This article appeared in Contact, the magazine of the Canberra City Uniting Church, in the issue dated 2 June, 2002. (May 2002)


In 1918 after Germany’s crushing defeat in the First World War and subsequent humiliation, the German writer Herman Hesse wrote:

Ours is the role and the task of the vanquished. The task is the sacred and immemorial task of all the unfortunate on earth: not only to bear our lot but to assume it completely, to make ourselves one with it, to understand it- until our misfortune is no longer felt to be an alien fate, hailed down upon us from distant clouds, but becomes part and parcel of ourselves, permeating our being and guiding our thoughts.

(Hesse H., If The War Goes On, p. 68)

As a professional psychotherapist I think I know what Hesse is talking about — he is talking about the absolute necessity to own our traumas and heal from them. I was born in Israel to a Jewish family and lived most of my life in the shadow not only of the Holocaust, but of thousands of years of Jewish suffering. Trauma and persecution are central to Jewish identity, in fact so much so, that I believe they almost define it. Almost all of Jewish festivals celebrate some kind of a victory over an enemy who wanted to destroy the Jews at some point, but has failed. The message that in every generation someone comes along who wants to destroy us but that God always saves us from annihilation is a central message in the festival of Passover. Survival has become a central value in Jewish religion and along with it the ideas of vengeance and retribution. This is to me an undesirable but understandable conclusion about life for a people who have suffered great insecurity and a sense that their very survival was not guaranteed. To grasp this idea about Jewish identity is to grasp the essence of what seems to so many an incomprehensible conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinian people.

Hesse refers to the task of healing from trauma as ‘sacred’. This is an interesting way to look at a process that I know to be so profoundly scary and painful. Hesse knows that without healing, not only are the victims themselves condemned to an unfulfilling and troubled existence but they also present a great danger to those who come in contact with them; the danger of having the trauma passed on (or transmitted in psychotherapy language) and poisoning another group or another generation. Healing is therefore a fundamental task necessary for the well-being of the whole of humanity.

When the state of Israel was created in 1948 there was a golden opportunity to begin a healing process on a national scale. But Israel has chosen to keep Jewish trauma alive, and by so doing guaranteed that generations of Israeli children will become traumatised too. I was taught about the Holocaust from a very early stage in primary school, and when I think of the images and stories to which we were exposed I am horrified. I remember the overwhelming feelings and anguish that I felt and the fact that we were never offered any kind of emotional support to help us cope with what we were learning. The slides and movie clips that I saw as an 8 or 9 year old will today be classified MA+, for mature audiences only.

I left Israel over 10 years ago with a messy, unclear feeling that something was not right for me there. I felt very uncomfortable with the treatment of the Palestinian people and with the atmosphere in my country but was unable as yet to articulate myself clearly. I didn’t know it then but I, myself, was deeply traumatised and was instinctively yearning for a new, trauma-free identity for myself. It took a lot of healing on my part to be able to write and speak about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in the way that I do these days. And even with all the healing that I have done, a small part of me still feels fear and guilt. I am fully aware that many of my former people would consider me a traitor because I feel pain for the ‘wrong’ side in this conflict. I see the fate of the Palestinian as strongly connected to my own. Both them and I are deeply affected by what happened to the Jewish people, and by how the State of Israel has chosen to deal with this history.

Recently I had a conversation with an Israeli friend who was visiting Australia. In her anguish my friend almost yelled at me at some point, “How can you be so relaxed? The world is full of anti-Semites!” My response to her was, “So what? It is their problem, not yours. Anti-Semites and racists in general are in need of professional help. Why should their existence make you feel anything in particular about yourself?” I know well that my way of thinking is alien to most Israelis. They believe that the world is still a dangerous place for Jews, and they feel that they will never be safe until there are no more anti-Semites left. Israelis do not realise how much they have allowed those who hate Jews to define Jewish identity. This is a common theme with the trauma of persecution. The victims often reconstruct their whole identity around their experience of persecution and define themselves by it. It is a human tendency for victims to feel as if there is something wrong with them rather than see that it is the perpetrator who is the one with the problem.

Many sufferers of trauma avoid healing because they wish to protect themselves from the terrible pain that comes with owning their victimhood. After all who in their right mind would willingly re-visit a place where they were hurt? Traumatised people often try to move on too quickly and although they might think that they succeeded, in reality their whole existence is shaped and dominated by their trauma. This is what happened in Israel.

Despite his enormous suffering as he was being crucified Jesus was able to say, “Forgive them for they know not what they do”. Jesus was able to say these remarkable words because he understood the dynamic and psychology of trauma. He knew that those who carry a lot of hurt inside themselves do what they do to others without awareness. Shocking as it may seem to many readers, most Israelis really do not grasp what they are doing. To them the Palestinians are the enemy. To most Israelis the Palestinians have simply joined a long line of “zore’rim” - a Hebrew word meaning something like: those who try to annihilate us and who make our life hell for no apparent reason. Seeing the Palestinians in this way most Israelis do not feel any compassion or empathy towards them.

The majority of Israeli population cannot see that since 1948, when the Palestinians were squeezed out off their land by acts of terror and intimidation, it is the Israelis who have become the zore’rim and the Palestinian people, the victims. The version of history that most Israelis know is very partial and often outright incorrect. It perpetuates the idea that others won’t leave us alone in peace because everyone hates the Jews. Our responsibility for the situation with the Palestinians is simply ignored. The Israeli position is that we suffered and needed a national home, we did what we had to do to get it and there is nothing wrong with what we did. When most Israelis see Yasser Arafat they really see Hitler and faced by angry Palestinian men they see SS officers. It is very clear to me that Israeli people need healing from trauma before they can see what they are doing. Healing will present a significant challenge to Jewish Israeli identity, which while painful will nonetheless be the only path to a compassionate and humane resolution for the situation there.

But first things first. When we deal with domestic violence or any other crime our priority as a society is to protect the victim and stop the violence. Only when the victim is out of harm’s way, we can start dealing with the psychology of the perpetrator and help him or her heal. In the not so distant past, our society did not intervene in cases of domestic violence out of the belief that it was an internal family affair, and it wasn’t our place to interfere. We have long changed our minds on this issue and decided that we see it as our duty to protect victims. Domestic violence is now everyone’s business.

Unfortunately as a global community we have not come that far yet. I do not see the world doing anything substantial to help the Palestinian people. There is a lot of talk and interest but no concrete action. If this was a case of domestic violence the police would have intervened a long time ago. But we have no international ‘police’ that can protect groups from violence and at the moment any nation state can do whatever it wants to others or to groups of its own people and mostly get away with it.

The Palestinians are facing a very real threat of expulsion at the moment. ‘Transfer’ was a solution suggested many years ago in Israel by Rehav’am Ze’evi, a right-wing retired army General. (This is why he was recently targeted for assassination by Palestinian extremists.) The word ‘transfer’, which entered the Hebrew language interestingly enough without being translated, is a convenient euphemism for expulsion, a total removal of all Palestinian people outside of the borders of Israel and the occupied territories. I believe that in the current climate this is the solution preferred by most Israelis. Ariel Sharon might well be losing favour in Israel because surprisingly enough even he doesn’t have the stomach to carry out a ‘transfer’. I deeply hope that I am wrong but only time will tell. My heart aches for the Palestinian people. They will not be able to begin their own healing work until the danger to their existence is over. Lack of adequate intervention is prolonging their trauma and delaying the start of their healing.

I call the world to intervene. I also call upon Israelis and anyone who has ever been hurt or traumatised by someone else, through persecution, violence, discrimination, or any other form of hurt to first realise that they need healing and then take steps to heal. That can be done in many ways. Faith can be a great healer, and there are many professionals available who can help too. If I had my way, I would establish a special therapy corps in the UN and work to create an atmosphere everywhere in the world that will contribute to healing. Healing does not happen overnight and it is a very difficult and painful journey but I would much rather live in a world where everyone is engaged with healing their wounds rather than in reliving their traumas.

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