Tag: Israel

“Humanitarian intervention?” Imperialism still stinks, Part 4

Posted on by kathiemm

Final in the series by guest author Dr. Dahlia Wasfi

Gaza libera. Free Palestine
Photo from WikiMedia Commons, used under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

The people of lands whose riches are coveted by imperial powers must endure an almost constant battle among those vying for external control. In addition, they must bear the burden of indigenous struggle for independence. Such is the history of much of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Such is the root of much of the conflict in the Middle East today.

The colonial state of Israel continues to expand its borders with illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israeli government maps suggest planned annexation of the majority of this land. Through their expulsion from the 1940s through today, Palestinians remain the largest refugee population in the world.

Countries like Iraq, Libya, and Syria finally gained their independence from foreign powers and took control of their oil industries. Along with Iran (following the Islamic revolution in 1979), these three countries were the major forces countering Western hegemony in the region. But those Western powers—and their multinational corporations—want their profitable colonial relationship back.

In the early 20th century, to honor “the spirit of the age” of national independence[1], the imperialists called their colonial possessions “mandates.” Now in the early 21st century, imperialists—armed with far more advanced weapons technologies—call their re-domination of these countries “humanitarian intervention for regime change.” These imperialists  claim that we must save the indigenous people in the Middle East from their states, in particular, from the use of weapons of mass destruction by local powers.

Those claims proved false in Iraq and remain unproven in Syria. In Iraq and Libya, the people are much worse off today than before our “humanitarian interventions” via military assault. Bombing raids and the subsequent replacement of secular states with theocracies have resulted in death, destruction, and further loss of freedoms for the survivors. As Western oil companies and military industries reap the profits, the parasitic colonial relationships are re-established.

No matter what euphemism our government uses for its policy, it’s still imperialism. And it still stinks.

[1] Owen, Roger. “State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East, 3rd Edition.” Routledge, New York. 2004. p.6

 

Can hatred be an ideology?

Posted on by kathiemm

The Ideology of HatredIn her book The Ideology of Hatred: The Psychic Power of Discourse, Niza Yanay argues that conflicts formerly identified as struggles for national autonomy or self-determination are now being viewed as products of hatred. We heard a lot of that after 9/11: “Why do they hate us?”

Perhaps the answers would have seemed too embarrassing if the media had asked questions such as, “Why do they want control of their own oil, of their own territory?”

Yanay argues that hatred is not the opposite of love but rather is intricately intertwined with it. Think about it. On a personal level, how often do husbands, wives, lovers, and children say “I hate you” to the people they love and need most?

Yanay categorizes hate into two types:

  • Hatred by the oppressed toward an oppressor
  • Hatred by the oppressor toward the oppressed.

The first, she points out, can be easily understood. The second type, however, requires the development of an ideology to support it—an  ideology that portrays you and your particular group as moral, good, and just, and any “Other” as hateful and dangerous.

While political-military leaders and the media may reinforce such an ideology–for example, referring to an “Axis of Evil” or “Muslim terrorism”—people have an unconscious desire to connect with the “enemy.” For example, sometimes Israelis refer to Palestinians and Arabs refer to Jews as “our cousins.”

Yanay offers a way out of the sort of hatred promoted in the Middle East and elsewhere: form friendships, even in the face of conflicts, just as we do in our personal lives. Most of us have good friends who occasionally frustrate us, anger us, refuse to see that we are right and they are wrong. In general, though, we value those personal friendships enough to work things through.

Nations can do that too.

Kathleen Malley-Morrison and Majed Ashy

An earlier version of this two-part review was recently published in the American
Psychological Association journal, PsycCRITIQUES, August 2013.

Psychoanalyzing human aggression and war

Posted on by kathiemm

Uncle Sam poster, Psychoanalysts have had a long interest in war and other forms of human aggression. For example, the “father” of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1915), horrified by the outbreak of World War I, argued that the violence was convincing evidence that “A belligerent state permits itself every such misdeed, every such act of violence, as would disgrace the individual.”

Decades later, appalled by violence in the United States (which he identified as “the most violent of industrial societies”), psychoanalyst James Gilligan placed considerable blame on people’s moralistic motivation to punish others. In his view, rigid and hierarchical social structures produce shame in the downtrodden, and those victims strive to replace shame with pride. He cites German resurgence in the post-World War I era as an example of how punishment and shame can generate appalling violence.

More recently, an Israeli scholar, Niza Yanay, offers another psychoanalytic analysis of the psychological foundations of violence. In The Ideology of Hatred: The Psychic Power of Discourse, she explores the unconscious forces and conflicts that underlie political hatred, which she views as an ideology of power and control.

Disillusioned, like Freud, with governing groups, Yanay comments “Sovereign states and groups are usually motivated to construct a humane face and a just image for themselves” (p. 99). She goes on to suggest that hatred helps aggressors maintain their image of goodness by turning the victims into objects of blame deserving hatred.

What do you think of these psychoanalytic perspectives? Do you think governments seek a monopoly on violence and will commit acts of aggression that would be declared illegal when done by individuals? And do they try to present a “humane face” while using propaganda to promote hatred?

Kathie Malley-Morrison and Majed Ashy

An earlier version of this two-part review was recently published in the American
Psychological Association journal, PsycCRITIQUES, August 2013.

Established as a colonial state (Imperialism still stinks, Part 2)

Posted on by kathiemm

Second in a series by guest author Dr. Dahlia Wasfi

Palestinian refugees, 1948
Palestinian refugees, 1948. Photo by Fred Csasznik, in public domain.

In 1917, as the Allies (with the help of the Arabs) were rallying to win World War I, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration.

This decree regarding a Jewish home in Palestine was named for Arthur James Balfour, Britain’s foreign secretary. Balfour had been strongly influenced by British Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann since their initial meeting in 1906. Though most leaders of British Jewry at the time were opposed to a Jewish homeland in Palestine, Weizmann—considered to be one of the fathers of the Zionist movement—garnered Balfour’s support for the Zionist agenda.[1]

The very brief Declaration stated:

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

The British had not yet taken control of the Holy Land, but that didn’t stop them from promising its future to both the indigenous Palestinians and the global Jewish population.

In 1917, less than ten percent of the inhabitants of Palestine were Jews[2]—many of whom were recent immigrants brought by the Zionist movement between 1905 and 1914.[3]  No one had asked the more than 90 percent “existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” if the creation of a “national home” on their land—which excluded them—was acceptable.  Israel was established as a colonial settler state.

[1] Shlaim, Avi 6/27/09

[2] Ibid

[3] Neff, Donald. “Warriors for Jerusalem: The Six Days That Changed the Middle East.” Linden Press/Simon & Schuster, New York. 1984.  p.21