Posted by Melody from sankhya2.math.ualberta.ca (129.128.207.126) on Thursday, May 23, 2002 at 1:05PM :
Fred,
I am continually amazed at how often you are right about people and psychology. Yesterday I was listening to a CBC radio documentary about Isreal and the Palestinian territories. Two psychiatrists were interviewed. One an Isreali, the other Palestinian. Both said that the victim adopts the methods of the oppressor. The Palestinian psychiatrist who incidentally was jailed by the PA authority for criticising them mentioned a case where a PA police officer was interrogating a Palestinian man. The suspect was uncooperative and so when the officer became impatient, he started to yell at him in Hebrew. It turns out he was tortured in Isreali prison years ago and he went into this mode as though it was a reflex. The Isreali doctor also had campaigned for ending the use of torture on Palestinian suspects. Just like you said, she said that Jews had come to identify with their opperessors after all those years of being hounded, which she even said was counter-intuitive. Finally, what struck me was that both doctors agreed that any agreements between the two peoples should arise in an atmosphere of peace. That is, as much as we might view the suicide bombers as no different from soldiers, the danger to Palestinian civil society is that some people might not be able to problem-solve without the use of violence. The Isreali psychiatrist also said that her country is in a deep state of denial and that ordinary Isrealis will begin to change how they view Palestinians only if the entire country goes through a collective state of shock.
Once again, I've learned something from this forum first and had it confirmed elsewhere. Incredible. Your experiences in Kuwait and Iraq are also 'educational'. I hope you continue to tell us about those.
-- Melody
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