Of minarets and burqas (
Rights or choices?
Transporting all customs from one country to another can create tensions for newcomers in a new environment.
At a recent interactive exploration of human rights issues at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia (Vic.)'s celebration of the UN-Human Rights Day on December 10, there was much discussion about the difference between 'rights' and 'choices'. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifies what are 'human rights' and where there should be no discriminations, particularly on the basis of religion. Choices however are different and up for negotiation!
There is no doubt that the bans, whether in Switzerland regarding the building of minarets or in France regarding the wearing of burqas, are referring to religious customs, i.e. choices, not the practice of the Islamic religion per se. Highly visible public displays on religious buildings are their marketing tools. Are there many Church spires allowed to overshadow the minarets in Islamic countries? I doubt it, therefore the citizens of scenically beautiful Switzerland are within their rights not to want minarets to compete with their own traditional Church spires!.
Similarly, there are laws forbidding female forms of Western dress (or undress according to their standards) in Moslem countries, so why should hiding one's identity beneath a burqa be acceptable in Western democracies as a matter of ' right' on the basis of religion? The imposition of complete female cover-ups is obviously an infringement of women's rights in strict Islamic societies, but in Western countries it is always a matter of a 'customary choice' and therefore need not be acceptable at all. Quite frankly I would feel very uncomfortable to serve or be served by such an invisible person in public,-(who knows who is hiding behind the cover-up? It could be a crinminal or worse!) therefore France is within its rights to disallow it.
M.M.
Swiss Minarets and European Islamby Daniel Pipes
Jerusalem PostDecember 9, 2009
http://www.danielpipes.org/7808/swiss-minarets-european-islam
[JP title: "Resistance to Islamization"]
What importance has the recent Swiss referendum to ban the building of minarets (spires next to mosques from which the call to prayer is issued)?
Some may see the 57.5 to 42.5 percent decision endorsing a constitutional amendment as nearly meaningless. The political establishment being overwhelmingly opposed to the amendment, the ban will probably never go into effect. Only 53.4 percent of the electorate voted, so a mere 31 percent of the whole population endorses the ban. The ban does not address Islamist aspirations, much less Muslim terrorism. It has no impact on the practice of Islam. It prevents neither the building of new mosques nor requires that Switzerland's four existing minarets be demolished.
It's also possible to dismiss the vote as the quirky result of Switzerland's unique direct democracy, a tradition that goes back to 1291 and exists nowhere else in Europe. Josef Joffe, the distinguished German analyst, sees the vote as a populist backlash against the series of humiliations the Swiss have endured in recent years culminating in the seizure of two businessmen in Libya and the Swiss president's mortifying apology to win their release.
However, I see the referendum as consequential, and well so beyond Swiss borders.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Niqab, the Pseudo-Islamic Face-Veilby Irfan Al-Alawi and Stephen Suleyman Schwartz
The American Spectator
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/12/03/niqab-the-pseudo-islamic-faceDecember 3, 2009
Countries from Italy to Sweden are debating the right of women to wear the niqab. Canada is the latest country to enter the fray, with the Muslim Canadian Congress desiring to ban it. Is such a ban possible in the U.S., where its prevalence is evident in certain urban centers, like Philadelphia?
Muslim women's wearing of niqab, the veil covering everything but the eyes, and, by extension, the face-concealing mesh that is combined with a long garment to form the burqa in South Asia, has been introduced into the West as a purported religious obligation, and therefore, is put forward by ideological Islamists as a prospective civil right.
Niqab has become a matter of controversy in almost every Western country, most recently when the French government opened an inquiry into its prohibition – with the support, perhaps counter-intuitive, of that country's leading Muslim figure, Dr. Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris. France had already banned all forms of religious dress and symbolism from its state schools. In 2008, Dutch State Secretary for Education Ronald Plasterk, representing the immigrant-friendly Labor Party, called for banning niqab, as well as the burqa and abaya, from the country's primary and secondary schools, both for pupils and for visiting mothers.
The burqa, with its niqab-like eyescreen, is barred from British and some Belgian public schools. Earlier controversies include Quebec's 2007 decision that women must remove niqab if they vote, and a demand in 2006 by British Labour politician Jack Straw that women take off niqab before visiting his constituency office.
The U.S. has seen a number of bizarre attempts to establish niqab as a right. In 2001, Sultaana Freeman obtained a Florida driver's license while wearing niqab, but the license was then canceled.
Niqab is not the same as other practices often referred to generally as "veils" or "veiling" like the:
hijab, or head-covering,
the abaya, a loose full-body covering imposed on women in Saudi Arabia , although it is required in that kingdom that it be supplemented by niqab,
the chador, an Iranian cloak,
or jilbab, a loose garment covering the body except for the head, face, and hands.
Distinctions between these and various Western styles for women are difficult to make, especially in a civil-liberties environment. Head scarves and long coats or cloaks are worn by many women in cultures around the world, non-Muslim as well as Muslim. But since a hijab or head-covering may resemble a hat, it may be prohibited for all women in certain settings. Also in 2007, a Georgia judge barred a Muslim woman from entering court unless she removed her hijab, just as men and women are required to take off hats and caps when a judge is present. The radical Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) unsuccessfully challenged the judge's decision on the false claim of religious freedom. But religious claims do not override judicial practice, at least in the U.S., any more than they would justify carrying a driver's license that conceals the bearer's identity.
Niqab as a security problem encourages non-Muslim suspicion of Muslims, since it encourages Muslims toward separatism from their non-Muslim neighbors. And the security issue is real. Male terrorists in such varied countries as Pakistan, Britain, Afghanistan, and Israel have donned female coverings in attempting to escape police. Ordinary criminals have put on niqab as a disguise while committing robberies in the U.S., Britain, Canada, India, and Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Niqab is not Islamic. Covering of the face by women is nowhere mentioned in Qur'an, and the opinions of Islamic legal scholars on it are not unanimous. The Hanafi school of Islamic law, which is most widespread among Muslims, specifically rules out face covering, on the basis of women's needs while dealing normally with men, in commerce and elsewhere. In traditional Islam, men are called on to act modestly, and women are not ordered to disfigure and subordinate themselves by masking their features. The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said that women making the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca should not cover their faces or wear gloves, although in their typically perverse manner, Saudi Wahhabi clerics now seek to impose it upon them even then.
Millions of Muslim women around the world do not wear so-called Islamic dress, but have retained local customary garments, which do not distort their form or personality. Many have adopted the same fashions as Western or Far-Eastern women. Women in Hejaz, the Western Arabian region in which the holy cities of Mecca and Medina are located, did not, in the past, cover their faces, and increasingly protest against the imposition of this practice.
The radicals who promote niqab try to pretend that a woman becomes a "better Muslim" by covering her face. This concept is no more Islamic than niqab itself. In traditional Islam, division of Muslims between the good and the bad, aside from those who have committed terrorist or criminal acts, will be decided by God, not by men or women.
According to established Islamic guidance, Muslims who migrate to non-Muslim societies are required to accept and obey the laws and customs of the countries to which they move. Attempts to introduce niqab into Western countries represent an obvious violation of this principle.
Western nations have developed a doctrine of "reasonable accommodation" of religious beliefs and practices. But acceptance of niqab in the West would embody "unreasonable accommodation."
Appeals for an immediate ban on niqab or face-coverings in Western countries are, in the view of many moderate Muslims, correct. To rid the Muslim world of niqab will require a sustained debate and social development in each country where it is presently found, based on a pluralistic discussion leading to its recognition as a non-Islamic, and dehumanizing, practice.
Author Irfan Al-Alawi is international director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism and a contributor to Islamist Watch. Stephen Suleyman Schwartz is executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington, D.C. and a contributor to Islamist Watch
Related Topics: Head Coverings / Dress | Irfan Al-Alawi
The American Spectator
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/12/03/niqab-the-pseudo-islamic-faceDecember 3, 2009
Countries from Italy to Sweden are debating the right of women to wear the niqab. Canada is the latest country to enter the fray, with the Muslim Canadian Congress desiring to ban it. Is such a ban possible in the U.S., where its prevalence is evident in certain urban centers, like Philadelphia?
Muslim women's wearing of niqab, the veil covering everything but the eyes, and, by extension, the face-concealing mesh that is combined with a long garment to form the burqa in South Asia, has been introduced into the West as a purported religious obligation, and therefore, is put forward by ideological Islamists as a prospective civil right.
Niqab has become a matter of controversy in almost every Western country, most recently when the French government opened an inquiry into its prohibition – with the support, perhaps counter-intuitive, of that country's leading Muslim figure, Dr. Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris. France had already banned all forms of religious dress and symbolism from its state schools. In 2008, Dutch State Secretary for Education Ronald Plasterk, representing the immigrant-friendly Labor Party, called for banning niqab, as well as the burqa and abaya, from the country's primary and secondary schools, both for pupils and for visiting mothers.
The burqa, with its niqab-like eyescreen, is barred from British and some Belgian public schools. Earlier controversies include Quebec's 2007 decision that women must remove niqab if they vote, and a demand in 2006 by British Labour politician Jack Straw that women take off niqab before visiting his constituency office.
The U.S. has seen a number of bizarre attempts to establish niqab as a right. In 2001, Sultaana Freeman obtained a Florida driver's license while wearing niqab, but the license was then canceled.
Niqab is not the same as other practices often referred to generally as "veils" or "veiling" like the:
hijab, or head-covering,
the abaya, a loose full-body covering imposed on women in Saudi Arabia , although it is required in that kingdom that it be supplemented by niqab,
the chador, an Iranian cloak,
or jilbab, a loose garment covering the body except for the head, face, and hands.
Distinctions between these and various Western styles for women are difficult to make, especially in a civil-liberties environment. Head scarves and long coats or cloaks are worn by many women in cultures around the world, non-Muslim as well as Muslim. But since a hijab or head-covering may resemble a hat, it may be prohibited for all women in certain settings. Also in 2007, a Georgia judge barred a Muslim woman from entering court unless she removed her hijab, just as men and women are required to take off hats and caps when a judge is present. The radical Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) unsuccessfully challenged the judge's decision on the false claim of religious freedom. But religious claims do not override judicial practice, at least in the U.S., any more than they would justify carrying a driver's license that conceals the bearer's identity.
Niqab as a security problem encourages non-Muslim suspicion of Muslims, since it encourages Muslims toward separatism from their non-Muslim neighbors. And the security issue is real. Male terrorists in such varied countries as Pakistan, Britain, Afghanistan, and Israel have donned female coverings in attempting to escape police. Ordinary criminals have put on niqab as a disguise while committing robberies in the U.S., Britain, Canada, India, and Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Niqab is not Islamic. Covering of the face by women is nowhere mentioned in Qur'an, and the opinions of Islamic legal scholars on it are not unanimous. The Hanafi school of Islamic law, which is most widespread among Muslims, specifically rules out face covering, on the basis of women's needs while dealing normally with men, in commerce and elsewhere. In traditional Islam, men are called on to act modestly, and women are not ordered to disfigure and subordinate themselves by masking their features. The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said that women making the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca should not cover their faces or wear gloves, although in their typically perverse manner, Saudi Wahhabi clerics now seek to impose it upon them even then.
Millions of Muslim women around the world do not wear so-called Islamic dress, but have retained local customary garments, which do not distort their form or personality. Many have adopted the same fashions as Western or Far-Eastern women. Women in Hejaz, the Western Arabian region in which the holy cities of Mecca and Medina are located, did not, in the past, cover their faces, and increasingly protest against the imposition of this practice.
The radicals who promote niqab try to pretend that a woman becomes a "better Muslim" by covering her face. This concept is no more Islamic than niqab itself. In traditional Islam, division of Muslims between the good and the bad, aside from those who have committed terrorist or criminal acts, will be decided by God, not by men or women.
According to established Islamic guidance, Muslims who migrate to non-Muslim societies are required to accept and obey the laws and customs of the countries to which they move. Attempts to introduce niqab into Western countries represent an obvious violation of this principle.
Western nations have developed a doctrine of "reasonable accommodation" of religious beliefs and practices. But acceptance of niqab in the West would embody "unreasonable accommodation."
Appeals for an immediate ban on niqab or face-coverings in Western countries are, in the view of many moderate Muslims, correct. To rid the Muslim world of niqab will require a sustained debate and social development in each country where it is presently found, based on a pluralistic discussion leading to its recognition as a non-Islamic, and dehumanizing, practice.
Author Irfan Al-Alawi is international director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism and a contributor to Islamist Watch. Stephen Suleyman Schwartz is executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington, D.C. and a contributor to Islamist Watch
Related Topics: Head Coverings / Dress | Irfan Al-Alawi
Sunday, December 13, 2009
HANUKKAH, the Jewish Festival of Lights.
The Shifting Face of Heroism in Israel
By Dr Yoram Bilu
It should not come as a surprise that Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights (Hag Ha-Ourim), looms high among the Jewish traditional holidays which the Zionist movement embraced and cultivated. For a revolutionary movement seeking to transform the powerless Jews of the Diaspora into a new breed of settlers and warriors, Hanukkah's narrative of national redemption could serve as an inspiring model for action.
Freedom and national liberation are themes strongly emphasized in Passover too, but Hanukkah is exceptional in celebrating national independence and political sovereignty achieved through a popular uprising and a subsequent sequence of military operations. Together with the zealots of the Great Revolt in the first century C.E. and the Bar Kokhba rebels some 60 years later, The Hasmonean fighters were selected as exemplary figures that the young pioneers in or on the way to the Land of Israel could and should emulate. In this heroic triad only the Hasmoneans managed to realize their national goal successfully: while the two clashes with the Roman Empire ended in catastrophic defeat, the revolt against the Hellenized Seleucians gave birth to a politically sovereign Jewish entity – fragile and short lived yet independent for the first time since the Biblical kingdoms of Judea and Israel. This historical precedent became a trailblazer in the Zionist struggle to create a national homeland for the Jews.
It is no wonder then that a direct link was stretched between the Jewish combatants of Yehuda Ha-Maccabee and soldiers fighting for the Jewish state. The recurring idiom in referring to these soldiers, Ninei Ha-Maccabeem, the great-grandchildren of the Maccabees, is illuminating not only in what it emphasizes – the direct continuity between old and contemporary fighters for independence – but in what it ignores, the mediating links of "fathers" and "grandfathers," the humiliated Jews of the Diaspora. The Zionist reading of the precariousness of Jewish existence as a defenseless minority in the Diaspora, nightmarishly substantiated in the Holocaust, and the threats posed to Israel’s existence during its formative years, gave birth to strong pressures for hardiness and heroism among Israeli men. The consensus that the IDF was an indispensable safeguard of individual and national survival has created a cultural ethos valuing stamina, toughness, self-assurance, stoicism in the face of danger, and self-sacrifice. The heroic struggle of the Maccabees was appropriated as an inspiring myth for inculcating these values.
One intriguing implication of espousing this heroic model inspired by the Maccabees has been the sweeping denial that Israeli soldiers were vulnerable to psychological problems in battle and the corollary stigmatization of those exceptional cases who did succumb to stress under fire. In the 1948 War of Independence, despite the imminent threat of destruction and high number of casualties, psychological casualties were marginalized. This was propelled by an ideologically-informed reluctance to acknowledge the possibility of a psychological breakdown among Israeli soldiers. Psychological casualties who could not be disregarded were treated in well-insulated psychiatric units, shrouded in secrecy, and were irrevocably released from service upon recovery. Those who remained traumatized found it hard to be officially recognized as handicapped war veterans.
The idealized image of IDF soldiers as resilient and invincible became all the more pronounced in the 1967 War. The dramatic trajectory of the 1967 War – an alarming waiting period followed by a blitzkrieg which ended with overwhelming victory – created a climate of national euphoria that bolstered the myth of heroism and marginalized combat stress reactions.
The myth of heroism, and with it the disregard and denial which had hidden combat stress reactions from the public eye in the preceding wars, were extensively corroded in the 1973 War. Following the utter surprise and confusion at the onset of the war, and the heavy toll of casualties, the war was inscribed in the national consciousness as a massive trauma, despite the military victory that sealed it. The ensuing sense of disillusionment and vulnerability instilled in the Israeli public a stronger readiness to face the dire psychological consequences of the fighting.
In the First Lebanon War (1982), a confluence of factors made the psychological toll of battle further visible. The heated controversy over the necessity, scope, and outcome of the war, the intensive contact with noncombatant population, and the introduction of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to psychiatric classification and public discourse, contributed to a growing awareness of psychological problems in battle and their long-term aftermath. It is no wonder that the psychic wounds of this war have found ample expression in literary and cinematic creations. The successful movie Waltzing with Bashir is perhaps the most noted example of the attempts of Israeli creative artists to cope with the delayed repercussions of the Lebanon War.
The first Palestinian Intifada in 1989 and Intifada Al-Aqsa in 2000, while not escalating into full-fledged wars, have further sensitized public opinion in Israel to security-related trauma. The factors conducive to this process included, primarily, the widening circles of Israeli civilians caught in the spiral of violence, but also the escalating controversy regarding the moral justification for military control of the territories and the violent clashes with Palestinian civilians. The psychological cost of the Intifadas became an oft-discussed subject in Israel’s public arenas, from political institutions and the media to artistic creations and professional conferences. The Second Lebanon War (2006) and the recent violent clash in the Gaza Strip (2009), have further amplified this process. Here too large civilian populations on either side were exposed to the harmful effects of war.
The growing visibility of combatants’ psychic scars resonates with the global ascent of the trauma discourse and the rising dividends yielded by the politics of suffering and victimhood. On the local level, it is related to the changes in the image of the Israeli soldier, viewed today as more dependent and emotionally vulnerable. This change in mood clearly informs much of the public debate in Israel regarding the release of Gilad Shalit, the abducted IDF soldier. Thus, the ethos of heroism and collective sacrifice in Israeli public discourse is replaced by a more psychologically oriented approach highlighting the emotional vulnerability of soldiers. Perhaps the most dramatic manifestation of this transformation in Israeli society has been the establishment in 1998 of NATAL, “The Israel Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War.” This non government organization of mental health professionals has been propagating the notion of "national trauma" as a comprehensive category of suffering related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Implied here is the notion that no Israeli is immune from the accumulating toll of this conflict.
Contemporary Israeli society is far removed from the early models of unyielding heroism and sacrifice embodied by the Maccabees. Critics bemoan the "softening" of the once invincible soldiers, the sense of vulnerability and weakness that the hegemonic trauma discourse conveys, and the dangerous consequences of the erosion of the myth of heroism. It might well be that the pendulum has swayed too much in the direction of emotional vulnerability – so much so that now "Israeli society is supposed to protect its soldiers rather than the other way around," as one critic blatantly commented. But it could also be argued that this transformation is a timely corrective for making the face of heroism in Israeli society more humane and less idealized.
Dr Yoram Bilu is a professor of anthropology and psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is currently the Schusterman Visiting Professor for Israel Studies at Brandeis University in Boston. He will be visiting scholar at Encounters@Shalom in March 2010.
Comment re above:This theme was the subject of a very powerful 2007 Israeli movie called "Resisim", or fragments about the interaction of the shellshocked and fragile in a recuperation centre, and the fragments of their lives that they must bring together.
Sadly I think that, as a result of Oslo, Israel has taken on an untenable burden. The idea was a good one, that each side would teach about the issues of the other in order for future generations to acquire an understanding of the other and move the sides together. The reality is that it is Israeli schools and they alone, who teach about Palestinian history, trauma and suffering. Then we send them out as 18 year old children in an environment where they are accused of causing that suffering, where they are no longer sure of the rectitude of what they do, and we wonder at the heightened psychological damage. If our soldiers are "soft" it is because we have softened them, if they are traumatised it is because we have generated their trauma. Thanks to a string of ideologically extremely left Education Ministers, teachers and educators, Israeli education has turned into highly politicised propaganda. I think that when this changes and an accurate (not simply a more Zionist version, but a historically accurate one) history is taught in schools, Dr Yoram Bilu will have less to write about. At the very least we owe our heroes a level playing field.
Chag Sameach,
Morry
By Dr Yoram Bilu
It should not come as a surprise that Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights (Hag Ha-Ourim), looms high among the Jewish traditional holidays which the Zionist movement embraced and cultivated. For a revolutionary movement seeking to transform the powerless Jews of the Diaspora into a new breed of settlers and warriors, Hanukkah's narrative of national redemption could serve as an inspiring model for action.
Freedom and national liberation are themes strongly emphasized in Passover too, but Hanukkah is exceptional in celebrating national independence and political sovereignty achieved through a popular uprising and a subsequent sequence of military operations. Together with the zealots of the Great Revolt in the first century C.E. and the Bar Kokhba rebels some 60 years later, The Hasmonean fighters were selected as exemplary figures that the young pioneers in or on the way to the Land of Israel could and should emulate. In this heroic triad only the Hasmoneans managed to realize their national goal successfully: while the two clashes with the Roman Empire ended in catastrophic defeat, the revolt against the Hellenized Seleucians gave birth to a politically sovereign Jewish entity – fragile and short lived yet independent for the first time since the Biblical kingdoms of Judea and Israel. This historical precedent became a trailblazer in the Zionist struggle to create a national homeland for the Jews.
It is no wonder then that a direct link was stretched between the Jewish combatants of Yehuda Ha-Maccabee and soldiers fighting for the Jewish state. The recurring idiom in referring to these soldiers, Ninei Ha-Maccabeem, the great-grandchildren of the Maccabees, is illuminating not only in what it emphasizes – the direct continuity between old and contemporary fighters for independence – but in what it ignores, the mediating links of "fathers" and "grandfathers," the humiliated Jews of the Diaspora. The Zionist reading of the precariousness of Jewish existence as a defenseless minority in the Diaspora, nightmarishly substantiated in the Holocaust, and the threats posed to Israel’s existence during its formative years, gave birth to strong pressures for hardiness and heroism among Israeli men. The consensus that the IDF was an indispensable safeguard of individual and national survival has created a cultural ethos valuing stamina, toughness, self-assurance, stoicism in the face of danger, and self-sacrifice. The heroic struggle of the Maccabees was appropriated as an inspiring myth for inculcating these values.
One intriguing implication of espousing this heroic model inspired by the Maccabees has been the sweeping denial that Israeli soldiers were vulnerable to psychological problems in battle and the corollary stigmatization of those exceptional cases who did succumb to stress under fire. In the 1948 War of Independence, despite the imminent threat of destruction and high number of casualties, psychological casualties were marginalized. This was propelled by an ideologically-informed reluctance to acknowledge the possibility of a psychological breakdown among Israeli soldiers. Psychological casualties who could not be disregarded were treated in well-insulated psychiatric units, shrouded in secrecy, and were irrevocably released from service upon recovery. Those who remained traumatized found it hard to be officially recognized as handicapped war veterans.
The idealized image of IDF soldiers as resilient and invincible became all the more pronounced in the 1967 War. The dramatic trajectory of the 1967 War – an alarming waiting period followed by a blitzkrieg which ended with overwhelming victory – created a climate of national euphoria that bolstered the myth of heroism and marginalized combat stress reactions.
The myth of heroism, and with it the disregard and denial which had hidden combat stress reactions from the public eye in the preceding wars, were extensively corroded in the 1973 War. Following the utter surprise and confusion at the onset of the war, and the heavy toll of casualties, the war was inscribed in the national consciousness as a massive trauma, despite the military victory that sealed it. The ensuing sense of disillusionment and vulnerability instilled in the Israeli public a stronger readiness to face the dire psychological consequences of the fighting.
In the First Lebanon War (1982), a confluence of factors made the psychological toll of battle further visible. The heated controversy over the necessity, scope, and outcome of the war, the intensive contact with noncombatant population, and the introduction of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to psychiatric classification and public discourse, contributed to a growing awareness of psychological problems in battle and their long-term aftermath. It is no wonder that the psychic wounds of this war have found ample expression in literary and cinematic creations. The successful movie Waltzing with Bashir is perhaps the most noted example of the attempts of Israeli creative artists to cope with the delayed repercussions of the Lebanon War.
The first Palestinian Intifada in 1989 and Intifada Al-Aqsa in 2000, while not escalating into full-fledged wars, have further sensitized public opinion in Israel to security-related trauma. The factors conducive to this process included, primarily, the widening circles of Israeli civilians caught in the spiral of violence, but also the escalating controversy regarding the moral justification for military control of the territories and the violent clashes with Palestinian civilians. The psychological cost of the Intifadas became an oft-discussed subject in Israel’s public arenas, from political institutions and the media to artistic creations and professional conferences. The Second Lebanon War (2006) and the recent violent clash in the Gaza Strip (2009), have further amplified this process. Here too large civilian populations on either side were exposed to the harmful effects of war.
The growing visibility of combatants’ psychic scars resonates with the global ascent of the trauma discourse and the rising dividends yielded by the politics of suffering and victimhood. On the local level, it is related to the changes in the image of the Israeli soldier, viewed today as more dependent and emotionally vulnerable. This change in mood clearly informs much of the public debate in Israel regarding the release of Gilad Shalit, the abducted IDF soldier. Thus, the ethos of heroism and collective sacrifice in Israeli public discourse is replaced by a more psychologically oriented approach highlighting the emotional vulnerability of soldiers. Perhaps the most dramatic manifestation of this transformation in Israeli society has been the establishment in 1998 of NATAL, “The Israel Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War.” This non government organization of mental health professionals has been propagating the notion of "national trauma" as a comprehensive category of suffering related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Implied here is the notion that no Israeli is immune from the accumulating toll of this conflict.
Contemporary Israeli society is far removed from the early models of unyielding heroism and sacrifice embodied by the Maccabees. Critics bemoan the "softening" of the once invincible soldiers, the sense of vulnerability and weakness that the hegemonic trauma discourse conveys, and the dangerous consequences of the erosion of the myth of heroism. It might well be that the pendulum has swayed too much in the direction of emotional vulnerability – so much so that now "Israeli society is supposed to protect its soldiers rather than the other way around," as one critic blatantly commented. But it could also be argued that this transformation is a timely corrective for making the face of heroism in Israeli society more humane and less idealized.
Dr Yoram Bilu is a professor of anthropology and psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is currently the Schusterman Visiting Professor for Israel Studies at Brandeis University in Boston. He will be visiting scholar at Encounters@Shalom in March 2010.
Comment re above:This theme was the subject of a very powerful 2007 Israeli movie called "Resisim", or fragments about the interaction of the shellshocked and fragile in a recuperation centre, and the fragments of their lives that they must bring together.
Sadly I think that, as a result of Oslo, Israel has taken on an untenable burden. The idea was a good one, that each side would teach about the issues of the other in order for future generations to acquire an understanding of the other and move the sides together. The reality is that it is Israeli schools and they alone, who teach about Palestinian history, trauma and suffering. Then we send them out as 18 year old children in an environment where they are accused of causing that suffering, where they are no longer sure of the rectitude of what they do, and we wonder at the heightened psychological damage. If our soldiers are "soft" it is because we have softened them, if they are traumatised it is because we have generated their trauma. Thanks to a string of ideologically extremely left Education Ministers, teachers and educators, Israeli education has turned into highly politicised propaganda. I think that when this changes and an accurate (not simply a more Zionist version, but a historically accurate one) history is taught in schools, Dr Yoram Bilu will have less to write about. At the very least we owe our heroes a level playing field.
Chag Sameach,
Morry
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