Israel seems well on its way to becoming the fanatical nightmare state envisioned by Sigmund Freud

 JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

 

+ Israel killed 146 Palestinians in the West Bank in 2022, an 18-year-high. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said these grim figures reflect a “reckless open-fire policy” that’s “integral policy feature of the Israeli apartheid regime, which relies on violence to promote its guiding principle of Jewish supremacy.”

+ Moreover, Israel demolished 784 structures in 2022, the highest number on record. At least 182 of these buildings were residential structures that left 500 Palestinians in the West Bank (255 of them minors) homeless.

+ Israel’s national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has ordered police to ban Palestinian flags from public places, calling the flags an incitement to terrorism.

+ Israeli Knesset member Hanoch Milwidsky: “I don’t feel the need to justify myself for preferring Jews to Arabs in the State of Jews… I prefer Jewish murderers over Arab murderers!”

+ Kenneth Roth, former director of Human Rights Watch, on the consequences for academic freedom of Harvard rescinding its offer of a fellowship after pressure from pro-Israel donors: “Some defenders of the Israeli government have claimed that [Douglas] Elmendorf’s rejection of my fellowship was because Human Rights Watch, or I, devote too much attention to Israel. The accusation of “bias” is rich coming from people who themselves never criticize Israel and, typically using neutral sounding organizational names, attack anyone who criticizes Israel.”

+ Israel seems well on its way to becoming the fanatical nightmare state envisioned by Sigmund Freud in 1930 when he was asked by his friend Dr. Chaim Koffler told lend his name a Zionist appeal. Freud rebuffed him politely but firmly, leaving no question where he stood on the matter:

Vienna: 26 February 1930

Dear Sir:

I cannot do as you wish [i.e., endorse Zionism]. Whoever wants to influence the masses must give them something rousing and inflammatory and my sober judgment of Zionism does not permit this. I certainly sympathize with its goals, am proud of our University in Jerusalem and am delighted with our settlement’s prosperity. But, on the other hand, I do not think that Palestine could ever become a Jewish state, nor that the Christian and Islamic worlds would ever be prepared to have their holy places under Jewish care. It would have seemed more sensible to me to establish a Jewish homeland on a less historically-burdened land. But I know that such a rational viewpoint would never have gained the enthusiasm of the masses and the financial support of the wealthy. I concede with sorrow that the baseless fanaticism of our people is in part to be blamed for the awakening of Arab distrust. I can raise no sympathy at all for the misdirected piety which transforms a piece of a Herodian wall [i.e., the Wailing Wall] into a national relic, thereby offending the feelings of the natives. Now judge for yourself whether I, with such a critical point of view, am the right person to come forward as the solace of a people deluded by unjustified hope.

Your obedient servant,
Freud

Taken aback by the vehemence of Freud’s reply, Koffler scrawled a note to his secretary across the top of the letter in pencil: “Do not show this to foreigners.” The letter remained in a vault for 60 years, unpublished and untranslated.

+ Freud was to experience the sadism of hyper-nationalism close up. Shortly after the Anschluss (Hitler’s annexation of Austria into Germany), Nazi thugs raided and looted the offices of the Psychoanalysis Institute in Vienna and later in the day his home and office at Berggasse 19, shaking down Freud’s daughter Anna for the household’s cash. After the Brownshirts left, Freud asked Anna how much money they’d stolen. Anna told him around $800. Freud coolly replied: “Dear me, I’ve never taken so much for a single visit.”

+ Meanwhile, Lula has terminated Brazil’s friendship pact with Israel and recalled his nation’s envoy from Tel Aviv.