Collusion as a Defense against Guilt: Further Notes on the West's Relationship with Israel and the Palestinians

Abstract

Returning to the theme of an earlier paper (Kemp 2011), the author explores the anxiety-ridden nature of debate about Israel-Palestine in the West. Rather than guilt per se, it is suggested that it is collective defences against guilt that are threatened when the issue is raised in public. The West's dilemma has been to reconcile its commitment to universalist values with its support for Israel. Zionism's objective of a Jewish state in an already inhabited country has led inevitably to repression and racism. The outcome has been collusion in a cover-up of the true nature of Israeli ideology and policy, akin to the collusion that takes place in a clinical relationship when a psychoanalyst fails to make a necessary interpretation to a patient in order to avoid discomfort or conflict. Among the many unfortunate consequences has been a failure to challenge the instrumentalization of the Holocaust, paradoxically now used to neutralize opposition to the subjugation of the Palestinians.

“First They Came for the Muslims”: Psychoanalytic reflections on the threat and the challenge of contemporary populism

“…I think this is the case, and I am shocked that I have not had this awareness through most of the period in which it has been taking place. Looking into the way that liberal democratic parties seem to have nurtured the roots of a future fascism, I became aware of a tension with the thinking that had informed an article I published in this journal a few years ago, that discussed the West's relationship with the Israeli–Palestinian issue (Kemp, ). There, despite being aware of the multiple instances in which the West failed to live up to its own self‐proclaimed ideals, I thought and wrote as if the commitment to universal principles meant something .…”

“…Naively as I now believe, only a few years ago I wrote papers based on the assumption that in “the West” public opinion was wedded to a moral outlook that embraced an assertion of the unity of the human family expressed, for example, in the view that racism was a dangerous evil, and that the notion of a hierarchy of cultures and peoples was irrational and baseless (Kemp, , ). Despite the behavior of Western governments, who regularly betrayed such views, even policies that gravely undermined international morality (for example the attack on Iraq in 2003) had to be “sold” as an expression of democratic principles, a significant indicator of the latter's purchase on the collective mind .…”

“…It is common practice to make our psychoanalytic theoretical affiliations explicit, while assuming that “external reality” can be treated as a given. (I discuss this tendency, and a critique of it by Jimenez [], in Kemp, .) “Nazism”, used as a model, can seem to imply a set of beliefs and practices that persisted unchanged from Mein Kampf to the Wannsee Conference and beyond.…”

“…It is common practice to make our psychoanalytic theoretical affiliations explicit, while assuming that "external reality" can be treated as a given. (I discuss this tendency, and a critique of it by Jimenez [1989], in Kemp, 2015.) "Nazism", used as a model, can seem to imply a set of beliefs and practices that persisted unchanged from Mein Kampf to the Wannsee Conference and beyond. Yet many historians would argue against thisthat there is a distance to be traveled between encouraging a "racism of elimination" and organizing a genocideand this starting point might be more helpful for us today.…”

With Apologies to Maimonides: A Note on a Parapraxis

“…There is none other commandment greater…” (Mark 12:31, Holy Bible ). Clearly, the history of Christendom falls short of Christianity's ethos of “love thy neighbor” and, the parapraxis reflects the usually better defended against affects operating within this writer in relation to this history; and, also illustrates the intense emotions that often characterize discussions relating directly or indirectly to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict (Kemp, ).…”