Palestinian and Israeli Case, Prejudice Make It Worst
It is normal if we, as a human, have our own thought. We have mind. It covertly processes any stimulus which comes from our sensation tools. That’s why we do make a social perception about everything because perception is made by our mind. Before talking too much about social perception, we should understand about its definition. Social perception is indeed a process through which we seek to know and understand other people (Baron & Byrne, 2008). Therefore, we tend to make some judgments and spend a lot of time thinking about others.
In spite of our great gift in making a perception, this could stimulate many problems too. We just can’t fully control what we want to percept. We often did failure in making sense (perception) about things. We tend to attribute negatively about some group of people. It may be manifested by our own experiences about them and tend to generalizing it into others. This kind of bias in perception is usually called as prejudice. The definition of prejudice provided by Gordon Allport 60 years ago is still used as an authoritative definition of the term prejudice, which was defined as an aversive or hostile attitude toward a person who belongs to a group, simply because he belongs to that group, and is therefore presumed to have the objectionable qualities ascribed to that group (Allport, in Baron&Byrne, 2008). In far implication, prejudice is often simply referring to discrimination behavior.
Both prejudice and discrimination are risky in making conflicts between people or groups. This might be happened between Palestinian and Israeli’s case. They hold what their antecedent believes (percepts) about each other too much. They argue that their own story is the truth. In case, these troubles in the Middle East are mainly between the Jewish Israelis and the Arab Muslims. At the heart of the conflict is a dispute over land and borders. The Palestinians want to have an independent state. There is no mention of occupation. The Palestinian struggle isn’t for independence but rather liberation from illegal occupation. But the Israelis are worried that if they control less land Israel won’t be safe enough for them to live in.
There are many Israeli arguments against a Palestinian state. Some Israelis want to see a greater Israel that extends across the Middle East. Others argue that they have a right to the land and have priority over its inhabitants because of the status given to them in the bible. These two arguments are often used to justify the building of settlements by Israelis in the occupied territories. These settlements are still being built despite being illegal under international law. Although some Israelis argue they need more land for security, the Israeli defense forces are in fact one of the largest in the world, whereas Palestinians do not have any defense forces except a new police service.
Thus, which way did prejudice work in making them worst? Well, the answer is simply easy. From above explanations, we could see that Israelis worried if Palestinians were going to make them live unsafely in order to Palestinian enlargement territory. This kind of worry or fear is a simple indication of prejudice. That fear was happened because they judge things with their own perception, though the prejudice could be false. Depart from land case, the problem seemed to be exaggerated into Racism things like Religion, in which Israeli was identical with Jew, and Palestinian was known as Muslim. They supposed not to make that kind of racism if they were not exaggerated the land case.
This issue is not only become they own business, but also have been amended into other countries. This is caused by media’s role in shaping people’s thought about this issue. Media shaped our schema to believe that Palestinian and Israeli’s conflict is not only about land, but also it is obviously rooted by religion things.
Actually, media just sometimes use this issue for their own benefit. Therefore, they tend to mix and match the reality with their own bias (Harris, 2004). Thereby, people who read, listen, and watch those tend to percept in wrong way. For instance, because Israeli were attributed with Jew and sometimes Christian things, that’s why other Jew and Christian countries tend to advocate to Israeli, and it’s also happened in Palestinian. Far impact, because Muslim countries were identical with terrorism, thereby other Christian and Jew countries hold true that Palestinians are a part of terrorist. Well, again, that’s all just our bias in thought, though it could be false.
Depart from explanation above; it becomes clear that prejudice just make things worse. Media also have role in making stereotype which lead into prejudice and discrimination behavior. If we could not stop it soon, the war would not be finished. Then, the peace cannot be gained. So, what should we do as a college student? As Agent of change, we should do action in reduce this kind of prejudice. Well, all of us know that we just can’t control what people thought ‘biasly’. But we can start it with ourselves. Try to be objective in face all kind of issues happened and also try to suggest surrounding people to be objective. Because we are all just human and we are just the same. Diversity is just bliss that we should be thanked. We should appreciate individual differences because we are just unique, and we are all same, human.
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References
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Baron, R.A, Byrne, D. (2008). Social Psychology (12th ed). USA: Pearson Associates. Inc. Publisher.
Harris, R. J. (2004). A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Comunication. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbum Associates. Inc. Publisher.
Katz, Y. Gazans tell Israeli investigators of Hamas abuses. (2 Februari 2009). Diambil pada tanggal 26 Maret 2009 dari: http://www.jpost .com/srvlet /satellite?pagename=jpost/page/RSS&cid
McGrick, T. Can Israel Survive Its Assault on Gaza?. (8 Januari 2009). Diambil pada tanggal 26 Maret 2006 dari: http://www.timeinc.net
