Israel's rightists are living in a colonial past
Strenger is "a psychoanalyst, philosopher and public intellectual engaged in the defense of individual liberty, a high level of public discourse and a sane solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict. A professor of psychology at Tel Aviv University, Strenger is the author of seven books".
As, then, a psychonanalyst, he can't avoid recognizing what this accompanying photograph is conveying:
Being "left" means you can be... (you fill in the the rest).
Anyway, here's an example of his "logic":-
In the end, Palestinians will not change their ethos and aspirations because they love Israel, but because of their long-term interests.
Well, if "long-term" is an aide, why have the past 9 decades been wasted? That's a long time, no?
His main thesis come here, when he expresses his dislike for those who quote Jabotinsky:-
...who, after all, developed his doctrine when Europe was still expanding its colonies and any non-European populations were largely considered as primitives that needed to be ruled rather than human beings with the same needs and right to dignity as Europeans. They haven’t realized that the world has moved into a very different era; that Europe has divested itself of all its colonies after WWII, and that nowadays human rights are universal: the Palestinian right for self-determination is no longer questioned by anybody except Israel’s right wing.
Of course, regardless of whether that is a fair representation of Jabotinsky's thinking, could it be that Europe's "progress" has been to a more invidious form of "colonialism", one of the mind?
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2 comments:
apparently he doesn't let the subjects of his psychoanalysis define themselves and their own aspirations in their own terms. His historical knowledge is lacking in that he should point out that the Arabs, like the British and Russians, were great land-grabbers. That the traditional Muslim social system is an occupation regime [think of the treatment for non-Muslim natives in conquered countries]. What about the intervention of the EU here? That would ordinarily be considered neo-colonialism. Does he favor it? What about Arab-Muslim treatment non-Arabs and non-Muslims? Including the oppressed status of Jews for more than 1000 years?
Let's point out that Strenger never criticizes other countries for holding to colonial outposts: he reserves that criticism solely for Israel. That's mendacious and biased criticism of the most shallow sort. And Israel liberated Yesha in a defensive war over a generation ago.
Israel's sin, its cardinal crime has been rebelling against G-d ever since and rejecting the Divine Gifts. That is why Israel is besieged today. But for Israel's smartest minds, its not that Israel needs to make amends for its contemptuous defiance of G-d in rejecting its heritage, its that Israel needs to turn its back on it.
Go figure.
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