Paralyzing narratives

by David Suissa, JEWISH LEDGER

Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

We’re so used to seeing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process fail that we often overlook this simple question: How is it possible that so many can try so hard for so long and still fail to make any progress? How can it be that the United States, the most powerful country on Earth, has failed so royally, despite decades of making this conflict a top priority?

What I’m especially interested in is this: Why have the Palestinians, in particular, seemed so reluctant to make a deal?

As Ari Shavit wrote recently in Haaretz, “Twenty years of fruitless talks have led to nothing. There is no document that contains any real Palestinian concession with Abbas’ signature. None. There never was, and there never will be.”

Instead of criticizing this stubbornness, it’s more useful to try to understand it. As I see it, the Palestinians have internalized four “paralyzing narratives” that have prevented them from moving forward.

The first is that they see themselves as being unfairly punished for the great sin of the Europeans, the Holocaust. According to this narrative, the only reason for the creation of the State of Israel was to cure the European guilt for murdering Jews. There is no historical Jewish connection to the land, no centuries of Jewish yearning to return home to Zion.

In this narrative, Israel is simply a foreign transplant — a forced sovereign intrusion into Arab and Muslim lands.

The second paralyzing narrative is to see  Israel as a thief. The West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem are seen as Palestinian lands stolen by Israel in the war of 1967. Now, all that must happen is for Israel to return this stolen property.

In this narrative, just showing up at negotiations is seen as a major concession. After all, why should the victim of a theft have to negotiate the return of his stolen property?

The third paralyzing narrative is a painful reversal of roles. For centuries, Jews living in Arab lands accepted their roles as dhimmis, or second-class citizens. That was the image of the Jew. Now, suddenly, with the creation of the State of Israel, Jews are in charge. This change is unacceptable. It creates cognitive dissonance and is a source of deep humiliation.

The fourth paralyzing narrative is also rooted in humiliation: envy and resentment over Israel’s enormous success. This resentment reinforces the pain of the previous narratives: “Here are people who were forced on us, who stole our land, who presume to be our superiors after centuries of being our subjects, and now, look how they have become so powerful and successful at our expense.”

While these narratives may paralyze any movement toward peace, they simultaneously speed up another process — that of demonization.

Demonization of the Jews helps reconcile the cognitive dissonance caused by the incredible success of the Jewish state. Only Jewish demons and Jewish conspiracies can explain this extraordinary transformation of the modern Jews of the Middle East.

Of course, the very process of demonization makes everything worse. The more Jews are demonized, the more the peace process is paralyzed.

Add it all up and you have a lot more than “obstacles” to peace. You have profound, fundamental reasons why Palestinians are so reluctant to accept what they call the “catastrophe” of Israel.

The tragedy is that even if Israel dismantled every settlement tonight, these narratives would not go away. The Palestinian conflict with the Jews is resistant to practical solutions because it’s not a practical problem.

It’s not an appendix that can be removed, but a chronic condition that cannot be cured. For all of Israel’s mistakes, no amount of positive gestures can relieve the emotional trauma that lies deep within the Palestinian psyche.

It doesn’t matter if these Palestinian narratives are accurate or not. What matters is that they have been nurtured as truth in mainstream Palestinian society.

Three generations of refugees who refuse to leave their refugee camps are the living symbol of this paralyzing, victim mindset.

Yet, however depressing this analysis is, it doesn’t mean we should give up hope. The status quo is getting more and more untenable, and I have sympathy for those who keep searching for solutions.

That said, it doesn’t do us any good to ignore the underlying narratives that are eroding all hope. We ought to stop fooling ourselves into thinking that all it takes to resolve this conflict is hard work, determination and good faith.

That is also a paralyzing narrative.

David Suissa is president of TRIBE Media Corp./Jewish Journal and can be reached at davids@jewishjournal.com.

May 9, 2014 | 22 Comments »

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22 Comments / 22 Comments

  1. The Pal are hated by the whole Muslim world and they will be considered traitor to Islam if they compromise with the Jews. Fanaticism and deception is their MO.

  3. the phoenix Said:

    Perhaps I should get a book on desert landscaping

    Write the Chamber of commerce, Tucson, Ariz, find the address of the Desert Gardens, Carlsbad. NM has a good one also.

  5. @ yamit82:

    Today there is no reason why any Jew should need to endure ethnic and religious persecution due to lack of choices and options. If Jews almost anywhere choose to remain in the exile knowing that they are at risk then who is at fault and to blame. If you continue to live and build your homes in areas where natural disasters occur almost yearly who is responsible for the consequences? Should a Jew living in the Land Of Israel endanger himself to save another Jew so he can remain in the exile? Seems to me to be a contradiction re: purpose in being Jewish.

    Dear yamit,
    ‘For a change’, I am in complete agreement with your post.
    What I am trying to bring to the discussion, is that even a Jew that lives in the diaspora, and has ROOTS that are undeniably there, and through a process of self study / increased awareness / focus on his Jewishness comes to the realization that indeed, he should proceed and ‘lech l’chah’ … Aliyah to Israel, it just does not happen on a dime.
    There used to be a time, when you were a diaspora Jew.
    And there may have been another ‘yamit-equivalent’ in those days that may have been perhaps less tolerant of you being in upstate ny instead of dimona…
    It just so happens that we share the same Hebrew name.
    In and of itself, it might be just a coincidence, for sure.
    But I wholeheartedly agree with practically all your posts (even those that seemingly could be directed AGAINST me or the likes of me)
    It is a process, yamit. For you perhaps long forgotten, but again, it does not happen on a dime.
    (I will not tell you a ‘gashash’ism’ that “tafasta oti al hamizvadot”… But I WILL say that this grain of an idea has not fallen into barren land…)
    Perhaps I should get a book on desert landscaping? 😉

  6. NormanF Said:

    The only way Israel can end the conflict is by ceasing to exist.

    Or Reverse the premise of your cause and effect.

    The Jews are only a symbol what is really happening is the world or specifically those beliefs that sought to replace and or graft themselves by force into Jewish beliefs. I CALL IT IDENTITY THEFT.

    11 And he said: ‘If the Arameans be too strong for me, then thou shalt help me, but if the children of Ammon be too strong for thee, then I will come and help thee.

    12 Be of good courage, and let us prove strong for our people, and for the cities of our God; and the LORD do that which seemeth Him good.’ (2 Samuel 10:11-12)

    What is meant by “The cities of our God”?
    Lest they lose and then their gods will be the strongest and therefore the true gods.

    The Exile is the personification of Jewish weakness, defeat, flight, persecution, torture, humiliation, genocide, holocaust, degradation. And because of this, it must – in the eyes of the gentiles – personify the weakness, so to speak, of the G-d of the Jews. To the enemy of the Jew, Jewish defeat is proof of the inability of the G-d of Israel to give His people strength and triumph and glory. Such a G-d is either impotent or non-existent…

    “Not for our sake, not for our sake but unto Thy Name give glory… Why shall the nations say: ‘Where is G-d?’” (Psalms 115)

    “Oh L-rd, what shall I say, after Israel hath turned their backs before their enemies… and what wilt Thou do for Thy great Name?” (Joshua 7)

    “Israel’s degradation is the desecration of the Name of the L-rd.” (The Biblical commentator Rashi, Ezekiel 39:7)

    “The L-rd reigneth; let the nations tremble!” (Psalms 99)
    Christians and Muslims understand the theological principles above only the stupid Jews don’t.

  7. the phoenix Said:

    @ yamit82:
    yamit82 Said:
    LESSONS JEWS NEVER LEARNED FROM THEIR OWN HISTORY
    What Happened to the Jews of Arabia?
    A story that should make every Jew shudder.
    by Sara Yoheved Rigle

    From the article that you have posted:

    A large, powerful, affluent Jewish community was destroyed in just three years. Was it destroyed by Mohammed’s forces or was it destroyed by its own divisiveness?
    Indeed, this is my ‘signature scream’:
    The divisiveness of the Jews… The rushing to ‘stone the sinners’ and to unsheathed the sword by which to kill all those who are not jewish enough… Whether we are talking about the sicarii of times past, or a present attitude of ‘I don’t give a damn if the Jews of the Ukraine are killed since they are not really Jews, anyway…’

    Bad analogies you are projecting your own conflicts on the historical record. The Jews of Arbia were Jews but divided by tribal conflicts and internecine jealousies etc. If they had united when they had the power to do so they would have defeated the forces of the initially weak Mohamed this mirrors Jewish tribal conflicts all through the history of the Jews since Abraham but not always.

    During the age of the Judges the Jews usually united against a common enemy.

    The Visigoths invaded Spain in roughly 400 CE, introducing Christianity into the area – a particularly intolerant form of Christianity. One rule after another decimated the Jewish communities through dispossession, forced conversion, enslavement, and slaughter. As well as the texts of the actual laws, some anti-Jewish polemics by Isidore, the archbishop of Seville, still survive.
    There is evidence that Berber (North African) Jews became aware of the oppression of their brethren in Spain and mounted a military campaign against the Visigoths at the end of the seventh century (roughly 694 CE). The Visigoth Christian kingdoms were finally destroyed when the Moors (North African Muslims) conquered Spain in the early eighth century (roughly 711 to 715 CE).

    Can you imagine something like that happening with North American Jews forming an army to help and or save other Jews in dire straights? I can’t.

    Thousands of Jews from the States joined and formed the largest contingent in the “Abraham Lincoln Brigade” fighting for communists in the Spanish civil war but a few years later how many fought for the Jews of Israel in our ‘Independence war’ of 48′? A few hundred!!

    Today there is no reason why any Jew should need to endure ethnic and religious persecution due to lack of choices and options. If Jews almost anywhere choose to remain in the exile knowing that they are at risk then who is at fault and to blame. If you continue to live and build your homes in areas where natural disasters occur almost yearly who is responsible for the consequences? Should a Jew living in the Land Of Israel endanger himself to save another Jew so he can remain in the exile? Seems to me to be a contradiction re: purpose in being Jewish.

    The Jewish communities of North America have failed in eveerything that relates to Jewish survival. There is nothing we need from them or can learn from them. They either move in our direction and bow with a humble heart to our relative success or bye bye!!!

  10. @ yamit82:
    yamit82 Said:

    LESSONS JEWS NEVER LEARNED FROM THEIR OWN HISTORY
    What Happened to the Jews of Arabia?
    A story that should make every Jew shudder.
    by Sara Yoheved Rigle

    From the article that you have posted:

    A large, powerful, affluent Jewish community was destroyed in just three years. Was it destroyed by Mohammed’s forces or was it destroyed by its own divisiveness?

    Indeed, this is my ‘signature scream’:
    The divisiveness of the Jews… The rushing to ‘stone the sinners’ and to unsheathed the sword by which to kill all those who are not jewish enough… Whether we are talking about the sicarii of times past, or a present attitude of ‘I don’t give a damn if the Jews of the Ukraine are killed since they are not really Jews, anyway…’

  12. yamit82 Said:

    It’s not as if we don’t have the power and the ability.

    One thing I have learned as a woman is ,” Power unused is power wasted”. [quote from the dichas of Deborah].

    P.S. I wish we were both 18 again, darlin

  13. honeybee Said:

    The Pals would still be shooting rockets.

    Dead Palis shoot no rockets, kill no Jews.

    It’s not as if we don’t have the power and the ability.

  16. NormanF Said:

    The only way Israel can end the conflict is by ceasing to exist

    If the powers that be transported Israel [et al] to the moon, there would still be no peace. The Pals would still be shooting rockets.

  17. The only way Israel can end the conflict is by ceasing to exist. Peace is not the aim and never was. While Edom and Ishmael hate each other, they’re both unified in their hate of the Jews. Since Israel’s birth in 1948, they have been consistent in their opposition to a strong and independent Jewish State and this remains in place for the foreseeable future. Its not about personalities like Obama and Kerry, its the policy, stupid.

    I don’t expect world hostility towards the Jews and Israel to ever disappear. That’s an immutable law of human affairs and will be with us as long as the world exists.

  18. The tragedy is that even if Israel dismantled every settlement tonight, these narratives would not go away. The Palestinian conflict with the Jews is resistant to practical solutions because it’s not a practical problem.

    It’s not an appendix that can be removed, but a chronic condition that cannot be cured. For all of Israel’s mistakes, no amount of positive gestures can relieve the emotional trauma that lies deep within the Palestinian psyche.

    It doesn’t matter if these Palestinian narratives are accurate or not. What matters is that they have been nurtured as truth in mainstream Palestinian society.

    George Orwell, 1984 (1949) chapter 7: his entire parallel sums up the ‘narrative’ of the West vs Israel: “The past was erased; the earsure was forgotten; the lie became truth.”

    A form of “Newspeak” has been the essential inner dialog of the West since inception.

    Yes, what matters here is what they believe. That we are occupiers of their land and that we stole it from them.

    That leaves us with only 2 viable rational options.

    A- To manage the conflict and wait them out even if it takes another hundred or even five hundred years.

    Or

    B- To drive them out by force, coercion, bribery or any combination of those options even all of them.

    What makes it impossible not stated in the article by: David Suissa, is Arab Tribal culture and Islam. Islam cannot tolerate the Jews returning in a non Muslim Dihimmini context because it is for any believing Muslim an anathema, a theological contradiction and threat to Islamic theological basis of supremacy. We are screwing up their theology just as we are to most believing christians.

    That makes our conflict with Islam and our millennial conflict with christendom a conflict of religious beliefs for if we are right they by definition are wrong.

    Israel has few problems with the half of the worlds populations not tainted and influenced by with Islam and christianity, so the problem must lay with those religions who sprang from Judaism and each in turn claims to have replaced and superseded Judaism and the claims of the Jewish people to Truth and to the Land of Israel.

    That’s why the Catholic Church prefers Muslim rule of Palestine and even the holy sites to the church and christianity, to having the Jews control and administer them.

    Freedom of worship and liberal accommodation of those religions In a sovereign JEWISH state cuts little appreciation of those replacement faiths of Judaism. They would prefer any other sovereign of the Land of Israel and their religious sites other than the Jews.
    THREE WARNINGS FROM THE GOD OF ISRAEL TO THE JEWISH PEOPLE REGARDING GENTILE CLAIMANTS TO THE LAND OF ISRAEL:

    “‘Beware of what I command you Today: Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivvite, and the Jebusite. Be vigilant not to seal a covenant with the inhabitants of the Land to which you are coming, since they will be a fatal trap for you.'” (Exodus 34:11-12)

    “HaShem spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan [River], at Jericho, saying, ‘Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them, “When you cross the Jordan [River] to the Land of Canaan, you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the Land from before you; and you shall destroy all their prostration stones; all their molten images shall you destroy; and all their high places shall you demolish. You shall possess the Land, and you shall settle in it; for, to you have I given the Land to possess it. … But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the Land from before you, those of them whom you leave shall be pins in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they will harass you upon the Land in which you dwell. And it shall be that what I had meant to do to them, I shall do to you.”‘” (Numbers 33:50-56)

    “They [Children of Israel] provoked Me with a non-god, angered Me with their vanities; so shall I provoke them with a non-people, with a vile nation shall I anger them.” (Deuteronomy 32:21)

    Over 2000 years of pogroms, inquisitions and Holocaust make it clear, Judaism says it unequivocally: “It is an eternal law, Esau (the non-Jew) hates Jacob (the Jew).” This is the eternal law – it is immutable. America is no different, nor Australia, nor Russia, nor Latin America, nor Europe, nor South Africa.

    “He [Esau] went to Yishmael and said to him, “Let us join together, I and you, and we will rule the whole world.” This is the ultimate game in which Esau imitates Ishmael, perhaps even taught him the concept of suicide by murder for a branch that attacks its root is a branch that will wither and die. “And he took Machalat, daughter of Ishmael for a wife” see also tehillim (Psalm) 83, “Edom and Ishmael, they make a covenant against You!”

    (Edom is the christian West and Ishmael the Arabs in Jewish tradition)

  19. Johnathan Spyer wrote an article which clearly express the reality of the conflict.

    So April 29th has passed, and the nine-month period allotted by the current U.S. administration for its effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute has come and gone. Entirely predictably, it has failed, in its entirety.

    What can be learned from the failure? And what may be expected to happen now?

    The failure of the talks was predictable first and foremost because of the irreconcilable positions of the sides. This is not a matter of small details, as is sometimes maintained. It isn’t that the Palestinians want 99% of the West Bank while Israel will offer only 98%.

    Palestinian nationalism in both its Fatah and Hamas variants rejects the possibility of accepting the permanence of Jewish statehood in any part of the area west of the Jordan River.

    For the Palestinian Authority, the nine-month period of negotiations came as an unwelcome interruption to a very different strategy to which it will now return. This strategy consists of an attempt to place pressure on Israel through action in international forums to isolate and delegitimize the Jewish state. Presumably the intended result of this is to induce Israel eventually to make concessions in return for nothing. The struggle would then continue for further concessions.

    This strategy is unlikely to bear fruit, but its adoption follows a notable pattern in Palestinian politics – namely, the constant attempt to find an alternative to a negotiated peace based on compromise.

    At the root of Palestinian perceptions is a very notable strategic optimism.

    The Palestinians see themselves as part of the local majority Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslim culture. From this point of view, the establishment of a non-Muslim sovereignty in Israel was not only an injustice, it was also an anomaly. Israel, being an anomaly, is therefore bound eventually to be defeated and disappear. So there is no need to reconcile to it, with all the humiliation therein.

    This core perception leads to the momentary embrace of all kinds of unlikely strategies, which are invested with tremendous hopes.

    This pattern has been around for a while.

    In the 1970s, in their first incarnation as an independent national movement, Palestinians believed that the long war strategy of the Palestinian terror organizations would serve to hollow out and destroy the hated Zionist entity, on the model of the FLN in Algeria.

    In 1990/91, almost forgotten now, Palestinians en masse embraced the empty promises of Saddam Hussein to “burn half of Israel.” Arafat went to Baghdad to embrace the Iraqi dictator.

    In 2000, after the short Oslo period, Palestinians looked to Hizballah and its ideology of resistance as the model for what they hoped would be a successful military and terror campaign against Israel.

    All these strategies failed. All turned out to be based on illusion.

    In the meantime, the Jewish state went from strength to strength – absorbing millions of new immigrants, leaping ahead economically, diplomatically and militarily.

    The campaign to place pressure on Israel through activism on the international stage is the latest example of this Palestinian magical thinking. It is likely to share the fate of its predecessors. The noisy BDS movement notwithstanding, Israel’s position on the global stage remains strong.

    Its alliance with the U.S., despite the utter lack of warmth from the current administration, remains strong at its core, reflected in cooperation on myriad levels, both military and economic.

    Israel is forging ahead in constructing positive relationships with the emergent powers of India and China. It maintains very close and warm relations with Canada, Australia, Germany and other important western players. None of this is under threat from the automatic majority the Palestinians enjoy at the UN because of the Arab and Muslim blocs of states.

    So Palestinian optimism regarding the model for defeating Israel is hard to understand. But then the faith placed in the previous approaches noted above also made little apparent sense.

    What we are in for now is a period in which the current chimera will need to be played out. On the bright side, this means that a return to large-scale political violence is unlikely. The Palestinians were defeated heavily in the 2000-4 period, and there is little energy for a return to war.

    The Palestinian elite and their children live comfortable and privileged lives in Ramallah and elsewhere in the region and beyond it. Combining this with diplomatic and political activity can be pleasant and rewarding. Combining it with military activity, by contrast, could be harmful and has already been proven not to work.

    So expect more furious and pathos-filled denunciations of Israeli crimes from various UN committees largely staffed by the representatives of sundry dictatorships.

    Expect Saeb Erekat and the others to come up with yet more inventive reasons as to why Islam and Arabic are “indigenous” to Jerusalem while Judaism and Hebrew represent foreign implants. And so on, and so forth.

    And at the end of all this, expect more failure, more bewilderment and a pause until the next alternative to a negotiated peace is stumbled upon. This is the nature of the magical thinking that lies at the core of Palestinian Arab politics.

    This politics, in its various manifestations, exists to reverse the verdict of the war of 1948. It has no other purpose.

    Its credo was perfectly rendered in the words of the Moroccan scholar Abdallah Laroui, as quoted by Fouad Ajami: “On a certain day everything would be obliterated and instantaneously reconstructed and the new inhabitants would leave, as if by magic, the land they had despoiled; in this way will justice be dispensed to the victims, on that day when the presence of God shall again make itself felt.’

    The language is elegant. The message is one of politicide and destruction. For as long as this credo remains at the root of Palestinian politics, peace between Israelis and Palestinians will remain unachievable. All else is mere detail.

    http://pjmedia.com/blog/palestinian-magical-thinking/?singlepage=true

  20. Suissa “Yet, however depressing this analysis is, it doesn’t mean we should give up hope. The status quo is getting more and more untenable, and I have sympathy for those who keep searching for solutions.”

    No, David.” Hope” is a delusion which could prove fatal for Israel’s survival. Compromise is not in the vocabulary of the Palestinians. They view any and every Israeli concession as another victory gained on their path to one nation, Islamic from the river to the sea.? ? The Palestinians will keep demanding more & more –85% of West Bank Palestinians reject a 2 state solution & an overwhelming majority view a 2 state solution as a step toward redeeming sacred Moslem lands ( = 100 % of the current state of Israel).
    In Gaza even contemplating cooperation with Israel is punished with death . In the West Bank contemplating selling land to a Jew draws assassination which goes unpunished by the PA.
    REMEMBER,THE GOAL OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY IS A JEW-FREE WEST BANK AND EAST JERUSALEM??The As long as the Palestinians demand all areas they control be Jew-free. ; maintain that if they get a State, the residents of the camps on the WB, Jordan, Syria, etc. would not be citizens of this new state but would have the right of unlimited return to the state of Israel; and that all of Israel is unredeemed Islamic territory… THERE WILL NEVER BE PEACE

  21. DAVID SUISSA IT IS SIMPLE:The key is the HATRED FOR JEWS that existed well before Israel existed. It is a hatred for Jews, ……ALL JEWS….. anywhere in the world.