Dr. Levin's The Oslo Syndrome. Some Questions and Caveats.

Having already reviewed Dr. Kenneth Levin's groundbreaking book The Oslo Syndrome, I would now like to add some caveats and ask the author some questions.

Dr. Levin's basic psychological explanation for all the Israeli and other Jewish "intellectuals" who support the Arab side of the conflict and join with Arabs, other Muslims and people of European Christian background in vilifying Israel is plausible. He thinks that these people are attempting to avoid the terrible psychological stress of the constant siege they live under as a result of Arab hate and terror by identifying with the enemy. This relieves their feelings of helplessness and makes them feel empowered. They may also wish to disassociate themselves from a group--Jews, and especially Israeli Jews--who appear marked out for victimization and perhaps doomed. In effect, they have an "if you can't beat them, join them," mentality.

While all this is very plausible, why don't other oppressed groups react the same way and identify with, and support, their oppressors? Dr. Levin's theory of the psychological motivation of the Israeli "post-Zionist" appeasers and collaborators with the Arab aggressors against Israel doesn't adequately address why this sort of behavior, and the rhetoric and thought processes associated with it, occur almost exclusively among Jews. Instead, Levin claims that such behavior is commonplace among oppressed and "marginalized" groups--which, as far as I can make out, is simply not accurate. Levin makes no attempt to show examples of such behavior on the part of members of other oppressed or aggressed-against groups. He also dismisses in a sentence or two, without any real examination, the possibility that there might be unique aspects of Jewish culture and religion, the socioeconomic and educational status of many Jews, or the Jewish historical experience that might offer clues to the prevalence of "the Oslo delusion" among so many Jews, especially among those possessed of influence, prestige or political power.

In nearly all cases, other peoples who have been subject to oppression or agression have fought back against their oppressors as best they could, and when given the opportunity, have protested the injustices against them as best they were able to do. For the most part, they have behaved with dignity and self-respect in the face of oppression, even when they had no immediate opportunity to overcome or resist it.

Peoples other than the Jews who have been subjected to blatant aggression have rarely justified or excused the aggressor, or blamed themselves for the aggression against them. Almost no members of other groups who have faced hostility similar to that directed against Jews have sought to justify the conduct of the aggressors/oppressors, or to blame such conduct on their own people for having supposedly provoked this aggressive or oppressive conduct. Even in cases of complex conflicts between peoples, in which there is some right and wrong on both sides, people belonging to one group very rarely blame their own people for the conflict, or justify and excuse atrocities or aggressive behavior against them by people belonging to the group waging war against them. Why do we Jews, almost uniquely, have this tendency to blame ourselves for the hostility and even violence directed against us by others?

The contrast between the way Jews have responded to oppression, both now and over the past two hundred or so years, and the way African Americans, for example, have responded to oppression could not be more stark.

There are virtually no African-Americans, for example, who blame racial tensions in American cities on their fellow African-Americans for having "invaded" white neighborhoods and having "expelled" their previous white inhabitants by committing crimes or intimidating behavior. Nor are there any African-American intellectuals who assert that African-Americans have unjustly "invaded" the Northern states by migrating to them from the South, and thereby becoming alien "settlers" in a white man's country. Or that African -Americans have unjustly punished Northern whites (by migrating to the North) for the crimes committed against them by the Southern slaveholders and segregationists, for which the Northern whites bear no responsibility. Or that black "settlers" have unjustly taken over the governments of Northern cities that were previously ruled by whites, by migrating to them and electing their own people to municipal office.

By way of contrast, there are numerous Jews, including Israeli Jews, who support Arab allegations that closely parallel these (mainly hypothetical) allegations against African-Americans. Many Israeli-Jewish "intellectuals," for example, accept and repeat Arab claims that Jewish "settlers" have "invaded" territory belonging to Arabs and expelled them from their homes, merely because these Jewish "settlers" have built homes and farms on land that they had purchased from Arabs, or which had been unoccupied public lands without Arab or other private owners. Often these Jews support the Arab view that the mere fact of Jews' "settling"--moving to "Palestine" ( or Israel) and building homes for themselves there--is an act of "oppression" or "invasion" against the Arab 'indigenous" inhabitants that justifies Arab terrorism against Jews as a response. These Jewish supporters of the Arab view also endorse Arab allegations that they, the Arabs, have been unjustly punished for the crimes of the European nations against Jews by having Jewish immigrants and their State of Israel inflicted on them. And they accept the Arab claim that Jews', by becoming the majority in areas that had once been predominantly Arab, and then electing their own government for those areas, have committed an act of aggression against the Arabs.

There are no African-Americans who justify or excuse the lynchings of their fellow African-Americans by describing them as responses to black violence against whites, (as the lynchers usually claimed they were), or to the unjust confiscation of white property (in the form of slaves) by a pro-black, oppressive Federal government.

Yet there are many "post-Zionist" Jews in Israel and elsewhere who support the closely parallel arguments used by Palestinian Arab terrorist organizations to justify their indiscriminate slaughter of Jewish men, women and children. These organizations, along with their Jewish groupies, describe their systematic murders of Jews as a legitimate response to the supposed violence of the Israeli "occupation" towards the Palestinian Arabs, or to the supposed confiscation of Arab property by Israel (property that usually turns out, on closer inspection, to have never belonged to Arabs in the first place, or to have been sold voluntarily by the former Arab owners).

There are virtually no African-Americans who support or justify the actions of the Ku Klux Klan and similar white supremacist groups. There are none who advocate negotiating with such groups, or who proclaim that these racist organizations are now "peace partners" and allies of African-Americans ,or who advocate arming such groups as a means of preventing future violence against African-Americans by supposedly even more extreme white supremacist groups. There are no African Americans who hobnob socially with known members or leaders of white supremacist groups with a reputation for anti-black violence, or who express their confidence that these white supremacist leaders now seek "peace" with African-Americans, and can safely be entrusted with control over state governments.

Yet there are thousands, even tens of thousands, of Jews who have behaved in precisely this way toward the leaders of the Palestinian terrorist groups, who have between them murdered many more Jews than the African-Americans who have been lynched over the years by the Klan and similar white supremacist organizations. Indeed, the entire government of Israel has behaved in this self-abnegating, sycophantic way towards the Palestinian terrorist groups since 1993. Innumerable delegations of Jews have met with representatives and even leaders of these hate-filled, murderous anti-Jewish organizations, have hobnobbed with them as if they were friends, have proclaimed them "peace partners," and have denounced their fellow Jews for being reluctant to deal with them. And the government of Israel, beginning in 1993, has not only extended diplomatic recognition to these violently anti-Jewish groups, but has even armed them, in the belief that they will use these arms to prevent terrorism by still more extreme terrorist groups. This behavior on the part of the Israeli government as well as many in the political opposition is continuing even as I write. One would think it would be needless to add that these methods have failed completely to reduce terrorism even by the slightest amount. On the contrary, terrorism has increased steadily since these "tactics" were first adopted by the Israeli government in 1993. Yet this same attempt to enlist the known enemies of the Jews to end or at least reduce violence against Jews continues, despite its manifest and repeated failure to bring about the desired results.

What holds true of the African-Americans also holds true for nearly all other groups that have suffered aggression or oppression at the hands of others.

Even the American Indians, for example, despite a truly vast inferiority in weaponry and technology against the invaders of their country, did their best to resist the invaders. Despite being largely unable to read or write, or to speak in English or other European languages, American Indians did make some attempt to take their case before the larger American public. Occasionally they were even successful in doing so, as when the Sioux Indian chief Red Cloud was applauded by a white audience after a speech presenting his people's case at the Cooper Union, in New York City, in 1870. Once they understood about the existence of law courts in the United States, the Indians did their best to press their claims for the return of their stolen land in the courts.

It is true that, on the practical level, many American Indians assisted the U.S. authorities in suppressing armed resistance to them by their fellow Indians. Many American Indians served with distinction in the United States Army in the Indian wars of the late nineteenth century, playing a vital role in ending the resistance of their fellow American Indians to the United States' efforts to force them off their lands and onto reservations. Many also assisted the white authorities in repressing possible rebellion by their fellow Indians by serving in tribal police forces.

There were several reasons for this widespread "collaboration" by some American Indians with the U.S. government in forcing their fellow Indians onto the government-approved reservations. Some felt comfortable fighting other tribes that were traditional enemies of their own. Internal conflicts within each tribe sometimes played a role in leading some Indians to assist the Federal authorities against "rebel" fellow tribesman. Many Indians badly needed the salaries, modest though they were, provided to soldiers and Federal police. Many Indians, of course, hoped that their cooperation with the Federal authorities would lead to better treatment and less oppression for their tribe. Many were aware that the United States was an enormously dynamic, progressive, populous and powerful nation, and were therefore eager to win acceptance as Americans and to become American citizens. Many undoubtedly were sincere American patriots as well.

However, I have never heard of a single American Indian writer, professor or intellectual (and there are a fair number of these)who has blamed their fellow American Indians for the existence of conflicts with the European-Americans, has vilified their fellow American Indians or their traditional cultures and religions, or who has justified the injustice inflicted on the Indian peoples by the European-Americans. Whatever "collaboration" there was on the part of American Indians with the dispossession of their own or other Native American tribes was purely pragmatic in character, and did not include moral or ideological support for the violence and dispossession imposed on their fellow Native Americans and on themselves. This is in marked contrast to the enthusiastic propaganda and "scholarship" of so many Jewish "intellectuals" directed against their fellow Jews, and in favor of their Arab and other oppressors.

Moreover, the vast disproportion in power between the United States of America and the indigenous tribes whom it dispossessed made it at least a rational decision on the part of some American Indians to assist the Federal authorities in crushing resistance by their fellow Indians. This is so even though the "collaborators" by and large received no reward for their support of, and assistance to, the European-American authorities, and instead were treated as cruelly and subjected to as much discrimination as were the "rebel" Indians. But the Indian "collaborators" could not have been expected to know this in advance.

On the other hand, Israel has a modern army, modern technology, a modern economy, and access to mass media in which to state their case to the world. Resistance to their Arab enemies and oppressors is a realistic option for Jews.There is therefore far less of a rational basis for appeasement of, collaboration with, and support for, Israel's enemies by Israeli and other Jews, than there was for cooperation with the United States by American Indians. In addition, there is much about the United States that American Indians can reasonably admire and identify with. But what is it about the Palestinian Arab terrorists and there Arab regime backers that Jews can admire or identify with? Successful integration into the United States has always appeared to be a reasonable, realistic possibility to American Indians, and one that would confer many benefits on them it it were successful. But what possibility is there for Jews to assimilate themselves into the fiercely intolerant, repressive,and sometimes violent, chaotic and unstable Arab societies? And how could integration into such societies possibly be an attractive prospect for Israeli Jews, even if it were a possibility? In short, while there was some rational basis for the collaboration of many American Indians with European-American society and government, there does not seem to be any rational basis for the moral and intellectual collaboration of so many Jewish intellectuals with Arab terrorists and aggressors.

Why is it that we Jews, who have possessed reading and writing for three thousand years, and who have been leaders in the medical, legal and teaching professions and in commercial enterprise in many of the world's most advanced societies, cannot behave with the same self-esteem , mutual loyalty and rational group self-interest when faced with aggression and oppression directed against us, that African-Americans, American Indians and many other oppressed groups have displayed in comparable circumstances? Why is it that most of us seem unable even to recognize that we are an oppressed people?

Many other oppressed peoples have possessed far fewer tools with which to communicate their plight or to fight back against their enemies than we have. Yet despite these relative disadvantages they have been more united, energetic and successful in resisting oppression than we have been. Most other peoples have demonstrated far more group pride and self-esteem when experiencing oppression than we have. And there have been far fewer turncoats among them, at least in the communications and ideological spheres. Why are we Jews so exceptionally vulnerable psychologically to the appeals of our enemies and oppressors?

These are questions which I hope to try to address in subsequent posts, although I have no certain or entirely convincing answers to them, not even ones that satisfy myself.