The “Never Again” Pathology

Sandy Tolan, writing in Salon, articulates a theory that has been coalescing in my brain for some time now, as I brood to myself about why, why, why, does Israel keep making the same self-destructive mistakes over and over and over again? This is one of those articles that makes you feel like the author was running around inside your own head (emphasis is mine):

Why does Israel continue to act against its own interests?

Over the years, and especially since 2006, the Jewish state’s deadly, over-the-top military actions in response to provocations from Hamas and Hezbollah — and now from a flotilla ferrying humanitarian aid to Gaza — have backfired. And in each case, the Jewish state has grown less secure by increasing its international isolation and fueling fury much closer to home.

Four summers ago, Israel’s war in Lebanon displaced a million people in an attempt to crush Hezbollah, which grew from the settling dust and resentment of an Israeli invasion a generation earlier. But the 2006 war only made Hezbollah stronger.

Israel could have predicted such consequences. In 1988, it tried to weaken Yasser Arafat and his secular PLO by encouraging the growth of Hamas and its Islamic adherents. This “enemy of my enemy is my friend” strategy didn’t work either, leading to years of attacks and reprisals and, eventually, to the 2009 war in Gaza. Fourteen hundred Palestinians died, compared to 13 Israelis from rockets fired from Gaza. Yet this invasion, too, missed its targets: Hamas remains firmly in power, and a kidnapped Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, has still not been liberated from his Gazan captors.

Then came another kind of confrontation, from a civilian flotilla armed with food, toys, books, medical supplies and a mission to break the blockade of Gaza. Despite claims to the contrary, Israel’s blockade has “deepened the ongoing humanitarian crisis,” pushing it to “catastrophic levels,” according to Amnesty International. “Mass unemployment, extreme poverty, food insecurity and food price rises caused by shortages left four in five Gazans dependent on humanitarian aid.” Yet this “flagrant violation of international law” has been met largely with silence and complicity by the international community, “led” by the United States.
[...]
Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan, already furious over the Gaza war, the blockade and Israel’s deliberate diplomatic humiliation of the Turkish ambassador, is changing the game. …Turkey appears poised to make a clean break with Israel while becoming the Palestinians’ main champion — and it grows closer to Iran.

None of this is in Israel’s interest, of course. So why does Israel persist in such behavior?

One answer: The country is stuck in the political psychology of “never again.” The Jewish state appears so trapped by the wounds of its own terrible history that it keeps repeating its past mistakes of excessive force, even though it knows these will only isolate it and therefore weaken it further. In this way, the politics of trauma drive the nation ever further from the safe harbor that ordinary Israelis have so long craved and never enjoyed.

Via Barbara O’Brien. Also, the HuffPost article by Avraham Burg that Tolan refers to in his article can be found here.