“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad” – 1
Published
by
Richard Kuper
JVL Introduction
Opposing water, medicine and supplies to the most wretched people on Earth seems grotesque, writes, Dahlia Sheindlin, a new low for Israel or for anyone.
Yet nearly 60 percent of Israeli Jews are opposed to humanitarian aid – a stable figure over time.
She tries to fathom this and concludes: “In wartime, this is who we are. Israel needs to stop the mad assault on humanitarian aid now, and rehabilitate its soul when all this is over.”
RK
This article was originally published by Haaretz on Tue 30 Jan 2024. Read the original here.
A New Low: The Israelis Advocating to Starve the People of Gaza
For Israel’s extremists, nothing is off-limits when it comes to Gaza – fighting the delivery of humanitarian aid, re-establishing Jewish settlements, human decency. But it would be a mistake to dismiss them as a fringe movement
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Very helpful piece from Dr Sheindlin, thanks. Israel’s actions remind me daily of the late psychoanalyst Erich Fromm’s magisterial book ‘The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness’ (1973), chap 12, continuing elaboration of his concept of ‘the necrophilous character’. According to Fromm, the word was first used by Miguel de Unamuno responding to a nationalist general’s ‘Long live death’. Fromm writes:
‘[A]nother manifestation of the necrophilous character is the conviction that the only way to solve a problem or a conflict is by force and violence. The question involved is not whether force should be used under certain circumstances; what is characteristic for the necrophile is that force — as Simone Weil said, “the power to transform a man into a corpse” — is the first and the last solution for everything; that the Gordian knot must always be cut and never dissolved patiently. Basically, these persons’ answer to life’s problems is destruction, never sympathetic effort, construction, or example. Theirs is the queen’s answer in Alice in Wonderland: “Off with their heads!” Motivated by this impulse they usually fail to see other options that require no destruction, nor do they recognize how futile has force often proved to be in the long run. We find the classic expression for this attitude in King Solomon’s judgment in the case of the two women who both claimed a child as her own. When the king proposes to divide the child, the true mother prefers to allow the other woman to have it; the woman who pretends to be the mother chooses to divide the child. Her solution is the typical decision of a necrophilous, property-obsessed person …’
Human organisations (workplaces, faith groups and nations amongst others) always have the potential to become so toxic they can’t be healed from within. I think Israel has now reached that stage of toxicity, despite all the bravery and commitment of Israelis, diaspora Jews and others trying to stop such harm.
When human groups (eg a business) approach terminal toxicity the best solution is often to dissolve them and start up again elsewhere, retaining the more useful people and resources in the “new” organisation. That approach is rarely practical at state level and isn’t an option for Israel.
So Israel’s best chances of securing a viable long-term future for itself as a state in the community of the word’s states may well depend on being driven into transformational change by outside forces.
Israel’s now facing a whole raft of adverse pressures that just MIGHT result in a positive sea change in national thinking. The ICJ and ICC cases and their implications. Israel’s economy – not in a good state before and hard-hit now by the direct and indirect costs of war-making. Dual nationals (including many US born settlers?) deciding in their thousands to leave Israel for a better future. Alleged Israeli war criminals being arrested, then tried, when they go on holiday / business abroad. The struggles to repair Israel’s public reputation with the populations of Western nations, nations from the global South and neighbours in the Middle-East ….