Are there secret dialects and pyschodynamics to the latest currents of asymmetrical violence in Gaza and Israel out of which one state begins to take shape in Israel-Palestine? Whether one justifies or condemns whichever side to or act in the conflict, I do not see how, when viewed at the surface, this violence will do anything but damage the people of Gaza and to the Palestinian national cause, while, Israel gets itself sucked into Gaza, but with what possible exit strategy? Maybe that’s the point, that what we are looking at is the logic of no exit and compulsion best explored by psychoanalytic theories and categories, not by political or moral ones. When did this dynamic start? Established almost half a century ago in 1967, it begins to accelerate with the failure of the Oslo accords and the Second Intifada as the peoples to the conflict begin to cut deep into the body politic of the other.
Whatever the logics at work, they have nothing to do with cause and effect as we would understand it at as a surface phenomenon based on an exteriorized positioning of friends over here and enemies over there. Each violent surge and counter-surge is as if intended to drive the two warring systems not further apart, but rather as if to draw them more closely together into a single morbid body, at war with itself and out of whack, defined by increasing tempos of abuse, aversion, brutality, contempt, fear, hatred, hurt, murder, racism, rage, resentment, and violence. So yes, politically and morally, Israel has the right to defend itself and Palestine has the right to resist occupation. In war, even asymmetrical ones, there are legal rights to kill the enemy. In the meantime, the force of eros coupling with thanatos continues to constitute a subterranean attraction that runs against the surface current of this or that ideological, moral, and rhetorical posturing.
It’s hard not to think that this denial of cause and effect is actually extremely political, even if itself best understood in the psychoanalytical categories of repression and disavowal. What action can be taken if cause and effect aren’t categories of concern? I think Sarah Posner’s essay in Religion Dispatches–(and note that she’s not claiming to explain every cause and effect, which seems to be the strawman you’ve used to denounce the possibility of any analysis)–is a much more straightforward and honest look at the situation. (I also find it disturbing that the only thing you’re comfortable with stating concretely is that it’s fine for both sides to kill one another–a situation that, again, supports the status quo and forgets the economics of colonialism, power, and massacre.)
http://religiondispatches.org/the-ghosts-and-illusions-of-the-occupation/
I’m not blind to the larger political contexts, but I am having trouble trying to understand any of the recent events, starting with the abduction-murder as having anything to do with the occupation. and for the life of me, i cannot understand what the military wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad think they’re doing, suspecting that the reasons for this current round of self-destructive violence reflect the internal political and economic stress of the major actors in Gaza, some of which relate to Israel, some of which relate to Egypt, and some of which are internal to intra-Palestinian politics, both between the militant groups and the PA. i don’t support the status quo, and i don’t think the status quo is stable, but nor do i think there’s much that any of us can do to change it. i read a lot and broadly, and i try to be honest, but i’m pretty much giving up hope.
About Posner’s analysis, I have no basic objection. My only caveat is that getting at the root cause may in fact be intractable. I have never not been critical of the Israeli rightwing, the fascist rightwing or the liberal rightwing, or the occupation. But it’s not that I don’t also see that the rise and radicalizaiton of the extreme right are reactions to the Second Intidada and to the shelling of southern Israel by Hamas and others from Gaza after Israel withdrew its settlers and soldiers from that territory. None of this in anyway justifies the occupation or the current racist surge in any way, no less than does the occupation justify acts of anti-Israeli violence on the part of Palestinians. I have always thought that Israel, as the stronger party, should take the initiative in resolving this conflict, but I also understand that power is distributed and diffuse across asymmetrical lines of force. Lastly, please do tell me where i have ever said that it’s “fine” for people to kill one another?
this sort of logic of “root cause(s)” is an all too convenient way of framing one’s personal pre-judices as some sort of neutral/objective fact, how would one actually decide how far back or how wide to cast the web/networks of forces at play? We must stop this faux backwards looking (psychoanalytic or otherwise) sort of arche-logical-project-ions and make the best of what we can of what/who is at hand here and now (the only other real option is to make of mess of what/who is at hand).
i actually think the root cause and causal nexi arguments add necessary critical contexts. but, yes, i think they always represent but part of the phenomenon.
because human history (in all its blooming buzzing multiplicities) isn’t like say cosmology where we can trace out lines of cause and effect back to some basic elements/forces/equations, all we can do is manipulate what/who is at hand and try and manufacture something more to our current standards/intuitions.
by what possible means might one recognize/identify a “root” cause?
through discourse analysis –but there’s the rub, right?
but that’s about what I suggested (by attending to, intervening in, what is happening now) and not some kind of grand genealogical (even forensic) undertaking.
why either/or and not both-and?
oops, losing track of these threads, as I said above:
because human history (in all its blooming buzzing multiplicities) isn’t like say cosmology where we can trace out lines of cause and effect back to some basic elements/forces/equations, all we can do is manipulate what/who is at hand and try and manufacture something more to our current standards/intuitions.
yes!