Jewish Political Studies Review
Jewish Political Studies Review 17:3-4 (Fall 2005)
A Historical Analysis of the Jewish Condition after Oslo
Joel Fishman on
The Oslo Syndrome:
Delusions of a People under Siege
by Kenneth Levin
"History is a matter of honesty. To understand Oslo, one has to have
a wider perspective." These are the words of Kenneth Levin, a clinical
instructor in psychoanalytic training at Harvard and a Princeton-educated
historian. This book is a major endeavor of using both psychoanalytic and historical methods to explain the Oslo phenomenon.
Levin maintains that since the Emancipation the Jewish people
have been living under a state of siege, forced to confront unrelenting
existential hatred. Some individuals are able to cope with this pressure,
but others cannot. Those who do not find the necessary inner
strength try to solve the problem by identifying, to varying degrees,
with their persecutors. The situation is further aggravated by the
fact that the victims develop the sense that by siding with those
who have placed them under siege, they can gain control of their
environment.
The "Syndrome" in Modern Jewish History
Levin follows the proponents of each of these tendencies throughout
modern history. On the one hand, there have been Jews who were
secure in their identity, proudly took part in Jewish communal life,
believed Jews should control their destiny, and worked to fulfill Jewish
national aspirations in the form of Zionism. Examples include Theodore
Herzl, David Ben-Gurion, and Aharon Megged. On the other
hand, there have been those who identified with the dominant population
or culture, rejecting "Jewish particularism" in favor of universalistic
ideals. Examples of this second category include the Sulzberger
family of the New York Times, Judah Magnes, Martin Buber, Shimon
Peres, and Yossi Beilin. Generally, acceptance of the prevalent trend
has helped members of this group reach positions of distinction and
influence.
The relations between the two groups are not characterized by
dialogue. Instead they have tended to be in confrontation, with the
universalistic side working to undermine communal and national feeling.
Recent scholarship has pointed to the importance of interdependence
and trust for the health of societies.1 It is especially this form
of social capital that the universalists, in their war against Jewish
"particularism," seek to destroy. In short, those who are identified
with the Jewish idea see themselves as belonging to a larger nation,
whereas the universalists live and act as individualists in Jewish matters,
while striving to conform to the values of majority society.
Levin gives a coherent view of modern Jewry both in the Diaspora
and in Israel. Although he does not include the Jewish experience
in postwar Europe, it is possible to make extrapolations. From his
perspective, the history of the Yishuv and the founding of Israel do
not represent an exceptional event but belong to the Jewish historical
continuum. His argument here is persuasive, and implies that Israeli
history can be assessed by traditional terms of reference. Past history,
then, is relevant; there is no drastic new beginning - as, for example,
the architects of Oslo wanted the public to believe - and there is no
"new Israeli man." In other words, all aspects of Israeli and modern
Jewish history are part of the same whole and are fair game for critical
examination.
A Respect for Facts
If the medium is the message, then the message of this book is that
history matters. Levin has created a framework that enables building
on previous pioneering works such as Yoram Hazony's The Jewish
State and Neal Kozodoy's The Mideast Peace Process. The result is
to enhance our understanding of the present and discredit the mindset
of the Israeli leaders who joyfully blundered into catastrophe. The
Oslo Syndrome reveals the spiritual poverty and intellectual dishonesty
of those who claimed past human experience was irrelevant and misled
a generation.
The book is well written, well crafted, highly informative, and
sums up the state of the historical issues. For example, the ninth
chapter demonstrates how England, the mandatory power, failed to
honor its obligations. Although the Zionists' efforts to attain a
sovereign state are well known, this chapter exposes the destructive
attitudes of their Jewish opponents at a time when the annihilation
of European Jewry was approaching. The sixth chapter deals with
the powerlessness of American Jewry to influence the U.S. administration
to adopt a policy of rescue during the Holocaust, and particularly
the ineffectiveness of the Jewish leadership. Levin also
describes the aggressive role the British played in preventing the
escape of Jews from Nazi Europe. Similarly, the well-documented
information he presents with regard to Franklin D. Roosevelt is
thoroughly unflattering, and he considers the American Jewish belief
in this president's goodwill as delusional. Had Roosevelt survived
the war, Levin maintains, he would have emerged as an enemy of
the Jews.
The last part of the book deals with Oslo and its ideological
rationalization by Israel's intellectual elite. The architects of the "process,"
Levin emphasizes, misrepresented the facts to the Israeli public.
He documents their impatience with democratic governance, the shouting
down of opponents, the lack of public debate, and the sacrifice of
the academic integrity of sympathetic academics and intellectuals who
have rewritten Israel's history. Regarding the Labor Party's deceptive
and antidemocratic methods, Levin notes:
Beilin's method of seeking to create faits accomplis irrespective of
public opinion or indeed government policy pioneered, or at least
epitomized, what became in the course of the 1990s virtually standard
Labor Party operating procedure. It entailed employing the subterfuge
of denying, in election campaigns and in ongoing articulations
of policy, any intention to pursue concessions outside the national
consensus or established Labor Party positions, while seeking to
negotiate in secret on such compromises of long-standing policy and
to present the public with fait accompli agreements incorporating
those concessions....The argument became: If most Israelis still
lagged in their understanding that peace could readily be had were
they only to break out of old thinking about defensible borders
and security and threats posed by their neighbors, then it was the
obligation of leaders to do that breaking out for them, to turn such
concessions into established facts, despite the public's resistance. (pp.
328-29)
Similarly, Shimon Peres stated in November 1995: "A leader must
be like a bus driver....He cannot turn his head all the time to see how
the passengers feel" (p. 329).
This book gives a sober, well-balanced picture of the Jewish experience
in modern times, with special emphasis on how the Oslo adventure
affected all levels of Israeli society as well as Jews abroad. The discussion
of Oslo gives a more candid and complete treatment than what
is commonly known in Israel. This work also reconfirms the relevance
of the honest treatment of history. The Oslo Syndrome is not an
example of the "new history," where information is selected and altered
to fit in with ideology, but a carefully documented account that follows
the facts. Understanding the recent events that are clarified in this
book could help in formulating sound public policy, notwithstanding
the rootless opportunists who argue that history is merely an obstacle
to be disregarded. Not least, a well-educated public in possession of
its own narrative is less likely to be taken for a ride by the bus driver
of the moment.
* * *
Notes
1. See particularly Francis Fukuyama, "Social Capital," in Lawrence E. Harrison
and Samuel P. Huntington, eds., Culture Matters (New York: Basic
Books, 2000), pp. 98-111.
The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect
those of the Board of Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
The above book review appears in the Fall 2005 issue of the Jewish Political Studies Review, the first and only journal dedicated to the study of Jewish political institutions and behavior, Jewish political thought, and Jewish public affairs.
Published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (http://www.jcpa.org/), the JPSR appears twice a year in the form of two double issues, either of a general nature or thematic, with contributors including outstanding scholars from the United States, Israel, and abroad. The hard copy of the Spring 2005 issue will be available in the coming weeks."
From the Editors: Manfred Gerstenfeld and Shmuel Sandler
The Forgotten Narrative: Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries by Avi Beker
European Politics: Double Standards toward Israel by Manfred Gerstenfeld
Annals of Israeli-Albanian Contacts on Establishing Diplomatic Relations by Yosef Govrin
Perspectives - Jomo Kenyatta and Israel by Asher Naim
Assessing the American Jewish Institutional Response to Global Anti-Semitism by Steven Windmueller
The New Muslim Anti-Semitism: Exploring Novel Avenues of Hatred by Raphael Israeli
Arab and Muslim Anti-Semitism in Sweden by Mikael Tossavainen
Kill a Jew - Go to Heaven:
The Perception of the Jew in Palestinian Society by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
Israel in the Australian Media by Tzvi Fleischer
Barbara Tuchman's Comments on Israel by Moshe Yegar
Hidden in Plain Sight: Alexis de Tocqueville's Recognition of the Jewish Origin of the Idea of Equality by Joel Fishman
Perspectives - The Seventh-Century Christian Obsession with the Jews: A Historical Parallel for the Present?
by Rivkah Duker Fishman
Book Reviews:
Isi Leibler on Tower of Babble: How the United Nations
Has Fueled Global Chaos by Dore Gold
Shalom Freedman on Iran's Nuclear Option: Tehran's Quest
for the Atom Bomb by Al J. Venter
Shalom Freedman on Rabin and Israel's National Security
by Efraim Inbar
Freddy Eytan on The Long Journey to Asia
by Moshe Yegar
Susanne Urban on From Cooperation to Complicity:
Degussa in the Third Reich by Peter Hayes,
and The Nazi Dictatorship and the Deutsche Bank
by Harold James
Joel Fishman on The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People
under Siege by Kenneth Levin
Manfred Gerstenfeld on Rising from the Muck: The New
Anti-Semitism in Europe by Pierre-André
Taguieff
Manfred Gerstenfeld on Les territoires perdus de la
République: Antisémitisme, racisme et sexisme en milieu
scolaire by Emmanuel Brenner
Manfred Gerstenfeld on Holocaust Justice: The Battle for
Restitution in America's Courts by Michael J. Bazyler
Shalom Freedman on Double or Nothing: Jewish Families
and Mixed Marriages by Sylvia Barack Fishman
About the Contributors
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