Sunday, March 8, 2015

The Psychopathology of Jewish Progressives

American Jews are the subject of this analysis, but the diagnosis applies to Canadian Jews too:
For most American Jews, Israel is not a real place. Only a fraction have ever visited the country. It is the locus of fears. It is the locus of displaced shame and guilt and anger. It is the locus of dreams for a rescuer who will make all Jews feel safe. Remember Professor Green of Brandeis, seeing Israel as if it combined the sins of the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Holocaust, and then asserting that Israel had harmed his good name.   
This is a transference reaction, seen repeatedly by therapists working with victims of violence: We first identity with Israel as the strong savior, then demand perfection from it, then perceive even the slightest flaw as a betrayal and gross deception, then wish to coerce it…and then, in advanced cases, to abandon it and let it feel the trauma we now imagine this idealized savior inflicted on us.
That describes Peter Beinart and his icky ilk in a nutshell, don't you think?

I see being on the right and supporting Israel vocally, wholeheartedly and unashamedly as a sign of one's mental healthfulness.

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