The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege by Kenneth Levin

From the Publisher

In the 1993 Oslo accords, Israel embraced Yasser Arafat as its "peace partner." It then installed him in Gaza and the West Bank as head of a nascent Palestinian government, allowed him to bring with him some 7,000 of his loyalist gunmen, and provided the gunmen with weapons, even as Arafat continued to support terrorist attacks on Israelis and to assure Palestinians and other Arabs his goal remained Israel's destruction.

Why did Israel pursue the path of Oslo? Why did it persist on that path when, in the wake of the initial Oslo agreements, the Palestinians unleashed an unprecedented wave of anti-Israel terror?  Palestinian leaders also routinely called for holy war against Israel and compared Oslo to the Treaty of Hudaibiya, which Mohammed had signed in 628 and abandoned when his forces became strong enough to overwhelm his adversaries. Arafat and his subordinates told Arab audiences that Oslo was a step in the PLO's 1974 "plan of phases," a strategy of acquiring whatever land could be won by negotiations and using that territory as a base for pursuing Israel's annihilation.  Yet Israel responded with additional concessions.

What psychological, historical and communal forces spawned policies that undermined Israel's security and even threatened its survival? Dr. Levin's original and powerfully persuasive analysis relates Israeli diplomacy of the nineteen-nineties to psychological responses common among chronically besieged populations, whether minorities subjected to defamation, discrimination and assault or small nations under chronic attack by their neighbors. More particularly, he demonstrates links between the evolution of Oslo and the long history of Diaspora Jews being subjected to persistent abuse. The reaction of many enduring such abuse was to seek to improve their predicament by endorsing elements of the surrounding societies' bigoted indictments and embracing delusions of salvation through self-effacement and concessions.

This case study in the psychology of a community under chronic attack takes on broader significance at a time when even traditionally safe and secure societies such as the United States are confronting the psychological challenges posed by terrorist assaults.

Sunday 6/12/05 - New York Post

"In this massively researched, lucidly written and cogently argued narrative, Kenneth Levin tells the appalling story of what has been called the greatest self-inflicted wound of political history: Israel's embrace of Yasser Arafat and the PLO in the Oslo Accords of September 1993 and its dogged adherence to its obligations under them even as its "peace partner" was blatantly flouting its own.

The book is divided into two sections. The first recounts Jewish political failure in the Diaspora, where Jews lived with a constant burden of peril, as the background for the self-deluding rationales that engendered Oslo. The second traces the same self-delusions in the history of Israel itself.

Levin shows how a tiny nation, living under constant siege by neighbors who have declared its very existence an aggression, was induced by its intellectual classes to believe that its own misdeeds had incited Arab hatred and violence, and that what required reform was not Arab dictatorship and Islamicist anti-Semitism, but the Jews themselves..."

Jerusalem Center for Policy Analysis, April 2005 - Joel Fishman

"This book gives a sober, well-balanced picture of the Jewish experience in modern times, with special emphasis on how the Oslo adventure affected all levels of Israeli society as well as Jews abroad. The discussion of Oslo gives a more candid and complete treatment than what is commonly known in Israel. This work also reconfirms the relevance of the honest treatment of history. The Oslo Syndrome is not an example of the "new history," where information is selected and altered to fit in with ideology, but a carefully documented account that follows the facts. Understanding the recent events that are clarified in this book could help in formulating sound public policy, notwithstanding the rootless opportunists who argue that history is merely an obstacle to be disregarded. Not least, a well-educated public in possession of its own narrative is less likely to be taken for a ride by the bus driver of the moment."

The Dartmouth October 11, 2005 - Katie Silberman

Levin analyzes Middle East psyches in Oslo Accords
Combining psychiatric analysis with international relations, Dr. Kenneth Levin spoke about his new book analyzing Israeli psychological responses to the Palestinians in a Monday night speech sponsored by Chabad.
Levin, a clinical instructor of psychiatry at Harvard University Medical School and frequent commentator on Israeli politics, claimed that groups living under such stressful situations -- the "chronically besieged" -- often choose to accept even the most improbable offers of relief in hopes of ending their mistreatment.
"The chronically besieged tend to embrace the indictments of their accusers in hopes that by accepting them, by reforming, they will escape their predicament," Levin said.
The Oslo Accords, a series of agreements between Israel and Palestine in an attempt to end the Israeli-Arab conflict peacefully, were signed in 1993. They made little progress in their attempts to bring peace to the Middle East and saw increased violence between the two countries.
"The Oslo process was supposed to bring peace, and instead it led to, at that point, the worst terror that Israel had ever seen. The obvious question is why," Levin said. "People haven't answered the basic whys because when you answer them, you realize that Oslo was doomed from the beginning."

May 31, 2005 - Center for Security Policy Decision Brief

"The Oslo Syndrome" chronicles the delusions of successive groups within the Jewish world, with a particular focus on the most prominent and contemporary of the phenomena - that of politicians and organizations associated with "the Peace Movement." Dr. Levin explains: "The Peace Movement's stance in fact was as divorced from reality as had been German Jews' blaming of Polish Jews for anti-Semitism, or secular European Jews' blaming of the religious, or socialist Jews' blaming of the Jewish bourgeoisie. But proponents of the Movement, cowed by the persistence of the siege and desperate to see its end, chose to delude themselves. They grasped at any seemingly positive statement coming from an Arab political figure and ignored all the countervailing evidence."

Publishers Weekly

While the subject of this study is specific-"the delusional thinking that underlay Israel's attempt to achieve peace with its neighbors through the so-called Oslo process"-the author's interests and conclusions are wide-ranging. Levin, a clinical instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a commentator on Israeli politics, attempts to analyze why many Israeli Jews chose to believe in the peace negotiations of the early 1990s, even when Yasser Arafat was refusing calls to publicly renounce terrorism. Levin analyzes this through both historical and psychoanalytic lenses, mapping out how people who have lived under siege are likely to internalize the hatred they encounter and become "delusional" about their own self-interest. Levin also discusses European and American anti-Semitism and its effect on Jewish identity, from the mid-19th century to 1948, with some background material on the emergence of Zionism and the British Mandate. While the word "delusional" may be too strong, Levin's psychoanalytic arguments about the "corrosive impact of... besiegement" are fascinating and generally persuasive. But once stated, their truth becomes self-evident and their explanatory application over 600 pages of Jewish and Israeli history begins to feel thin. Levin's documentation of the Arab-Israeli conflicts of the past three decades is exhaustive, but while there is mention of the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks, Levin might have spent more time exploring how his ideas affect other countries or political situations. (June) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

What People Are Saying

Cynthia Ozick
"This remarkable work-part history, part psychology, part sociology, part burning prophecy...not so much about the great outer wilderness of anti-Jewish perfidy as about the internal self-mystifications and self-denials that annihilate Jewish dignity and Jewish independence. The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People under Siege may be the most important manifesto of our generation, an indispensable analysis that explains the present and may yet save the future."

Fred Frankel
"That Arafat would honor what he undertook to do in the Oslo accords is but one false belief referenced in the commanding title of Kenneth Levin's new book. Levin traces many others, several influential throughout Jewish history, that are heir to the overarching delusion, namely, that Jews can control their destiny by behaving as their besiegers demand of them."
—Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Efraim Karsh
"This hugely interesting, highly informed and very timely work is a must read for all those looking to understand the self-loathing that exists among some Jews when it comes to attitudes to Israel and wider Jewish issues."
—Professor, Head, Mediterranean Studies Programme King's College, University of London

Yossi Klein Halevi
"The Oslo Syndrome is an indispensable contribution to understanding the roots of the Oslo process... this is a book that anyone who cares about Israel should read and re-read."
—Senior Fellow, the Shalem Center, and Israel correspondent for The New Republic

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