As an anthropologist, I interpret human conversations from a wide angle that includes millions of years of primate evolution, from inchoate animal ancestors to modern-day world leaders. What I saw in Monday’s televised face-to-face meeting between Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US president Barack Obama was a page out of Primate Politics 101.
During the handshakes, Obama leaned backward from Netanyahu, suggesting an undercurrent of disagreement. Meanwhile, Netanyahu leaned forward, indicating the wish to “please understand my plea”. The president’s aforementioned backward lean telegraphed a bit of stiffened opposition from the beginning.
On the positive side, overall, the meeting was both non-confrontational and non-aggressive. Both were soft-spoken and conciliatory in their vocal tones. Neither stared at the other, as they have done at previous meetings, and neither gestured, as before, with dominant palm-down cues to drive home a speaking point. Judging by his contrite head-tip forward posture and shoulder shrugs (both considered to be worldwide, submissive, nonverbal signs), Netanyahu was more than usually conciliatory and deferential at this meeting.
From a purely primate perspective, the face-to-face was about reconnecting and exchanging friendly, palm-up hand gestures to show the world that peacemaking indeed was in progress. Our closest primate relatives, chimpanzees (both Pan troglodytes and P. paniscus), make similar peacemaking hand movements to negotiate matters of calmness and tranquility in the bush.
Reaching out an upward, open palm to an adversary is a universal human way to show that “we can get along” despite fundamental differences on issues. I’m sure that Obama and Netanyahu were not consciously trained in their primate speaking gestures. These nonverbal signs are mostly outside of our awareness.
From my own anthropological viewpoint, the hand gestures came across as unschooled, sincere and real. What they expressed was biologically universal: we need to bond together as individuals to face enemies who would do us harm. There was no visible deception in the world leaders’ hands, and both spoke, seemingly, from felt emotion.
Dr David Givens is the director of the Center for Nonverbal Studies
