The Holocaust Syndrome

After more than sixty-one years, the Jewish people have still not wrested themselves free from the trauma of the greatest catastrophe caused by one nation to another: the Holocaust.   This is especially true today when we hear Iran's declarations about its desire to destroy Israel. While we must not ignore the dangers and risks that still threaten us, the time has come to shake off the Holocaust syndrome.

When the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat stood on the podium of the Knesset and said: "No more war, no more bloodshed," I was working in the Mossad (Israel's secret service). I headed the division engaged in maintaining contacts with the intelligence community and its counterparts around the world, including those which did not have open relations with Israel, such as China, India and Indonesia, as well as the Arab countries. 

My many years of service in the Mossad have brought me to the conclusion that the State of Israel and the Jewish people are still held hostage by the Holocaust syndrome.  Furthermore, I believe that this may well be the root cause as to why we fail to take advantage of peacemaking opportunities, even those that seem promising. 

According to the historian Arnold Toynbee, the Jewish ability to survive is the exceptional quality of our people.  Having survived pogroms, restrictive laws and all manner of abuse, the Jewish people today thrive in nearly every sphere of endeavor.   These psychological and intellectual gifts not only enabled us to establish and defend the State of Israel - and to ensure the country's unflagging development - but also to become a global center of creativity in all aspects of life and culture, in the broadest sense. We have turned the fear of an existential danger into a creative force, transforming a negative power into a positive one.

And yet, to ensure the Jewish future, especially in the State of Israel, we need to provide our children with a promise of the future and not only memories of the past.  This, however, requires a fundamental psychological change.  The time has come for us to move on; the time has come to put aside questions related to our struggle to exist. Now is the time to use our significant energy and creativity to bolster our strategic posture - - which is comprised of our economic, scientific and technological capabilities; our cultural development; and our demographic, spiritual and moral strength. A robust strategic posture can only be assured by achieving a state of peace. Only peaceful existence within our country and with our neighbors can we ensure the growth and continued security of the State of Israel.

To restore our self-confidence we must cut ourselves off from the Holocaust syndrome - without cutting ourselves off from the memory of the Holocaust.  While the memory of the Holocaust and our survival will always be the fulcrum of this nation's power, we can no longer view the world through the lens of existential danger.

Today, three years after the campaign in Lebanon and six months after the Gaza operation, we feel even more strongly shackled by what I have termed the Holocaust syndrome.  We are not capable, or more precisely, have not succeeded in electing a leadership willing to openly explore the essence of the peace that is being offered to us by the Arab world, or to recognize that this could very well be a moment of opportunity that could soon be lost.

For the first time in the Middle East, the Saudi initiative of 2002 created a new political horizon. And, for the first time, the Arab states as a whole are now prepared to make peace on the basis of the 1967 borders.  These borders, which were created by Israel in the Six-Day War, contributed to a significant strategic shift in the declared intentions of the Arab world which, until then, had been committed to defeating Israel by force.

Today our region is faced with the return of Ahmadinejad in the June 12^th elections in Iran, a man who has come to symbolize the denial of the Holocaust while calling for Israel's destruction. At the same time, we have heard the words of President Obama in Cairo who is attempting to set new ground rules for this region and new possibilities for peace.

Even though we continue to suffer from the Holocaust syndrome, even though our natural instinct is to ring loudly the bells that warn of reemerging threats, we cannot afford to lose this opportunity to secure a better future for our people. Therefore, we must throw off the shackles of our own limitations and close ranks with our neighbors who are ready to join us in creating a new era in the Middle East.