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.