At the time of this writing, it appears that war between Palestinian groups and Israelis is almost inevitable. The war will likely expand to involve those in many Arab countries and other Islamic countries as well, if not still others. The violence has been escalating. In retribution for the assault on captured Israelis in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Israeli helicopter gunships fired missiles two days ago at targets in the West Bank and Gaza, including Yasser Arafat's headquarters and again, Ramallah. Now there will probably be terrible chaos across the region.

Remarkable in this situation is the disbelief of many politicians and diplomats (especially those outside the immediate area, but also Arabs and Israelis) at their relative irrelevance and powerlessness now. Too many people want conflict at this point, on both sides, for peace to be likely. Political leaders have helped to convince Jews that Israel as a state is the same as or more important than their own interests, even survival, and the same with Palestinian Arabs and a Palestinian state. Some of these same leaders who have gained politically from whipping people into a patriotic frenzy now scurry about vainly trying to restrain their fellows, as though surprised at the results of their exploitation of collective loyalties to the religions of Judaism or Islam, or to the states of Israel or Palestine. At times like this the established illusion of political rule stands naked for all to see; it becomes clear that political power exists only in belief, and that states and cultures are composed of individual people who are only controlled if they wish, in large enough numbers, to follow and to be controlled. It does not matter now if leaders on either side plead for restraint. That belief has already gone too far.

This collectivism is not only hollow, it is a significant and necessary catalyst for warfare. Conflicts like this one are often explained away as 'traditional ethnic hatreds,' but they have origins, and these origins have much to do with beliefs of collective identity above individual identity. Like the genocidal conflict between the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, an ethnic hatred which was manufactured for political gain only since decolonization in 1959, animosity between Jews and Muslims is not traditional at all. In fact, during the Jewish Diaspora the safest place for a Jew to live was very often in a Muslim country, safe from the Christian persecutions of Spain or Germany. If anything, there was a history of understanding between Jews and Muslims. That changed when Zionists established a 'Jewish' identity tied to the welfare of a state, Israel, and this was answered with Arab nationalism and calls for Islamic jihad. The Arab-Israeli conflict is an excellent example of how the inspiration and exploitation of collectivism tends to create animosity where none existed.

Consider the act of the retaliatory missile strikes against Palestinian Authority targets. The wisdom of revenge aside, these targets were chosen not because it was imagined that those who might be killed would be punished for their own acts. Of course those responsible for the brutal attacks on the Israelis would not be directly punished by the missiles. Those who ordered the strikes were well aware of this. The strike was ordered based on the principle of collective blame, in which any Palestinian might justifiably be killed in revenge for the act of any other Palestinian. The same is true of the action of attacking those captured Israelis because they were Israeli, or of Hamas terrorist acts.

We can see that societies based on collective identity, political societies dependent on a myth of unified state, or culture, or religion, or any other imagined collective body, rather than societies based on individual identity, will tend to engender strife between groups when there is friction between the desires and acts of individuals. What is imagined essential to a collective by individuals comes in conflict with what is imagined essential to other collectives by other individuals, in ways that the desires of individuals thinking individualistically would never conflict. For example, many on both sides of the present conflict would now rather die than live in a mixed society which is not dominated by 'their side' over the other, for they see this as an unbearable sacrifice of their identity. Individuals not dominated by collective beliefs do not mind associating with others; they do not care as much about arbitrary kinds of people as they do about the specifics of particular people. But under group identity, friction over religion or state leads some to offensive or desperate acts. The actions of a few are attributed to the many by the other side, over and over. Every deed can be attributed to everyone who is named 'one of them, not one of us.' Over time this spirals out of control, particularly when the collective identity and division is encouraged by leaders. Eventually early mistrust and wariness at having conflicting collective identities becomes dislike, dislike becomes hatred, hatred becomes a loathing which demands violent satisfaction, and violence becomes war or genocide with massive loss of life and destruction. Personal happiness and satisfaction is dashed on the battlefield and in the refugee camp, sacrificed to the potent lures of revenge and collectivism.

Today many Israelis would blame all Arabs for the terrorism of a few, and many Arabs would blame all Jews for the acts of some Israelis, and even for the original foundation of the state of Israel in land that was previously declared Muslim. But none of these acts can be taken back by revenge, and no group can be held responsible for them. They have happened. Now the question is how quickly everyone in the region will learn to live with individual identities and freely associate with one another. If the lesson of Ramallah will not be learned there before many more sacrifice their own lives to imaginary gains for imaginary states, the larger question is how quickly the rest of the world will learn from the terrible example of an ensuing Middle-East war before the same pattern is followed blindly elsewhere, and again… and again… and again.