Identifications with or against Israel are widespread and powerful, and through them we are drawn into the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Psychoanalysts tend to see such identifications as involving a regressive pull, which fuels a view of the conflict as belonging exclusively in the external domain, placing the issues involved beyond the reach of psychoanalysis. This paper describes work done in the “Nazareth conferences”, involving staff members’ Jewish and Muslim identifications, which mobilised powerful feelings. It is suggested that containing these is a necessary prelude to acknowledging the experience of the other – an alternative to the on-going enactment of violent conflict.