The paper was given today by Eitan Bronstein at the Shadow of Memory: Relational Perspectives of Remembering & Forgetting conference held in Tel Aviv. Bronstein is the Director of the Israeli organization Zochrot, which carries out educational and advocacy campaigns to promote understanding of the Nakba among Israeli Jews.
(Palestinian refugees leaving Lydda and Ramle, 1948. Photo: Palestineremembered.com)
“Min wayn jaye inti?” Where the hell do you come from?: Repression of the Nakba and post-trauma among Jews in Israel
By Eitan Bronstein
Tel Aviv, June 2009
Translation: Charles Kamen
The following is an excerpt from a psychiatric evaluation: “The patient is an 80-year-old man…no known history of psychiatric illness…was in a British jail in Palestine during the Mandate (?), fought in the war of independence, suffers from traumatic and repressed memories of the war…fully conscious, not fully aware of where he is, difficulty orienting himself, thinks he’s in a British camp or in a cemetery…False persecution ideation, ‘the staff wants to steal my blood and organs’…” [1]
At the beginning of June, 2009, a man about 40 years old came with his mother to my office. He’d contacted me to help them trace his father’s activities during the 1948 war. His father had recently died, aged 82, and had made both of them suffer greatly, terrorizing them with physical violence for many years. They suspect his sudden angry outbursts were a response to the trauma he had suffered as a soldier during the capture of Al-Lid (Lod) in 1948. They’d found on Zochrot’s web site descriptions of massacres, looting and rape. The father had never specifically told them about what he did during the capture of Lod, but a few years ago he told his wife’s brother a confused story about how he and other soldiers ran wild in Lod during Operation Danny. The son told me he’s afraid that his father was involved in massacres, looting and rape of Palestinians. After Lod was captured his father went AWOL from the army for a month, and when he returned was tried before a military court. He testified that “he felt ill and spent a month at home in bed.” [2] “Why did he feel ill?” his son asked me, and replied, “I think it’s because of the terrible things he did.” These activities also made the father afraid to meet Palestinians from the West Bank and from Gaza after the occupation in 1967, lest they recognize and try to harm him in revenge for what he did in 1948.
You don’t have to be a mental health professional to understand that if a person did such things, they must have affected him, and that he’s liable to be violent toward others and perhaps to himself as well. What surprised me was that his son and wife thought that what happened in Lod in 1948 was the source of the father’s trauma. In their particular case the Palestinian Nakba, the human catastrophe that harmed and defined the lives of millions, is also the source of the father’s years of violent behavior. That’s their understanding of what they went through, and today they’re trying to reconstruct what he did during those days in Lod.
I’d like to describe and analyze a series of individual cases in order to argue that Jews in Israel tend to repress the Palestinian Nakba, but that signs of it appear more and more often, burst out frequently, in a form that’s known as “post traumatic stress disorder.” I would argue that even Israelis who aren’t familiar with the Nakba, or who didn’t live through it, also experience this. I won’t attempt here to link the specific cases with the collective trauma but, in a general sense, I think that the sources of this connection can be located in the relatively strong feeling of solidarity found in Israeli-Jewish society regarding the fundamental issues related to the conflict: the 1948 war, the justification for establishing a Jewish state, the Palestinian refugee question, the Law of Return for Jews versus the right of return for Palestinians. There is a broad consensus among Israeli Jews on these issues, and the source of this consensus is rooted, among other things in their attitudes toward the Palestinian Nakba.
Whoever deals with the Palestinian Nakba knows quite a bit about the trauma that the Palestinians experienced, and continue to experience, but what effect did this trauma have on Israeli Jews? It is difficult to generalize and identify specific behaviors that are the result of the defeat of the Palestinians in 1948, and the violence toward them, but one notable response can be identified – repression. It is as old as the state. It began in the midst of the Nakba.
Here are two examples of how the Nakba has been repressed, one from the past and one from the present. In 1948, UN personnel documented the corpses of Palestinians who had been shot at Majd al-Krum. A Haganah intelligence officer in the Galilee reported how he burned this film. [3]
Today the Jewish National Fund manages public parks that were built on the remains of destroyed Palestinian villages. Many of these parks contain signs explaining the history of the area, from biblical times until today, but skipping over the Palestinian history. Michal Katorza, who is responsible for preparing the signs posted in those parks, says: “We didn’t write on the signs that we expelled them [the Palestinians – E.B.]. Nor did we write that they’re living in refugee camps…In any case, I’m not in favor of raising this issue in the media, because it’s very sensitive. In fact, some of the JNF parks are on land where there used to be Arab villages, and the forests are there to hide this.” [4]
You can destroy film footage, post misleading sign, and plant a forest to repress the past, but can these acts make the trauma itself disappear? Such acts are themselves markers of the trauma that exists in Jewish Israeli society, but these also prevent the Jewish public from confronting trauma in a constructive way.
One of the characteristics of PTSD is described as follows:
Reliving of the traumatic event through flashbacks, nightmares and exaggerated physical or psychological reactions to things that remind the person of the event; “triggers.” [5]
What happens to those soldiers who shot the Palestinians in the head in front of an audience of hundreds in the center of Majd-al-Krum? What happens to someone who wrote – clearly and unambiguously – in the advance operation order issued for the capture of the village of Hunin, that the forces should “surge into the village of Hunin to kill a number of men…” [6] We haven’t any information about a massacre in Hunin, so some of those who captured the village might at least have been spared the trauma of shooting helpless people in Hunin.
A clear order for ethnic cleansing was issued in March, 1948. The goal of the Haganah project known as Plan Dalet was to create a contiguous Jewish territory. That is, to capture as much territory as possible, in which as few Arabs as possible would remain. The language of the instructions to the field commander is clear: “When capturing villages in your area, you will decide – whether to clear or to destroy them – in consultation with your Arab affairs advisors…You are authorized to limit – as much as you can – operations to cleanse, capture and destroy enemy villages.” More that sixty years after the Nakba, someone is trying to find out what his father did as part of the 1948 conquest, and someone is drafting an order for an updated and shortened Plan Dalet. Rivka Shim’on writes in a religious nationalist magazine named Shabbat VeShabbato, in June, 2008: “Just as we enthusiastically search for worms in salad, so we will conquer the land, carefully, enthusiastically, longingly, with terror and with awe, so that not a living soul remains.” [7] You don’t need much imagination to identify the spirit of Plan Dalet reappearing in Ms. Shim’on’s practical suggestions. The enthusiasm and care with which she proposes to conquer and destroy the Arabs were definitely present when the inhabitants of 60 villages were expelled within a few days in “Operation Hiram,” in October, 1948. In other words, her recommendation that all the Arabs in the country be expelled and killed goes very well with what was almost achieved in the Nakba. I think her writing contains not only a recommendation for the future but an unconscious reconstruction of what actually occurred in the past, even if it was not completely successful.
But the instinct to repress the Nakba is still surprisingly active even in her. Otherwise, how is it possible to understand the rest of her recommendation, that “We must also destroy the females – so that there won’t be any more organizations such as ‘Zochrot’ – erecting signs – as if the land were theirs.” [8] She’s referring to Zochrot’s efforts to erect signs commemorating the Palestinian localities that were destroyed in the Nakba. It’s somewhat surprising to find in such a violent text remnants of guilt feelings and attempts to repress the violence. Why should Rivka Shim’on care that Zochrot erects signs commemorating what was here until the Nakba, or what will be here after the future Nakba that she’s proposing. If the commandment to conquer the land is so sacred and morally justified, why should she be bothered by our attempts to commemorate those places that were destroyed, and that will be destroyed? Why is there a need to repress? I think, even if it makes me seen like a hopeless optimist, that this is evidence the author feels guilty and, therefore, evidence that a shred of humanity still exists, even in such a distorted mind.
A fascinating combination of Nakba-repressing violence, together with actions to reconcile with the conquered Palestinians, can be found in the short video clip describing Zochrot’s trip to Majdal, today part of Ashqelon, in 2003. Some 150 men and women participated in the trip, half of them Jews and the other half Arabs, most of them family members of refugees from Majdal who now live in Lod. One of the Palestinian women in the group, Sha’ida Hijazi. Shhe is a second generation survivor of the Nakba. Shadia Hijazi was born in Gaza to refugees from Majdal, and when she was 16 moved to Lod and married a son of Majdal refugees. During Zochrot’s tour she “meets” two Jews whose families came from Arab countries and are now living in the Ashqelon neighborhood which once was Majdal.
Let’s watch the video:
Usually Zochrot’s tours, even those in urban areas, don’t lead to confrontations. Zochrot activists erected a number of signs in Majdal. The sign that was removed said, “The area to which Majdal’s Arabs were brought and expelled to Gaza in 1950.” That’s exactly what the person removing the sign wants to repress, to conceal. The fact that he lives in the city in which other people had once lived, who had been forcibly expelled only a few decades ago, and that they’re still alive and remind us of the expulsion. The Jew can’t bear being exposed to this fact on a sign in the city square, and he prefers to remove it, to make the traces of the violent historical act disappear. Today he’s a homeowner, lord of the land in his city, and he wants to determine what will be remembered, and what won’t.
But the act of repression evokes unexpected opposition from a Palestinian woman. It’s important to stress the differences between the two, in order to understand how surprising is the opposition to removing the sign. A woman versus a man, a Palestinian versus a Jew, a passing visitor versus a permanent resident of the city, a refugee and second-class citizen versus a first-class citizen. I think that it is exactly her subordinate status with respect to all these crucial characteristics that gives her the element of surprise and also her strength. That is, her strength lies in her apparent weakness from a conventional, sociological point of view.
Sha’ida told me after the tour that when the sign was removed she felt as if she was being expelled from Majdal “again” – that the trauma of her parents’ generation was revisiting her today. Even though she’d never lived in Majdal, when she saw the signs being erected in the city, recalling the life of her family and community here, she couldn’t take the symbolic uprooting of the sign. She’s ready to defend it and uses force – both physical and verbal – to do so. Nor does she back down when the man threatens to kill her, and she utters a similar threat in response. A second man also confronts her, but she doesn’t give in. He starts talking to her in Arabic, in a moment that makes manifest what life could have been like in Ashqelon, in Israel, had the Palestinians not been expelled. The Arabic spoken by Jews in Israel is usually used by the intelligence agencies and the GSS to harm native speakers of that language. “Min wayn jaya inti?” – that is, where the hell do you come from? And then the most surprising thing of all happens. With no preliminaries, the man who removed the sign and struggled with Sha’ida, says to her, “Come on, let’s put it back.” It doesn’t take her more than a fraction of a second, as if she’d been expecting this, and she says to him, “Put it back.” He replaces the sign with her help and explains that he did it “so she’d be satisfied.”
You could say that he simply gave in to her, and to the force of her convictions. But how can we explain what he did next? He makes the effort to bring her a glass of water to calm her down. My interpretation is that, at this moment, he’s trying to reconcile with her. This gesture of reconciliation is also, apparently, not a conscious one, but one that I want to understand as containing the potential for reconciliation involved in the act of recognizing the Nakba. Dealing with the Nakba frees one from the automatic violence and/or the victimhood that Israeli Jews are taught to feel. This freedom can be healing, both personally and collectively. When Jews in Israel recognize the Nakba, they become motivated to extend a hand or a glass of water to Palestinians, in an appeal for forgiveness and reconciliation. This man, who’s giving this woman a glass of water, is no longer the same man who removed the sign and struggled with her only a few minutes earlier.
Our web site recently received an email showing there are Israelis who understand the importance of recognizing the Nakba, and refuse to repress it:
Hello,
My name is…, and I’m a MA student in linguistics at the Hebrew University.
I’m employed as a secretary in a Jerusalem real estate agency, whose most prestigious properties are, of course, “Arab houses.” A few days ago I accompanied one of the agents who showed clients (Americans, of course) an Arab house that was for sale in Baq’a.
As a granddaughter of holocaust survivors, who returned to her family’s large house in Romania and saw how it had been divided into apartments for residents of the city who were able to go on with their lives, I felt bad, and though a house is just an empty shell, there’s certainly someone who misses it, and a entire life that was changed after they left it. I was very pleased to see awareness of the issue, and that it is being addressed by Israeli citizens and Jews.
I’d be happy to receive updates on the organization’s activities. Your web site is very informative and interesting.
Good luck,
[signed]
Jerusalem
I don’t want to conclude without referring to the place where we’re now sitting and discussing memory and forgetting. The David Intercontinental Hotel is located in the center of what was once the Manshiyya neighborhood, part of Jaffa. In April, 1948, the neighborhood was captured and much of it destroyed, but its final destruction was carried out only in the 1970’s. Hotels and commercial properties were built on its ruins, as well as Charles Clore Park, in the name of “reclaiming the wilderness.” The Tel Aviv municipality has recently begun to preserve the Manshiyya railroad station in order to transform it into a tourist site. When the preservation project began, it was called the “Manshiyya” project, but today that name is gone, replaced by “The Station.”
This conference is taking place in the city of Tel Aviv, which is currently celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding. It’s important to me that you know that the city has forgotten Sumeil, Jamasin, Sheikh Muwanis, Abu Kabir, Salame and Manshiyya, all of them Palestinian villages and Jaffa neighborhoods that existed within the current boundaries of the Jewish city, even before it was established. Repression of the Nakba is still with us, as are our traumatic responses to it.
Notes
[1] The full report is in my possession.
[2] From the trial transcript.
[3] From a talk by Adel Man’a at Zochrot, 18.6.2009
[4] Eretz Yisrael Shelanu, No. 32, 24 Sivan 5768, p. 3
[5] http://www.activist-trauma.net/doc/hebrew_A3.pdf
[6] From Sedek, No. 1, Tomer Gardi, ed., May, 2007, p. 137. Carmel Brigade/23 Battalion, 54/1088/סד , 28 Av, 5708/ 2/9/1948
[7] Shabbat BeShabbato, No. 1232, 23 Tamuz 5768, 26/7/2008, p. 8
[8] Ibid.
Related posts:
- ‘Shemesh, your family’: Jewish Israelis struggle with the Nakba
- Growing understanding of the Nakba in Israel is sign of ‘deepening fissures in the Iron Wall’
- Avnery invokes Obama in urging Israelis to recognize the Nakba
- Michael Oren disses oral history of Nakba–but he did plenty himself in his own work
- Israel Could Transform Its Future, and Image, by Recognizing ‘Nakba’ Right Now
{ 51 comments }
I know this is scarcely the intent at Mondoweiss, but the Nakba-is-a-jewish-trauma line is an indulgent, often self-indulgent, view of colonial hatred and murderers which would rarely if ever be the focus of discussion of e.g. British colonists in Kenya. It's just another way of making jews the central feature of conversation and concern in this apartheid state, rather than the arabs, for whom the trauma is obviously far worse. Hard though it is, given that there is so much material in this vein, it would nevertheless be a step forward if Mondoweiss didn't publish this sort of piece at all, because it's fundamentally aligned wtih jewish chauvinist approaches to Palestine.
but otto, violence to others is a trauma. arguably it won't be stopped until the pain of the harm done to others is registered in the conciousness of the perpetrator. the wound of trauma from the holocaust and before needs to be lanced and opened up. it has been carried on long enough. i really appreciate that phil is willing to examine his jewish belief structure. it is emphatically not self-indulgent, it's brave. .
Otto, if you cannot have what you want, be happy to have what you can get. It is a miracle of sorts……..
lol, even when poor phil weiss links to self-flaggelating jews the lynch mobs fault poor phillie === you can't win with the jew haters — maybe if you start renouncnog judaism, jews and all things jewish you will be loved – it simply doesn't seem enough to hate Israel and Zionism….
Otto, here's why:
yes it's indeed a miracle indeed to find self-reflective jews….unlike the muslim and arab world which is obsessed with self-criticism and is a model for moral and ethical and behavior
i'm going up on the roof to see what i might see it could be i'll see a city , a diamond under sea or maybe i'll see a moon and a heaven filled with stars and i'll wonder what this might mean in the face of wars in the face of war i stand stone cold dead i didn't get a chance to thank you before the bullet hit my head i'm going round to all my friends going to whisper in thier ear saying thanks for coming closer cause you knew the end was near you knew the end was near looked in my eye said goodbye you won't be round no more and i to you i said it too we will not meet again and so it must be for ever more we shall part as friends we shall part as friends i'm sure that's what you said but then again we might never know now that we're off to war we soon just might be dead
water the universal solvent
wine – the universal lubricant
go for it phil – you may find the slalvation you're seeking – and finally be FREE FREE FREE at last -
NOT
"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?" – F. Nietzsche, The Parable of the Madman, from The Gay Science
I think it is traumatic for Jews as well. Keep in mind, I think we are too hard on Phil. We project this identity of Jewishness as defined by the Zionist thugs who stole and continue to steal what's left of Historic Palestine. Phil is a humanist and a Jew. You can be both. He's trying to bridge that identity. He shouldn't have to. We should know you can be both. Also, none of these identities are absolute. He can remake Jewish identity. Just because a Zionist calls him a self-hater for example. does not make it legitimate because we can say Zionism is self-hate since it's the biggest source of antisemitism and conflict in the ME at least. I'm trying to be a bit more understanding about this too. I think there are Zionists who aren't Zionists in the same vein as the trolls on our blog or those insane colonists. Richard Silverstein is a good example. Jeff Halper is another. Anyways, yea.
Yss Strahl. Indeed & ditto for Islamist and Arab thugs & racist haters who butcher their sisters and daughters for "honor", who oppress non-Muslims, who due to their fanatic beliefs and cultural legacy of oppression persecute members of the LGBTQ community, and who glorify death and killing n the name of the religion of peace. We need to be much more understanding that just because someone is born Muslim or Arab does not mean he or she necessarily must inherit the horrific legacy of Islamist expansionist colonialism or Arab violent extremism that has plagues the Middle East for centuries. This is not the birthright of Muslims and Arabs. Azar Nafisi, Ahmed al-Rahim Kemal Silay (Indiana), Bassam Tibi, Ahmed Subhy Mansour, Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, Zuhdi Jasser, Walid Shoebat, Irshid Manji and millions of others are great examples that for the 56 Islamic countries/22 Arab countries of the world to live in tolerance and peace and kindness does not require the genocide of Jewish people, the destruction of the Historic Jewish homeland or the brutal discrimination of non-Muslims and moderate Muslims, of Egyptian Copts, of Christians and of Blacks – there is another way. Peace out.
The comparison doesn't work. There is one Jewish State. There are many Arab States with their own problems – different but with many commonalities. And you didn't have to mirror what I said, never have I whitewashed Islamic terrorism. The fact that you mentioned Walid Shoebat is telling though. You truly are a racist and Islamophobe. And there is no comparison between this concept of Palestine being 'Jewish' or 'Palestinian'. It was predominantly Arab populated. Palestinians. In the 48' War 800,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed. That's why there is a Jewish majority in Israel now. The thousands of years of Jewish migration or expulsion are not relevant. We can't go back that far. Similarly, Thom made a similar point by saying it was hypocritical to stop time when the progressive reforms in international politics were made 'official' in the last century. But slavery ended and there was no slack given to people who missed the deadline. It ends when it ends. Similarly, I could care less that Jews think that Palestine is all theirs. Zionists committed a war crime to get their country. So did others in the past, but we did not have standards before. Following your logic (your implication) we should allow slavery to just continue on and on because it only ended 200+ years ago. That's a lot less than 2000-3000 years, right? Oh and no one other than tribal Jews and truly antisemitic people like Christian Zionists believe Arabs want kill all Jews. Israel kills 10 times the number of Palestinian children and 5 times the number of civilians in general since the 2nd intifada. It's convenient for you to conflate all Arabs and Arab States with the Palestinian plight. You of course mimic my comments that we should not conflate Jewishness with racist/fascist Zionism but you of course do not believe that. Your rhetorical games are pathetic and shallow.
Her rhetorical games are pathetic and shallow.>/i> And unread. Thanks, Strahl.
In Chicago, the story of Benjamin Emanuel included several ethnic cleansings and mass murders like the f the conquest on al-Lid, but the Emanuels seem to have embraced and to be proud of their murderous and bloodthirsty heritage: The Real Benjamin Emanuel Issue..
One argument is that Zionism was corrupted by violence. Another is that the violence is an expression of its essence. Wouldn't Jabotinsky, most honest of the revisionists, argue the latter? In any case, the violence, organized, savage, and directed at the innocent, began in 1938, with Irgun bombings of markets in Jerusalem and Haifa and the Special Night Squads and Special Squads (death squads) attacks on villages on into 1939. Many of the leaders of the Haganah in the middle forties who became the leaders of the IDF in 1948 had participated in these events as teenagers. Aculturated to the murder of the innocent at a young age, in 1948 they did not flinch.
Zionism is about establishing a homeland for the Jews and blah blah. I can understand that and I do not see a problem with Jews wanting self-determination but people were already living in Palestine. Jews were the minority. The UN nor the imperial powers had a right to pass out States to people. Why did the Jews get over 50% of the land when they were a minority and own around 7% of land/property? Of course the Arabs would be pissed off. It should have been One-State with equal rights for all.
I can understand why you'd interpret this paper as being Judeo-centric, otto, as it certainly is, but I think following that line to the idea that pieces like this perpetuate the "making [of] Jews the central feature of conversation and concern" regarding all things Israel and Palestine is undue. Many of us that frequent MondoWeiss know fairly well the history and details of the Nakba from the Palestinian narrative, and while I certainly encourage efforts to remind us all of the historical record and relay details we may have individually missed, pieces like this one that discuss issues rarely covered can only serve to positively impact our understanding of the Nakba and its effects on the entire community of the Levant. I don't think that diminishes in our minds, consciously or subconsciously, the fact that the Nakba was clearly perpetrated by one party (Jewish paramilitary groups and later the State of Israel) upon another (the Palestinians), and that it is overwhelmingly the Palestinians who obviously felt and are still feeling its effects, as opposed to the Jews. Regarding the impact reading a work like this has on those new to the concept and history of the Nakba, if they have a tendency to lean slightly to the "pro-Israel" side, then I would surmise reading this paper might lead them to investigate the Nakba with a more objective mind, whereas if their first introduction were a fact sheet produced from historical sources in the style of Ilan Pappe's book, they might be completely shut off to the idea of learning more. That's just conjecture though. As far as how reading this affects people like jenny clausowitz, I could not care less.
Bronstein is the definitive self hating Jew. He is quoted on all the Israel hate sites. He supports Arabs taking over Israel and living his life as a dhimmi.
You can also be a Zionist and a humanist.
Equal rights for all was never offered to Jews in Israel/Palestine or really anywhere.
Its IMPORTANT to know others' experience, even if it is difficult and suggests some guilt (even if only at being the current beneficiary of others' sufferings). Its important for the past, and its important for decisions that effect the present forward. One difficulty of all history in the region is that there are FEW that present their experience only. There is too frequently qualifying adjectives that betray a blame, a rationalization, a prejudice. Ilan Pappe presents a blame. Recent Bennie Morris presents a blame. Norman F presents a blame. But, to be a good person, you HAVE to know how your actions (including your words) effect others. Its necessary to hear anger, to be able to discern the information that is included. The less anger overwhelms the mix, the more the information gets through.
The Zionist narrative is not simply fiction. I have been very moved by the idealism and hope that motivated the early Zionists. For the first time in 2000 years, Jews would be safe and strong and have their own place in the world. No one would ever be able to accuse them of parasitism. They would be their own farmers, factory workers, scholars, soldiers, and statesmen. I can easily imagine being seduced by this possibility. Focusing on the Nakba spoils this story. It degrades all the sacrifices and accomplishments of Israel, and so many Jews will naturally take it as a hostile attack. Hopefully, the story can be completed in a way that honors both sides. No nation is formed without significant sacrifice and many losers. Israel is no different, and both sides will have to accept that the past cannot be changed. I hope one possibility of your account is that most people on both sides really do not wish to hate each other. If the Palestinians can convince the Israelis that vengeance is not what they want, and the Israelis can learn to trust them, then I think there is a chance for an enduring peace.
Insightful post.
You really shouldn't talk to yourself like that – it's unhealthy
You can also be a Communist and a humanist. Between the real and the ideal falls the shadow. What is the Zionist ideal? What is the humanist ideal? Do they differ at all? If so, how so?
Do you live in the USA, Witty? Have you read the history of France?
I agree with your first three paragraphs. In the last paragraph, did you forget to add: "Conversely, if the Israelis can convince the Palestinians that unequal opportunity is not what they want, and the Palestinians can learn to trust them, then I think there is a chance for an enduring peace."
it is pathetic , but kind of funny, when the phil weiss variety of Israel-haters have to be defended from the anti-Semitic Israel-haters by other Israel-haters….what a cesspool of hate this website is…lol
Important point. There are things that can change the tenor of the relaitonships. Did you read that Ali Abunimeh and Electronic Intifiada is criticizing Hamas for being too compliant in appearing to endorse a two-state solution? http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10620.sht...
Well the argument he makes is quite convincing even though I disagree with him. On the Palestinian side, you can have honest discussions about peace and every move made is with the goal of peace in mind. But when I look at the Israel camp – especially when listening to Netanyahu, I can't say the same thing.
I have to present my usual bottom line.. It is the height of uselessness to focus on "anyone's mental trama" while they are killing people and allowing people to be killed. I can't think of anything more bazzare and ridiculous. The German's were tramatized by they did to Jews. Now the Jews are tramatized by what they are doing to the Palestines. In both cases they all deserve to be tramatized and worse. For the love of God ..do not start up with a yet another victim meme for Jews due to the trama of their actions. I await an essay on how the poor Germans were so tramatized by what they allowed to happen to the Jews, that the Jews need to pay reperations for mental counseling for the Germans.
Very, very interesting. Ethan Bronstein's article makes a lot of sense. American you missed something essential, these suppressed memories create new cruelties, they have to be addressed. PTSD studies are a rather recent field of studies, but the phenomenon is much older. I was always puzzled by the huge taboo the English surrounded their shell shock victims with. It felt they were left alone with their memories and flashbacks.
Black' s around the world and black Americans had it much worse than jews and they have yet to demand Tibet be given to them as their homeland so they can take out on the Buddhist what Americans did to them.
I didn't miss it. I am from the Viet Nam era. There is nothing new about PTSD. Feel free to study it, analyze it, parse it, wallow in it , debate it ad nausum and formulate treatment plans.. AFTER…..you have stopped it . Save the whys and wherefores and explainations for the defense. However Ted Bundy running around killing women because his Mommy didn't love him enough didn't work for his defense. Didn't work at Nuremberg either.
I have to add that research on why some abused and tramatized people become the "exact opposite" of their persecutors, kind and compassionate…..while some become "just like" their persecutors and go out and infict the very same horrors on others is more valuable to the whole question. So far the fact that "some do" and "some don't" has established that in the end those who repeat their abuse on others are either 1)sane enough to be guilty of their crimes or 2)mentally ill. Either way they get put away as punishment or for treatment. So what do you do with a 'state' or large group acting out their PTSD….wait for them to cure themselves? Doesn't work.
The Jews were the majority in their part of the land. If it had been one state with equal rights for all here are the equal rights: Everyone has the right to be a heterosexual Muslim. Everyone has the right to be executed if they are not a heterosexual Muslim. All men have the right to murder their wives, sisters, and daughters over matters of "honor". Like if she gets raped or something.
No, but the black slaves from America did found the nation of Liberia. In Africa, where their ancestors were from, but they themselves were not. Oh, except that most of their ancestors had never lived in that particular area. Thanks for making it so easy.
Funny, I see the opposite. Arafat turned down all offers at Camp David. Much as I despise that mass-murdering kleptocrat. I can sympathize. He knew the Israelis would never give them the "right of return" and that the Palestinians would assassinate him if he gave up on that point. The Palestinians' "honest discussions about peace" all seem to come down to whether to keep attacking now or take a break long enough to build up their forces before attacking later. Every move is made with the goal of killing Israelis in mind. The only debate is whether to make a hudna (fake peace) or not.
Look who is talking to itself, lol go back to bed gramos – you seem a bit unhinged…
lol, Palestinans discussions about peace are usually do i butcher men women and children in Israel or just in the Isralie settlements
I don't understand your problem. The Nakba did cause trauma to Jews who carried it out. Recognizing this doesn't in any way excuse their crimes or belittle the vastly greater suffering endured by their Palestinian victims. Selective objection to efforts to understand the past and present make me question the motives of the objector. One can not have too much validated data from which to try to understand reality. If you disagree with the validity of the data, that is one thing, but if you disagree with the very act of its collection and assessment, you are interested in something other than the truth.
I think Shafiq's comment and Thom's comment do a disservice to David F-Witty-Citizen-Witty comments above. The latter three's comments are honestly looking for a spiritual and realistic starting place for peace in the context of history affecting in turn the Jews and the Palestinians; Shafiq and Thom seem to be looking for a zero sum game, each on the opposing side.
Further, eddie's contribution is ten times worse, simply infantile.
LeaNder22 makes a good point. Since WW1 PTSD had been a phenomena recognized; on a larger plain it use to be called "shell shocked." I remember how Patton cuffed the whining Jewish American GI for hovering in the rear when there was a job to do, for being a wimp, to set an example to his troops–and how Patton was chastised, despite the tremendous value he had to the Allied cause. And American's point is well taken too. In a still larger sense, the average Germans of post WW1 were acting out of PTSD–cure themselves didn't happen; instead their situation was manipulated and we got the invasion of Poland. Doesn't work. The psychological concept of cycle of abuse is real; and it's true many who grew up in a situation like Manson did not turn out like Manson; but that ignores how the masses are manipulated by the powers at any particular time for the latter's personal aggregate agenda . Not to mention ideals are always subject to corruption, compartmentalization, I believe is the term. That amounts to ends justify means. Sort of like the torture debate?
And who did the Japanese abuse after their trauma of being nuked – twice? And who have the Cambodians abused? Sorry, PTSD may be real for an individual but not for a country. The Israelis and their supporters will just have to think of a better excuse for their cruelty. Citizen, which Jewish leader do you credit with twisting Israel and Israel's supports for his own personal agenda?
I was being honest about what I thought. I did mention that I support Hamas' overtures to Obama and to peace but I do remain sceptical after hearing what Netanyahu had to say last week.
The Palestinian Jews, Christians and Muslims were living side by side in harmony and fought together against the Zionist invaders. What is it any of your business anyway? Are you Arab?
There was a tidal wave of Israeli and diaspora support for an imperial Israel after Israel won the '67 War so easily. The one-eyed Jewish hero originally wanted not to take and occupy and Gaza, nor all of Jerusalem–he knew that would lay down a future Achilles heel (especially the Palestinian refugees in Gaza, living earmarks of the original Nakba dispossession), but he was won over by the Greater Israelites in the the throes of his military success. Golda Meir, the American Jew, by her fantasy that arabs in the former Mandate were not really there, makes it hard to distinguish between Israel's lebensraum philosophy and any personal agenda of any fictional aggregate of Jews, the old narrative of just wanting to create a place where jews would not be separated from the land, but would be more like ideal communism's land workers, with the same values as ideal Nazi blood and soil settlers of the land, but with less obvious ethnic or race attributes. It's the difference in that respect with somebody who works by writing hedge funds, and one who works by growing potatoes.
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