I am beginning to think that the criteria used by the editors of the NY Times for evaluating op-eds about the Mideast are these:
Is it weird enough? Is it far enough removed from reality? Is it bad enough for Israel?
Today there’s one by a Tel Aviv University psychologist, Dr. Carlo Strenger, who advocates “diplomatic therapy” for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
The trauma is mutual and multilayered. The Palestinians have never been able to mourn what they call the Nakba, the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948. Their ethos of national liberation was based on the idea that all refugees would be able to return to their homes in Jaffa, Ramle and Lod. Letting go of this dream, a condition for the two-state solution, requires a process of mourning that has been made almost impossible by the humiliation of the occupation and the force of Israeli retaliation, culminating in the Gaza war last year.
Trauma is not the Palestinians’ alone: Israeli Jews live under a fear of annihilation that overshadows any consideration of compromise. Many critics of Israel believe that such a statement is a cheap ploy to justify colonial ambitions, but right or wrong this is the reality of the country’s collective psyche. Israelis still look back at the attacks by Arab armies in 1948, 1967 and 1973 as moments when they could have been wiped out, and this fear is revived today by the possibility of Iran’s acquiring nuclear weapons.
Where to start? How about the bias implicit in Strenger’s exposition: were all the Palestinian refugees expelled? Some were, certainly. But many left voluntarily to escape the chaos of the war that their leadership had a great part in bringing about; and most of the responsibility for their inability to return lies with the Arab nations.
Regarding the Jews, what exactly is the point of suggesting that their fear of annihilation may be unreasonable — worse, “a cheap ploy to justify colonial ambitions?” Are the Hizballah, Syrian and Iranian missiles chopped liver? Strenger does not suggest that the Arab nakba tales might be exaggerated, so why are Jewish fears?
Furthermore, it’s gratuitously false to say that the recent Gaza war was “retaliation.” That’s pure Goldstone.
But OK, he’s a psychologist, not a historian, and what’s important for therapy is not what is in reality, but what’s in the patient’s head. So Palestinian Arab fantasies are as important as historical facts. The nakba stories with their imaginary or exaggerated massacres, rapes, etc. are as important as the very real history of Arab war and terrorism against Israel, the treachery of Arafat in the Oslo period and the murderous ambitions of Hamas.
How can the therapist help calm this anger and fear? There’s a problem, and of course it’s Israel’s fault: the “humiliation of the occupation” and Israeli “retaliation” have made it impossible for the Palestinians to ‘mourn’ (it seems to me that they’ve been mourning violently since 1948 and what they haven’t been able to do is get even. But that’s just me). The implication is that to enable this mourning, Israel has to leave the territories and stop defending itself.
Strenger also brings up the issue of religion, so that he can equate the danger from “Israel’s ideological Right” to the well-armed, Iranian funded, antisemitic, genocidal fanatics of Hamas who rule 40% of the Palestinian Arab population. Is he kidding?
So what does diplomatic therapy look like?
As in Northern Ireland, the sponsoring parties, presumably the members of the so-called quartet — the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States — should maintain a permanent peace conference that will convene until an agreement is reached. And the quartet needs to find ways to engage all parties in the region, most of all the Arab League, but also Hamas and possibly, at some point, Iran.
Strenger proposes, therefore, that the borderline-hostile Quartet (only the US can be called even ambiguously pro-Israel) maintain a permanent institution designed to beat Israel until the Palestinians and others are satisfied with the result! And look at those others: the Arab League, which fought to prevent the creation of Israel and has been implacably opposed to its existence ever since; Hamas, which explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of its Jewish inhabitants; and Iran, whose President called (yesterday) for the “nonexistence of the Zionist entity,” which is directly responsible for the last two wars fought by Israel, and is preparing the ground now for the next.
This is a therapy group? It sounds more like a lynch mob. But Strenger thinks there will be a catharsis:
An open-ended process would allow Palestinians to voice their rage and pain about what they have gone through and to express their need for Israel to recognize its part in the Nakba. In the same way patients progress by talking about their traumas, a therapeutic process may lead the Palestinians to realize that they have not just been passive victims, that they have made decisions, ranging from rejection of the American partition plan in 1947 to the use of suicide bombers since the 1990s, that have driven back the possibility of peace.
Likewise, Israel’s Jews need to be able to voice their fear that Arabs will never accept the existence of Israel, and that the two-state solution is just a step toward its destruction. Therapeutic diplomacy will help them gradually accept their share of the responsibility for the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948. In this way both parties can come to realize that accepting the other’s narrative and point of view does not mean annihilation.
I expect that the Palestinians will voice their rage and pain, something that they are expert at and do all the time. But why should this cause them to stop thinking of themselves as passive victims? It seems to me that the more they express their rage, the more convinced of their victim status they get. And they’ll get a lot of reinforcement from the other group members.
Israelis, for the most part, do accept that some Arabs were expelled in 1948, and that some of them were innocent people who suffered needlessly. They do not in general (except for those like Strenger) think that they must accept the responsibility for everything bad that happened to the Palestinians, they do not accept the Palestinian definition of the ‘crime’ that they are accused of, and they most assuredly don’t agree that they must accept 4-5 million hostile Arabs who claim to be descendants of all of the original refugees in order to atone for it.
With all due respect, I don’t see a two-sided process of reconciliation here. I see only more pressure for Israel to make still more concessions, to move closer to the Arab position — which has not budged a centimeter since 1948 — until it finally gives up on the idea of Jewish self-determination.
It’s not therapy, it’s therapist-assisted national suicide!
Technorati Tags: Carlo Strenger, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel, TelAviv University
wasn’t ‘the strenger’ a book by camus? absurdity indeed. what the palestinians actually do need:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hkJL6wRBE8
The NYT is a financial basket case. Readership is way down, but unfortunately, its audience still includes many, many influential people. This is the sort of thing that helps explain why 69% of Americans view Israel favorably…while people in positions of power still bash Israel.
I don’t think the NYT editorial staff sits around coming up with bizarre criteria as to what to print with respect to Israel. It is much simpler than that. I think it goes more like this:
Some consortium of Saudi sheiks – and/or other Gulf Arabs, maybe even some Iranian operatives – funnel money to the NYT that keeps them afloat. (Hey, it sure beats having to convince people to buy ad space in a failing paper! It sure beats having to run ads to get more people to subscribe!) This money may also go to key members of the editorial staff under the table, perhaps to Swiss bank accounts. In exchange, the NYT not only bashes Israel, but also keeps out most voices that might support her.
Once in a while, they might print a pro-Israel letter to the editor, but even then, only if it is outnumbered four-to-one by anti-Israel letters. And the pro-Israel letter MUST be signed by a Jewish-sounding name, or someone from Israel That way, everybody else can discount the letter because of the obvious “agenda” of the author. Also, refusing to print most pro-Israel letters, making sure they are outnumbered by anti-Israel letters, creates the illusion that most public opinion is anti-Israel. Remember though, it is ONLY an illusion, a cheap trick. After all, they decide what letters to print (I myself have sent many to the NYT, never printed…but you see, I don’t have a Jewish-sounding name).
Failure to follow these guidelines means that the petrodollar sugar daddy threatens to cut off funds. Or, it might mean that the offending party (maybe someone not directly on the petrodollar payroll) could even lose their job. Recently, one of their primary stringers on the Middle East – I think her name is Edith Bronner – was reassigned because her son began serving in the IDF; they were afraid she would not be “objective” enough.
What I’ve described above is not some tongue-in-cheek attempt at satire. I am DEAD SERIOUS. I am SURE something like this is happening. It is not only the NYT; this is just about every major national-level and international-level media outlet.
Think about it. I mean, REALLY think about it. You see how nonsensical this is. Vic, you have no trouble taking apart their line of analysis for the insane gibberish that it is. Ever wonder why your point of view – our point of view – NEVER seems to surface in the major media? Are there NO journalists who even have an iota of common sense, who even have the most basic facility for critical analysis?
The recent Dubai incident is the best example, the closest thing to clear proof of my theory in action. This is simply incredible.
Suppose some terrorist leader, say from Al Queda, had kidnapped, tortured, and murdered a couple of American troops, and then went on to play a leadership role in smuggling rockets into Tijuana to fire in the general direction of San Diego, with the open intent of murdering as many American civilians as possible. If this leader was killed in a hotel by CIA operatives, everybody would be celebrating our latest “victory” in the War on Terror. No, only in the singular instance where Israel is defending herself, does Israel become the bogeyman, barely any mention is made as to what this scumbag they offed was about, and Dubai can be taken seriuosly as the “aggrieved party”, their national sovereignty “violated” by the big bad Israelis. Oh, and if that weren’t enough, Israeli ambassadors in Britain, France, Ireland, Australia, are being called on the carpet for this to boot!
Um, isn’t there even one reporter out there who saw “The Bourne Identity”? Is Israel the only country in the world whose clandestine services use phony passports? Isn’t the real issue here the fact that DUBAI IS HARBORING TERRORISTS??!!
BUT NOT ONE MAJOR MEDIA OUTLET WILL ASK THESE QUESTIONS. NOT ONE. DOESN’T THIS UNANIMITY OF OUTRIGHT STUPIDITY MAKE ANYBODY WONDER JUST WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?
Oh, one heretofore “conservative” outlet, the only major one that had praised Israel nearly thirty years ago when they bombed Osirak, the Wall Street Journal, they just won’t leave the Dubai thing alone. Just about every day there is a new article about the latest clues the Dubai police have found, or some new diplomatic pressure that is being applied to Israel over this; they even ran a FULL PAGE AD in their Friday edition, advertising their weekend edition, with the LEAD STORY advertised being a piece by ex-CIA operative Robert Baer, as to why the Dubai hit was “bad spycraft”. WHO THE HELL CARES? CAN’T WE JUST PAT ISRAEL ON THE BACK AND SAY, “GOOD JOB KNOCKING OFF THAT COCKROACH!”, AND MOVE ON TO MORE IMPORTANT THINGS LIKE WHAT WE MIGHT BE DOING TO PREVENT THE NEXT 9-11-STYLE ATTACK, OR WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE WORST ECONOMY SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION?
Nope. The petrodollar pimps say dissing Israel is more important. So, editors, you want to ensure you’ve got a fat retirement nest egg, you better sharply salute and comply.
And the thing is, NONE OF THIS IS ILLEGAL. If it were exposed, no one would go to jail over this. Yes, it is unethical in the extreme, and the credibility of the people involved would be trashed forever, but it is not against the law. So, it is very low risk. And, it probably doesn’t even cost that much. A few hundred million dollars for such operations would be chump change to the oil barons. And that would grease one hell of a lot of palms.
Final thought: Think of any organization that is heavily dependent upon donations for their financial well-being, that has their hand out a lot. Now, think of organizations that fit this description who mould public opinion, not only media outlets, but universities, churches, think tanks, etc. Then consider the poisonous atmosphere against Israel that dominates university campuses. Look at what recently happened with the United Church of Canada, and what is now brewing with the Presbytarians. What the hell dog to they have in this fight? Why would the Church of Canada or the Presbytarians even consider boycotting Israel? Connect the dots.
Makes quite a lot of sense, no?