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Beyond Blame: Transcending the Victim/Perpetrator Dynamic in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
- January 2nd, 2009Why Israel Feels So Threatened
In a powerful Op-Ed piece in the NYT Benny Morris, does a wonderful job of describing the vulnerability and fear that Israelis feel in their 60 year old state. Morris’s article helped me to own up to my arrogance in the blog I wrote about Israel’s victimization.
I Was Arrogant Toward Israel In My Last Blog
I indulged in talking down to the state of Israel. In truth, I am yearning desperately for the killing on both sides to stop. I directed my remarks to Israel, rather than to Hamas, because I see Israelis as having more capacity to effect change in this situation. These opponents are not evenly matched. The majority of Palestinians in Gaza are starving. Perhaps I underestimate the power of Hamas to make rational choices in the current circumstances.
I-P Conflict is About Human Needs and Feelings
The key word in Morris’s column is feels. Israel has the 5th largest Army in the world. Two peoples are fighting over feelings and perceptions. These needs are so important to Jews and Palestinians they are willing to die for them, and yet they are so passionate they are unable to communicate the depth of their importance to the other side with any coherence.
Stories About Meaning of Trauma Fuel Violence
Both peoples hold themselves as victims. Both were hurt by traumas in the past. Those hurts are held in several ways: physical wounds, emotional experiences, but most importantly, in interpretations (i.e. “stories”) of what these traumas meant. As these stories are repeated over and over again, each people feels powerless and victimized. When they cannot stand the powerlessness anymore, they fight to defend themselves. As so often happens, when former victims learn to fight, they easily go overboard and become bullies. This is a universal phenomenon.
Letting Go the Victim/Perpetrator Dynamic
A perpetrator is a victim in disguise and is not powerful. A truly powerful person ( or country) is someone who has transcended the victim/perpetrator dynamic. He/she no longer needs to use force to get what he/she wants or needs. These people use the power of their words to make things happen.
Changing the Stories of the Past
Those mired in this dialectic get caught up in an endless blaming. This is characteristic of the I-P conflict where commentators cite facts favorable to their side and criticize the other. Rational arguments never work because this is a conflict rooted in human wounding . The injuries need to be heard and honored. The only way out is to recognize how the interpretations of the past are affecting the present and to change those stories.
Taking Responsibility Transcends the Victim/Perpetrator SeeSaw
Victimization means “someone did this to me”. One is always waiting for redress that never comes. Perpetration tries to force the other into correcting the injustice. Violence just causes more injury and the cycle continues. The only effective solution is to take on responsibility for all of it. Taking this action means absolute freedom.
It does not mean that one caused everything in the past. It means that one assumes responsibility for everything that happened. It is an incredibly powerful position to take. It completely circumvents the powerlessness of both victim and perpetrator positions. One may not be the cause of violence that happened in the past, but they can take on responsibility for the interpretations they made up about what that violence meant.
True Power Opens Up Creativity, Innovation and Flexibiltiy
Taking on 100% responsibility would open up for both the Israelis and the Palestinians, the possibility of responding to their difficult circumstances with innovation and creativity. It could give them a new flexibility, and the ability to take actions fully in alignment with Judaic and Muslim law, the deepest values illuminating these ancient peoples, their lives and their lands.
Resources:
Creating a new common I-P narrative: www.israelpalestineproject.org
Learning about stories, made-up-meanings and taking responsibility: www.landmarkeducation.com
For another perspective on the current attacks on Gaza please see: The Tragic Absurdity of War by Rabbi Amy Eilberg
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January 21st, 2009 at 8:30 pm
The problem with taking 100% responsibility is that there is a tremendous fear that it means taking 100% of an expected punishment. Imagine killing someone in war and discovering that you were hallucinating uniforms, aggressive body language and weapons, and had actually killed unarmed children. Would you be a murderer, or would it be an accident?
On some level, I think that’s how it works. We hallucinate soldiers in a battlefied populated only by harmless children. We just can’t bring ourselves to reveal our essential harmlessness, and must continually re-assert control over our weakness by appearing magically strong, smart and confident. The alternative is to experience fully the fragility of human life, trapped in a web of machinery (both cultural and technological), using group dynamics and rationalizations to stave off fear of death and failure. Many would prefer to be feared, thought of as killers. At least that gives some small sense of control.
Perhaps the only way to get to 100% responsibility is to first realize how little responsibility we can exercise without giving up the impulse to judge and punish, as opposed to acting when the window to act is still open. How many conversations about the evilness of Hitler have gone on simultaneously with more recent genocides, oblivious to the moment for intervention? There must be a little bit of evil in that need to punish without noticing the consequences.
Michael