Conference at the Sigmund Freud Institute: Psychoanalytical views on Israel
In his brief opening speech, political scientist Rainer Forst, spokesperson for the “Contrust” research initiative, used a quote from Adorno to describe the aim of the conference at the Sigmund Freud Institute in Frankfurt. “Freedom would be not to choose between black and white, but to step out of such a prescribed choice,” formulated the pioneer of critical theory. Forst sees this as a mission to stand up against the polarizing and irreconcilable and thus to escape from a “discursive situation” that he characterizes as “poisoned”.
One way to achieve this is obvious: to allow different voices to have their say, to approach a complex of topics from a variety of perspectives. This was also the case on Sunday at the conference entitled “On the crises in Israel, the Israel-Palestine conflict and contemporary forms of anti-Semitism”, organized by the Sigmund Freud Institute and the Frankfurt Psychoanalytical Institute.
The conflict was viewed from a socio-psychological and psychoanalytical perspective. The Israeli academics Eran Rolnik and José Brunner were invited, as well as Kurt Grünberg, a research associate at the Sigmund Freud Institute, who researches experiences of anti-Semitism in the third generation, and the psychoanalyst Shirin Atili from Esslingen, who wanted to speak about the consequences of a lack of freedom for Palestinians. However, Atili canceled shortly before the conference. The organizers of the conference on Sunday remained silent as to why she had decided to do so.
Nevertheless, the lectures were a gain. Rolnik and Brunner’s domestic Israeli perspectives in particular provided new perspectives for the German debates on October 7 and its consequences. Rolnik, who conducts research at Tel Aviv University and regularly publishes in the liberal Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, characterized democracy in his home country as “impaired”. He recounted how he was questioned in November. A state official presented him with articles he had written and wanted to know whether he still stood by his statements. This interrogation was “strange and confusing”, but Rolnik refused to be intimidated by it.
In his lecture, the academic outlined how the ongoing conflict has led to a hardening within Israeli society. “Racism has also taken root in the heart of the secular center,” regrets Rolnik. He believes that the chances of a peaceful solution to the conflict continue to dwindle, with Islamists and right-wing extremists having a major influence on the debates. What he also observes is an enormous “callousness” towards the victims of Hamas terror. “A raped Israeli woman gets no sympathy,” Rolnik realized. He also sees the global resurgence of anti-Semitism as a “warning signal for the future of other democracies”.
José Brunner, who also conducts research at Tel Aviv University, spoke of a “time of the absolute” that has dawned in the Middle East. Both Israelis and Palestinians are collectively affected by a pathological form of narcissism. In contrast to positive narcissism, this is “destructive”, blinds people to their own weaknesses and devalues others. Injuries are not healed in this way, but people try to “undo” them – and thus become “cruel, boundless and relentless”.
Israel reacted to the genocidal terrorist attack by Hamas with a “boundless campaign of revenge driven by narcissistic rage”. Brunner blames the rise of religious fundamentalists, Islamists and radical settlers in particular for the muddled situation. He does not currently see any signs of hope. “Both sides are moving down blind alleys of absolutes.”
Kurt Grünberg spoke very personally and forcefully about the injuries that the Hamas massacre has caused Jews in Germany. The Sigmund Freud Institute employee reported that he too had been gripped by a “deep sadness” and a “horror that will not subside” since October 7. He spoke of crying fits, depressive phases and social withdrawal. One of his patients struggles with regular panic attacks. She told Grünberg that she had the feeling of being trapped in a never-ending nightmare.
Grünberg sees the terrorists’ unbridled violence, their “orgy of murder” and the systematic sexualized violence they perpetrated, which even included the rape of women who had already been killed, as confirmation of a thesis by Jean-Paul Sartre. The French intellectual said that anti-Semitism was “something quite different from a way of thinking” and that it was “above all a passion”. A passion that brings fear and death into the world. ALEXANDER JÜRGS
By Alexander Jürgs. From the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 27.02.2024, Frankfurt (Rhein-Main-Zeitung), page 4 © All rights reserved. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH, Frankfurt. Provided by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Archive