Where Kane Gets It Wrong

Mike L.

I notice that Kane in CA is getting something of a drubbing on Daily Kos.

In one of David Harris Gershon's heinous "diaries," taking the side of Hamas over his own people, Kane writes:

What a fucking ridiculous conclusion (6+ / 8-)

And it's a position he advocates not out of wisdom, but out of those psychological demons that still haunt us from the Holocaust - demons which magnify Jewish victimhood such that brutalizing another people becomes a justifiable, even necessary position.

You're qualified to do a psych eval on every Jew who thinks differently from you? And you know that their through process and the conclusions reached must be the result of a psychological defect? And non-Jews who come to these same conclusions are somehow superior and not victims of this same psychological defect?

There isn't much difference between the arguments I hear from both sides in this conflict. Virulently pro-Israel people tell me that i must suffer from Jewish Stockholme Syndrome if I don't recognize that Obama supports Jihad. And virulently anti-Israel people like you tell me that I must suffer from psychological demons if I think that Israel has a right to defend itself.

Because both of you KNOW the truth. And there is no other possible truth. And the only explanation for not having the crystal clear vision that you both share is mental illness. A mental illness that only affects Jews.

What utter bullshit.

You're a fucking joke.

by Kane in CA on Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 11:12:24 AM PST

The truth of the matter is that "Jewish Stockholm Syndrome," or what Kenneth Levin of the Harvard Medical School calls "Oslo Syndrome" is not a mental illness.

What it is is a coping mechanism.

He writes:

To understand the why of this situation we must look at the psychology of chronically besieged populations. Almost invariably there are parts of the population that accept the indictments of the besiegers in the hope that they can win relief and peace. This is a psychological response to being besieged, and Jews have been besieged for 2000 years.

This is one not unreasonable explanation for why it is that, despite the long history of Jewish persecution under the boot of imperial Islam, that some Jews, particularly progressive-left "liberal" Jews, tend to blame their co-religionists in Israel for ongoing Arab-Muslim violence against them.

But even if Kane is right that "Claiming someone has psychological demons is a claiming a psychological defect," it doesn't change the fact that a certain large percentage of western Jewish liberals do, in fact, as David Harris Gershon does, blame Jews for the violence against them and have absorbed the "Palestinian narrative" of perpetual Jewish guilt into the way they view the conflict.

That, in my not so humble opinion, is what counts.

People like David Harris Gershon honestly believe, despite the long history of Jewish persecution in the Middle East, that the Jews are to blame for Arab-Muslim hostility toward us.

That's the key point.

Whatever the explanation for Jewish absorption of the ahistorical "Palestinian narrative" it doesn't change the fact that many Jewish progressives have absorbed that narrative, that fiction, into their understanding of the conflict.

In any case, Kane is now getting a drubbing on Daily Kos and once they go after someone as moderate and reasonable and middle-of-the-road as Kane, you just know that room for Jewish participation on the progressive-left is greatly diminishing.

Also, of course, it is notable that progressive-left venues only became animated after Israel defended itself.  They honestly did not care so long as as Jews were the primary target.  Jewish life is worth nothing to progressive-left racists.

They only became interested when Israel hit back.

Meanwhile, they continue to justify Arab-Muslim violence against us.