Will Israelis recover from collective narcissism?

Although the war waged by Israel on the Gaza Strip is approaching its third month, and despite the ground incursion of the occupation army into it, and despite the campaigns of ethnic cleansing and genocide against our people in Gaza and the persistent attempts at forced displacement, the one struggling for survival is Israeli society. 

This is because the level of hatred is rising within it against the people of Gaza and their valiant Palestinian resistance, as polls indicated that it has reached unprecedented levels. It constituted 96% of Israeli society, which was divided against itself for many months, following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to reduce the powers of the Supreme Court, and he held huge demonstrations against the judicial coup project, a bloc today against the Palestinians. You can hardly find Israeli voices opposing this war, or at least demanding that the War Council stop committing massacres and genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, which caused the bloodshed of more than twenty thousand dead, the majority of whom were women, children and the elderly, and the injuries of tens of thousands and more than eight thousand missing under the rubble, in addition to the destruction of more than 70% of buildings, homes, property and infrastructure, under the eyes and cameras of the world, including the eyes of Israeli society.

The rising level of hatred for the Palestinian people in this society is explained by two main reasons: fear, and breaking the collective narcissism that expressed itself in the arrogance of force in the face of any threat in which this narcissism was combined with the statements of its narcissistic leaders, first and foremost Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant, and then the war council generals after the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, which broke the myth of the “invincible army.” As arrogance increased after the extreme Zionist religious right (Ben Gvir) and the extreme Zionist nationalist right (Smotrich) took control of power in partnership with Netanyahu as a result of the elections a year ago, the occupation army and settlers subsequently attacked the Palestinians in the West Bank in daily violations and killings unprecedented before the Gaza war. 

And the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, and before the coup against the Israeli Supreme Court according to the American humanist philosopher and social psychologist, Erich Fromm (of German-Jewish origin), “collective narcissism” sometimes wears the guise of nationalism, and at other times wears the mask of religious narcissism, when the followers of a certain religion firmly believe that they are dearer to God, and that they are more deserving of Paradise than others, and that they are more upright than others because they were born to this religion (God’s chosen people). This is an explanation that fully applies to Israeli society, which in recent years and decades has tended toward the right and the extreme right, according to opinion polls, especially among young people. This is what was expressed in the elections that brought most extreme and racist right-wing government in the history of Israel since its founding.

There is no longer a place for deep discussion and conflicting certainties have increased, which has made matters worse in the rise of collective narcissism.

According to Fromm, collective narcissism can also appear in other forms of collective identification depending on the circumstances of time and place. In every case, a person satisfies his narcissism by belonging to the group and linking his identity to it. Accordingly, his greatness is not achieved by his being, as he is a nobody, but rather by his belonging to the most wonderful group on earth. Social media and digital communications in the world (and not just in Israel) have accelerated the pace of collective narcissism, where deep discussion no longer has a place and conflicting certainties have increased. This has made matters worse in the rise of collective narcissism across the world, making Europe, finally, steadily moving toward right. This explains the arrogance that has characterized Israeli society for many decades. Otherwise, how can we understand the silence of Israeli society towards the continuing violations against the Palestinians, and even its overwhelming support for the brutal war on Gaza and the campaign of genocide that is taking place day and night before the eyes of this society, while Millions of people in the world  protest against this genocide. 

Protests in which many young Jews in the United States and descendants of Holocaust survivors participate. Which makes us wonder, as we remember the huge demonstrations in Tel Aviv, in protest against the Sabra and Shatila massacre committed by Israel and its Lebanese Forces allies in Beirut during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. What has changed since those protests? Why is Israeli society silent about the genocidal war waged by its state against the Palestinians, the first signs of which began in the West Bank at the beginning of this year, and the settlers’ burning of the town of Huwwara in the Nablus Governorate twice? The silence reached its peak in the aggression against Gaza following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, as a war of revenge. The Israeli government, and behind it the majority of Israeli society, seeks revenge on the people of Gaza for daring to resist, oppose the occupation, and not submit to it and submit like slaves. While Israel was surprised by this huge and creative offensive operation, and the shock paralyzed the ability to believe that this besieged and occupied people was able to break the arrogance of the occupation, its separation wall, and its security and intelligence services with all their branches within a few hours in a brilliant military plan, the details of which exceed even imagination. The most resistant people in the history of national liberation movements around the world, especially a people who have been subjected to a stifling siege for more than 16 years.

Perhaps they are leaders and a society that did not expect, due to the arrogance of power and their collective narcissism, that the Palestinians would rise up against the occupation and its brutal violations. Perhaps they have not yet realized that the Palestinian people also love life. Rather, the violations committed by the occupation against them increased his determination to resist and confront all attempts to undermine his dignity and break his will since the Nakba of 1948.

Any solution that Israeli society seeks to get rid of its sense of existential impasse requires that it hold itself accountable

Is it the existential impasse that is growing day after day, spreading fear in the souls of Israeli society, pushing it to right-wing extremism and to delve into the blood of Palestinians, male and female? Or is it collective narcissism that overwhelms their behavior, and makes them live the lies of God’s chosen people, and justify their occupation of Palestine as a “return to the Promised Land,” or for their leaders to lie to the entire world and to their people as well when they brought them as immigrants in 1948 according to the saying, “They are a people without a land who came for a land without a people,” and they committed ethnic cleansing in which they displaced two-thirds of the population of Palestine outside and inside their land, when there were no cameras broadcasting the truth live on television, or when their grandfathers and fathers were brought on board cargo ships to Palestine fleeing from the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust, and they did not have the luxury of denying what they truly found of an authentic people rooted in their land. What if we knew that the Zionist state’s education programs were keen, from the beginning, to plant illusions and lies to justify their replacement settler occupation, and to glorify the narcissistic character of the Israeli generations through the saying of God’s chosen people. But the irony is that the majority of those who founded the State of Israel are secularists and left-wing atheists to begin with.

Scientifically, the characteristics of a narcissistic personality include “an exaggerated sense of importance, a need for attention and flattery from others, a desire to control and domineer, and to hide behind lies to hide their faults or exalt their image, even if they fabricate lies for the sake of it.” People (or narcissistic society) with this disorder may lack Psychosocial refers to the ability to understand and care about the feelings of others, as in the case of the genocide that the Palestinian people are subjected to in the Gaza Strip. Israel has lied to the world, and is lying to its people and its generations in light of the militarization of society, which has become nourished by repeated wars against the Arab environment in general and the Palestinians in particular.

What happens when the narcissistic personality is revealed and its image is broken? When the individual or collective narcissistic personality is broken, as happened during the Al-Aqsa Flood operation it may suffer from a type of depression, which makes it feel extremely weak and retreat backwards, or panic may cause it to commit blatant violence against its victims (a war of extermination), along with blackmailing her victims emotionally and psychologically for further exploitation and oppression (the right to self-defense), so that the proverb “He hit me and cried before me and complained” applies to it, as if it were the victim and not the executioner.

It is no longer acceptable for them to continue lying, stealing Palestinian lands, and continuing violations and wars of extermination

Perhaps this leads us to the conclusion that any solution that Israeli society seeks to get rid of the feeling of existential impasse requires that it subject itself to accountability, at least to get out of the cycle of lies if it is truly seeking salvation. Even if there are rational people among them, and there are certainly rational people, even if they are few, they would believe the Israeli society’s saying, “The seeds of the existential predicament they are living in are at the core of the components of their society, and that the main threat comes from these components and the lies and crimes that are committed in its name... and all they have to do is abandon them.” And they must be honest with themselves in order to live internal peace, otherwise they will not be able to live in peace on this land. 

The Palestinian people do not stop, remain silent, or surrender, because they have a right. They are in a neighboring Arab environment and are bound by intuitive organic, cultural, and historical ties, while this environment is hostile to the State of Israel and supports the Palestinian cause. Rather, it represents its central cause in its quest for liberation and advancement. Otherwise, how can we understand the demonstrations that spread across many Arab countries in protest against the aggression against Gaza and in support of the Palestinian people?

Immigration to Palestine and the Zionist movement’s blackmail of Jewish survivors of the horror of the Nazi Holocaust and the transformation of their fathers and grandfathers into slaves in what was called the “Israeli Defense Army” are the root of the problem. The global Zionist movement, and behind it the colonial West, invested in the suffering of the Jews and ignited the suffering of Palestinians who had nothing to do with it. They have nothing to do with the Nazi Holocaust that was committed against the Jews. It is time for their children and grandchildren to acknowledge these facts, if they want to live in peace with themselves first and/or with the Palestinian people, in order to rid themselves of the dark fate that awaits them if they continue to identify with the Zionist project and follow the path of the arrogance of force and continue to shed the blood of Palestinian men and women without accountability or any feeling of embarrassment, shame, or remorse.

It is no longer acceptable for them to continue lying, stealing Palestinian lands, and continuing violations and wars of extermination. 

The peoples of the earth have spoken and the matter has been exposed. All they have to do is exercise reason, swallow their shame, and stop following the criminal Zionist colonialist movement and false leaders who are dragging them to hell. The Palestinians must work side by side with the resistance on a discourse against the Zionist movement, so that the Israelis understand the facts behind their existential predicament, and review their individual and collective self if they want to live in peace, and they are inevitably coming to this.

source: Alaraby Aljadeed