In recent decades, scholars have increasingly emphasized that variables related to perception and cognitive bias play a significant role in the dynamics of intractable conflicts. In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular, social psychologist Daniel Bar-Tal has emphasized the need for adversarial societies to develop suitable psychological conditions to cope with their conflict situation. However, very little work has focused on explicating just how perceptual biases operate as key mechanisms underpinning the persistence of the conflict. This paper seeks to shed light on the operation of psychological processes, including cognitive consistency, attribution bias, mirror image, and self-categorization, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The paper explicates how these psychological concepts and models are relevant to the study of the conflict, and ultimately argues that existing theories emphasizing domestic political institutions and international factors like external intervention only partially explain the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To fully understand the persistence of the conflict over time, a cognitive approach is crucial.