Touching the Heart: Cultural Aspects of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

By Lewis K. Elbinger

Two items in the October 1988 issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs illustrate a phenomenon which deserves scrutiny. In "What's Special About Pro-Israel PACs?," Richard Curtiss reported that a quarter of the 4,000 telephone calls received by the Washington Report in response to an advertisement about pro-Israel political action committees "were harassing calls. Sometimes the caller screamed obscenities." In his response to a letter from an individual who criticized the Washington Report as anti-Semitic, the editor replied, "We receive a lot of hate mail. Your letter is atypical in that it contains no obscenities, no threats, and you've signed it."

What is going on here? From one point of view, the emotional reaction of those who perceive the activities of the American Educational Trust, which publishes the Washington Report, as a threat to Israeli or Jewish security is an indication that the AET is finally, after many years and much effort, reaching a broad audience and becoming a participant in the debate on Middle East policy. The atavistic emotions engendered by this debate, however, are reminiscent of the hate-filled Nazi campaigns that brutalized the Jewish people and which, ultimately, led to the present impasse. One is reminded of the title of a short, excellent essay by William Irwin Thompson in his book Evil and World Order: "We Become What We Hate."

It is necessary to understand the psychology of those who are strongly polarized on the issues that constitute the Arab-Israeli conflict. On both sides, anger is fueled by a sense of righteous indignation born from the experience of injustice. For the Zionists, the trauma of the Jewish holocaust justifies the preoccupation with security and the violations of civil liberties evidenced by Israeli military actions, For the Palestinians, the dispossession, disregard, and disrespect which has greeted their national aspirations from all quarters justifies the random violence which explodes periodically as a statement of defiance, contempt, and power.

Zionist Pain

When ones child is seriously injured, one's only thought is obtaining emergency medical attention. Israel was born out of that kind of desperation. Just as the parent of an injured child is not concerned with the financial problems of a hospital, the personal problems of a doctor, or whether the car that drives to the emergency room is legally parked, so were the founders of Israel unconcerned about the non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine. The decent ones among them hoped, no doubt, that reconciliation would be possible, but the emergency at that time was rescue and resettlement of European Jews who had been victims of an atrocious campaign bent on their extermination.

Americans, particularly the American Jewish community witnessed Israel's birth and struggle as sympathetic spectators. The sympathy is created and maintained by a variety of cultural reinforcements that operate consciously and unconsciously.

The popularity of Leon Uris' book and movie Exodus is a well-known example of cultural reinforcement for the emotions that sanctify, justify, and excuse Israeli political positions. A Broadway musical entitled "Milk and Honey" posed as light entertainment, but contained a message that some would regard as Israeli propaganda. Books, movies, plays, and songs about Jewish suffering and Israeli heroism have all contributed to an emotional climate in which the rightness of Israel's goals and the wrongness of Israel's enemies is self-evident.

Given such a climate, it is understandable that these emotions overwhelm some unbalanced individuals and express themselves as hate mail and obscene telephone calls. The perpetrators of such mail and telephone calls undoubtedly view themselves as servants of a worthy cause, as warriors for justice, and as good, decent people.

A Palestinian Exodus

Whereas American popular culture has listened to the tale of Jewish suffering and responded sympathetically, the Palestinian story remains untold and, consequently, sympathy is withheld. There are many reasons for this.

Too much is made of the fact that Jews and their allies are active in American media. Conspiracy theorists take comfort in such observations, but the relative failure of Palestinians to reach the ears and, ultimately, the hearts of Americans who could help them achieve their political goals lies more in the fact that Jews speak, understand, and share American language and culture.

In his book Going All the Way: Christian Warlords, Israeli Adventurers, and the War in Lebanon, Jonathan Randal describes an Arab whose house was destroyed by Israeli invaders. The distraught man recounts his tale of woe to a television news crew, but does so in a way that is not effective. Pointing out the former location of his garden, the children's playground, and the place where goats once grazed, he spoke in Arabic in a fashion that would break an Arab's heart. Western viewers, however, would not be moved because cultural nuances and associations were lost in the translation. "So the goats grazed there?" they might ask impatiently. "So what? Get to the point. What am I supposed to do about it?"

The Palestinians are quite eloquent in telling their story to each other, but sympathy for the Palestinian position by the world community depends upon explanation of that position in intellectual and cultural terms that the world can understand. The Palestinians need their own Exodus to engender the emotional support of those who have no idea about the politics, history, or culture of the people involved.

As in American elections, successful participants in the formulation of US Middle East policy will be those who eschew extreme positions and capture the middle ground. It is important that the American Educational Trust establish and maintain a reputation for equity, evenhandedness, and dispassionate striving for the common good. Toward that end, a forthright recognition and acknowledgement of the importance of emotional and cultural aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict is needed.

A New Category: Reconciliation

The AET Book Club Catalog currently lists four broad categories of books that it makes available to its members: US-Mideast Relations; Israel/Palestine; Politics, History, and Culture; and Middle Eastern Literature. Perhaps a fifth category should be added: Reconciliation. This new category would serve two purposes: to make available literature that documents efforts to bridge the gap between the conflicting parties and to explain the pain that lies behind the violence and anger which captures headlines and invites retaliation.

An example of an item which serves the first purpose is a booklet published by the New Israel Fund entitled "A Guide to Arab-Jewish Peacemaking Organizations in Israel." This publication lists over 30 organizations in Israel which are working to reduce tension and foster friendship between Arabs and Israelis. The organizations described cover a broad spectrum of approaches to peace and politics, but are united in their commitment to right human relations.

Another example of an item which serves the first purpose is an excellent videotape that documents the visit of a young Palestinian activist to an Israeli kibbutz. The videotape records a dialogue between Muna Hamzeh, a Palestinian journalist who lives in Washington, and Chaim Shur, an Israeli peace activist who lost a son in one of Israel's many wars and who now wonders about the value of his loss. The exchange between Hamzeh and Shur is honest, forthright, and deeply touching. The beauty, hope, and goodwill expressed in this videotape is a potent antidote to the negativity, cynicism, and despair that too often accompanies discussions of Middle East peace.

Regarding the second purpose, it is necessary to identify literature which accurately describes the forces which mold the culture and psychology of the conflicting groups. Two examples of the kind of literature that is valuable in understanding the psychology of Zionist behavior are Maus by Art Spiegelman and Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust edited by Yaffa Eliach. Maus tells the story of Jewish persecution in Nazi Europe in a unique and highly effective way: It is written in cartoon format. The Jews are portrayed as mice, the Nazis are portrayed as cats, and the story, as related in a firsthand account by the author's father, poignantly conveys the terror and despair that ensued when the Nazis tightened their stranglehold on the enemies of fascism.

Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust is a collection of stories and parables that avoids concentration on the gory details of massacre to emphasize instead the mystic response to a confrontation with evil. The Palestinian nationalist has a natural ally in the observant, religious Jew as would be apparent if the two could establish heart communication. Orthodox Judaism rejects Zionism as contrary to the teaching that Israel cannot be established until after the coming of the Messiah. The group Neturei Karla, "Guardians of the Holy City," has worked consistently for the internationalization of Jerusalem on those grounds.

Palestinian counterparts to Maus and Hasidic Tales must be found or written. By making such books available to a broad public, it is possible to expand the Middle East dialogue beyond the who-did-what-to-whom parameters in which it usually revolves to achieve the heart communication that is needed and from which reconciliation will arise. The American Educational Trust must champion such communication if it is to assume a leadership role in the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Extremists on both sides are babbling, muttering, and cursing to themselves. The United States and organizations such as the American Educational Trust are in a position to get the men and women of goodwill on both sides talking, listening, and feeling with each other so that solutions may flourish and succeed.

Lewis K. Elbinger, a foreign service officer, is presently assigned to the American Embassy in Khartoum as regional information systems manager. Previous foreign service assignments included Dhahran, Saudi Arabia and Muscat, Oman. Prior to his entry into the foreign service in 1984, he was a systems analyst at King Fahd Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He was a co-founder of East- West Retreat, Darjeeling, India in 1973.

A supporter of American Jewish groups dedicated to Middle East peace, he has composed a 12-song cycle entitled Peace in Jerusalem. Two of these songs, "Peace in Jerusalem " and "Green Line " (referring to Beirut) are available in audio cassette form (pictured on this page) from the AET Book Club.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the government.