Kenneth Levin Interview: The Oslo Syndrome

Dr. Kenneth Levin’s monumental new book (“The Oslo Syndrome:  Delusions of a People Under Siege”) addresses the reasons Israel persisted with Oslo (and added concessions along the way) even in the wake of unprecedented Palestinian terror, routine calls in Palestinian media for holy war, comparisons of Oslo to Mohammed’s abandoned 628 treaty, and repeated references to Oslo as a step in the PLO's 1974 "plan of phases" to annihilate Israel.  The publisher’s summary notes the scope and importance of this book:

Dr. Levin's original and powerfully persuasive analysis relates Israeli diplomacy of the nineteen-nineties to psychological responses common among chronically besieged populations, whether minorities subjected to defamation, discrimination and assault or small nations under chronic attack by their neighbors. More particularly, he demonstrates links between the evolution of Oslo and the long history of Diaspora Jews being subjected to persistent abuse.

This case study in the psychology of a community under chronic attack takes on broader significance at a time when even traditionally safe and secure societies such as the United States are confronting the psychological challenges posed by terrorist assaults.

The following is a JCI interview with Dr. Levin conducted this week:

JCI:  You chronicle the continual effects of discrimination on the Jewish psyche, over hundreds of years, in which Jews have internalized anti-Semitic criticisms of themselves. Is there not only a continual but a cumulative effect of this as well? In other words, is there a tipping point at which the Jewish psychological makeup is permanently changed? Or is the state of mind you describe reversible at any time, including now?

Dr. Levin:  I believe the phenomenon of -- to paraphrase the early Zionist Max Nordau -- Jews seeing themselves through anti-Semitic eyes can always be reversed; but to free Jews from the bonds of their learned self-revulsion requires leaders giving them a different message.  No one exemplifies the power of such leadership as much as Herzl, who reminded Jews that they were part of a great nation rich in its spiritual, ethical and intellectual traditions and contributions to the world and that they have as much a right as any other nation to an independent and secure national life.

JCI: You write that people convinced of the essential rightness of an endeavor will regard flaws in its execution "simply as problems that must be addressed in more properly advancing the effort," while those without that belief will more likely interpret such flaws "as confirming their comprehension of the entire undertaking as misconceived." After decades of post-Zionism followed by the massive resurgence of anti-Semitism, where do you think Israel and Jews generally are on this divide?

Dr. Levin:  I definitely believe that most Israelis, and most Diaspora Jews as well, fall into the former group.  Certainly the constant bombardment by biased world media, governments, and cultural and academic elites purveying bigoted, kangaroo-court indictments of Israel -- even calls for its dissolution -- does have a corrosive impact on many individuals.  It most affects those least educated in the realities of Israel, least connected to a Jewish identity, and most eager to ingratiate themselves with the anti-Israel, and often anti-Jewish, bigots.  But I believe that these remain a distinct minority.

Stemming the growth of that minority requires challenging the bigots, and those Jews who align themselves with them, and also educating Jews about the realities that the bigots ignore or misrepresent and distort in their attacks on Israel.

JCI:  Your conclusion is that if and when peace comes, it will be "determined primarily by decisions and actions of the Arabs and not by Israel" and that those decisions and actions will be shaped by "political and social dynamics whose evolution is, and will remain, essentially impervious to Israeli influence." What role, if any, in this do you see the pro-democracy campaigns championed by George W. Bush and Natan Sharansky? What other dynamics will be required?

Dr. Levin:  I am sympathetic to the view that democratization of the Arab world is a necessary precondition to peace.  The West’s half-century of coddling Arab strongman regimes out of a concept of Realpolitik has proven disastrous not only in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict but with regard to Western-Arab relations and also with regard to the situation of virtually all the minorities -- both religious and ethnic -- living amid the Moslem Arab majority in the Middle East.

But I am not convinced that the general population of the Arab states is eager for democratization -- a necessary precondition for its taking hold.

On the contrary, I believe that many people in the Arab world remain intoxicated with the messages constantly given them by leaders both secular and religious; a message not unlike that proffered to Germans between the world wars:  That they are heirs to a superior nation which has been robbed of its proper superior status and must militantly reclaim it from those who have stolen the Arabs’ rightful place in the world. It is the message disseminated by what one liberal Arab writer called the "twin fascisms of Islamism and pan-Arabism."  For democracy to take root will require an end to the Arab romance with this fascist world view.

JCI:  In the current issue of Azure, Natan Sharansky writes of the competing visions of David Ben-Gurion and Theodor Herzl. According to Sharansky, Ben-Gurion and his generation of Zionist leaders rejected Judaism and European traditions as a binding force, and sought to replace them with a "sabra" ethos that would integrate Diaspora Jewry into "one homogeneous Hebrew brigade" that would make "no division between man and Jew." Sharansky reacts negatively to attempts to create a "new man" (having grown up in "a vast laboratory of such an attempt").

Sharansky prefers Herzl’s vision of diverse communities from around the world replanted in Israel, allowing religious Jews, Sephardi Jews, Russian Jews and others the freedom to continue their own traditions in their new state. He believes it was important to create a common language and culture at the beginning in order to create a state, but that Israel’s future now depends on allowing all these diverse traditions to flourish.

Based on your knowledge as a historian and psychiatrist, do you have a view about this issue?

Dr. Levin: Certainly, as Sharansky concedes, it was necessary to create a common language and culture in Israel; and I would argue that doing so was not only a necessity in the days of the Yishuv and for the early years of the state but rather a common language and culture is an ongoing necessity.

But the socialist Zionist hostility to introduction of Diaspora religious and cultural traditions went beyond the demands of forging a unifying culture, just as the socialist Zionist concept of a "new Jew" went beyond simply creating a new national identity of "Israeli."

Rather, that hostility, and the socialist Zionist concept of "new Jew," were comprehended as much in negative terms -- eradicating the "old Jew" -- as in the positive of creating "Israelis." It is that negative agenda that accounted for the overheated hostility exhibited by Ben-Gurion and others to bringing Diaspora ways to Israel. (Ben-Gurion was far from the worst in this regard and recognized and valued -- and educated himself in the literature of -- Jewish faith and Jewish history much more than did most of his colleagues.) And this negativity was shaped in large part by socialist Zionist absorption of European anti-Semitic indictments.

A common perspective among Russian socialist Zionists was that the real targets of European Jew-hatred were the Jewish religion and the ways of the Jewish bourgeoisie and of European Jewish intellectuals and cultural elites. In the context of this perspective, the Russian socialist Zionists chose to likewise target these aspects of Jewish life and define the Zionist task as creating a new Jew free of the religious and economic and cultural dross of the "old" Jew. They chose to believe that doing so was the path to placating the haters and making Jews a "normal" nation.

Clearly, Sharansky is right in wanting to see Israel move beyond what remains of this bias and be more receptive to the rich religious and cultural traditions those making aliyah bring with them from the Diaspora.

JCI: You attribute some of the perverse psychological effects you describe on a failure of Jewish communal institutions, and you believe the strength of these institutions, together with that of Israel, will be the critical determinant of the future of Jewish continuity. Which Jewish institutions are most in need of improvement, and what are the specific improvements that you think are most critical?

Dr. Levin:  In generic terms, any Jewish institution that distances itself from Israel and its policies or supports Israel only in general terms without challenging the bigoted attacks on the Jewish state -- whether those attacks are by churches, media, academics or others -- is part of the problem. I believe it is the obligation of Jewish institutions to familiarize themselves with the realities of Israel’s struggle and of the challenges it faces and to speak out forcefully against those who would threaten the state by misrepresenting those realities and pushing the agenda of Israel’s enemies.

Indeed, I believe that Jewish institutions should take forceful stances wherever populations are threatened by their neighbors with mass murder and extermination. Surely their obligation is no less when it is the population and state of Israel that is threatened.

JCI: Sharansky’s book ("The Case for Democracy") has not yet been published in Hebrew, so its impact on the Israeli public has presumably been limited to date. Are there plans to publish your book in Hebrew? What has been the general reaction to your book so far?

Dr. Levin:  There are no plans as yet for a Hebrew translation. I hope there will be one. The reaction to my book thus far has been very positive and very gratifying.

© 2005 Jewish Current Issues.  Reviews of “The Oslo Syndrome” are here (Edward Alexander in Front Page Magazine), here (David Hornik in the Jerusalem Post), here (Frank Gaffney in the Washington Times), here (blurbs in Barnes & Noble), here (customer reviews), and here (JCI).

Comments

[Isaac B2]

Great post, Rick -- great interview, I should say. Levin's comments about the connection between diaspora entities and Israel are on point; many of the Jewishly-involved folks I know fondly recall their high-school trips to Israel, and most of those trips were sponsored and run by local Federations. Reminding us of the connection to our people, our past, and our present -- including our connection Israel -- is so necessary to a strong Jewish identity. And a strong Jewish people.

[Harry Shamir]

Re: "psychological responses common among chronically besieged populations, whether minorities subjected to defamation, discrimination and assault or small nations under chronic attack by their neighbors."

Comment: is there a way to comprehend the Arab-Falastinian psyche along similar lines? After all from their point of view it is they who are under siege etc. If it can be comprehended, what new insights can this reveal in the struggle to remove violence from the equation?