Sunday, January 17, 2010

Israel's future: no future at all -- or -- long overdue return to reality? [Israeli Palestinian conflict]


David Brooks marveled in a recent NY Times column on the predominance of Jews among Nobel laureates, philanthropists, etc., and wondered without venturing any genetically based explanations where so much ability came from. Myself reading Fritz Stern’s “The Five Germany’s I Have Known” of his family's narrow escape from extermination had to think that the family of a prominent medical doctor was more likely to get out than the family of a Jewish elevator operator.

If Jewish DNA has been undergoing similar (if less extreme versions of) brain “straining” episodes for a couple of millennia that could plausibly raise the racial IQ -- sort of paralleling what would might follow one of those Hollywood plots where the human elite is to be ensconced in caves for the duration of persistent nuclear fall out or prolonged comet-winter.

In an unintended to be a funny last note Brooks states many high tech Israelis maintain second homes in American technology havens (note: almost all Knesset member web pages list English as a language) – just in case. Should “just in case” ever happen, it will be the first time in history Jews migrate to new high IQ nesting ground -- from Israel!
******
I have speculated elsewhere on what a super-sized industrial plant could have been constructed (Hong Kong; where's that?) with resources Israel invested in NATO scale military forces, the better to absorb “Greater Israel” (IOW to steal olive groves and real estate Samuel Clemens reported "definitely needs paint") – also explained elsewhere why that overspending soon may not be enough to save residents of even “Israel Proper” from taking flight. (US-Japan type defense arrangement ONLY possible deterrence -- ONLY possible after West Bank "squatters" make alyia, again -- American public no longer buying that ole "Palestinians as native Indians" tale.)

Today's Israel cannot escape too legitimate comparison with a severely abused child who in turn severely abuses others. This whole nation pathological parallel can only be explained by the holocaust – what else – bad DNA? :-)

What is with attempting to bomb Lebanon back to the stone age – killing 1000 adults and 400 children in the effort – over the more or less legitimate taking of a couple of uniformed soldiers prisoners? Israel is in de factor war condition with Lebanon’s next-door Islamic brethren (if Israel doesn't admit, why do they have to admit?). Never have so many been harmed for so few: Israel's darkest hour (two US Iraq POWs tortured to death the same week)?

Would Israelis have done if no holocaust? Would any another ethnic group have done if they were Hitler's victims instead? Most likely: no and yes (some without a holocaust). Would 18 million untraumatized Jews have been naively wrong to behave proportionately in Lebanon and 12 million madly traumatized Jews be right to act with fascist ruthlessness (not all think right)?

The psychological profession does not normally recommend suppressing traumatic experiences. But studies show Nazi concentration camp survivors who suppressed their experiences functioned better in later life.

Time may truly be running out for Israel – not to “forget” -- but to no longer permit the monstrousness of the holocaust to permanently blind it's people's moral outlook -- lest Israel’s multiplying misdeeds provide the monster his only consolation in Hell.

No comments: