“. . .  when the human identity of the victim breaks through, perhaps largely standing his/her ground and committing acts of resistance, then the dominator goes ballistics, and the sadistic urges/energies flow like water (or arsenic?)” N Pollack

In explaining the Israeli compulsion to pulverize (the Zionist element at least), whether into submission or into smithereens, the Palestinian people of Gaza, a moot point, one can combine Marx and Freud by way of explanation, as did Herbert Marcuse in Eros and Civilization, on a related problem: the instinctual realm of profound layers of darkness, in which consciousness of evil on the oppressors’ part must be obliterated (for Marcuse, the repression of Thanatos as it continues to do its ugly work), in Israel’s case, its destruction of the Palestinian memory (memory as historical awareness, legitimation of group-existence, including pride and sense of place, claims to survival and growth) through mounting the disproportionate use of force, a species of overkill, metaphorically, the Israeli military-psychological bulldozer.

Rather than the massive machinery for crushing homes, which in any case continues, it is intended to crush the human spirit—as already seen in the widespread devastation, rubble everywhere—now addressing the very IDENTITY of a whole people, physical genocide, as impersonally tabulated in the grim statistics of body counts, but in addition, mental genocide, the attack on a people’s self-knowledge, culture, achievements in letters, the arts, political thought. Continue reading →