Musings on "Musings": The Manipulation of Trauma

Dear Activist Explorer Readers, particularly those of you who responded with comments and appreciations (on the Substack page or directly to me) to my previous piece, Musings on Being a Jew and on Antisemitism. I hoped to reply individually, but time got away from me—and then Covid hit our family...

Here are some further musings on my musings and on your musings—for the old year and the one coming in a few moments…

The Resilience of Palestinians & Olive Wood Trees, Ethik Collective and Sophie Barnet

In the midst of confusion and turmoil, it’s heartening to see hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating daily around the world and in the US, calling for an end to the horrific assault on Gaza and to US support for it. It’s uplifting to know that well over 60 percent of the US population also supports these demands, as do virtually all the world’s peoples and nations.

My partner, daughter and I have been organizing with a group of Jews and Allies in our congressional district to demand that Rep. Glenn Ivey represent the great majority of his district’s residents¹, rather than AIPAC, which is by far his largest donor.**  We have collected hundreds of signatures to a letter calling on him to endorse H. Res. 786 calling for an immediate deescalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine.²

It’s heartening to work together with so many others for justice and peace. Nonetheless, as we watch the ongoing massacre, the morass of painful emotions can be overwhelming: isolation, depression, defeat, frustration, bewilderment, guilt.

The Morass

West Siberian Plain morass

One troubling thread of the morass is questioning my own perceptions: people I consider reasonable adults seem to see a wholly different reality than I do. Baffled, I wonder:

• How is it possible that despite the most basic moral imperative not to bomb babies, plus overwhelming worldwide outcry against it, they still do not stop?

• How can educated, intelligent people continue to confuse Judaism, a religion; Jews, a historic culture and people; and Zionism, a colonizing theocratic project?

• Why do so many conflate all the foregoing with the modern State of Israel, and the current Israeli government?

• Why do people confuse Hamas, a political entity, with the entire population of Gaza, including children?

• How can people think that having Hamas fighters among civilians grants license to exterminate those civilians? It is a war crime to bomb even imprisoned enemy combatants; obviously it is to purposely bomb “enemy” civilians in schools, hospitals and refugee camps.

• Why would revenge and collective punishment be excused when it is not just immoral and illegal but also entirely counterproductive—that is, assuming the goal is a safe, peaceful life for the people of the region?

• How can the US government and president continue to support clear war crimes, as defined by the Geneva Convention, when they have the power to halt them?

• How can the US and Israel assert the pretext that “they did it first?” We don’t accept that argument from our young children—why do we accept it from our leaders?

• Out of 425 members of Congress, only 17 are co-sponsoring the call for ceasefire and diplomacy that the people of this country have been strongly favoring since October. How can the rest so blatantly ignore the will of the people?

Closer to Home

We have heard clear signals that the government of Israel’s goal is to rid itself entirely of Palestinians (the ultimate goal of all settler colonial projects). And that the US government is fully behind them, regardless of the sentiments of the US population or the world. This is infuriating, but not particularly confusing.

When it comes to my peers, however, the terrain becomes more tangled. Why does calling for justice for Palestinians cause such discomfort, anger, and rejection among many progressives who regularly support the struggles of other oppressed peoples around the world? How can events we’re all witnessing in real time lead to interpretations so divergent we can hardly discuss them? And why are many of us feeling pressured to curb our speech among our own associates to avoid inciting scenes, blowups, condemnations, ostracism?

A Tangle of Traumas

I believe we have become tangled in trauma, and that this tangle is being purposely manipulated to divide and confuse us.³ First, the fundamental traumas of those directly involved in this conflict: the Nakba and the Holocaust.

The Nakba. The establishment of the State of Israel after WWII in 1948 entailed massacring thousands and expelling hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of the land of Palestine, and to subsequent occupation, dispossession, and apartheid, with flareups of massive displacement and massacre—of which the current onslaught of Gaza is the latest and most catastrophic, surpassing the first Nakba in numbers of dead and expelled.

The Holocaust. The genocide committed by Nazi Germany with the goal of entirely wiping out the millions of Jews of Europe, with complicity of other governments, before and during WWII.

These traumas pass down through generations and affect the whole community.

That said, I want to reflect on two other traumas I feel impact us profoundly, though we are less aware of it: the trauma of witnessing violence against others, and the trauma of belonging to a settler-colonial group or nation.

Before going further, I need to be extremely clear that I am not comparing or ranking traumas or suggesting they affect people equally. Each is unique and must be viewed on its own terms. Likewise, explanation is always totally distinct from justification.

Witness trauma. As children, from the time we become aware of what is going on around us, we witness injustice and abuse we feel helpless to stop. For some of us, abuse occurred in our households, but even if not, we’ve repeatedly seen racism, sexism, and other forms of inequality and injustice. We’ve seen adults perpetrate violence, exploitation and repression; deny it; cover it up; and tell us that this is the way things are.

Many of us may also directly experience violence, but witnessing violence done to others, especially others we care about, inflicts a separate and very real harm.

As much as we can, we all resist injustice we experience directly. If we are fortunate, we also witness others resisting as well. Nevertheless, inevitably we are obliged to observe, directly or through media, an incredible range of violence and abuse of others. This causes us genuine pain, damages our sense of self worth, and provokes feelings of guilt, powerlessness and rage. These experiences often force us to disengage from reality to avoid confronting both the violence and our inability to interrupt it.

Unquestionably, watching in real time the slaughter of innocents triggers our past experiences of helplessly watching violence around us.

Settler-Colonizer Trauma. Every human being knows, deep down, that it is wrong to kill people, take their lands and possessions, abuse and disrespect them. Participating in such acts is deeply traumatizing to the perpetrator. Again, perpetrator trauma and the trauma experienced by the targeted population are entirely different, but they are both required in order for the horrors of war, enslavement, genocide, and similar society-wide crimes to take place.

Sometimes I try to imagine what it would take to convince me that it is good, right, or necessary to invade, pillage, or expel people from their homes. Or to enslave them or commit similar acts. It seems inconceivable; yet ordinary people take part in such atrocities regularly, around the world and throughout history. And I am an ordinary person.

I further imagine that my family and people have experienced similar atrocities. And that for years I have been constantly told that certain kinds of people, who look, talk or act different from my people, are poised to attack us. (In fact, as a Jew, I have this trauma, and feel its effects.)

Viewpoints questioning this narrative are silenced, ostracized, punished, while those adhering to the mainstream worldview live comfortably.

Such relentless conditioning from birth, bribes of material comfort and safety, and threats of violence if we resist, effectively turn us into foot soldiers and cheerleaders for nationalism, and can be readily mobilized for violence. I’d like to think that I, like many others, would resist this narrative and refuse the things I’d be called upon to do and condone. But I can’t say for sure.

For people in the US, including my peers, acknowledging we have been parties to genocide and colonialism inevitably produces feelings of guilt, shame, and fear of retribution from those we have been terrorizing.

These feelings are readily manipulated, causing us often to react with extreme defensiveness to avoid facing them, lashing out at those who are calling us to account.

There’s a lot more to say about this, but for now, it seems important to acknowledge that this morass exists, and to commit to tackling it in order to be able to resist manipulation and keep connected as we take on struggles for justice and peace in the coming years. Including the struggle to free ourselves from trauma and not allow ourselves to be manipulated.

Thanks for reading. I look forward to your comments.

And to more activist exploring in the coming year!! Be well and safe.

1. PG County, Rep. Ivey’s county, is solidly Democrat, 76% of whom support the US calling for a permanent ceasefire and a de-escalation of violence in Gaza. https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2023/12/5/voters-want-the-us-to-call-for-a-permanent-ceasefire-in-gaza-and-to-prioritize-diplomacy

2. The Rightwing American-Israel Public Affairs Committee’s United Democracy Project focused its 2022 efforts on Democratic races either supporting candidates with messages consistent with those of AIPAC, or opposing candidates they believe are obstructing congressional support for Israel.” It “spent the most money — more than $4 million — on independent expenditures opposing former Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD). Edwards ultimately lost the race to Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD), whose campaign received over $1.2 million from the AIPAC PAC in the 2022 cycle.” https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2023/12/pro-israel-pacs-poised-to-spend-big-to-unseat-progressive-members-of-congress-in-2024-election-cycle

3. Let me say straight out: I do believe in conspiracy! The capitalist system enables a tiny fraction of humanity to control the world’s resources, regardless of morals, laws, human connections or harm to others or to Earth herself, and to freely indoctrinate, intimidate, bribe, and repress the population for that purpose. If that is not a conspiracy, I don’t know what is.