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The Forum > Article Comments > Memory, trauma and Gaza > Comments

Memory, trauma and Gaza : Comments

By Tanveer Ahmed, published 17/2/2009

With each Israeli show of force, their story of victimhood becomes less and less palatable for many people around the globe.

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“But there is no nation so founded on a collective trauma as that of Israel.”

On the face of it, I would agree; but, like Tanveer Ahmed, I don’t really know much about modern Israel or how modern Israelis think about their ancestors’ feelings of ‘victimhood’.

But, Ahmed thinks that way about a ‘nation’, conveniently overlooking the fact that Muslims see themselves as victims no matter where they live. You don’t see Christians frothing at the mouth over what happens to people of their religion in countries far away. Modern Jews tend to see themselves as belonging to the countries they live in, too. We see too many of the older Jews who actually experienced the Holocaust and other atrocities to be able to believe that modern Jews might not think of themselves as victims.

I’m pleased that I am a non-believer so that I don’t have to answer for all the baggage that goes with religion: things which should have nothing to do with human beings and how they act or do not act.

“The remaking of Anzac Day and Gallipoli is a craving for such an identity rooted in blood, especially for younger Australians, as evidenced by the huge turnouts to dawn services in recent years.”

Rubbish! The old codgers are pressuring the naïve young into carrying on (after the old ones are gone) something that has been mistaken for patriotism and national pride; pride that we do not have, thanks to multiculturalism and a ‘everybody-welcome’ immigration policy. Celebrating a military disaster involving a European war 90 years ago cannot overcome the steady erosion of Australia as a country to be proud of; a country ruined by multiculturalism and political correctness.

The rest of the article is just more of the ‘Israel bad, Hamas terrorists good’ junk that comes up every time Israel defends itself from Arabs. Not worth reading
Posted by Leigh, Tuesday, 17 February 2009 9:33:04 AM
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Thank you for your informed comments. Spot on, in my opinion. I am a psychologist (and Vietnam veteran) who suffers personally from Post traumatic Stress, and who specialises professionally in this area. Psychiatry and psychology have a role to play in helping politicians and their constituencies understand all the variables. More please.
Posted by Brian Hennessy, Tuesday, 17 February 2009 10:17:54 AM
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Ahmed starts off writing that many Muslims look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict disproportionately and rarely know much about the reality of the conflict - and then proves it.
Posted by Elder of Zion, Tuesday, 17 February 2009 10:33:03 AM
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Arabs have only ever tolerated Jews in their midst when they have been the ones with the power. A Jewish minority coexisted with a Muslim Arab majority when the Ottomans ruled Palestine for hundreds of years before 1918, however under the British Mandate, when the Jewish population became large enough to threaten aspirations for Arab nationalism, Jews were no longer tolerated. This attitude culminated in the attempt to destroy the new State of Israel by surrounding Arab nations and local Arabs in 1948, their subsequent defeat, and the creation of the refugees, which no surrounding Arab country was prepared to absorb. To suggest that now Arabs and Jews should coexist peacably in a bi-national state is disingeneous as it is simply another version of what was attempted before - this time to destroy the Jewish State through the ballot box and replace it with an Arab dominated one.

The suggestion that Israel's raison d'etre is only justified when viewed through that nation's history of persecution is outdated and simplistic. While it may have carried weight when garnishing opinion and support for the establishment of the State in the years leading up to independence in 1948, the modern State of Israel is concerned with its day to day affairs, not the persecuted past of the Jewish people. The fact of the matter is that European anti-semitism has transmuted to Arab and Muslim hatred of the Jewish State, which has been the real and present threat of the last 60 years.

Israel is surrounded by a billion angry Muslims living in countries whose policy calls for its destruction. Meanwhile it is an economic success, the only democracy, has the only truly independent judiciary, and fortunately has the most powerful miltary in the region. It has a right and duty to protect its citizens from terrorists and other threats originating from across its borders.
Posted by Chatoul, Tuesday, 17 February 2009 11:10:34 AM
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Ahmed's assessment is correct.

But let's be clear now.

Yesterday Hamas and Israel agreed to another truce.

The basis: the Israeli blockade of Gaza is lifted and the rocket attacks cease.

Have absolutely no doubt at the end of the last truce the first provoctive action was by Israel re-enforcing the blockade ... then followed Hama's rockets ... then the disproportnate Nazi style crackdown on the Gaza ghetto, immediatel;y prior to the Israeli election.

It is entirely reasonable to subscribe to the notion the Israeli Government provoked Hamas just to show the 'enlightened liberal' Israeli electorate just how 'tough' they were.

It was a politically inspired attack.

Look at the result, the Israeli's were presented with a set of candidates who set about trying to show who was the most violent.

The Israeli Government now seems set on a course of a Unity Government with members from all parties in that Government.

What a joke that's as near to a one-party dictatorship as is possible under democracy without actually being a one party state.

Disgraceful.

I am sympathetic to the Palestinian suffering. It is much longer than the suffering of the survivors of the Jews in Europe. This has lasted 40 odd years and the Israeli's seem to want to extend and continue the punishment, land theft and general misery indefinitely.

Condalezza Rice said after the defeat of Israel in Lebanon 'Now we will see who is for peace in the middle east.'

We've just seen the Israeli people vote overwhelmingly for violence.
Posted by keith, Tuesday, 17 February 2009 1:03:09 PM
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It's difficult for me to support Ahmed's comments since the "memory" of history is quite different to what I was taught. There often seems to be a collective and selective amnesia when this topic is raised.

My understanding of that history was that the partition of the lands West of the Jordan River took place in 1920 under British occupation? That prior to 1920 there was no such thing as a Palestinian Arab People? That the peoples West of the Jordan were majority Jewish and Christian, the concept of Palestine, then a secular way of saying Terra Sancta, was repugnant to Moslems?

Yes there were many conflicts between the Jewish and Palestinian communities from 1920 to 1948, including the Day of Atonement 1928, the Palestine Riots and the Hebron Massacre 1929, culminating in the League of Nations International Commission in 1930.

The League of Nations upheld Edmund Allenby's 1920 pledge that all sacred sites were to be maintained for all denominations. At the end of the British Mandate in 1948, Jerusalem was immediately attacked by King Abdullah of Jordan and the Arab Liberation Armies. There was NO State of Israel at that time, there was by the time of the Armistice Agreement in 1949. Jordan refused access to Jerusalem, against Article VIII for 19 years when the 1967 war saw the capture of Jerusalem by Israel
Posted by spindoc, Tuesday, 17 February 2009 2:16:51 PM
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