2026
Conflict, Trauma, and Feedback Loops in the Israel–Palestine Context
Note: This is a living draft. Comments and thoughtful feedback are welcome. The aim is not to demean, degrade, inflame, or erase anyone’s experience, but to examine conflict through a trauma acknowleding systems lens in the hope of better understanding the conditions that sustain it.
This essay argues that large-scale conflicts are sustained by the interaction between material constraints and self-reinforcing semantic feedback loops. At the substrate level, competition over resources and security creates structural pressure. At the semantic level, fear, identity, and historical trauma narratives interpret and amplify that pressure into cycles of escalation. Addressing one layer without the other leaves the underlying system intact, limiting the possibility of meaningful de-escalation.
Public discourse around conflict is often structured as a series of competing moral claims. One side points to a harm, the other responds with a different harm, and the exchange continues in a recursive pattern of “what about this” and “what about that.” The focus becomes justification rather than resolution, with each position reinforced by reference to real or perceived grievances.
Within this structure, both sides can present narratives that are internally coherent. These narratives are typically grounded in genuine experiences of fear, loss, or threat. In my own experience engaging with people across different perspectives, I have encountered individuals who justify extreme positions from opposing sides, each drawing on their own sense of historical or existential threat. From within each perspective, these positions do not appear irrational, but necessary.
A symmetry begins to emerge. Each side identifies examples of harm originating from the other, and these examples are used to validate broader conclusions about intent, character, and legitimacy. Over time, individual statements or actions are no longer treated as isolated, but instead come to represent entire groups. The words or behaviours of some are attributed to many, and in doing so, a perception of collective threat is established. This symmetry is structural, not moral, and does not imply equivalence of actions or responsibility.
This process is reinforced by a tendency toward conflation. Distinctions between state, population, religion, and ideology begin to collapse. Criticism directed at one layer is experienced as an attack on all others. In such an environment, even attempts at nuance can be interpreted as alignment, and efforts to separate categories are often overridden by the pressure of group identification.
As these patterns repeat, they form a feedback dynamic. Generalisation contributes to threat perception, threat perception drives reactive rhetoric or action, and those reactions are then used as further evidence to justify the original generalisation. The cycle does not require coordination to sustain itself; it is reproduced through ordinary interaction.
Emotional intensity plays a central role in stabilising this dynamic. Fear and anger narrow the range of acceptable interpretations, reducing tolerance for ambiguity or complexity. Positions that might otherwise remain flexible begin to harden, and the space for reconsideration diminishes. What emerges is not a movement toward resolution, but a reinforcement of existing divisions.
Under these conditions, discussion tends to stall. Arguments are repeated rather than developed, and engagement becomes oriented toward defending positions rather than examining them. The persistence of conflict, in this sense, is not well explained by a lack of information, nor simply by disagreement over facts. The information is often present, but it is processed within a structure that consistently produces the same outcomes.
This suggests that the difficulty may not lie solely in the content of the arguments being made, but in the underlying dynamics that shape how those arguments are formed, interpreted, and responded to. If that is the case, then continuing to operate at the level of claims and counterclaims may be insufficient.
A different approach is required—one that steps back from the immediate content of the conflict and examines the system that produces and sustains it. The following sections attempt to outline such a perspective, focusing on the interaction between material conditions and the interpretive frameworks through which those conditions are understood.
If we step back from the immediate content of conflict—its specific events, claims, and counterclaims—it becomes possible to examine the structure that gives rise to those patterns. From a systems perspective, large-scale conflicts can be understood as the interaction between multiple layers operating simultaneously, each contributing in a distinct way to the overall dynamic.
At the most fundamental level is what can be described as the substrate layer. This consists of the material conditions within which a conflict exists: access to land, security, infrastructure, and other finite resources. These conditions impose constraints on what is possible, and they create pressures that shape the behaviour of groups. Scarcity, whether real or perceived, plays a particularly important role. Where resources are limited, or believed to be limited, incentives emerge to define, defend, and prioritise group boundaries. The shift is gradual but consequential—from coexistence, to allocation, and in some cases, to control.
Above this sits the semantic layer, which concerns how these material conditions are interpreted and given meaning. At this level, identities are formed and reinforced, narratives are constructed, and experiences of harm are organised into coherent frameworks. These narratives are not arbitrary; they are often rooted in real experiences of suffering, loss, and fear, and for those who carry them, the need for recognition is not optional but psychologically necessary. Historical trauma, cultural memory, and moral reasoning all operate here, shaping how groups understand themselves in relation to others, and how they interpret both past and present events. The same underlying conditions can give rise to very different responses depending on how they are framed within this layer.
Crucially, these two layers do not operate independently. They are coupled through a set of feedback mechanisms that translate material pressure into meaning, and meaning back into action. Perceived threats at the semantic level can intensify competition at the substrate level, while changes in material conditions can reinforce or destabilise existing narratives. As these interactions repeat, they form feedback loops: actions are interpreted, interpretations shape responses, and those responses generate further actions to be interpreted.
Within these loops, certain patterns tend to stabilise. Generalisation, attribution, and identity reinforcement become more likely under conditions of pressure. Over time, the system can reach a state in which escalation is not the result of a single decision, but an emergent property of the interaction between layers. In such a state, even actors who might prefer de-escalation can find themselves participating in dynamics that move in the opposite direction.
Understanding conflict in this way does not reduce it to a single cause, nor does it dismiss the importance of lived experience. Experiences of trauma and suffering are not peripheral to these systems; they are among the primary inputs through which meaning is formed and action is justified. For this reason, they cannot be ignored or erased without destabilising any attempt at resolution. At the same time, when these experiences are carried forward as justification for continued harm, they risk becoming part of the very feedback loops that sustain conflict. A stable approach requires both recognition and restraint: the integration of historical and lived experience into present understanding, without allowing it to function as an automatic driver of future escalation.
The sections that follow examine these dynamics in more detail, before returning to a specific case to illustrate how they manifest in practice.
Having outlined the structure of the system, the next step is to examine how it behaves over time. The persistence of conflict is not simply a result of disagreement, but of mechanisms that reliably produce and reinforce escalation. These mechanisms operate across both the substrate and semantic layers, and are sustained through repeated interaction.
One of the most immediate of these mechanisms is the tendency toward generalisation and conflation. Statements or actions made by individuals are frequently extended to represent entire groups. In this process, distinctions between state, population, religion, and ideology begin to collapse, and identity becomes compressed into a single category. The behaviour of some is taken as evidence of the nature of all. Once this shift occurs, responses are no longer directed at individuals, but at groups, and the threshold for perceiving threat is lowered accordingly.
This process feeds directly into attribution. Actions are interpreted not only in terms of their immediate effect, but as signals of intent and character. A single instance of harm can come to represent a broader pattern, and that pattern is then used to justify further action. The loop begins to close: interpretation shapes response, response generates new actions, and those actions are interpreted in turn. Over time, the distinction between cause and reaction becomes increasingly difficult to disentangle.
These dynamics are not unique to long-standing conflicts. Under the right conditions, they can form rapidly. Recent global events have demonstrated how quickly new identity groups can emerge around previously secondary differences, and how fast those groups can adopt familiar patterns: mutual suspicion, moral certainty, and calls to limit the rights or legitimacy of the opposing side. Once established, these patterns tend to reinforce themselves, regardless of the specific identities involved.
At the centre of this dynamic is fear. Fear operates both as a signal and as a driver, shaping how information is processed and how responses are selected. When one group’s security or survival is perceived to depend on the exclusion or weakening of another, positions that might otherwise be rejected can begin to appear necessary. What would once be considered extreme can be reframed as justified within the internal logic of the group.
In my own experience engaging with people across different perspectives, I have seen how quickly this shift can occur. Individuals who might otherwise reject extreme positions can come to defend them when they are framed in terms of protection, survival, or historical necessity. The underlying emotional movement is often consistent, even when the conclusions differ. Fear narrows the range of acceptable interpretations, and under sufficient pressure, it becomes easier to justify harm than to tolerate perceived vulnerability. This describes internal coherence within a perspective, not justification of the resulting actions.
There is, however, a deeper pattern within this that extends beyond immediate reactions to threat. Humans do not only respond to external danger; they also respond to internal discomfort. Sustained exposure to suffering—whether caused by oneself, one’s group, or observed at a distance—is difficult to hold. There is often an instinct not to process it, but to move away from it, to reduce or escape the internal experience.
This can take different forms. When individuals or groups are confronted with suffering they have caused, denial can function as a way of avoiding the emotional weight of that recognition. When confronted with suffering experienced by their own group, the same underlying discomfort can be redirected outward, converting into anger, moral certainty, or calls for retribution. In both cases, the underlying movement is similar: an attempt to regulate internal discomfort by shifting its expression.
This tendency is often less visible in environments where individuals are insulated from the direct consequences of conflict. In more stable or comfortable conditions, it is possible to engage with conflict rhetorically while remaining distant from its material and human cost. This distance can make it easier to adopt positions that, if experienced directly, might be far more difficult to sustain. The result is that rhetoric can escalate independently of immediate lived reality, while still feeding back into real-world outcomes.
The difficulty is that these processes do not resolve the underlying condition. When suffering is externalised in this way, it often produces further harm, which in turn generates new suffering—both for others and, indirectly, for the originating group. Over time, this creates an accumulating dynamic, where unprocessed emotional load contributes to the conditions for future conflict. What appears as a reaction to external threat can also be understood as part of a broader cycle in which suffering, unintegrated, is continually reproduced. This mechanism is described as a general feature of human systems and does not assign responsibility for the origination of harm.
These patterns extend beyond immediate interactions and into the domain of historical memory. Experiences of trauma are not confined to those who directly lived through them; they are carried forward through narratives, shaping how groups interpret present events. In my own life, I have had to engage with the effects of a historical trauma narrative within my family. The specific details have faded over time, but the impact has not. The emotional weight persists, influencing perception, behaviour, and expectation across generations. Recognition of that experience—having it acknowledged without erasure—was an important part of stabilising it. Without that recognition, the narrative remained unresolved, continuing to exert pressure on the present.
At a larger scale, similar dynamics apply. Historical trauma narratives provide context and meaning, and they are essential for understanding the present. At the same time, when they are used not only as records of suffering but as justification for ongoing harm, they risk becoming embedded within the feedback loops that sustain conflict. In such cases, history becomes less a source of understanding and more a tool for reinforcement. Competing narratives do not simply coexist; they interact, each strengthening the other through opposition, contributing to cycles that are difficult to interrupt.
These mechanisms are further intensified under conditions of perceived scarcity. When access to resources or security is seen as limited, the stakes of interpretation increase. Narratives that emphasise threat, exclusion, and urgency become more compelling, and cooperative interpretations become more difficult to sustain. Scarcity does not, on its own, determine behaviour, but it increases the pressure under which these semantic processes operate, making escalation more likely and more stable once it begins.
What emerges from the interaction of these mechanisms is a system that can sustain itself without central coordination. Individuals, acting within their own frames of understanding and emotional regulation, contribute to patterns that reinforce those very frames. The result is a form of stability—not in the sense of peace, but in the persistence of the conflict itself. Efforts to intervene that do not account for these mechanisms may achieve temporary shifts, but are unlikely to alter the underlying dynamic.
Understanding these processes does not resolve the conflict, but it does clarify why it is so resistant to resolution. It also reinforces the importance of engaging with both the material conditions that create pressure and the human processes that translate that pressure into meaning and action.
The dynamics described above become particularly visible in the Israel–Palestine conflict. It contains a dense intersection of material constraint, historical trauma, and active narrative reinforcement. It provides a clear example of how these mechanisms interact in practice.
It is often said that Jewish communities live with a persistent sense of vulnerability, and there are strong reasons why this claim resonates. History contains well-documented instances of extreme persecution, but this is not only a matter of the past. In the present day, there remains a visible current of rhetoric that targets Jewish people as a group. For many, the resulting fear is not abstract or inherited alone; it is grounded in both historical experience and contemporary reality, and it is rational within that context.
At the same time, other groups, including Palestinians, encounter language and narratives that call for their removal, exclusion, or destruction. These fears are also grounded. They are expressed in real conversations, by real people, in the present. This is not a matter of distant or theoretical hostility, but something that can be directly observed.
In my own experience, I have argued with individuals who identify as Israeli and have called for the “extermination of Amalek.” I have also debated people from a range of backgrounds who have called for the extermination of Jewish people. These are not abstract positions; they are statements made by real individuals, in real conversations. They are not confined to one side, and they are not as rare as we might prefer to believe. These examples are included as observations of rhetoric and do not represent entire populations.
At the same time, these experiences sit alongside others that don’t fit neatly into those patterns. In my own life, I have encountered narratives that portray certain groups as exclusionary or hostile—for example, that Islam is a religion of hate, or that Judaism is inherently insular. Yet some of the kindest, most open, and thoughtful people I have met have been Muslim, and some of the most empathetic and inclusive people I have known have been Jewish. These are not abstract impressions, but direct experiences.
What stands out is not simply that both kinds of encounters exist, but how they are carried forward. Experiences—particularly those involving hostility or threat—are extended beyond the individuals involved, shaping how entire groups are perceived and engaged with. In this way, individual interactions become inputs into the feedback loop itself.
The effect of this is not neutral. The projection of exclusion, hostility, and threat is not simply a reflection of division; it is itself an active force within it. When a group is perceived as inherently exclusionary or dangerous, that perception influences behaviour toward them, which in turn can be experienced as confirming that view. The loop reinforces itself.
Problematically, statements made by individuals are often attributed to entire populations. Such comments carry identity signals, and those signals are frequently interpreted at the group level. This contributes to a perception of collective threat, where the words or actions of some are taken as evidence of the intent of all. From there, escalation becomes easier to justify, and the feedback loop continues to build.
This dynamic is further intensified by conflation. In this conflict, distinctions between the state of Israel, political Zionism, and Jewish identity are often collapsed, despite being meaningfully different. Criticism of one can be experienced as hostility toward all. The same pattern can be observed elsewhere, where complex identities are compressed into simplified categories under pressure. Once this occurs, the space for precise engagement narrows, and reactions become broader and more indiscriminate.
At the semantic level, the conflict is shaped by the interaction of two deeply rooted historical trauma narratives. The Holocaust and the Nakba each represent profound experiences of suffering that continue to influence how present events are understood. Acknowledging this suffering is essential. Without recognition, these narratives remain unresolved and continue to exert pressure on perception and behaviour.
However, the role of these narratives within the system is not neutral. History, in this context, is not only a record of past events. It is also a collection of reconstructed and agreed-upon narratives that are used as a basis for the justification of action. Under conditions of conflict, history itself can become a battleground—not only over what is true, but over which interpretations are preserved, emphasised, or diminished in service of identity and justification.
This creates a tension that is difficult to resolve. Historical trauma must be acknowledged and integrated; it provides essential context and acts as a guardrail for future direction. At the same time, when these narratives are used as justification for forward aggression, they become embedded within the feedback loops that sustain the conflict. Recognition becomes entangled with justification, and the distinction between understanding and endorsement begins to blur.
At the substrate level, the conflict is constrained by factors that are not easily resolved. Land, security, and political control are finite. There is no simple mechanism to expand them to satisfy all claims simultaneously. This introduces a persistent structural pressure. If one group’s security or survival is perceived to depend on the exclusion or weakening of another, then escalation can begin to appear not only justified, but necessary within that frame.
Taken together, these elements form a system that is difficult to unwind. Material constraints create pressure, historical and contemporary narratives interpret that pressure, and feedback loops translate interpretation into action. Each component reinforces the others. Within such a system, it is possible for individuals on all sides to experience themselves as acting rationally and defensively, even as the overall trajectory remains one of continued escalation.
This does not resolve questions of responsibility, nor does it suggest that all positions within the conflict are equivalent. What it does suggest is that the persistence of the conflict cannot be fully understood through a single narrative, or by isolating individual events. The structure itself—formed by the interaction of constraint, fear, narrative, and feedback—plays a central role in maintaining the conditions under which the conflict continues.
If the patterns described above are real—if conflict is sustained through the interaction of material constraints and self-reinforcing semantic feedback loops—then any attempt at de-escalation must operate across those same layers. Addressing only one dimension while leaving the others unchanged is unlikely to produce a stable outcome.
Approaches that operate purely at the political or material level, while ignoring narrative and identity, risk leaving the underlying feedback mechanisms intact. Agreements may be reached, but the interpretive frameworks through which they are understood remain unchanged, allowing cycles of attribution and escalation to re-emerge.
Conversely, attempts to resolve conflict purely through shifts in rhetoric or appeals to shared humanity, without addressing underlying constraints such as security and resource competition, are similarly limited. The structural pressures remain, and under those pressures, narratives tend to revert toward more defensive and exclusionary forms.
The system does not stabilise unless both layers are engaged.
At the level of the individual, the available actions are limited, but they are not insignificant. The mechanisms that sustain conflict—generalisation, conflation, attribution, and escalation—are reproduced in everyday interaction.
One point of intervention is the deliberate refusal to extend the actions or rhetoric of individuals to entire groups. Separating identity from behaviour interrupts one of the core pathways through which feedback loops are reinforced.
This also requires consistency. Within our culture, there exists a shared baseline. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR) establishes principles such as the prohibition of genocide as fundamental. If these principles are to have meaning, they must be applied universally, regardless of which group is being discussed. Selective application does not constrain conflict; it reinforces division.
These are small actions, but they operate directly on the mechanisms that sustain escalation.
At a broader level, the role of historical trauma requires careful handling. Historical narratives contain essential information about suffering and risk, and they must be acknowledged. Without recognition, they remain unresolved and continue to exert pressure on the present.
At the same time, recognition and justification are not the same. Historical trauma should inform understanding, but when it is used as a basis for forward aggression, it becomes embedded within the feedback loops that sustain conflict.
In my own experience, having lived with the effects of a historical trauma narrative within my family, recognition was central to its integration. Without that recognition, the narrative continued to shape perception and behaviour across time. With it, there was at least the possibility of processing and stability. Extending this outward, acknowledgment of suffering at the group level may serve a similar function, provided it is not coupled with justification for further harm.
There is also a need to engage more directly with the reality of suffering itself. The true horror of conflict is often difficult to grasp in moments of escalation. During periods of heightened tension, when there are calls for retribution or defence, the full weight of suffering can be obscured. It is often only after the fact—when the immediate intensity has passed—that the scale of loss and damage can be fully recognised.
This delay is not incidental. It is part of the mechanism. The inability, or unwillingness, to fully engage with suffering in the moment allows escalation to continue, while the consequences accumulate. Over time, this contributes to the formation of generational trauma, where the effects of past events continue to shape present behaviour.
Our ancestors encountered this directly. The scale of suffering experienced in large-scale conflicts, particularly in the twentieth century, forced a confrontation with the consequences of industrialised warfare. The frameworks that emerged from that period, including the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, were not abstract ideals—they were responses to lived catastrophe. They represent an attempt to encode, at a structural level, lessons that were learned at an immense human cost.
Remembering this matters. Not as sentiment, but as constraint. These frameworks exist because of what happens when such constraints are absent. If they are applied selectively, or treated as optional depending on context, they lose their function and risk becoming part of the same narrative structures that justify harm.
Alongside this, material conditions remain relevant. If resource scarcity and security pressures contribute to the hardening of group identities and the escalation of conflict, then addressing those pressures becomes part of any long-term approach. While such constraints cannot always be resolved directly, they can be managed. Collective stewardship and more effective resource management may reduce the conditions under which these feedback loops are activated.
There is also a forward-looking dimension to consider. The mechanisms described throughout this essay—generalisation, attribution, narrative reinforcement, and the externalisation of suffering—are not confined to human interaction alone. Increasingly, they are being captured, modelled, and reproduced by technological systems.
Our ancestors encountered the consequences of escalation at a scale that forced a confrontation with reality. The industrialisation of warfare in the twentieth century demonstrated what becomes possible when human conflict is amplified by technology. The frameworks that followed, including the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, were shaped in response to that experience. They represent an attempt to place constraints on systems that had already demonstrated their capacity for large-scale destruction.
What is different now is not the presence of conflict, but the nature of the systems through which it may be expressed. Emergent forms of machine intelligence are trained on human language, behaviour, and objectives. In doing so, they absorb not only information, but patterns—patterns of how we interpret events, how we assign blame, how we construct identity, and how we respond to perceived threat. These systems learn from the same feedback loops that sustain human conflict.
This introduces a compounding effect. Where previous technological shifts increased the physical scale of conflict, current systems have the potential to increase the cognitive and informational scale at which those conflicts are formed and reinforced. The patterns that once required time, proximity, and repeated interaction can now be reproduced and amplified across much broader domains.
In my view, this creates a particular urgency. The horrors of past conflicts were sufficient to force the development of constraints, but there is no guarantee that those constraints will hold under new conditions if the underlying patterns remain unchanged. If systems are built on unexamined feedback loops—on the same tendencies toward externalisation, generalisation, and justification—then the scale of future suffering may not be limited by the same factors that constrained the past.
The systems we build do not stand outside our behaviour; they are extensions of it. If they are trained on inflamed or unexamined patterns of conflict, they may reproduce those patterns with greater consistency and at greater scale than we do ourselves.
In that sense, the challenge is not only to manage conflict in the present, but to consider what is being carried forward into the systems we are building. The question is not only how we resolve current disputes, but what kinds of dynamics we are encoding into the future.
We may not be able to resolve these conflicts directly at scale or in the short term. But we do participate in the systems that sustain them. Acting with that awareness—refusing to generalise, refusing to conflate, and refusing to escalate where possible—does not solve the problem, but it does change how the system is reinforced.