Israel on the Couch: The Psychology of the Peace Process

Introduction

Introduction T he goal of this book is to persuade the reader that the peace process is, fundamentally, an emotional process. Just as in the early days of psychology people needed to be persuaded that therapy helps, so today they need to be convinced that conflicts between nations can be resolved by understanding emotional processes. This book contains practical applications and clear and incisive recommendations that stem from that premise. The argument that the Israeli-Arab conflict has psychological aspects is self-evident. Every conflict between two parties—a couple, parents and children , friends, and business associates—has emotional aspects, with each side bearing its own anxieties, defenses, and ambitions. This insight has been articulated by many leaders at different times. Issues of building trust, as well as feelings of hurt and insult on the national level, the desire to heal injuries, and the wish to triumph, are important not just existentially but also narcissistically. When we talk about relations between countries we are not talking about emotions and ideas invented specifically for international conflicts, but about human, everyday emotions, which generate the psychological processes in everyone. Therefore, these psychological processes can be addressed with the tools of clinical psychology. We know a lot about defense mechanisms, anxiety, impulses, desires, and so on. We do not need to invent a new psychology for these psychological processes, which have been studied in depth since Sigmund Freud. Therefore, throughout this book I will use tools known from clinical psychology, and bring examples from the clinic, from interpersonal conflicts, and from pathological and normal processes of growth and development , to analyze the peace process. 1 1 1 1 1 The first group into which we are born is the family. That is where our emotional world emerges and is shaped. That is where we learn how to live together, for better or for worse. The family is our first model of communal living. The family of nations is an extension of the family situation. There is no doubt that all of us, whether conscious of it or not, apply what we learned in our families, in the early years of life, to resolve difficulties throughout our lives. We approach the conflict between us and the Arabs from the same standpoint and with the same knowledge that we acquired to deal with problems and conflicts in our families. Just as conflicts within the family can be analyzed in a clinical psychotherapeutic setting, so can emotional problems between nations be analyzed in order to promote the best solutions. In the same vein, problems between groups in the Israeli public, such as religious and secular Jews, left and right, Arabs and Jews and others, can be viewed as emotional processes within the Israeli family. The uniform character of emotions, which work in ever-growing circles, from the family to the Israeli family to the family of nations, can be understood by appreciating the primal bond between parent and child. That bond is deep and emotionally involved, because of the common fate that destines parent and child to live within each other’s worlds so intimately and intensively. As Winnicott said, “There is no such thing as an infant . . . without maternal care.” In other words, you cannot understand the development of an infant and what happens to him, without considering the mother. The mother-child relationship can serve as a model to understand other bilateral relationships between the groups and nations whose common fate destined them to live on this land together. There is no Arab without a Jew, and vice versa; there is no left without the right, and vice versa; there are no religious people without their secular counterparts, and vice versa, in this country. Those are inseparable pairs that are constantly reflected in each other’s eyes, until you can no longer tell who is who or what is whose. This interconnectedness creates such a charged emotional system that you cannot understand either side without considering the feelings and emotions of the other. Therefore, I will use examples familiar to everyone from parent-child relationships to promote our understanding of complex and charged relationships between groups and nations. As a nation, we had a traumatic childhood, laden with catastrophes and disasters. Working through this difficult past and understanding it would be enough to qualify us for therapy, so we do not carry our anxieties, defenses, and ambitions, which are sometimes unrealistic, into...