MEMORY, TRAUMA AND GAZA
By Tanveer Ahmed
On Line opinion
rticle=8536
Feb 17 2009
Australia
Growing up as a Muslim, I was always amazed at the sheer psychological
space that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict occupied among other
Muslims, often at the expense of their home countries.
Any sense of personal victimhood was linked to the perceived injustice
the Palestinians were suffering.
Actual knowledge about the conflict was often slim and, like many
conflicts around the world, personal or local troubles were wrongly
conflated with global trends, worsened further by a well developed
reflex towards Jewish conspiracy theories.
At the crux of the anger towards Israel and Jews is not just their
treatment towards Palestinians, but it is their symbolic position as
history’s victims, epitomised by the Holocaust; a word controversial
Sheikh Taj Din al-Hilali has tried to link to the Palestinian
suffering.
Cultures and identity are often built upon tragedy, from India
and partition to Armenia and its genocide. Even President Barack
Obama invoked the deaths incurred during the American Civil War in
communicating the ideas that America was built upon.
The remaking of Anzac Day and Gallipoli is a craving for such an
identity rooted in blood, especially for younger Australians, as
evidenced by the huge turnouts to dawn services in recent years.
But there is no nation so founded on a collective trauma as that
of Israel. It is rooted in traumatic memories as the basis of its
renewal, like a war veteran or sufferer of abuse re-experiencing
their pain. This trauma arises from loss of feelings of safety and
protection in the "home", often corresponding with experiences of
betrayal and humiliation by those who were meant to provide protection.
And like the sufferer of traumatic stress who insist their woe is
special and justifies lashing out, Israel’s existence depends upon
the unique classification of Jewish pain.
The determination to honour these memories continues to drive the
disproportionate responses. The shame felt by the Jews in the face
of their Nazi oppressor has resulted a hardening and militarisation
of their identity.
It is often forgotten that during World War II, many Muslims reached
out to Jews fleeing the Holocaust, even though many would settle in
Palestine and help create the state of Israel.
But, as in so many instances in the past half century – the Lebanon
War of 1982, the "Iron Fist" response to the 1988 intifada, the
Lebanon War of 2006 – the Israelis have reacted to intolerable acts
of terror with a determination to inflict terrible pain, to teach the
enemy a lesson. Civilian casualties and suffering are predictable on
each occasion but it is unclear if the lessons were ever learnt.
In fact, with each Israeli show of force, their story of victimhood
becomes less and less palatable for large sections of the globe,
especially within the developing and Muslim world. What they
see, instead, is raw power and a determination to flatten any
resistance. They see a mercenary of the West in the heart of the
Middle East.