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Stop Psychoanalyzing Israel

(Los Angeles Jewish Journal) Dr. Rafael Medoff - Upon his arrival in Israel last month, President Biden advised, "While you feel that rage, don't be consumed by it." The notion that if Israel hits hard at terrorists, it must be acting out of some kind of irrational emotion is inaccurate and insulting. In the years before there was an Israel, there were those who dismissed Jewish concerns about Nazism as a kind of emotional rage from which Jews just needed to calm down. The false diagnoses of "Jewish rage" assumes that all Jews think alike and act alike. Therefore, since some Jews were persecuted in the past, their descendants today must be acting out some hidden psychological problem if they cry out or fight back. The absurdity of that argument is obvious from Israel's demographic makeup. Most Israelis today are not children or grandchildren of Holocaust survivors - because their parents and grandparents did not come from Europe. Certainly Israelis are deeply interested in the history of the Holocaust. And they may justifiably view the Nazi genocide, and the world's reaction to it, as a cautionary tale. But that is a far cry from being traumatized or mentally unbalanced as a result of what happened to previous generations. When Israelis look at Hamas, they don't see Nazis. They see Palestinian Arab terrorists who, just weeks ago, perpetrated mass murder, torture, rape, and beheadings of Jews. Israel's response to them is not rage against imaginary enemies. It's self-defense against real enemies. The writer is founding director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.
2023-11-30 00:00:00
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