[lbo-talk] the new official IDF line

[Eric Beck]

On 6/4/10, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>Israel seems like
> a country in the grip of a profound collective mental disorder.
> They're hardly alone in that - all nations are founded in some degree
> through paranoid exclusions, like a Lacanian ego, and the USA is no
> slouch in the collective paranoia department. But really, their
> perceptions are so at odds with the rest of humanity that it takes the
> breath away.

I want to put out a theory, likely bullshit, that states tend to adopt
the politics and psychology of their frontier populations. If the
kibbutzim of the 50s both reflected and shaped Israel's socialist
aspirations at the time, the settlements are the expression of today's
Israeli state?

I don't know Israeli society that well, but this document sounds like
the fevered fantasies of Israeli settlers. Paranoia is the best word
for it I do think, with maybe more emphasis than usual on creating a
system of facts that corresponds to their delusions. I know that's
part of paranoia, but something in the settler/IDF mindset is more
active than persecuted, more constructive of worlds than driven by
delusions.