July 21, 2013

Israel's Psychological Strategy: Invoking Past Trauma To Justify Inhumanity And Win Pity Points

"Whoever speaks of the 1967 borders speaks of Auschwitz." - Israeli Tourism Minister Uzi Landau.

"Apparently far right wing Israelis live in such a cocoon that they can’t understand how extreme a statement such as ’1967 borders are Auschwitz’ sounds to normal people. Really? Letting the Palestinians have a decent life is comparable to gassing innocent Jews? Trivializing Auschwitz like this is the real crime, and ratcheting up the rhetoric so that any concession to political reality is equated to genocide, is an offense against common sense. And, you will never ever hear mainstream American news programs report or quote Landau’s absurd and deeply offensive pronouncement." - Juan Cole, "“Whoever Speaks of 1967 borders speaks of Auschwitz”: Israel Cabinet not Serious about talks on a Palestinian State," July 21, 2013.

"I would tell you that the current situation is unsustainable. It's got to be directly addressed. We don't want to turn this over to our children, the same thing that you and I have lived with our entire adult lives. We have got to find a way to make the two state solution that Democrat and Republican administrations have supported, we've got to get there, and the chances for it are starting to ebb because of the settlements and where they're at, are going to make it impossible to maintain the two state option. For example, if I'm Jerusalem and I put 500 Jewish settlers out here to the east and there's ten thousand Arab settlers in here, if we draw the border to include ‘em, either it ceases to be a Jewish state or you say the Arabs don't get to vote -- apartheid. That didn't work too well the last time I saw that practiced in a country. So we've got to work on this with a sense of urgency, and I paid a military security price every day as a commander of CENTCOM because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel and that moderates all the moderate Arabs who want to be with us because they can't come out publicly in support of people who don't want to show respect for the Arab Palestinians. So [Kerry's] right on target with what he's doing. I just hope the protagonists want peace as much as he does." - General James Mattis, Former Commander, U.S. Central Command. "If Kerry fails, Israel will be an apartheid state ‘and that didn’t work too well the last time,’ CENTCOM general warns," Mondoweiss, July 21, 2013.
I'm all for a Jewish state, but I'm also for sanity, moderation, respect for others, common decency, psychological maturity, self-reflection, honesty. All those things are getting lost in Israel where there are crazy, inhuman, hubristic leaders in power.

Invoking past trauma to justify your current actions is repulsive. Holocaust this, holocaust that, everything is a holocaust to these idiots. We get it. The Nazis were bad to Jews. Got it. Okay. But the Palestinians are not Nazis and this isn't 1939. Come to grips with that fact, move forward, and make peace. Stop looking to the past. Stop justifying your own crimes against humanity by pointing at the inhumanity of others, whether historical or present, false or real.