Description
The October 7 th attacks profoundly reshaped civilian and military life in Israel, bringing renewed attention to questions of moral boundaries and the reasoning behind military violence. By exploring how religious leaders interpret military violence, this dissertation seeks to contribute to broader debates on moral reasoning in prolonged conflict contexts. It asks: How do Jewish religious authorities make sense of Israel’s military measures against Palestinians in the aftermath of October 7th ?
By studying the responses of rabbis from the Israeli and Jewish diaspora to the military measures taken against Palestinians in the aftermath of the October 7 th attacks, this dissertation explores patterns of moral reasoning about violence. The study will adjudicate between Haidt and Graham’s Moral Foundations Theory and Gray and Wegner’s Dyadic Morality Theory to test whether moral reasoning about violence unfolds when individuals rely on specific moral principles, or if they hold clashing perceptions of harm. Contributing to this discussion on moral reasoning in moral psychology, it also contributes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict literature by utilizing frameworks developed in literature on Israeli society such as Bar-Tal’s Social-psychological repertoire.
This research design comprises of three qualitative methods: a vignette exercise, a questionnaire about their moral principles and an interview called a ‘moral history’. To study the moral reasoning behind military measures, the thesis will interview a minimum of 30-40 rabbis from varying denominations across the Jewish diaspora in Europe, the UK, and Israel.
Key words: moral psychology; religious reasoning; military violence; October 7th ; Israeli-Palestinian conflict
