tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6415922081428791721.post4683291340162596895..comments2023-06-18T05:46:10.005-07:00Comments on The Self-Hating Gentile: Israel: The Siege TightensThomas G. Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15126928750407404626noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6415922081428791721.post-70427050517913519322011-12-02T11:05:46.094-08:002011-12-02T11:05:46.094-08:00Goreism,
Actually your counterexample isn't re...Goreism,<br />Actually your counterexample isn't really one. Most of the "yefei nefesh" (beautiful souls or bleeding hearts) as you disparagingly refer to them are European Jews but from families that were settled in Palestine before the Holocaust. The Labor Party leadership was based mainly on former generals and functionaries many of whom come from families that date from the pre-state aliyot mainly the third and fourth aliyot (waves of migration). <br /><br />The point of my post was that the actions were not only rational but also mutually reactive. And I should add here cumulative as well. Large-scale Jewish settlement in the territories throughout the Oslo process reinforced the pre-existing belief that Israel was out to steal all of Palestine. The al-Aksa Intifada reinforced the pre-existing Jewish belief that Arabs couldn't be trusted. People may cite the latest outrage as it is freshest in the memory, but it goes to confirm and reinforce previous beliefs.Thomas G. Mitchellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15126928750407404626noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6415922081428791721.post-56697756581761181652011-12-01T21:51:15.312-08:002011-12-01T21:51:15.312-08:00I'm skeptical of these attempts to attribute I...I'm skeptical of these attempts to attribute Israeli and Palestinian actions and attitudes to historic traumas. An obvious counterexample: as you say, the seventy years prior to the end of World War II were extremely violent for European Jewry. But today in Israel, the yefei nefesh in the peace camp are almost exclusively the descendants of those European Jews. The Mizrahim have much less sympathy for the peace process.<br /><br />I agree that Israeli (and Palestinian) attitudes are perfectly rational and normal reactions -- to contemporaneous events. If you want to understand Israeli actions in the past decade, the Second Intifada has more explanatory power than the Holocaust. If you want to understand Palestinian actions in the 90's, Oslo is more important than the Nakba.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com