Israeli Society between the Culture of Death and the Culture of Life

Abstract

RAUMA IN THE MIDDLE EAST is deeply (though not only) associated with the bitter struggle of the last hundred years between Arabs and Jews. It is difficult to summarize this long struggle in a few sentences. I will concentrate in this paper on the trauma associated with the PalestinianIsraeli conflict. There were about six hundred thousand Jews and a similar number of Palestinian living west of the Jordan river, when the United Nations decided to establish two national states in this territory, on 29 November 1947, thereby ending the British Mandate (which started after WWI). The Jewish population which immigrated to Palestine during the last hundred years' came from all over the world. Most of the Palestinians lived in this region and some immigrated into it from neighboring countries.3 The national consciousness of both groups grew systematically in a kind of implicated relationship, while focusing on the conflictual aspects of the commonly claimed territory.* The Jews viewed their immigration [aliyah, lit. going up] as an act of revival of their national home, which had been destroyed about two thousand years ago by the Romans. For many years, they had tried to ignore the Palestinian population as a separate social and recognized national entity. Most of the Palestinian leadership soon viewed the Jewish immigration as an intrusion of an alien group, similar to previous intrusions of conquerors or colonialists (Crusaders, Mamelukes, British, and French). Though there were several efforts to develop peaceful relationships between these two developing groups, most of the history of the last hundred years can be characterized by indifference and animosity of two geographically and eco-