Seeing the Israel–Palestine conflict through Attack on Titan

Hi everyone. Let’s talk about the ongoing Israel–Hamas war. I don’t know how this war in front of us will end, but I’d like to imagine a future a little farther off. Within our lifetimes, is it possible that we’ll see Israelis and Palestinians—these two peoples—truly reconcile?

I think almost every possible way of dissolving a blood feud is laid out in the anime Attack on Titan. So next, let’s let fiction shine a light on reality and talk about what the Israel–Hamas war can learn from Attack on Titan.

The story of Attack on Titan is, to a considerable extent, a metaphor for the fate of the Jewish people. In the manga, the Eldians who can transform into Titans—that is, Eren, Armin, and the gang—have German surnames, but it’s obvious that their main real-world model is the Jewish people. The Eldian internment zone in the Marleyan Empire is practically a direct reproduction of the concentration camps built by the Nazis. In the story, every other people sees the Eldians as a dangerous group of outsiders and calls them “the children of the devil”—a history that closely echoes the long-standing exclusion and persecution of the Jewish people in the real world.

So, in Attack on Titan, how did the Eldians try to dissolve the blood feuds they had built up with other people?

Basically, from the beginning of the story to the end, they tried three paths.

The first path—hide. This was the choice of the First King, who never formally appeared in the story. The First King took his people to an isolated island, used Colossal Titans to build three walls, and confined his own people inside, physically cutting them off from the outside world. It’s pathetic, sure, but if you can keep hiding forever, this path works. In fact, this is the first possible way to dissolve a blood feud in the real world.

Anthropologists observed long ago that if two people in a hunter-gatherer tribe developed an irreconcilable grudge, one of them would often move to the neighboring tribe—sometimes voluntarily, sometimes because they had no choice. Either way, once you create physical distance, the enemy disappears from view, and you no longer become “extra red-eyed” at the sight of them. It’s not hard to imagine that back when humans hadn’t settled down yet and hadn’t filled up the whole planet, intense conflicts between two peoples were probably resolved the same way. If we can’t beat you, then the whole tribe migrates and finds somewhere else to make a living. After all, Earth was still a pretty spacious place for humans back then.

Many people have a kind of “common-sense assumption” about resolving ethnic conflict: as long as two peoples have more contact and get to know each other better, their misunderstandings will gradually disappear. But in reality, using contact to increase mutual goodwill requires a lot of demanding preconditions, including but not limited to—

1. The two peoples are roughly equal in number during the contact,

2. Their treatment is basically equal,

3. Public opinion on both sides is relatively neutral and not manipulated by various bad-faith provocateurs, and so on.

If most of these conditions aren’t met—for example, if the two peoples differ wildly in population, or if both have been brainwashed by propaganda hostile to the other side—then contact between peoples who already have misunderstandings can actually intensify the conflict.

So increasing contact may often work worse in reality than the simple, blunt solution—hiding. Actually, a little over a century ago, the Jews planning to establish a state did have a chance to hide from the Palestinians with whom they would later develop a blood feud.

In the early 20th century, British official Joseph Chamberlain proposed creating a Jewish state in part of British East Africa, in what became known as the Uganda Scheme. In 1903, British officials met with Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement, to discuss the Uganda Scheme, but Herzl rejected it because he preferred to establish Jewish settlements in places such as Cyprus or the Sinai Peninsula, which had stronger historical ties to the Jews. In the end, historical reality took its course: the Zionists chose to establish the State of Israel in the Palestine region of the Middle East.

History can’t be rewritten, and we can’t demand that the Jews give up their powerful desire to return to their ancestral homeland. Still, I can’t help indulging in a little counterfactual fantasy: if the Zionist pioneers of that time had chosen, like the First King in Attack on Titan, to establish a state on some unclaimed piece of land in Africa, what would the Middle East look like today? And what would Africa look like? Would the blood feud between Israelis and Palestinians simply never have arisen?

The first path to dissolving a blood feud—hiding—wasn’t chosen by real-world Zionists. And as for the Eldians in the story, they couldn’t hide forever; eventually, their enemies still came knocking. So, in the story’s final stage, Eren took the second path to dissolving the blood feud—a very bloody path: the Rumbling. Eren freed all the Colossal Titans inside the walls and vowed to lead them in flattening the Earth, physically wiping out every enemy of the Eldians—“If everyone who hates us is dead, then what hatred is left?”

In the manga it’s called the Rumbling; in the real world, that would be genocide. Of course, this is the cruelest and bloodiest possible method of resolving ethnic conflict. It’s the 21st century—this path should not be considered by anyone, from any angle. A lot of people reading Attack on Titan back then probably turned against it right here, going from calling it a five-star masterpiece to calling it garbage.

But at the end of Attack on Titan, is there only the Rumbling? Actually, the story’s final direction reveals a third path to dissolving a blood feud—fighting a common enemy. Under what circumstances are two people who see each other as devils most likely to reconcile? When a third devil appears—when some ultimate monster shows up that neither of them can defeat alone. In Attack on Titan, Eren himself becomes that ultimate monster. Once Eren decides to initiate the Rumbling, the Eldians and their enemies have only one chance of defeating this ultimate demon: temporarily joining forces.

And that, precisely, is the trump card for resolving conflict between peoples.

We said earlier that simply putting two peoples in close contact can have unpredictable consequences. But one kind of close contact is an exception, and is almost certain to help peoples reconcile: contact as comrades, as fellow soldiers.

There’s a very famous psychology experiment. At a summer camp, scientists deliberately stirred up hostility between two groups of students, then watched how they eventually turned enemies into friends. They found that the only effective method was forced cooperation—forcing them to become comrades. The scientists deliberately sabotaged some of the camp’s facilities, leaving both sides no choice but to join forces against the problem. Unexpectedly, that joint effort created a “revolutionary friendship.” When the other side was still an “enemy,” everyone looked shifty-eyed; once they had been comrades, they suddenly looked bright-eyed and beautiful.

Examples like this are also countless in the real world. The more often white and Black sailors sail together on the same ship, the more positive their racial attitudes toward each other become. The more experience white and Black police officers have working as partners, the more mutual goodwill they develop.

So conflict between peoples is a stubborn disease, almost like a terminal illness—it’s hard to cure. But this “comradeship forged in battle” can be called a rare miracle drug.

At the end of Attack on Titan, whether intentionally or not, Eren objectively created an opportunity for the two sides with a blood feud to be forced to join forces and forge this “revolutionary friendship.”

But Eren didn’t finish what he needed to do. Can two peoples who have shed oceans of each other’s blood really wipe away the past with a single alliance? That’s wishful thinking.

However much blood they shed while killing each other, they now have to spill just as much fighting their common enemy before the hatred from when they were enemies can possibly fade.

So one alliance between the Eldians and their enemies isn’t enough. This demon Eren has to keep existing! He has to keep forcing them to cooperate, until many years later, when the memories of their mutual slaughter have gradually faded. Only then can Eren step aside and give the blood feud a chance to dissolve.

Sadly, Eren didn’t do that. He freed himself, but left a huge hidden danger behind in the world. Once this great demon, this “common enemy,” is gone, peace is bound to be temporary. As soon as the great demon disappears, “you” will eventually become demons again in “our” eyes.

So Eren’s liberation isn’t actually the story’s most tragic ending. I think an even more tragic ending would be for Eren to remain alive as everyone’s enemy, never forgiven by the people he loved and never granted release.

Finally, let’s return to the real-world Israel–Hamas war. Is it possible for Israelis and Palestinians to dissolve their blood feud through this third path? Following the logic we’ve just discussed, some extraordinarily powerful force would have to descend upon that land and force them to unite against it—and they would have to keep fighting together for a long time, perhaps across several generations. Only then might two peoples with an ocean of blood between them turn from enemies into friends. But does such a force exist in the world? Even if someone had that kind of power, would anyone have the motive to do it? No. Unless aliens attack Earth, I can’t think of any other possibility that could make this third path a reality.

So the three paths to dissolving a blood feud are all dead ends in these conflicts in the Palestine region. Attack on Titan, this work that serves as a metaphor for the fate of the Jewish people, may really be fiction shining a light on reality. It’s hard not to feel a little heartsick thinking about it.

All right, that’s where we’ll leave the topic of what the Israel–Hamas war can learn from Attack on Titan. I’m Zhichao Wei, and I’ll keep sharing my three great loves on this channel—psychology, books, and film.

If you enjoy my show, please follow, like, save, and comment. It really matters to me. I’ve put the research reports and references mentioned in this episode in the description below the video. Thanks for your support, and I’ll see you next time.