the target popu-
lation and meant to make people
lose confidence in their ability to
protect themselves effectively or in
their government capacity to pro-
tect them. The intended result is
to harm the enemy population and
create a climate of demoralization
and psychological injuries creating
adaptation dilemmas akin to Type
IV trauma.
Reports published during the be-
ginning of the Intifada attacks indi-
cated that as many as 80 % of Is-
raelis feared that a terror attack
could strike them or a member
of their family (Jerusalem Post, 4
June 2001). The Peace Index Pro-
ject conducted at the Tami Stein-
metz Centre for Peace Research of
Tel Aviv University published the
results of a telephone survey con-
ducted at that time (www.tau.ac.il/
peace). They indicated that about
one-quarter of Israelis aged 18-20
were actually considering emigra-
tion; to the question: »How would
you describe your mood nowa-
days?« 38 % responded that it was
medium and 31 % described their
mood as bad or very bad (Yaar &
Hermann, 2002). These figures ob-
viously far exceed the number of
Israelis who were terror victims
and may reflect a morale index in-
Note
* Based on a paper presented at a colloquium at
the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sci-
ences, Berlin, Germany, February, 2007.
dependent of direct exposure and
reflecting one of the outcomes of
the Type IV stressor environment
that developed in Israel during that
period.
What do we know of civilian re-
actions to terrorism? Some of the
studies published following the
September 11 attacks on New York
City shed some light on this ques-
tion. Schuster et al. (2001) conduc-
ted telephone interviews with a US
national representative sample of
560 adults, 3-5 days after the at-
tacks. Forty-four percent of the re-
spondents, all over the country, re-
ported distress and concern. Data
released by US National Institute
of Health showed increased con-
sumption of cigarettes, alcohol,
and marijuana nationwide (possib-
ly reflecting self-medication) in the
weeks following the attacks. Stu-
dies conducted closer the ground-
zero revealed the magnitude of
traumatic stress among the targe-
ted civilians:
!
Galea et al. (2002) interviewed
1008 Manhattan residents, 1-2
months after the attacks. Preva-
lence of PTSD was 7.5 % (20 %
close to the World Trade Cen-
tre), and a 9.7 % prevalence of
De pressive Disorders.
!
Schlenger et al. (2002) interview-
ed adult citizens (using the inter-
net) 1-2 months after the attacks.
(Probable) PTSD was found in
11.2 % of NYC residents.
The nature of the Israeli stressor
during the terror campaign was
quite different, as articulated ear-
lier. From the eruption of this ter-
ror campaign to the initial collec-
tion of data for this study, 653 ter-
ror attacks against Israeli civilians
were launched. With a population
of 6.5 million inhabitants, the ca-
sualty rate of 1047 individuals was
massive (equivalent to 28,000 dead
in Germany).
The degree of trauma exposure
among Israelis residing in central
and Northern Israel during the Inti-
fada was as follows:
!
5 % were emotionally or physical-
ly injured by a terrorist attack;
!
20 % were present on the scene
either during an attack or shortly
before or after it;
!
22 % reported they had a friend or
relative that was killed or woun-
ded;
!
81 % were exposed to the dama-
ged site shortly after a terrorism
attack.
In addition to this first-hand expe-
rience with terror, exposure to me-
dia coverage was widespread and
included virtually every individu-
al we interviewed. Data from lar-
ge-scale telephone interview sur-
veys conducted following massive
disasters (e. g., Pfefferbaum et al.,
1999; Galea et al., 2002; Schlenger
et al., 2002; Schuster et al., 2001)
suggest that exposure to emotio-
nally charged, real-life television
images of death and destruction
can produce symptoms of PTSD
and depression in children and
adults. Our data indicate that even
in remote parts of Israel, PTSD
symptoms associated with the ter-
ror campaign could be measured
(Somer et al., 2005).
The unpredictable, perilous eco-
logy that had characterized the en-
vironment during the investigated
hostilities clearly qualify as a Type
IV stressor, conducive to the deve-
lopment of various adaptation pat-
terns, including variants of disso-
ciative coping.
A plethora of posttraumatic stress
symptoms was measured during
the height of the Intifada in non-cli-
nical samples:
! 55 % reported at least one Avoi-
dance symptom;
! 50 % reported at least one Increa-
sed-arousal symptom;
! 27 % reported at least one Dis-
sociative symptom (Bleich et al.
2003; Somer et al., 2007)
Dissociative symptoms are com-
monly observed among victims
of Type I trauma. Indeed, peritrau-
matic dissociative responses were
commonly shared by interviewed
citizens in Israel during the height
of the hostilities. Following are ty-
pical remarks by bystanders and
survivors interviewed in the media
shortly after having been exposed
to the traumatic incident:
! »There was a flash of bright light
and a huge explosion and than
there was silence… I thought
this cannot be happening…«
! »There was body parts scattered
around… they did not seem to
be human parts…«
! »I could not believe this was real-
ly happening…«
! »
I thought I was in a movie
.
Nothing seemed real…«
! »
It felt as if I was in a bad
dream…«
These remarks illustrate consistent
individual peritraumatic de-realiza-
tion symptoms. Recorded hours
following exposure to a potentially
traumatic event, these experience
are considered normal or even
adaptive posttraumatic reaction
and
are unclassifiable psychiatrically.
The unusual circumstances of the
Intifada and the 2006 war provided
me with the opportunity to expe-
rience the subject matter of my
field of inquiry first hand.
Struggling with dissociation:
A personal perspective
As a trauma clinician, I found this
period unusual because I ceased
to be the detached scientist, or
the clinician who treats problems
from the clients’ past. I became a
participant observer in an unfol-
ding community drama. A victim-
Klinische Sozialarbeit 4(Sonderausgabe) / 2008 7
scientist, victim-therapist, if you
will. Like many Israelis, immedia-
tely following an attack my urgent
need was to call my family and
friends to make sure they were
okay. My grown-up children have
lived in two of the most targeted
cities. Upon receipt of breaking
news on another fatal attack, I of-
ten experienced briefly a sense of
outrage at the senseless killing. It
soon was followed by a blanket of
numbness that accompanied my
continuous compelling monito-
ring of online and electronic news
channels. I found myself searching
for pictures of the victims, looking
for uncensored photos published
on private Internet e-blogs. I re-
member e-mailing friends, expres-
sing perplexity and concern about
this troubling compulsion of mine.
It appeared that I was trying to
immerse myself entirely into the
horrific experiences of the victims,
attempting to make sense of what
they were going through. Was this
the position of a scientist-practitio-
ner making an attempt to compre-
hend the subject matter of his in-
quiry? It was clearly also an effort
to fight my numbness. I dreaded
the possibility that it might actual-
ly represent an unacceptable hear-
tlessness. The tension between my
fellow-feeling with the victims and
my failure to contain their pain of-
ten resulted in a personal sense
of de spair and fateful resignation
to our national legacy of suffering.
Mine is an example of an osten-
sibly adaptive dissociative defence,
which had created its own consi-
derable discomfort. My derealizing
numbness helped me continue with
my research and clinical work as I
compartmentalize my own fears
and agony. But the same distance
I developed from my battered envi-
ronment also stood in dissonance
with my need to identify with my at -
tacked community and with my self-
image as a caring individual. My
compulsive vicarious exposure to
the images, reminded me, at times,
of my self-mutilating clients who
are fighting the dialectic distressful
blend of pain and numbness.
Dissociation
among my collegues
One of the fruits of my frantic co-
ping was several articles (e. g., So-
mer et al., 2004a) and chapters in
the 2005 book Mental Health in
Terror’s Shadow: the Israeli Expe-
rience which I edited (e.g., Peled-
Avram et al., 2005). In one of the
book chapters we describe our ob-
servations on the stress of other
mental health professionals un-
der the duress of the terror cam-
paign. When an Israeli hospital de-
clares a state of alert in anticipation
of mass casualties, the hospital’s
mental health staff deploys in the
emergency rooms, in the surgical
wards, and in specially set up com-
puterized information centres to at-
tend to the injured, the psychologi-
cally shocked, and the worried fa-
milies in search of missing relati-
ves. All professionals who are off
duty and in their homes are imme-
diately called in as well. We asked
these first responders to describe
their reactions when the hospital
moved into emergency prepared-
ness following a terror attack. The
following list describes the main
themes that had emerged from the
analysis of their interviews:
!
Being part of the attacked com-
munity means sensing the fear,
the demoralization, the anger and
the despair that terror is meant
to induce.
!
Role conflict: Shall I find out
about the wellbeing of my loved
ones or should I rush to my hos-
pital duties immediately?
!
Role conflict: Shall I try to calm
down first or should I rush to my
hospital duties immediately?
!
Sensory bombardment with in-
tense and unfamiliar stimuli: Do-
zens of ambulances, screaming,
shouting, sickening smells and
horrifying sights.
!
The need to contain real trage-
dies (not those recounted in psy-
chotherapy in retrospect).
When we asked them to describe
their emotional reactions a consis-
tent theme emerged from the dis-
closures of the Israeli clinicians:
dissociation. Here are some rep-
resentative quotes to illustrate our
conclusion:
»One woman called in to inquire
about a couple I knew personal-
ly. This stressed me out so much
I started to weep… I moved to
the treatment centre to work
with the arriving families and
I’ll tell you exactly what I did…
Relatives of the missing were
asked to help identify some of
the corpses. Family members
were wailing. This was a very
scary experience. I suddenly
went empty, I felt nothing, I was
in shock [smiling], no, I’m not
sure it was shock; it was as if I
was outside myself. I took my-
self and put it aside and told my-
self that I had to do something
and do it well…«
This clinician had been asked to
assist a wounded community to
which she belonged and which she
was hurting with. In reaction to hor-
ror she was suddenly thrown into
she described a spontaneous emo-
tional shut down, and a dramatic
depersonalization bordering on a
structural personality tear. Her dis-
harmonious coding of the stressful
experience was evident in her dis-
sonant smiling reaction during her
description of her shocked reac-
tion.
8 Klinische Sozialarbeit 4(4) / 20088 Klinische Sozialarbeit 4(Sonderausgabe) / 2008
In the next quote one of the men-
tal health first-responders spon-
taneously described a seemingly
controlled adaptive dissociative re-
action.
»…the most meaningful thing I
do [takes a deep breath] is that
I emotionally disconnect… this
emotional disconnection helps
me not to break down in front of
the traumatized families.«
This professional knows of her pe-
ritraumatic emotional turmoil and
describes the necessity to curb it at
once. It seems that this conflict is
still present during the interview. As
she is accessing the peritraumatic
distress, painful feelings seem to
emerge, which she attempts to
control with a deep breath. The
next passage describes clear dis-
sociative psychopathology:
»I was involved in three bom-
bings… I am trying to recall my
first experience following the sui-
cide bombing at H. Junction [the
event had occurred about seven
months prior to the focus group
interview]… I have no idea what
my duties were, what families I
worked with, how I functioned,
nothing… but I do have memo-
ries of the next two disasters.«
This last quote demonstrates how
traumatic the first exposure to
emergency duties following a sui-
cide bombing attack was. This hos-
pital social worker had participated
in three emergency mass-casualty
deployments in 7 months. She had
access to the details of her memo-
ries concerning events 2 and 3, but
presented a full dissociative am-
nesia for a major dramatic event
that she actively took part in only 7
months before the interview.
In a review of the literature on
PTSD among emergency services
personnel, Bamber (1994) highligh-
ted the widely held idea that pro-
fessional helpers are somehow im-
mune to suffering the same sort
of distress as those they are hel-
ping. Our findings show that this
is by no means the case. The most
prominent factor in the inability to
maintain emotional distance bet-
ween Israeli mental health wor-
kers and their terrorized clients was
the fact that these professionals
were integral elements of the at-
tacked community. Not only were
their cognitive schemas about safe-
ty threatened, their sense of perso-
nal safety was endangered as well.
Workers needed to allay their fears
and worries about the security of
their loved ones before they were
able to project themselves into
their professional roles.
My own experience and the ac-
counts of the psychotherapists I
talked to reflect a paradoxical situa-
tion: Although we had been trained
to respond in emergency situations
and we were fairly knowledgeable
about potential scenarios, we were
overwhelmed by the sheer magni-
tude and swift onslaught of devas-
tating sensory stimulation. Such
human drama cannot be rehearsed
in simulated situations – the sounds
of wailing sirens, moaning patients,
panicking relatives, and shouting
staff, combined with the sight of
bodily disfiguration and the unfa-
miliar, acrid smell of burnt flesh, re-
main an unrehearsed traumatic ex-
perience.
Discussing combat stress, Noy
(1991) argued that there is a ten-
dency for emotions to be exagge-
rated in a polarized manner. Simi-
larly, Israeli mental health workers
reported that they had experienced
either no emotional stress or a se-
vere level of stress. Only after they
managed to shut out offensive ele-
ments of their reality they were
able to muster their professional
resources with a heightened sen-
se of duty.
The evidence also suggests a re-
lationship between dissociation du-
ring a traumatic event and the later
development of PTSD. Researchers
theorize that whereas peritraumatic
dissociation might be adaptive du-
ring a traumatic event, subsequent
use of this mechanism for coping
with feelings of distress when re-
minded of the trauma might lead
to survivors’ failure to process ad-
equately the trauma, including both
its meaning and the emotions asso-
ciated with the experience. Ultima-
tely, this might result in the deve-
lopment of posttraumatic psycho-
pathology.
For the most part, alterations in
one’s integrated memory and ex-
perience system are probably tran-
sient. However, we believe that the
exposure of hospital mental health
professionals, who are normally
not a part of emergency response
teams, to repeat mass disasters
might put some of them at risk for
the development of posttraumatic
psychopathology. McCann and
Pearlman (1990a) have argued that
when traumatic memories are very
significant to the mental health pro-
fessional, insofar as they relate clo-
sely to personal needs and life expe-
riences, and when the expe riences
of the traumatic event are not dis-
cussed, distressing traumatic me-
mories can become lastingly in-
tegrated into the helper’s memo-
ry system. The dissociation repor-
ted by our respondents, however,
can also be seen as an ordinary ad-
justment attempt designed to help
them carry on with their »normal«
personal lives while living with the
constant threat of terrorist attacks
as a part of their daily existence.
In two studies collected from non-
clinical Israeli samples during the
same period some seemingly con-
tradictory results emerged. For ex-
ample: While 60 % of our randomly
Klinische Sozialarbeit 4(Sonderausgabe) / 2008 9
10 Klinische Sozialarbeit 4(4) / 200810 Klinische Sozialarbeit 4(Sonderausgabe) / 2008
sampled respondents felt their life
was in danger and while 68 % felt
their family or acquaintances were
in danger, 82 % of the same sam-
ple felt optimistic about their per-
sonal future and 67 % felt optimis-
tic about the future of the country.
Here was a population that clear-
ly appreciated the mortal risk they
and their loved ones had been ex-
posed to, yet they maintain self-
confidence and an unwavering
sense of hope about a better per-
sonal and collective future. In one
of our studies we found that seve-
re posttraumatic distress in the har-
dest hit areas was only 5.5 % (com-
pared to 11.2 % of severe posttrau-
matic distress found in New York
City in November 2001; Schlenger
et al., 2002). We also found that al-
though posttraumatic distress was
higher in the hardest-hit areas, the-
se targeted citizens enjoyed a bet-
ter mood compared to what we
measured in a remote southern city
that was unaffected by war and ter-
ror (Somer et al., 2005).
Acceptance:
A successful coping tactic
Our data suggest that Israelis used
a variety of coping tactics, but the
most frequently utilized were ac-
ceptance and social support. Ac-
ceptance was not only the most
widely endorsed coping tactic but
also an independent factor, a dis-
crete form of coping, orthogonal
to the statistical factors we named
problem-solving coping (e. g., plan-
ning escape routes when sitting in
a restaurant) and emotion-focused
coping (e. g., exercising relaxa tion
techniques) (Somer et al., 2007). No-
thing helped. Problem solving co-
ping, Emotion-focused coping, and
Acceptance – were all positively
correlated with a measure of post-
traumatic distress. While posttrau-
matic distress was significantly, but
not perfectly related to expo sure,
the general mood in Israel (we mea-
sured tension and sadness) was un-
related to actual exposure to terror
attacks. All forms of coping except
for acceptance, were positively as-
sociated with distress.
Acceptance seemed to be not
only the most widely utilized way
of coping but also the most help-
ful tactic. The Israeli population
might have reacted with fatalis-
tic acknowledgement of life un-
der random and inescapable dis-
tress, and acceptance was actual-
ly associated with improved mood.
Israelis were not merely
disso-
ciated or resigned to their fate,
they responded with every way
of coping possible: they planned
were to sit in restaurants to ma-
ximize their survival, they avoi-
ded high-risk areas, they stayed
in closer contact with their families,
and they also accepted the uncon-
trollability of the situation.
In my opinion, this form of resig-
nation has little to do with freezing
or dissociation because it was ac-
companied by a wide range of ac-
tive coping. Sadly, none of those
ways of coping helped much du-
ring the Intifada, with the excep-
tion of Acceptance. Controllabili-
ty awareness, the knowledge of
what aspects of one’s threatening
environment are controllable and
what are not, and the ability to ap-
ply the approach that is most ap-
propriate to the condition, is stron-
gly associated with psychological
well being under the threat of ter-
ror (Somer et al., 2004b). It would
seem that Israelis increase the in-
tensity of their coping the more
threatened they are. However,
people had a less negative mood
the more they were inclined to ac-
cept the terror campaign as unavoi-
dable.
Overall, the Israeli public appea-
red to respond to the onslaught of
painful random terror attacks by re-
acting with both appropriate dis-
tress and adaptive adjustment of
their ways of life for brief periods
of time, only rapidly to resume their
normal routine and optimistic out-
look on life shortly afterwards.
Let us examine more closely a
few data sets on Israeli behaviour
during the Intifada, to shed more
light on the question: Was the Isra-
eli nation displaying resilience un-
der the threat of terror or was their
reaction more a case of national
dissociation? The Jaffe Center for
Strategic studies at Tel Aviv Univer-
sity has been polling the Israeli pub-
lic yearly since 1984 on various is-
sues. Every poll has included the
question: «Are you concerned that
you or a member of your family
could become victims of a terror at-
tack?” The yearly average response
to this question since 1993 shows
a clear sense of fear immediately
following major terror attacks and
that this fear is responsive to fluc-
tuations in the level of hostilities.
The Jaffe Center’s yearly survey of
morale shows pattern reversal in
responses concerning mood. Du-
ring the first two years of the terror
campaign more than half the Israe-
lis reported bad or very bad mood,
but during 2003-2004 more than ¾
of the respondents reported a pret-
ty good or a good mood.
It would seem that bad mood +
optimism + a general life satisfac-
tion do not necessarily constitute a
contradiction in Israel. Despite the
negative mood reported by the ci-
vilians at the height of the violence,
the figures on life satisfaction du-
ring the same period provided
by the Israel Bureau of Statistics
show quite stably, that most Isra-
elis considered themselves happy
with their lives during the bloodiest
Klinische Sozialarbeit 4(Sonderausgabe) / 2008 11
years of the Intifada and more than
a half of the population maintained
a sense of optimism for a better fu-
ture.
To assess the meaning of the ac-
ceptance coping under Type IV
stress in Israel, I further sought to
assess actual, objective measures
of behaviours associated with well
being. If acceptance had evolved
as a form of dissociative pathology,
such as in Acute Stress Disorder, I
would have expected to see beha-
vioural signs of anxiety by Israelis,
such as: avoidance, anhedonia, de-
pression or deterioration in indices
of quality of life, as gauged by ho-
tel occupancy data. The emerging
picture reflects remarkable stabili-
ty. Some seasonal fluctuations and
sharp decreases in hotel occupan-
cies are noted during the months of
April 2002 and March 2003, when
terrorist bloodshed peaked. 2004
was characterized by a reduction
in the violence and a concomitant
increase in the consumption of
this leisure product and a gradu-
al improvement in hotel occupan-
cy over the years. Let us examine
two additional impartial indices of
well being.
A similar picture emerges when
cinema attendance is examined:
higher attendance during the sum-
mer holiday months, lower atten-
dance during the winter and reli-
gious festivals, reflecting normal
seasonal fluctuations. 2002 was a
very bloody year and was also a
low point in cinema attendance in
Israel; April 2002, the most horri-
ble month of the Intifada, marked
by the Passover Eve massacre in
Netanya, reflected a sharp decli-
ne in cinema attendance with 40 %
fewer ticket purchases. But after
2002, and despite the continuing
violence, cinema attendance is seen
to pick up and to return to normal
levels (Elran, 2006).
Discussion
Terr or is m aim s a t bre ak in g t he spi -
rit of, and at demoralizing a civilian
population. The chronic traumatiza-
tion Israelis have been subjected to
at the start of the millennium created
unique conditions of chronic stress,
combined with opportunities for lear-
ning and adaptation. What have we
learned about the effectiveness of ter-
rorism from the Israeli experience?
A host of subjective and objective
indices of morale and well being sug-
gest that Israelis reacted with appro-
priate distress when exposed to ran-
dom attacks on their civilian centres.
Immediate reactions following ma-
jor civilian loss of life included the ex-
pression of fears, sadness, and avoi-
dance of public places. However, the
Israeli society seems to have maintai-
ned an overall psychological stabili-
ty throughout the terror campaign.
Des pite the Type IV stressor environ-
ment created by the attacks, subjec-
tive and object indices suggest that
the society has not sustained endu-
ring psychological damages. Shortly
after most difficult periods, Israeli ci-
tizens seem to resume their normal
routines. This ability of the public to
bounce back to normality may sug-
gest more national resilience than
some form of national dissociation.
Israelis tended to retreat to an appre-
hensive protective stance when at-
tacked, only to discard it soon after
the all-clear sounded.
Obviously, we have not measured
all the possible effects of life under
constant threat. While our data sug-
gest that Israel is a resilient society,
further research is needed to assess
the impact of a century of persecu-
tion and war on more subtle indices
such as empathy to the suffering of
the «other”, tolerance of the Arab mi-
norities in Israel or, the role of power
and force in interpersonal discourse
among Israelis.
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