This paper asks how we can acknowledge and empower victims of ethnopolitical conflict without nurturing an identification with victimhood that could sabotage their own political agency; an important question for both conflict management practice and academic emancipatory discourses. Through a discussion of the merits and limitations of dialogue groups in Israel/Palestine, the author argues that effective and preventive conflict transformation practice needs to arrest the transition from cultural identity to politicized identity; acknowledge the historical and socio-political conditions of every site of conflict; and develop both psychological and political approaches to help victims move beyond victimhood. Promising recent trends in the field are moving in this direction.