Subscribe to Print Edition | Tue., August 19, 2008 Av 18, 5768 | | Israel Time: 14:53 (EST+7)
Haaretz israel news English
web haaretz.com
  Back to Homepage
Rosner's Domain
Diplomacy
Defense Jewish World Opinion National
Print Edition
Car Rental
Books Haaretz Magazine Business Real Estate Easy Start Travel Week's End Anglo File
Last update - 12:42 22/07/2008
The lie of victory
By Bradley Burston
Tags: Palestinians, Mideast 

We love the smell of victory in the morning.

It smells like ... a lie.

It smells like the lies we tell ourselves to ward off the terrible fear that our side may be, to some extent, mistaken, and our enemy may, to some extent, have a point.

It smells like the self-satisfaction with which we extol our virtuousness, our sacrifice, our very selflessness - all the while reducing the enemy to an abstraction, a caricature of bad intentions and vile deeds.

It smells like the near-erotic, near-narcotic rush that our hotheads get from extremism, especially the narcissistically heroic partisans who live nowhere near here.

It's a coping mechanism, this lying to ourselves. It's a defense mechanism, this lying to others. Who could blame us? Life here is hard, on both sides.

Where the truth hurts, a lie anesthetizes.

It could be argued that, since we tend to believe half-truths with our whole hearts, these are not lies at all.

Whatever we choose to call them, these tenets of suspended disbelief refuse to die.

So let us celebrate them for what they are: glorious crutches, magnificent stumbling blocks, our slippery rock, our inept redeemer.

Of all the lies, the lie of victory is surely the most insidious. It says to us - Israeli and Palestinian as one - that if we were to apply more firepower, endure more punishment, display more unity, take a harder line throughout - we will gain a final, permanent, satisfying victory over the other.

It is, like all of our lies, alluring. It is, in fact, the most alluring, perhaps because it is composed of all the others.

The Top 10 Lies We Live By:

10. The lie of We Were Here First

What Palestinians tell themselves: We are the descendants of the Canaanites, we were here before you. We are the heirs of Ishmael, the first son of Abraham. Your claims to be the descendants of the Hebrews are specious. You are Russians, Americans, Khazars. We were here before you. We have been here forever. Nothing can make us leave.

What Israelis tell themselves: We are the direct and genuine heirs of Abraham, who willed his inheritance to his son Isaac, whose son took the name Israel. Your claims to be Canaanites are specious. Many of you came from neighboring Arab lands a few generations ago. We were here before you. We have been here forever. Nothing can make us leave.

9. The lie of the State They Don't Deserve

Right-wing Israeli version: There is no such entity as a Palestine, and no Palestinian people, as such. They are artificial constructs, to serve the aim of ousting the Jews from their land. Moreover, terror has shown them undeserving of a state.

Militant Palestinian version: The Jews are a foreign growth in the body of Palestine. They came here from Europe and America, expelling Palestinians in the process, and it is time for both to return to their respective homes. The state of the Zionists is illegal, it is build on land that was part of the nation of Islam, and will not endure.

The truth: [Leaving alone the circumstance that most Israelis are native-born, and many trace their roots to Muslim countries from which their ancestors were expelled]

The principle of self-determination and the history of national movements, to say nothing of the development of Zionism and the Palestinian statehood movement, suggest that peoples themselves are empowered to decide if they constitute a people, and if that people legitimately aspires to independence.

This lie is close to, but not the same as:

8. We don't recognize them.

But we do, of course. Hamas talks about Israel incessantly. Israel talks about Hamas in nearly every breath. Then sides have an endless array of go-betweens managing every conceivable aspect of indirect contacts.

This lie is, in turn, similar to but not the same as:

7. There is no partner

The fact is that the lack of a partner serves the needs of both Ehud Olmert and Ismail Haniyeh. Olmert fervently wants to take advantage of the current split personality of the Israeli consensus, which has moved sharply right in its assessment of peace prospects with the Palestinians, and markedly left in its willingness to consider a future West Bank withdrawal.

To leverage this, Olmert has given indications of a preference for unilateralism, a position made much easier by an internationally shunned Hamas government.

At the same time, the last thing Palestinian Prime Minister Haniyeh needs, is to be viewed as a collaborator with Israel. "There is no partner," may have a different meaning when Hamas says it, but the advantage is mutual.

6. The lie of National Socialism.

Palestinian version: They are as bad as the Nazis.
Israeli version: They are as bad as the Nazis.

5. The lie of the Only Language

Both versions: Force is the only language they understand.

4. The lie of will.

Both versions: Our will is stronger than theirs, our cause more rooted, our stubbornness more pronounced, our endurance more bottomless, our tradition more timeless, our defiance more directed, our rage more justified, our presence more entrenched.

3. The lie of revenge

Arguably the hardest lie of all to resist. The lie that suggests that we alone have been wronged, that we have a duty - as well as a gut drive - to avenge that wrong, and that in so doing, we will somehow put an end to the injustice. The lie that masks the fact that the need for revenge is the engine of escalation, the breeder fuel of perpetual war.


2. The lie of victim monopoly

Both versions: We are the world, we are the victims. We kill in self-defense, our enemy kills innocents in cold blood. The moral high ground is clearly ours. The news media are demonstrably biased toward our enemy.

1. The lie of victory

In the Middle East, there is no such thing as victory. Ask George Bush. Ask the victors of the Six Day War. There is no such thing as Mission Accomplished, clear-cut triumph, a simple win.

We want to believe in victory, because the prospect of no hope for triumph, for some meaning to all the suffering, is beyond unbearable. Nonetheless ...

In the Mideast, today's victory is tomorrow's nightmare. In a situation pitting Western concepts of defeat and victory against the Islamist view of martyrdom, no one can win. The best that civilians on both sides can hope for, is a mutual improvement of circumstances, and a truce that -flawed as it may be -somehow manages to hold.
________________________________

Previous blogs:

The war that divided Judaism
Confessions of a legal Jewish settler
The Holocaust - Get over it
The cult of suicide, the culture of failure
Bookmark to del.icio.us  
 
A second chance
Parents shocked to see their baby breathing moments before she was to be buried.
Kafka the Zionist
Remnants of Kafka's estate found in T.A. raise questions of his belief in Zionism.
  1.   I guess I don`t exist in your world, Bradley... 03:09  |  Asaf 05/05/06
  2.   #1 - self-pity is no substitute for attention 10:10  |  chris 05/05/06
  3.   Power of lies 10:42  |  David Howard 05/05/06
  4.   Arab Jews 10:46  |  ex-syrian 05/05/06
  5.   # 9 bradley 10:46  |  hadag nakhash 05/05/06
  6.   LIES 10:56  |  CHONI 05/05/06
  7.   Clearly we have a lot in common 11:14  |  sh 05/05/06
  8.   The first True,there were not Arabs palestine state in history 11:33  |  e.m 05/05/06
  9.   "Relativity for simpletons" by relatively well paid Burston 11:38  |  Absolute Sweden 05/05/06
  10.   to ex-syrian 11:50  |  John 05/05/06
  11.   To John #10 12:28  |  ex-syrian 05/05/06
  12.   Excellent article 12:35  |  Dave 05/05/06
  13.   Bradley,It doesnt matter what you say... 12:40  |  Ronnie Wolman 05/05/06
  14.   The trouble with lies... 12:41  |  Edith 05/05/06
  15.   #10 12:41  |  Danny - Israeli one 05/05/06
  16.   #10, the source for these idiotic comments 12:51  |  Danny - Israeli one 05/05/06
  17.   a good precis 13:10  |  Ben S. 05/05/06
  18.   Asaf my brother, Daniel my brother 13:27  |  Dror 05/05/06
  19.   I agree with you Absolut 13:42  |  Dror 05/05/06
  20.   #4 no such thing as arab jew 13:49  |  Dror 05/05/06
  21.   Asaf: Why No Left Sephardim 14:07  |  Ronnie Wolman 05/05/06
  22.   Dror: I do believe its the ahskenazis that liberated you 14:13  |  Ronnie Wolman 05/05/06
  23.   "No Sefardi leftists" 14:44  |  sh 05/05/06
  24.   Dror: Expansion 14:46  |  Ronnie Wolman 05/05/06
  25.   S.African supremacist Wollman pontificates to Asaf 14:55  |  Absolute Sweden 05/05/06
  26.   The Jews are the ones that rebuilt this land 15:06  |  Debbie 05/05/06
  27.   Thank you Bradley, here is the truth!!! 15:37  |  B. Michaels 05/05/06
  28.   I guess I also don`t exist in Bradley`s world 15:47  |  Jane 05/05/06
  29.   Hamas and the Israeli Government need each other 15:50  |  Ibrahim 05/05/06
  30.   Dead on Mr. Burston 16:06  |  Mark Lincoln 05/05/06
  31.   Asaf 16:16  |  Danite 05/05/06
  32.   The lie of victory 16:17  |  julian kaye 05/05/06
  33.   Dror 16:18  |  Danite 05/05/06
  34.   Back to the subject 16:21  |  Danite 05/05/06
  35.   Great Article, Brad & Great Comment, #26 B.Michaels 16:26  |  Darien 05/05/06
  36.   Ronnie Wolman 16:29  |  Bouhadana 05/05/06
  37.   John and lies 16:33  |  Danite 05/05/06
  38.   What will it be? 16:34  |  Greengage Plum 05/05/06
  39.   #20: no "arab jews"?! 16:40  |  Stanislav 05/05/06
  40.   Inaccurate on this one Bradley 16:43  |  Shalom Freedman 05/05/06
  41.   Herr Today Gone Tommorow 16:48  |  Ronnie Wolman 05/05/06
  42.   Hotel Hell, the endless getaway. 16:54  |  Mike Harp 05/05/06
  43.   # 2 Chris And Thank You Bradley 17:00  |  Asaf 05/05/06
  44.   The Absolut Answer: Herr Today,Gone Tommorow 17:01  |  Ronnie Wolman 05/05/06
  45.   ironies and paradoxes 17:01  |  stork 05/05/06
  46.   Anyone who agree pls react ! 17:02  |  Lucio 05/05/06
  47.   John # 10 17:23  |  Asaf 05/05/06
  48.   Excellent article - please react 17:24  |  Lucio 05/05/06
  49.   What about the Left Wing Version of Lies 17:32  |  Sam Weinstein 05/05/06
  50.   Zionist American Lying Machine 17:38  |  Peter 05/05/06
  51.   21 - Wollmann 17:46  |  Asaf 05/05/06
  52.   #6 the Chonis rule 17:46  |  hollingsworth 05/05/06
  53.   #27 17:48  |  Danny - Israeli one 05/05/06
  54.   Israel has done more to try to achieve peace 17:58  |  Besalel 05/05/06
  55.   sh # 23 18:11  |  Asaf 05/05/06
  56.   Lies, and the lying liars who tell them 18:19  |  Ben Gurion 05/05/06
  57.   The lie of victory 18:27  |  M.R 05/05/06
  58.   No left Sephardim, no left Russians (Ronnie Wolman #21) 18:32  |  Ben Gurion 05/05/06
  59.   The biggest lie from.John and religin of hate 18:34  |  e.m 05/05/06
  60.   Burston - high on the lie(s) of the arab enemy 18:39  |  pace306 05/05/06
  61.   There is a solution - cut off Arabs` water supply 18:44  |  Me 05/05/06
  62.   Wolman