That’s the title I chose for this essay, but it wasn’t the first that I considered. The title that I first entertained — granted it was too long — was, “The Development of a Paradoxical and Strange Idea That the Jewish People Through the State of Israel Will Be the Salvation for a Failing and Otherwise Doomed Islamic Society.” I might also have included a subtitle for that essay, perhaps something like, “Genuine friendship between peoples — functioning as a midwife or a life raft — will save the entire Mideast region.” I would then bring in the “Abraham Accords”, in particular the apparent genuine affection and trust, (as far as I can read), that has developed between the citizens of Israel and those of the UAE, the United Arab Emirates, as they encounter one another freely as tourists.
But wait, how did I get so wrapped up with this topic that I’m wasting my time even writing about it? The answer is that I really became absorbed by the recent three day Gaza conflict, Israel versus the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or the PIJ, which only recently concluded with a tenuous cease-fire. For the first time, I followed one of these ever-recurrent Gaza actions closely; because, for the first time, I was able to do so! I discovered that the conflict in Gaza was essentially being widely streamed on the Internet, almost continuously, often in high def, and in English. And even better than that, it was free! Since I was retired, I had the time.
So I gave in to my impulses and during almost every waking hour between Friday morning and Sunday night, I watched the events in Gaza unfold in real time in front of my computer. I only put it aside to watch an Amazon Prime movie on Sunday afternoon. And that was because earlier I had promised Sondra to watch it with her. Otherwise, I really could not put Gaza down, and felt myself becoming an addicted news junkie.
Before the outbreak of hostility, fortuitously, I had upgraded my old Apple desktop to a new model. It was just out of the box and I was eager to test what I hoped would be its unequaled speedy internet connections. I was not disappointed. So for the entire three days, either I would be watching events happen in Gaza, on the ground, live or being re-streamed; or I would be attentively watching a panel of commentators give their opinions on the events we all had just witnessed. I would watch the panelists with interest as they produced their explanations and gave their forecasts — or otherwise, I would be switching from one ‘bookmark’ or another, searching for more of the same on an alternate website. It was a powerful urge and I began to feel like a rat with an implanted deep-brain electrode that was programmed to inject a tiny amount of intra-cranial cocaine whenever I clicked my mouse. I could barely resist what felt like a driven addictive obsession. Thus, was the genesis of what could well have been an alternate title for this essay, “Watching Gaza Erupt With Fascination and Interest Through the Lenses of Al Jazeera and PressTV”.
It’s not as if this marathon immersion in the Arab/Iranian Internet was my only access to the Gaza conflict. Now and then, I would dip into Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post, even Ynet News to get the Israel version. As a news junkie, I would scan BBC, Fox, CNN and Google News. Yet I was struck by how little this conflict was being reported. A fascination with events in Gaza, which I shared with Al Jazeera and PressTV, was really the exception. Even my morning copy of the New York Times had very little about it, or at most, a small article on the inside. That general lack of interest has been noted, and deservedly so. Indeed the world at large did not seem to care.
Besides the addictive quality of what was streaming from my computer over these 3 days, there was another issue, which some people might find problematical. Yes, it seems that I was watching everything though the offices of PIJ supporters — Al Jazeera, out of Qatar and PressTV, out of Iran. Both of these Internet ‘stations’ were located in the Islamic world. In Al Jazeera’s case, there clearly was a definite bias to the reporting, and support for the PIJ was very obvious and strong. Qatar has not signed on to the Abraham Accords and my impression is that they are rather cool to the idea. But Qatar has a huge US airbase, it is located in the Gulf, and perhaps because of its ultra-rich royal ruling elite, it seems to have a kind of Western orientation. It even has a history of low level dealings with Israel. Perhaps that might explain why occasionally an Israel commentator was present and sometimes consulted on a panel, in what seemed to be an effort to appear even-handed. However, I never saw his comments provoke any discussion. Either what he said was dropped and never went further, or his comments simply provoked sarcasm and scorn. But compared to PressTV out of Teheran, the contrasts with Al Jazeera were sharp and stark. With PressTV, nothing leavened the continuous stream of anti-Israel vituperation and venom. But it too, in its own way, turned out to be interesting. Perhaps I was aware of a certain hypnotic quality that seemed compelling and hard to turn away from. I had no trouble watching these anti-Israel, anti-Zionist ideas as they were developed and expressed, hour after hour.
In a short time I was literally marinated in PIJ talking points. Over and over I was given endless details of Israel’s perfidy, its flagrant disregard of international law, laws promulgated by an international community that failed to lift a finger. Over and over, I learned of the suffering of the Palestinian people; how they had endured 70 plus years of oppression, colonialism and apartheid — and it was only getting worse.
There was a goodly percentage of woman reporters and panelists on both networks; some wearing the hijab, some not. I thought the women were particularly effective. They usually spoke better than the men. They gave very smooth, almost melodic, reports and commentaries, but they had a tendency to drift into long lilting asides. Often it seemed, without taking a breath, they would effortlessly glide into repetitive explanations, offering ‘context’, which, after a while, tended to take on a boiler-plate quality. My impression was that wearing the hijab tended to correlate with a more repetitive, droning kind of boiler-plate. But that is only impressionistic; my numbers are small. I have no real evidence.
I was raised in a traditional Jewish household, therefore raised with Zionism, so shouldn’t I have been worried that I would be ‘brought around’, somehow influenced, or perhaps even converted, by watching this action unfold from an unrelenting Arab, or PIJ, point of view? I don’t deny that danger, but I contend that the chance of it happening was infinitesimal. None of the arguments I heard were unique — perhaps the events were, but the arguments explaining the events were very familiar. I felt that the possibility of my being converted to the reporter’s version of the truth was equal to my chance of convincing the reporter of my alternate view. In both cases, the chance was zero.
The reason for that was simple. The reporter and myself both believed what we thought was the truth. It was my reality; it was her reality. Our viewpoints were different but were equally real to the two of us. I could listen to her without being influenced in the slightest, and likewise, none of my arguments would have any impact on her. We were both insulated and safe.
But beyond that, there was only one very big difference between the reporter and myself. I was right and she was not.
I imagine we now enter into the philosophy of how we can know the truth. Philosophy is far beyond my expertise and my interest. My best guess is that there is no way I can prove I am right in my beliefs and PressTV is not, by using logic alone. It’s philosophically impossible to prove who has the truth. Rather, I must approach this entire epistemological arena from my own professional background and interests, filtered through my own experiences of life. That said, watching the portrayal of Gaza through these three days put me in mind of going down at 3 AM to interview a patient brought into the hospital psychiatric ER. The patient was convinced he was the Messiah and had been taken off a roof as he was about to ascend into heaven. To demonstrate his devotion, in order to make the ascent, he had to step off the ledge. Happily there were people around who could restrain him and bring him to me. I knew, as a psychiatrist, that I had no way of convincing him that he was not the Messiah. It’s not that I wasn’t tempted to try. No psychiatric resident goes through his training without, at some points, spending an afternoon debating with a likable patient that there was no way he could be Napoleon, or Jesus. It’s pretty hard to avoid getting sucked into that discussion, most especially with someone you not only like but even respect. The lure of presenting logic as an antidote to psychotic thinking is very strong and almost irresistible, but eventually you learn that it is a waste of time.
These types of conditions, like my Messiah example, are not common, but they will turn up in emergency rooms or in your office. In all cases they are brought in either by authorities or loved ones. They do not come on their own volition. They can appear in many guises, but essentially they present as examples of a completely encapsulated grandiose delusion. (That is simply a description of the condition; it is not a diagnosis.) If you simply exclude the patient’s delusion, in all other respects, the person can be fully functional, appear normal, logical and can even be quite a productive member of society. But inside his head, it is as if he harbors some type of neuro-cognitive barrier, totally impermeable, where — regarding his belief in his true identity, at least — no logic to the contrary can ever penetrate.
Wait a minute! Don’t get me wrong. I am not drawing a parallel between a person with this type of psychotic thinking and Islamic society as a whole. That would be an example of racist thinking and I reject it. Nonetheless, I believe that as human animals, we can differ in how we process information. I can posit a theory, that for whatever reason, people coming from Islamic cultures have a greater tendency (compared with Western cultures) to process information differently, particularly when it involves Israel. Why this would be is anyone’s guess. Perhaps it’s due to environment, to history; or perhaps it is the product of factors we would otherwise all admire, like family closeness, traditions of hospitality or strong interpersonal bonds. I’m only speculating. Do I have evidence for this hypothesis that a type of illogical and irrational thinking seems to be more prevalent in Islamic societies than what is found in the West? No, nothing that would meet any rigorous standard, only my own personal impressions filtered through my intellect and reflective of my life experience.
During one slow period watching Al Jazeera, while I waited for more ‘up to the minute’ news, I watched with interest a documentary about the history of the Arab Middle East, with a focus on the region during the 1960’s. I was familiar with this period as I was in my 20’s and in college, in Texas. I was reading every scrap of news about the Arab-Israeli conflict (as it was called) that came my way, even before the 1967 “Six Day War”, a watershed event that served to accelerate my life-long interest in the region. I was curious as to how Al Jazeera would present this period. Would Al Jazeera alter or white-wash it?
The documentary showed a newsreel of Nasser speaking on TV, accepting full responsibility for the outcome of the war, the ‘catastrophe’, announcing his resignation from all his political offices, and pledging to return to the countryside as just another average Egyptian. Then the newsreel showed the population pouring into the streets, en masse, in an agitated state of shock and distress, demanding that he stay on as leader of the nation. (I remembered seeing the same roiling crowds from the newsreels I had watched while still in Texas, a few weeks before the war, enthusiastically calling for throwing the Jews into the sea.) I watched as the documentary came to an end and Al Jazeera returned to the present day, now showing videos of the same type of crowds, in identical states of agitation, marching in a raucous funeral procession down Gazan streets, carrying the bodies of their PIJ leaders, recently taken out by Israel. It seemed nothing had changed.
I concluded that Al Jazeera presented the history of the time as I remembered it. It did not downplay the magnitude of the Arab world’s utter humiliation by Israel during the 1967 war. If anything, it presented a picture of incompetence, betrayal and delusional thinking more wider than I even remembered, including peripheral events in Yemen and Iraq. The documentary’s message was clear and unvarnished: the Arab states rose from the wake of colonial powers, performed ineptly on the world stage after independence, and are now even in more danger. The Al Jazeera view of history was that the Arab social contract, or Islamic Society in general, during the past one hundred years, has gone from colonial provinces to failed states. Even Turkey, long the ruler of the Ottoman empire, and which might seem to offer a logical counter argument, entered into the modern world at the end of the nineteenth century as the “sick man of Europe”. The documentary by Al Jazeera showed the “Arab street” to be the hidden latent power behind the throne. If the “Arab street” was the ultimate arbiter of decision-making in that society, then should we be surprised to think that Islamic cultures (compared with Western cultures) will process information with more emotion and less rational sobriety. Am I so mistaken to be reminded of my patient from the roof, needing to demonstrate his devotion to his ideas, even if — or especially if — it might result in suicide?
I myself had some limited experiences traveling in the Arab world as a tourist. In June, 2001, while vacationing in Eilat in Southern Israel, Sondra and I signed up for a day trip to Petra. The next morning, we crossed into Jordan at Arava for the van to Petra. Our guide was apparently well-known and stood out from among the locals. He was a scion from a noble family; a sheikh who had gone to college and obtained a degree. He spoke excellent English and was a splendid fellow; I liked him immediately. Late in the day, after we had toured the sights and were waiting for our ride back to Arava, I sat with him and chatted. He told me that Petra and Jerusalem were special. He said that the Americans used Cape Canaveral in Florida for their space shots because it offered the shortest route across the Atlantic to reach the physical ‘hole in the sky’ that lay over Jerusalem — the very same atmospheric cavity used (or left behind) by Mohammad as he rode to heaven on his steed. He spoke so convincingly that I wondered if in fact there was not some actual physical or gravitational mechanism behind NASA’s trajectories that coincidently matched this religious fable. But I said nothing. I was a guest; it would be inappropriate for me to challenge him. When we returned to Israel, and were in the back seat on the way to the hotel with other couples, our Israeli contact casually asked about our experiences on the Petra tour. He said, “There’s one guy back there who always insists that the Americans use Cape Canaveral so they can get their rockets into space by shooting them through the hole in the sky left by Mohammad on his trip up to heaven. One time, I even sent a scientist on the tour who actually worked at the Kennedy Space Center. I thought he might be able to set him straight.” Obviously, that attempt was of no avail. The Petra guide, educated and sophisticated, still retained the same unshakable belief system that neither logic, reason, or even science could shake.
On another occasion, in September, 2009, Sondra and I visited Egypt. Mostly we were part of a tour traveling the Nile on a riverboat. But as we like to do, we broke away for a day in Cairo to tour the city by ourselves — unguided, moving about on foot, by taxi or public transport. I spoke no Arabic; I could neither converse with people passing me on the street, nor read their signs and billboards. I am sure that alone heightened my consciousness of a cultural difference that I didn’t feel anywhere in the West. It wasn’t the women I encountered veiled in black, save for eye-slits, that made me more aware of these differences. I was prepared for that. Rather it was seeing a substantial proportion of men; who, even in western attire, advertised their submission to Allah by the callus they had developed in the center of their forehead, raised over time by praying prostrate on a rug, another demonstration of devotion. These are all incidental and trivial impressions, but because they are personally felt, likewise leave their mark.
That day, we took the Cairo Metro and got out at Tahrir Square. We walked through the square and over a bridge and onward to the western bank of the Nile, passing by the impressive Cairo Opera House. Then our walking route took us south, up river, for a few kilometers. We had a leisurely lunch of flame broiled kababs that I prized, and then we reached another bridge, where looking up, I had been told, I would see the building that housed the Israel embassy on an upper floor. The presence of the embassy, despite its location 20 stories above the street, seemed at the time a hopeful indication that things were progressing between Israel and Egypt.
Within a few short years, I would again revisit both the site of the square and the embassy, but this time via videos broadcast on cable news networks. I watched, astonished, what later came to be called the “Battle of the Camels”, where in view of the entire world, Mubarak loyalists on horses and camels battled opponents staging a sit-in on Tahrir square. And then, 6 months later, Mubarak was gone and Egypt was back in chaos. In September, 2011, the videos now showed a howling mob breaching the fortifications of the building housing the Israel embassy. I watched in anxiety and despair, as crowds of people, rampaging, amped with ferocity, battered and broke their way into the building and the embassy; ransacking it and tossing out all types of documents down to the cheering eager throngs below. Later, it was revealed that an Israeli security staff had taken refuge in a safe room, and were only separated from the rioters by a steel door. Their lives were saved by Egyptian commandos, who after a number of hours, were activated and broke in. This activation only occurred following the personal intervention of Barack Obama, then President of the United States. Just this morning, I attempted to check my memory of exactly where Sondra and I had stood that day, looking up to the embassy offices. However, Google will not give me the address. Rather, I am directed to the British embassy; or am told I would have to chat online with someone who would want to know the nature of my business, before this information — an address — could be given out — today, over a decade later. All impressions, whether trivial or not, persist.
So where am I in this essay, after watching obsessively 3 days of wall to wall Gaza coverage via Al Jazeera and PressTV? It would seem that I have nothing to convey but utter pessimism. I am left with an unshakable sense that both the reporters and commentators, and I, would be utterly deaf to one another. The experience of watching seems only to dredge up more memories, impressions and associations that there still exists an Arab “street”, irrational, enraged, prone to eruption; a “street” that even the bravest and most clear minded representative of the society cannot ignore. How could I possibly consider, (as my first title for this essay), that the Jewish people through the State of Israel might be the salvation for a failing and otherwise doomed Islamic civilization?
The answer is two-fold. First, it lies with the possibilities opening up with the Abraham Accords. I initially welcomed the accords with the same doubts, reservations, and mistrust that I have learned to greet all other agreements promising change in the level of Arab and Islamic hostility to Israel, only to disappoint. However, reading about those Israelis, (and there are very many), who have come back from visits to the UAE, (in particular), gives me hope. They have mixed and mingled with the people there, and seem to return with authentic feelings of being truly welcomed — something which never happened on the streets of Cairo and Amman, where signed peace treaties have been around for over a generation. Perhaps the power of the “Arab street” is flagging in the UAE; perhaps a tipping point has been reached and even traders, and shop owners, the average man on the street, is coming around to a self-liberating idea that they can think for themselves, and act for their interests — that they don’t have to be afraid of an irresistible peer pressure effect from the “street”, amplified by the mosque. Every society contains the possibility that a crowd on the street can become a lynch mob. At best, it’s only the weighted effect of that proportion of people thinking calmly and rationally in the crowd that makes the difference. And again, perhaps, that change in proportion is happening now in the UAE.
The second answer lies within my own deep-seated outlook for the future. Sondra calls me, “Mister Doom and Gloom”, and it’s true that, maybe defensively, I purposely keep my expectations low. But if I may be permitted to slightly alter MLK’s famous belief that the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice, I have the sure belief that human culture and society, whether directed by a higher power or not, will survive. I have the sure belief that it will inevitably evolve towards greater rationality. The proportions of people who make up the street will become more prone to calm deliberation. As with the stock market, there may be day-to-day variations, but the long term indicators are positive. Maybe there is a slow evolutionary effect happening right now in the Gulf, and perhaps it has the potential to spread gradually over the Islamic world. Perhaps the anti-Israel, and anti-Western suspicion and hostility now dammed up in Islamic societies will slowly evaporate. If the Abraham Accord spreads across the region, I will not be around to see its full flowering, perhaps not even my children will witness it. But the possibility of it occurring in the future gives me hope, and hope is what lays behind my first optimistic title for this essay.
But I must be careful. If this essay gets around I will surely be derided for being just another westerner, steeped in Zionism, stupid, deluded and blind. That would be expected. A more serious hazard might arise because I have touched on cultural differences and worse, seemingly stratified those cultures separately. I will surely be accused of using misrepresented characteristics and pseudo measurements; and I will have no defense, save an explanation that I know that everything is merely impressionistic. Both me, and my patient from the roof, are but single case reports, proving nothing. However, even thinking about measuring a characteristic like how groups of people, (Islamic societies versus the West), might process information differently, could easily raise serious danger flags. I find myself reminded of the old tired Jewish joke which asks why do orthodox rabbis oppose premarital sex, and answers because it might lead to mixed dancing at weddings. But the hazards of these types of thoughts can be very real and it is no joke. And thus, after watching Gaza erupt and settle down, by means of a total immersion through Al Jazeera and PressTV, and pondering all my residual associated thoughts, memories and hopes, I come to the final title for this essay.
I was moved by the article, which in true Arnold fashion was literary, descriptive and from the heart. I will share a brief story relating to our taking a team of our Model UN trainers to the UAE in 2019. Although I have the obviously Jewish last name of Jacobson, I and our band of educators were treated to warm Arabic hospitality and graciousness. But in the classrooms we visited, no map in any of the text books showed the State of Israel. Only desert. And on our last day there, a young student came up to one of our instructors and handed her a flower, as he said, "You are truly a great teacher. It is a shame you will burn in Hell." The Arab street, as well as the Jewish street have a lot to overcome.
I too have been fascinated by the Middle East, since I met my life long friend, Yasin Balbaky, z l'b, on the steps of Dwight Hall, UCBerkeley in September 1956. We were both first year medical students, I from Beverly Hills and UCLA, he from Damascus, Syria, and U. of Texas, I, a reform Jew (who knew nothing about Judaism) and he a Damascene Muslim, educated in Madrasas and as culturally Arabic as one could be. Our friendship lasted 50 years, until he died in Boston, MA, and I, at his bedside. He and his wife Barbara braved the "Storm of the Century" in March, 1993, to be at my Jewish, Orthodox wedding and he, after the party was over, arm on my shoulder, said "It was like a beautiful Arab wedding".
All of this to show how a restricted intimacy with the Middle East, through experience with one person and his family, leads to a different point of view from that of another, who, like Dr. Arnold Rosen, sees Jewish-Arab relationships through the fine reporting of the ladies on either side of the conflict
I, the neurologist, Yasin, the psychiatrist of the Great Era of the American drug culture, looked at the same world, while walking next to each other, on different paths. He loved Arab culture and Moslem history. I loved listening to his recitations of Arab poetry, and finally, in 1974, traveled to Damascus and lived in his father's house for two months, specially to be there to meet his father, mother, siblings, nieces and nephews, and servants. I went to Heflis, Turkish Baths, visited the family of his father's second wife and began to understand the many, complicated, family arrangements in our own , Jewish, polygamous, biblical history.
On and on, living through the modern history described by Dr. Rosen, I watched with Yasin, both saddened by tragic killing and murders of young men (women and children too) and neither understanding why those living in that earthly spot where our ancestors discovered the nature of the One, Great, Eternal and Blessed God, could not forgive each other and live in peace.
I am glad that Yasin did not live to see the tragic agony of the Syrian world and the ruins of the so called Arab Spring. He and I always had hoped for a peaceful ending -- I still do. Rabbi Sacks said that Jewish history did not permit Jews to be optimists -- those who were, ended up in Auschwitz whereas those who were pessimists, ended up in Palestine. Nonetheless, out of that came "Ha-tikvah", that which Jews have always given to this fragmented world that so needs tikkun olam -- we have always given it hope.
The great American-British physician, Sir William Osler, said that a true physician was always at the bedside to give his patient hope. Perhaps that is why there have been so many fine and true, Jewish physicians.
May I offer this comment to Dr. Rosen's wonderful, nostalgic essay with a blessing that we find true peace and hasten the coming of the Moshiach in our day. I will gratefully settle for a day in the time of my grandchildrens' children.