Elder of Ziyon: Goldstone Report inaccuracies, part 15 (updated)#links#links#links#links

Elder of Ziyon: Goldstone Report inaccuracies, part 15 (updated)#links#links#links#links

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.

The Oslo Syndrome

I heartily recommend to our readers the groundreaking book The Olso Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege, written by Kenneth Levin (Hanover, NH: Smith and Kraus, 2005).
Dr. Levin is a professor of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. He received his M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He also has a Ph.D. in history from Princeton University, a B.A./M.A. in English language and literature from Oxford University, and a B.A. in mathematics from the U. of P.

He may need all of this remarkably diverse learning and erudition to take on the incredibly difficult and baffling subject of his study: why have Israel's government, as well as most of its academic, educational, journalistic, cultural and artistic elites, betrayed their country by handing over strategic territories directly adjoining Israel's major population centers to Israel's most violent enemies, Fatah, Hamas, and other Palestinian Arab terrorist groups, in the deluded belief that this will somehow bring about "peace?" Why have Israel's political leaders handed over large sections of their own country to terrorists bent on their people's expulsion and annihilation? Why have these politicians allowed the terrorists to build up large and increasingly well-armed units next to Israel's population centers, with the result that well over a thousand Israelis, the majority of them civilians, have been brutally slaughtered by terrorists since the Oslo "peace process" began in 1993? How could these politicians have confused fourteen years of terrorist warfare with a supposed "peace process," and treated their terrorist enemies, such as Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and their Fatah organization, as 'peace partners?"

And why have Israeli historians, journalists , writers and other "intellectuals" sought to delegitimate their own nation by depicting it as an aggressor and intruder in the Middle East, one that stole the land from the Arab "natives" and that continues to subject them to "racist" discrimination? Why have Israeli educators sought to strip the education of Israeli children, adolescents and college students of all Jewish content, by removing any material about Jewish history and religion, and on the relationship of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, from the public school curriculum? Why have they sought to discredit and deny well established historical facts, such as the reign of King David 3,000 years ago, his son Solomon's construction of a magnificent temple in the heart of Jerusalem, the mass suicide of the heroic defenders of Masada after the defeat of the great Jewish revolt against Roman colonial rule, by labeling them "myths" or "national mythology?" Why have they stripped the training of Israeli soldiers of any education in their Jewish origins and history, and in the Jewish origins and character of Israel? Why have they even eliminated the traditional swearing ceremony at the site of Masada, in which new recruits used to pledge that "Masada shall not fall again," from the training of Israeli soldiers, on the grounds that it is too "nationalistic" and based on a "myth?" Why have Israel's cultural elites opposed even Holocaust education and visits by Israeli youngsters to the death camps in Poland as too 'nationalistic" and likely to promote " Jewish nationalism?" Why do the Israeli cultural elites who oppose Jewish "nationalism," or "Zionism," casting themselves as "post-Zionists," so enthusiastically support Arab and Islamist nationalism of the most bloody, aggressive and ruthless variety?

Dr. Levin, as befits his profession, comes up with an essentially psychiatric diagnosis of this Israel "syndrome:" decades of "besiegement" of the Israelis by enemies bent on their extermination, plus the two thousand year history of persecution inflicted on Jews even before the modern state of Israel was founded, have left Israelis profoundly demoralized. Feeling helpless to end the unrelenting fury and brutality of their foes by military means, many Israelis have decided to accept the justice of the enemies' cause, and to grovel to them, psychologically, spiritually, politically, diplomatically and even militarily, in the hope that this grovelling will somehow induce their Arab enemies to have compassion on the Israelis and grant them "peace." These Israelis hope that by responding to Arab grievances and complaints by a process of "self-reform," they will persuade the Arabs to abandon their siege and make peace with Israel's Jews. As Levin points out, there is no credible evidence that the Arab world as a whole, or much the less the Palestinian terrorists, will ever agree to make peace with Israel in response to this program of self-criticism and appeasement. Yet sizable parts of the Israeli population, and above all Israel's cultural and political elites, cling to the delusion that "self-reform" and self-abnegation to Israel's enemies will somehow transform ruthless, uncompromising enemies into friendly protectors.

The Israeli practitioners and advocates of appeasement may also be trying to make some sense out of their own predicament. After all, why would all the world, not only the entire Arab world and of course the propaganda arms of the terrorist organizations, be constantly "indicting" the Israelis (in Dr. Levin's phrase) unless they were actually guilty of something? And why would their enemies be so cruel and unrelenting, unless they have legitimate grievances of some sort against Israel? Is it possible that human beings could be so cruel to other human beings for no reason at all?

Finally, the Israeli appeasers perversely think that by grovelling to their tormentors, they are in some way regaining control of their own destiny. They imagine that if they yield to the demands of their enemies, the enemies will finally grant them the desperately longed-for peace that they seek. and the long nightmare of endless terror and violence against the Israelis, going back at least sixty years, will finally come to an end. These Israelis imagine that by giving in to their oppressors, they, the Israelis, will acquire influence over them. And that in turn will enable them to regain some control over their own lives.

Many Israelis have concluded that they cannot ever free themselves by military or police measures from the terrorists who incessantly blow up buses and restaurants, turning the Israelis inside them into tiny fragments of widely scattered bits of flesh and bone, and who seize school children as hostages, incessantly shell border towns with rocket-fire , etc. etc. Israel's military measures contain the damage inflicted by the besiegers somewhat, but have so far failed to end the siege or even to bring an end to it in sight. Therefore, these Israelis feel that only by joining in support for the alleged grievances and demands of their terrorist oppressors, which in any case already have received powerful support from nearly the entire "international community" of Arab, Muslim and Western countries, can Israelis ever know "peace."

In order to find a parallel to the self-destructive and baffling behavior by Israel's ruling elites, Levin turns to an equally baffling incident that occurred some thirty years ago in Stockholm, Sweden, that psychologists have labeled "The Stockholm Syndrome." Several female bank employees in Stockholm were raped and held hostage for days by a gang of escaped- convict bank robbers. In spite of their ill-treatment by this gang of rapists, kidnappers and robbers,the victimized women became their oppressors' firm allies and supporters, even testifying on their behalf in court. One of the female victims even became engaged to one of her rapist/abductors. (The title of Levin's book, "The Oslo Syndrome," is a pun on both the Stockholm incident and on the agreement that Israel's government signed in the Norwegian city of Oslo, not far from Stockholm, in 1993, with the PLO, a front for the Fatah terrorist organization. It was through that agreement that Israel began the process of handing over to its its terrorist enemies portions of Judea, Samaria and Gaza that directly adjoin Israel's population centers, and thereby facilitated the much-intensified campaign of terror and murder against Israel's people during in the course of the last fourteen years).

Perhaps the victimized Swedish women originally played up to their oppressors in the hope that by appeasing them and supporting their demands, they could win over the rapist/abductors and thereby save their lives. But once they had started on this course they came to identify with their oppressors and even to love them, even after they were freed from the hostage-takers and no longer had a practical need to appease them. Perhaps this identification with their oppressors helped these women overcome the feelings of utter helplessness and degradation that their captors inflicted on them by holding them hostage for days and constantly threatening them with death at any moment, in addition to raping and humiliating them .

Levin also compares the Israelis' delusions of "peace" with their implacable and cruel enemies to those of abused children, who often conclude that the beatings and ill-treatment that they receive at the hands of their elders must be their own fault, and that by redoubling their efforts to please their elders, they will somehow end the abuse.

Dr. Levin sees similar feelings of helplessness on the part of the many Israelis who support appeasement of, or even collaboration with, their enemies to those of both the victimized Swedish women and of abused children everywhere. Like the Swedish captive women , these Israelis find some relief from their feelings of helplessness in the face of constant danger to their lives by identifying with their tormentors. And like abused children, the Israeli victims of terrorist aggression and abuse imagine that by pleasing those who hold the power of life and death over them, they can persuade these tormentors to end their reign of terror, and even transform them from oppressors into protectors.

Levin also relates the "Oslo Syndrome" to the efforts of some European Jews, in the years between the late eighteenth century and the rise of Hitler in 1933, to appease anti-Semites by partially accepting their indictments of the Jewish people . Then , as now, Levin contends, many Jews hoped to appease the wrath of anti-Semitic bigots and racists, and even to win their approval and goodwill, by to some extent accepting their point of view, and by engaging in "self-reform" to satisfy the anti-Semites' complaints against Jews. That effort at appeasing the enemies of the Jews also failed miserably, Levin points out.

How accurate is Levin's diagnosis of Jewish self-abnegation toward, appeasement of, and even identification with, the Arab aggressors? Does he have any solutions to propose to cure this terrible collective illness of Israelis and other Jews? More on this subject in a subsequent posting.

The Hard Hand of War

Rachel Neuwirth. The Hard Hand of War. http://www.michnews.com/ Jun 9, 2007
John Landau contributed to this article
Historian James M. McPherson's magnificent collection of essays This Mighty Scourge; Perspectives on the Civil War contains an essay on General William Tecumseh Sherman's famous, or infamous, "march through Georgia " that sheds light on the success of his march in bringing victory, and peace, to the United States.Sherman has always, understandably, been regarded by many Southerners as a horrendous villain of the Civil War. A recent proposal to build a monument to him in North Carolina was turned down by the State Legislature. Even 150 years after the war, the general is still remembered with revulsion and disgust in the South. Yet his tough tactics and willingness to inflict hardship on the South's civilian population ended the war within months, finally ending the bloodshed. Civil warfare and even serious internal violent conflict have never recurred in the United States since Sherman's march. How could a man make himself so unpopular while achieving such a desirable result?



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Can There Be Peace Without Victory?

Rachel Neuwirth. Can There Be Peace Without Victory?

I have been reading a brilliant and edifying book, This Mighty Scourge; Perspectives on the Civil War, by America's leading Civil War historian, James M. McPherson (Oxford University Press, 2007). It has many lessons to teach America and Israel in our own day. McPherson describes how extremely unpopular the Civil War had become in the Northern states by the summer of 1864, after three years of extremely bitter fighting and huge losses of life. The Union armies had lost close to 300,000 men killed in action -- proportionate to the American population of today, that would be about 3 million men. The injured, permanently disabled and prisoners of war greatly added to the toll. The casualty rate had sharply risen in the past few months as the Union army of Ulysses S Grant and the Confederate Army of Robert E. Lee were locked in a brutal stalemate on the Virginia front. President Lincoln had just called for 500,000 more Union volunteers-the equivalent of about 5 million men today. Yet military victory still seemed far away to the people of the loyal Northern states. Should they really be asked to sacrifice the lives of still more of their young men? Understandably, much of the population of the North now said, "No. We have had enough. Let us have peace."

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http://www.theonerepublic.com/archives/Columns/Neuwirth/20070521NeuwirthWithout.html

In Memoriam: Tashbih Sayyed

Dr. Tashbih Sayyed, 64, is no longer with us. Tashbih was laid to rest in peace at the Harbor Lawn Mount Olive Memorial Park, Costa Mesa, California, on May 28. American flags were on almost every grave. They also were hoisted high above the roadways. The wind was lightly blowing in a wonderful sparkling blue sky, typical of Southern California, as if to greet Tashbih in his last path. The hoisted American flags poignantly symbolized Dr. Tashbih Sayyed's core beliefs and spirit.

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