ABSTRACT
Arab hostility to Israel was not a response to any psychological need to relieve tension or aggressive impulses. The main cause of the conflict is not psychological, but substantially political: a conflict over territory and a clash over real interests. Rejection, selective attention or selective inattention is accompanied by an active process of repression of inconvenient facts to the subconscious, which becomes a reservoir of information and images that a person wishes to ignore. The idea of the enemy who interferes with the achievement of national aims is usually a component in national ideologies. Externalization of guilt is also a demagogical political expedient of the rulers. The enemy is blamed for every shortcoming and becomes a focus for resentment, tension and pressure. The presentation of the enemy as a coalition and an alliance gives the idea of the enemy the character of a dynamic, continual and ever-renewed plot.
