    Anatomy of a Conditionally Unresolved Conflict - a Personal and
    Philosophical Reflection.

    Gilad Atzmon, December 2000

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    Most commentators on the Israeli-Arab conflict usually apply political,
    historical and/or sociological analysis in order to arrive at a
    meaningful argument. Although I appreciate the importance of these
    analytical fields, I will argue that there is another layer of reasoning
    that has been systematically or even intentionally ignored. I refer to
    the analysis of 'Jewish understanding'. I suggest that uncovering the
    philosophy behind a number of fundamental Jewish precepts will clearly
    manifest the terrible truth that the Israeli-Arab conflict is
    conditionally unresolved.

    For many years I have experienced deep feelings of disappointment and
    disenchantment with my own people. As we all know, identity can be a
    complicated issue. One does not have a say regarding one's parents,
    place of birth, gender, racial origin or even religious inheritance.
    Nobody asked me if I wanted to be born a Jew or an Israeli. Nobody
    consulted me when I was just eight days old about whether I wanted to
    sacrifice a part of my body in order to determine my identity. When I
    was just over a week old, without proving any superiority or excellence
    in any given domain, I became 'chosen'. I have to admit that most of the
    Jewish people I have ever came across are more than happy with their
    given identity and are proud to be Jewish. Unfortunately I am not. On
    the contrary, the older I get the more I find myself ashamed of my own
    people and this paper is about my shame.

    First, I must emphasise the important distinction to be made between
    Judaism and Jewish Understanding. While Judaism is a religion - a
    collection of thoughts, laws, ideas and rituals - 'Jewish understanding'
    is what Jewish people make out of those concepts, what Jewish people
    make out of Judaism. The difference between Judaism and Jewish
    Understanding is similar to the distinction between ideology and praxis,
    or Marxism and Stalinism, or Christianity and the Inquisition.

    I would like to address the concept of "choseness". I believe that
    "choseness" is one of the most fundamental characteristics of 'Jewish
    understanding'. One can remove a substantial amount of religious law and
    ritual from Jewish life (e.g. the Reform movement) and one can even
    remove the whole of religious practice without really affecting Jewish
    identity (as we know there are many secular Jews). But whenever one
    removes "choseness", there is very little left with which the Jew can
    identify. In other words, by removing "choseness", the Jew, in effect,
    becomes converted to something else (converted into Christianity or,
    more generally, into an ordinary human being ) . The concept of
    "choseness" is bound up with many Jewish concepts of self-alienation or
    even positive discrimination such as Kosher food, Minian as well as the
    process of conversion. These concepts share a common denominator that
    suppress any experience of social interaction with the other. In other
    words, Jews are discouraged from assimilating with their non-Jewish
    environment (the Hebrew word for assimilation is Hit-bo-le-lout, which
    comes from the root word Blil, which is commonly understood to mean
    'mass' or 'confusion', hence le-hit-bo-lel - to assimilate, means to get
    confused, to be one of the mass, to lose your authenticity). The result
    of this is that the possibility of "loving thy neighbour" is denied.

    In general, as we shall see, 'Jewish understanding' (unlike Judaism)
    leads to ignorance of the Other. When I talk about the Other, I refer to
    that which is conditionally different from myself. The Other is the one
    with whom one can empathize because - and only because - he is
    different. An interaction with the Other tests one's tolerance. The
    Bible calls you to love the Other as much as you love yourself
    (Leviticus 19;18) but who is the Other? Can he be a black man? An Arab?
    A man in general? Can he be a goy (a gentile)? Should I empathize with
    the goy? Should I be tolerant of him? This is where we face a major
    distinction between Judaism and 'Jewish understanding'. While Judaism
    can live peacefully with the general and broad concept of 'loving thy
    neighbour', 'Jewish understanding', in most practical cases, opposes it
    completely. As we know, Christ - as a Jewish spiritual leader - taught
    that the Other is friend or brother. He taught that we are all sons of
    God and equally loved by God. Hence, I should love my neighbour as if he
    is my brother - unconditionally. Jews, as we all know, never accepted
    Christ's interpretation of tolerance and equality.

    Nowadays, this concept of love of the Other is rejected by many Jews.
    If I am wrong, please explain to me why it is so difficult for the
    goy to convert to Judaism? Why in the Jewish state, after more than 35
    years of invasion and oppression, is there hardly any Jewish voice
    calling for compassion to be shown to the Palestinian population? Why is
    it that there is hardly any call from Jewish communities throughout the
    world to stop the racially motivated and inhuman attacks on the
    Palestinian civilian population? Why is it that the Jewish world hardly
    ever condemns Israel for its brutality? We must therefore learn to
    interpret the notion of "choseness" in its common 'Jewish understanding'
    as anti-humanitarian.

    Master Slave Dialectic

    One way to reflect upon the concept of "choseness" is through a deep
    understanding of the Hegelian concept of the 'Master-Slave Dialectic'.

    According to Hegel, attaining 'self-consciousness' (self-aware) is a
    process which necessarily involves the Other. How am I to become
    conscious of myself in general? It is simply through desire or anger,
    for example. Whenever I am angry it is 'Me' who feels angry. But unlike
    animals that overcome biological needs by destroying another organic
    entity, human desire is a desire for recognition.

    In Hegelian terms, this is accomplished by directing oneself towards
    non-being, that is towards another desire, another emptiness, another I.
    It is something that can never be fully accomplished. "The man who
    desires a thing humanly acts not so much to possess the thing as to make
    another recognise his rightit is only desire of such recognition, it is
    only the action that flows from such desire, that creates, realizes and
    reveals a human, non biological I." ( Kojeve A., Introduction to the
    Reading Of Hegel, 1947, (Cornell Univ. Press, 1993), p. 40 ) Following
    this Hegelian line of thinking, we can deduce that in order to develop
    self-consciousness, one must face the Other. While the biological entity
    will fight for its biological continuity, a human being fights for
    recognition.

    In order to understand the practical implications of this idea, let us
    turn to the 'Master-Slave dialectic'. The Master is called the Master
    because he strives to prove his superiority over nature and over the
    slave who is forced to recognize him as a master.

    At first glance, it looks as if the master has reached the peak of human
    existence but as we shall see, this is not the case. As we have learned
    already, humans fight for recognition. The master is recognized by the
    slave as a master but the slave's recognition has little value. The
    master wants to be recognized by another man but a slave is not a man.
    The master wants recognition by a master but another master cannot allow
    another superior human being in his world. "In short, the master never
    succeeds in realizing his end, the end for which he risks his very life"
    . So the master faces a dead-end. But what about the slave? The slave is
    in the process of transforming himself since, unlike the master who
    cannot go any further, the slave has everything to aspire to. The slave
    is led to transform the social conditions in which he lives. The slave
    is the embodiment of history. He is the essence of progress.

    A Lesson in Mastery

    Now after such a philosophical introduction, let us apply the Hegelian
    concept to the "choseness" mechanism. While the Hegelian 'Master' risks
    his biological existence to become a master, the new-born Jewish infant
    risks his foreskin. The chosen infant is born into the realm of mastery
    and excellence without (yet) excelling at anything. The chosen baby is
    awarded his prestigious status without facing any process of recognition
    by the Other. The title of "choseness" is given to Jews by God rather
    than by the Other.

    If we try to analyse the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the
    Hegelian mechanism of recognition, we realise the impossibility of any
    dialogue between the two parties. While it is more than clear that the
    Palestinian people are fighting for recognition which they declare at
    every possible opportunity, the Israelis avoid the whole recognition
    issue completely. They are convinced that they are already fully
    recognized in the first place. They know who they are - they are born
    masters. Israelis refuse to join the 'meaning transformation' game and
    instead divert all their intellectual, political and military efforts
    into demolishing any sense of Palestinian recognition. The battle for
    Israeli society is to suppress any Palestinian symbol or desire, whether
    material, spiritual or cultural.

    Strangely enough, the Palestinians are managing quite well in their
    fight for recognition. More and more people are starting to understand
    the just nature of the Palestinian cause and the injustice of continued
    Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The world
    finds the Palestinian people and spokesmen very easy to empathize with.
    The Israelis, on the other hand, are completely untrained in such
    manoeuvres. They are out of the game. The public finds them almost
    impossible to sympathize with. While a Palestinian will call you to
    share his pain and misery, talking straight to your heart in order to
    convert you, the Israeli spokesman, usually (but not necessarily) an
    army officer, will order you to accept his strange views. He will insist
    on selling you a ready-made historical scheme; a repetitive poem that
    starts somewhere around Biblical Abraham, continues with the Holocaust
    and leads towards more bloodshed. It seems as if the Israelis always
    present the same faceless (Can one imagine the faces of six million
    victims or the face of Abraham. Israeli propaganda appears to be an
    analytical argument built upon faceless characters ) story (Can Abraham
    and the Holocaust justify Israeli inhuman behaviour?).

    Following Hegel, we learn that recognition is a dynamic process, it is a
    type of understanding that grows in you. While the Palestinians will use
    all their available resources to make you look them in the face, in
    their eyes, to carry you into a dynamic process of mutual recognition,
    the Israelis will try to convince you that there is no Palestinian
    people, there is no Palestinian entity, there is no Palestinian history
    or culture.

    My way of interpreting this bizarre ideological and political Israeli
    behaviour is based upon the Israeli lack of a 'recognition mechanism'.
    The Israelis lack an understanding of history as a flux, as a dynamic
    process, as a progression towards 'realizing oneself', a meaning
    transformation game. Israel and Israelis view themselves as if they are
    external to history. They do not progress toward self-realization
    because they have a given, fixed identity. While the Palestinians see
    themselves as a nation progressing towards meaning and self-realization,
    the Israelis are struggling to fix meanings and to oppose any possible
    process of re-naming or re-writing. In other words, the Israelis will
    oppose any possible change. I assume that this kind of traditional
    Israeli fixing of meanings is inherited from the Jewish tradition of
    re-reading. Judaism is a culture based upon a continuous re-reading of
    the biblical text whilst obstinately refusing to engage in re-writing,
    criticising (Jews are more than welcome to interpret the Bible but not
    to re-write it. ) or reforming (As we know, Zionism, in its very origin,
    is not a religious movement. If anything, it is very much a secular
    movement. Zionism's confinement of Jewishness to an ethnic group enables
    the birth of a nationalist movement. Zionism takes out of 'Jewish
    understanding' different patterns of 'mastery' and 'choseness' ).

    It seems that people who are not trained to recognise the Other are
    unable to let themselves be recognised. The Israelis are not equipped
    with the mental mechanism needed to recognize the Other. Why should
    they? They have done so well for many years without having to do so.
    According to Hegel, one becomes aware of oneself via the Other. However,
    the 'chosen' type is already self-aware to start with. He is born into
    mastery. Israelis are not practicing any process of dialogue since they
    are born masters. In order to be fair to the Israelis, I have to admit
    that their lack of recognition mechanism has nothing to do with their
    anti-Palestinian feelings. As a matter of fact, they cannot even
    recognize themselves - Israel and Israelis have a long history of
    discrimination against its own people (Jews of non-European descent such
    as Sephardi Jews are discriminated against by the Jewish elite, those of
    Western descent ).

    Historic Materialism

    If one cannot establish relationships with one's neighbour based upon
    recognition of the Other, there must be another way of establishing a
    dialogue. If one cannot form a dialogue based upon empathy with the
    other and the rights of the Other, one must pursue another mode of
    communication. It seems as if the alternative 'chosen' dialogical method
    reduces any form of communication into a materialistic language. Almost
    any form of human activity, including love and aesthetic pleasure, can
    be reduced to a material value. The Chosen People are well practised in
    using this method of communication. Following the recent legal battle
    between major Jewish institutions and the Swiss Bank, I tend to agree
    with Norman Finkelstein ( "The Holocaust Industry", Norman Finkelstein,
    Verso 2000. In the book Finkelstein discovers the terrible story of
    Jewish organizations who turn the Holocaust memory into an industrial
    act i.e. profit making ) that, these days, very little remains of the
    Jewish Holocaust apart from various industrial forms of financial
    bargaining for compensation. According to Finkelstein, it is all about
    profit-making. Without any criticism intended by me about financial
    compensation, it appears as if some people are quick to translate their
    pain into gold (it is important to mention that pain as well as being
    transformed into gold, can be transformed into other values such as
    moral or aesthetic etc). However, the possibility of transforming pain
    and blood into cash stands at the heart of the Israeli false dream -
    that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially the refugee problem,
    is resolvable. Now we know where this assumption originates. The
    Israelis are fully convinced that if they were happy to come to a
    financial settlement with the Germans, the Palestinians must be equally
    happy to sell their lands and dignity. How do the Israelis arrive at
    such a strange conviction? Because they must know better than the
    Palestinians what the Palestinians really want. How? Because the
    Israelis are brilliant, they are the Chosen People.

    When you talk to Israelis about the conflict, one of their most
    frequently used arguments is the following: "When we (the Jews) came
    here (to Palestine), they (the Arabs) had nothing. Now they have
    electricity, work, cars, health services etc." This is obviously a
    failure to recognize the Other. It is typical of Chosen Israelis to
    expect the Other to share the importance they attach to the acquisition
    of material wealth. Why should the Other share my values? Because I know
    what is good. Why do I know what is Good? Because I am the best. This
    arrogant and completely materialistic approach lies at the heart of the
    Oslo accords. The "new Middle East dream" shared by Shimon Peres and his
    blind assistants was about turning the region into a financial paradise
    in which Israel would stand at the very centre. The Palestinians (as
    well as other Arab states) would supply Israeli industries (representing
    the West) with the low cost labour they need. In turn, they would earn
    money and spend it buying Israeli (Western) goods. Israel has tried to
    establish a dual coexistence in the region where the Palestinian people
    would be the eternal slaves and the Israelis their masters. These ideas,
    generated by the most prestigious ideological leaders of the Israeli
    'Labour' party, are quite surprising considering the fact that one would
    expect Labour ideologists to be familiar with the basic principles of
    Hegelian and Marxist thought. According to Hegel, it is the slave that
    moves history forward. It is the slave that struggles towards his
    freedom. It is the slave who transforms himself and it is the master who
    eventually vanishes. One way of explaining why Israel ignores this
    understanding of history relates to the conditional detachment of the
    'chosen' state of mind.

    Welcome to Cuckoo land

    Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian doctor who lives and works in the
    occupied West Bank, referred to Israel as "trying to be David and
    Goliath at the same time" (Dr. Barghouti was speaking at a debate at the
    House of Commons, 22 Nov. 2000 ). According to Dr. Barghouti, this is
    impossible. He also claimed that "Israel is probably the only state that
    bombs a territory it occupies". He found this very strange and even
    bizarre. Is it really strange to be David and Goliath simultaneously? Is
    it really strange to destroy your own property? Not if you are insane.
    Not if you are suffering from a disturbed mental condition or have lost
    contact with reality. The lack of mirroring (Again, seeing oneself
    through the Other) can lead people and nations into strange dark
    corners. The lack of a framework which would allow you to discern your
    own image through the Other, the lack of a corrective mechanism, appears
    to be a very dangerous state of affairs.

    The first generation of Israeli leaders (Ben-Gurion, Eshkol, Meir,
    Peres, Begin) grew up in the Diaspora, mainly in Eastern Europe. Being a
    Jew living in a non-Jewish environment forces one to develop a sharpened
    self-awareness and imposes a certain kind of mirroring . This was not
    enough to restrain those European leaders from aggressive acts (e.g..
    Dir-Yassin, Nakbah, Kafer Kasem, the '67 war etc.) but more than enough
    to teach them a lesson in diplomacy. Since 1996, Israel has been led by
    young leaders who were born into the state of "choseness". Whilst in
    their earlier years they were imbued with an intense traditional Jewish
    anxiety, as they grew up this was overtaken by the legacy of the 1967
    "miracle", an event that turned some of the "chosen" ideologies into a
    messianic mission. This fixation with absolute power exacerbated by
    Jewish anxiety coupled with ignorance of the 'Other' leads to epidemic
    schizophrenia, both of mood and action; a severe loss of contact with
    reality that gives way to the use of excessive force. Israel retaliates
    with machine guns in response to children throwing stones, with
    artillery and missiles against civilian targets following a sporadic
    uprising and so on. This typical Israeli violence is a direct result of
    the complete ignorance by the 'chosen' of the Other's basic rights. This
    behaviour should not be explained by using political or sociological
    analytical tools. Much greater understanding could be gained by
    situating the conflict within a philosophical framework which allows a
    better understanding of the origins of paranoia and schizophrenia.

    The Israeli Prime Minister, representing both 'David and Goliath', can
    talk about the vulnerability of Israel, Jewish pain and Jewish misery in
    one breath and about launching a massive military offensive against the
    whole region in the next. Such behaviour can only be explained by a form
    of mental illness. The funny/sad side of it is that most Israelis do not
    even realise that something is going terribly wrong. Being a born master
    leads to the absence of a 'recognition mechanism'. This lack of a
    recognition mechanism results in a split psyche, being both 'David and
    Goliath' at one and the same time. It seems that neither Israel nor
    Israelis can any longer be a partner in meaningful dialogue.