{"id":1345,"date":"2010-07-25T22:06:32","date_gmt":"2010-07-25T19:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icahd.fi\/?p=1345"},"modified":"2010-07-25T22:06:32","modified_gmt":"2010-07-25T19:06:32","slug":"matka-oikealle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.icahd.fi\/en\/matka-oikealle\/","title":{"rendered":":: Oikealle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Strenger than Fiction \/ Why Israel keeps moving right <\/em>(Haaretz 22.7)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Israelis at this point prefer international isolation, painful as it is, to reliance on Arab peace partners for its own security.<\/p>\n

Israel has been sliding into ever greater isolation in recent years. Since Benjamin Netanayhu returned to power in 2009 this process has accelerated. The international community has been put off by his tactics: Whenever the question of Israel\u2019s settlement policy comes up, he diverts attention to the Iranian nuclear threat. He argues that the world is facing a situation similar to 1938, and that its reaction is that of Chamberlain trying to appease Hitler. The world doesn\u2019t buy Netanyahu\u2019s rhetoric; his policy of stalling the peace process is perceived as a cynical ploy hiding Israel\u2019s true intent of holding on to the territories.<\/p>\n

This explanation fails to take into account that Netanyahu\u2019s rhetoric reflects the paradoxical state of mind of the Israeli electorate. Polls show that a consistent 70 percent of Israelis favor a two-state solution. So why has Israel\u2019s electorate been moving consistently to the right in the last decade? Why is Netanyahu\u2019s popularity in Israel so high? And why is Israel\u2019s public less willing than ever to listen to criticism of Israeli policies?<\/p>\n

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This development can be elucidated by a universal tendency of the human psyche uncovered by existential psychology in the last two decades. When under threat, particularly mortal threat, humans tend to react psychologically by entrenching their worldviews. These views, which include identity narratives of righteousness, become ever more rigid under these circumstances, leading to growing distrust, hatred and negative prejudice against out-groups. Criticism of the in-group and its worldview is rejected categorically.<\/p>\n

This theory predicts that Israel\u2019s move to the right reflects a sense of existential threat. To outside observers this may seem absurd, given that Israel is a regional superpower generally assumed to have a substantial nuclear arsenal, whereas the Palestinians don\u2019t even have a standing army. Nevertheless all polls show that Israel suffers from deep anxiety about its viability.<\/p>\n

Part of the explanation is quite concrete: Two realistic threats have indeed emerged in the last years. The first is the possibility that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons, a threat that most Israelis see as catastrophic. The second is from groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, which have moved from suicide terrorism to rocket attacks on Israel. Israel, for the first time since 1973, is faced with security threats to which it has no clear-cut answer. As a result Israel launched massive attacks in Lebanon in 2006 and against Gaza in 2008\/9 under the assumption that the price of rocket attacks must be destruction on a substantial scale. This has pushed Israel into unprecedented international isolation.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s electorate reacted to this sequence of events exactly as predicted by existential psychology: during operation Cast Lead, the Israeli public was unwilling to tolerate any criticism of the massive destruction in Gaza, and in the 2009 elections it moved strongly to the right and effectively erased the Israeli left.<\/p>\n

The result is a vicious circle in which Israel feels that its existential fears are not taken seriously. Israel\u2019s electorate moves towards leaders who address but also keep reinforcing its fears. International opinion becomes ever more negative, which in turn reinforces Israel\u2019s isolation which in turn raises existential fears.<\/p>\n

This has one, very unfortunate, consequence. Israel\u2019s best chance of minimizing the threat from Hamas and Hezbollah and minimizing Iranian influence in the Middle East is to engage with the Arab League peace initiative. If Israel were to normalize relations with all of the Arab and most of the Islamic world, particularly Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas would be isolated to the point of having to move towards abandoning violence and recognizing Israel\u2019s legitimacy.<\/p>\n

Taking this road requires Israel to take a risk and bet on the positive dynamics of a peace process. But this is precisely what Israel is incapable of doing after the traumas of the second intifada and the shelling of southern Israel. Israelis at this point prefer international isolation, painful as it is, to reliance on Arab peace partners for its own security.<\/p>\n

Are there any ways to get Israel out of its growing distrust of the outside world? Experimental existential psychology suggests two main means: one is, obviously, lowering the real or perceived mortal threat. The other is to decrease the sense of isolation.<\/p>\n

The Obama administration has addressed both issues lately. It is stepping up security cooperation with Israel, and increasing its military aid to Israel, particularly to allow Israel to complete the Iron Dome anti-missile defense system developed to provide an answer to the short range rockets used by Hezbollah and Hamas. Obama has also changed course in that he has given Netanyahu a warm welcome after more than a year of giving him the cold shoulder. This, as most commentators assume, does not reflect a policy change: Obama is adamant about implementing the two-state solution, but he has come to the conclusion that embracing Israel is a more effective way of getting there than to isolate it.<\/p>\n

The big question is whether this will in any way influence Netanyahu\u2019s overall security conception, that Israel must retain control over certain areas in the West Bank to have an effective answer to any future attack from the east. Since this does not allow for territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian State, it will be unacceptable to Palestinians and the international community.<\/p>\n

Nobody knows what Netanyahu\u2019s long-term strategy is exactly \u2013 sometimes I doubt that he knows. But there is a simple way of gauging whether he is about the change course. Tensions between Netanyahu and his foreign minister, extreme rightist Avigdor Lieberman have been mounting lately. The day Netanyahu changes his coalition by ousting Lieberman\u2019s hawkish Yisrael Beiteinu party and replacing it with Tzipi Livni\u2019s centrist Kadima, we will have a strong indication that he is moving towards genuine progress with the Palestinians.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Strenger than Fiction \/ Why Israel keeps moving right (Haaretz 22.7)<\/p>","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"zakra_page_container_layout":"customizer","zakra_page_sidebar_layout":"customizer","zakra_remove_content_margin":false,"zakra_sidebar":"customizer","zakra_transparent_header":"customizer","zakra_logo":0,"zakra_main_header_style":"default","zakra_menu_item_color":"","zakra_menu_item_hover_color":"","zakra_menu_item_active_color":"","zakra_menu_active_style":"","zakra_page_header":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uutiset"],"yoast_head":"\n:: Oikealle - ICAHD Finland<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.icahd.fi\/en\/matka-oikealle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\":: Oikealle - 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