The question of safety is one of the most critical questions of our time. How do we feel safe and what are the conditions necessary for safety? In our current governmental models, we have invested in militarization as a form of safety. Under this view, to feel safe we must defend ourselves through protection and the only way to do that is through weaponization.
This is quite interesting, and absolutely requires more attention. Thanks for putting it out into the world-- I'm definitely going to be chewing on this for a while :)
I wondering what you would say to the following: militarization as addiction seems to really be getting at something deep. Perhaps, like you allude to, it's a trauma response. Said trauma response is a reaction to real trauma— sometimes personal trauma, sometimes societal trauma etc. But that trauma isn't imagined.
You discuss the I/P conflict.
In the context of this analysis, where do the following two puzzle pieces fit:
a) That Sefardic and MENA Jews did experience violence at the hands of Muslims and Arabs, and are traumatized by it. Perhaps they are not being triggered in the holy land, given that on a communal level this trauma tis still raw and hasn’t been processed.
b) The fact that while Israel has militarized dramatically, it was also at war (at least until the 70s/80s/90s/ depending how you look at it.
Israeli Jews who arrived to the Holy Land from the first Aliya onward were weak, both physically and psychologically (see Max Nordaus, the Jews of Muscles, which actually argues your same point, just 120 years ago!). Jews have been under threat and attack through history. Almost independent of that fact, Jewish memory strongly holds on to all the times there was persecution. Jews arrival in the Greater Ottoman Empire and then the British Mandate over TransJordan (and then Israel), was no different. Whether the Nebi Must Riots, the Jaffa riots, or the Hebron massacre (all in the 1920s), there it was, the cycle already began repeating itself. And then, of course, there was the Holocaust, and many of the refugees came to the Holy Land— and then shortly thereafter, there was the flight/expulsion/exodus (choose your narrative) of the MENA Jews, who also arrived in the Holy Land with their own trauma.
….And then they were attacked by neighbors: by Palestinians, by Jordanians, by the Lebanese, by the Syrians etc. This lack of physical safety in the Holy Land left further traumatic imprints on an already traumatized people.
She does argue the effect of trauma as a trigger to the militaristic response in another article. In the same way that we adopt bad coping strategies when traumatized, this would argue the militarization is one such strategy and it is addictive because it is never satisfying but gives the illusion that something is being done to address the trauma.
Enjoyed reading this! Thank you for writing
This is quite interesting, and absolutely requires more attention. Thanks for putting it out into the world-- I'm definitely going to be chewing on this for a while :)
I wondering what you would say to the following: militarization as addiction seems to really be getting at something deep. Perhaps, like you allude to, it's a trauma response. Said trauma response is a reaction to real trauma— sometimes personal trauma, sometimes societal trauma etc. But that trauma isn't imagined.
You discuss the I/P conflict.
In the context of this analysis, where do the following two puzzle pieces fit:
a) That Sefardic and MENA Jews did experience violence at the hands of Muslims and Arabs, and are traumatized by it. Perhaps they are not being triggered in the holy land, given that on a communal level this trauma tis still raw and hasn’t been processed.
b) The fact that while Israel has militarized dramatically, it was also at war (at least until the 70s/80s/90s/ depending how you look at it.
Israeli Jews who arrived to the Holy Land from the first Aliya onward were weak, both physically and psychologically (see Max Nordaus, the Jews of Muscles, which actually argues your same point, just 120 years ago!). Jews have been under threat and attack through history. Almost independent of that fact, Jewish memory strongly holds on to all the times there was persecution. Jews arrival in the Greater Ottoman Empire and then the British Mandate over TransJordan (and then Israel), was no different. Whether the Nebi Must Riots, the Jaffa riots, or the Hebron massacre (all in the 1920s), there it was, the cycle already began repeating itself. And then, of course, there was the Holocaust, and many of the refugees came to the Holy Land— and then shortly thereafter, there was the flight/expulsion/exodus (choose your narrative) of the MENA Jews, who also arrived in the Holy Land with their own trauma.
….And then they were attacked by neighbors: by Palestinians, by Jordanians, by the Lebanese, by the Syrians etc. This lack of physical safety in the Holy Land left further traumatic imprints on an already traumatized people.
She does argue the effect of trauma as a trigger to the militaristic response in another article. In the same way that we adopt bad coping strategies when traumatized, this would argue the militarization is one such strategy and it is addictive because it is never satisfying but gives the illusion that something is being done to address the trauma.