Israel and Palestine: self and other, positive and negative; 2023
2 Values
FIRST DRAFT (5 pages)
Hate … choosing not to hate
Holocaust and Palestine
A little candle burning in the night
Goodwill towards the other
…
Positive and negative
The systems
Positive value in society
…
Love … Arendt, Stonehouse
Love everybody; understand everybody … Robert Burns, 1759-1796
The relationship between the self and the other: love and understanding
Love … positive value
…
Values: overviews of seventeen chapters
Introduction
What is happening in Israel and Palestine is driven by values – and in turn affects values. This section is in three parts. The first part explicitly concerns the Israel and Palestine. The second part considers positive and negative values in general. The third part contains various reflections on love and understanding.
The final part provides a link to overviews of seventeen chapters which I have written about values.
Hate … choosing not to hate
They hate us and intend violence against us – as they have done in the past.
We are forced to reciprocate - again.
Religion tells us to love and not to kill – yet we do the exact opposite.
“We are choosing not to hate …
Join us in resisting the path to hatred”
Magen Inon and Hamze Awawde* will be taking part in Building Bridges, Together for Humanity, a vigil opposite Downing Street on Sunday at 3pm.
The Times, November 29, 2023: 32.
*one from the occupied West Bank and the other from Southern Israel
Holocaust and Palestine
Now, thinking about positive value in the current situation, I realise I can recall being with and sharing conferences and train journeys with many people.
Elizabeth died a few years ago but here she is sharing her memories. In it she recalls a friend’s parent instructing “Don’t play with that little girl. She’s a Jew.” The interview with Elizabeth concludes:
“…but I am also a citizen of the world and try to work for peace and harmony of
all mankind through education.”
The four-hour interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwWQJnRQ2As.
Also I recall on various occasions listening to and discussing with Palestinians their experiences and the experiences of their family in the 20th century.
A little candle burning in the night
The innocence of infants. This is their song. It comes from the Christian tradition but it could easily have come from any other tradition.
“Jesus bids us shine with a pure clear light,
Like a little candle burning in the night.
In this world of darkness so we must shine
You in your small corner - and I in mine.”
Adults also can make music and light:
“My mission to keep my father Daniel Barenboim’s Arab-Jewish orchestra alive.
Michael, the violinist son of the director, says that even during a war, there is another path for the Middle East.”
… about the orchestra:
… playing at the UN:
https://www.un.org/en/messengers-peace/west-eastern-divan-ensemble-performs-un-headquarters
Goodwill towards the other
Goodwill towards the other … empathy for the other … appreciation of each other’s grief:
“An empathy void divides the Middle East. Until Israelis and Palestinians can appreciate each other’s grief, peace will be a struggle.” Catherine Philp. The Times, 8 December 2023, 26.
An initial goodwill action and the reciprocation of goodwill. The need for each side to be willing to listen to the other, to acknowledge the legitimacy of some core arguments made by the other side – to make concessions to the other’s position. This was the broad thrust of the rationale in a recent article by Finkelstein.
“As a supporter of Israel’s existence and safety” he did indeed make very substantial acknowledgement of core aspects of certain Palestinian thinking. Subsequent Letters to The Times acknowledged the fair-mindedness of what Finkelstein had said …
… however in a later article Finkelstein reported his disappointment: “… so let me tell you what happened when I wrote an article … Nothing. That’s what happened.* I had hoped that this article would prompt matching concessions by those campaigning for Palestinian rights. I have been disappointed. … Absent entirely was any acknowledgement of why Israel or its supporters might hold the position they do … this complete failure to see Israel’s case …”
.* There were some supportive responses, but that is not Finkelstein’s point.
The articles:
November 1st. “Ceasefire supporters fail to understand Israel. The film Exodus underlines how Jews won’t rely on others and why calls by Sadiq Khan and others are pointless… . Now Jews would secure their own land and ensure their safety …”
Daniel Finkelstein. The Times, November 1, 2023: 27.
December 20th. “Israel’s critics must do more than just carp. A two-state solution will not work with Hamas around, so how do Arab states propose to contribute to future peace? … Israel cannot live next door to a state that is run by Hamas.”
Daniel Finkelstein. The Times, December 20, 2023: 21.
December 21st. “Search for a solution to Middle East conflict.”
Letters. The Times, December 21, 2023: 28.
Positive and negative
People associate positive and negative values to objects, actions and events.
The systems
My general idea is as follows. A society is a system which displays valued events - positive events and negative events.
Positivity is caused by a subsystem. We refer to this as the P-system, ‘P’ for positivity. See my web page:
Negativity and violence are caused by a subsystem. We refer to this as the N-system, ‘N’ for negativity.
The global N-system has a subsystem which generates violence, namely the global violence system - alluded to in:
W6 Positive value … Gaza-Israel … national and world opinion … the global violence system
People have a repertoire of positive and negative actions, but happily they usually select and follow the more benevolent parts of their repertoire …
The self should be positive to the other. … [P]
The self should not be negative to the other. … [NN]
Be positive, not negative. … [P, NN]
… sadly, on occasion people select and follow the more malevolent parts of their repertoire …
The self being negative to the other. … [N]
The self being not positive to the other. … [NP]
Being negative, not positive. … [N, NP]
Positive value in society
Last month at the council meeting of the Conflict Research Society I introduced the notion of ‘Positive Value in Society’. To be celebrated in good times … and perhaps to be reminded of in bad. It was the latter reasoning, amidst the war in Ukraine, which prompted me back in January 2023 to start writing a series of notes on … Positive Value.
“Positive Value in Society”
The rationale? Well, I have a number of thoughts in my mind:
… John Burton, just before he died, wanted a focus on harmonious relationships at all levels of society (indeed he told IPRA that he wanted them to change their name!);
… Lewis Fry Richardson thought his equations for the arms race could just as easily be applied to the reciprocation of positive actions … a reciprocation of love;
… The CRS constitution refers to positive value - using the words ‘constructive’ and ‘cooperation’;
… The Michael Nicholson centre at Essex refers to positive value – again using the word ‘cooperation’.
Love … Arendt, Stonehouse
“… the possibility of love, which is for Arendt, as Stonebridge eloquently puts it, “the infinitely precious apprehension of and pleasure in human otherness … love is the pre-political condition for us being together in the world in the first place.”
“The women who unpicked the populist playbook.” The Observer. The New Review. Feb 4 2024, 38. Joe Moshenska.
We are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience. Lyndsey Stonebridge. Jonathan Cape. 2024.
Love everybody; understand everybody … Robert Burns, 1759-1796
W11 Love everybody; understand everybody … Robert Burns, 1759-1796
“To Love and Robert Burns!” That was the toast which I gave at our Burns Supper last Saturday. Burns you see had written the line:
“That man to man the world o’er shall brothers be ...”
… in other words, love everybody. And it was around that thought that I built my speech. The speech is given in section 1.
I had in fact prepared a different toast. It included the quotation:
“To see oursels as others see us!”
… in other words, understand everybody. That speech, the one which I did not deliver, is given in section 2.
1 Love and Robert Burns
2 History and Robert Burns
The relationship between the self and the other: love and understanding
“That man to man the world o’er shall brothers be ...”
“To see oursels as others see us!”
The first quotation is about a brotherly (love) relationship and the second quotation is about a seeing (understanding) relationship. The relationships are between ourselves and others – between the self and the other.
There are four kinds of relationship: self-self and other-self; and self-other and other-other. In the second quotation, it is the first pair of perceptions that Burns refers to: seeing ourselves, and others seeing ourself. In other words there may be different perceptions (or conceptions) of the self. This is a topic which I have written about in the last few years and is discussed in the later section entitled “Conceptions of the national self”.
The opposite of love is hate. One is positive and the other is negative. Indeed there is a continuum of affect. The next section is entitled “Israel and Palestine: self and other, positive and negative”.
Love … positive value … values
In 2019 I had a go at writing about love:
‘Love’ is about positive value (2023-):
Positive Value
Values: overviews of seventeen chapters
Over the years I have written seventeen chapters about values:
W12 Values: overview of chapters
The topics covered are:
Values: individuals and relationships
Values in everyday life
Values in relation to key aspects of life and society
Values in particular settings, spheres
Life and values
Society and values
Models of values
Models of individual choice
Models of social choice