Acknowledging the Other’s Suffering: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Trauma in Israel/Palestine

In the aftermath of the Israeli ground invasion into Gaza in 2008, the BBC filmed Palestinian psychiatrist Eyad El-Sarraj standing amid the rubble. Placing his hand on his heart, he said, “I do believe the Israelis are more insecure than we are.”

Now, nearly two years after his death, I remember that speech as one of the many moments in which El-Sarraj demonstrated how the moral can be practical, how our ideas of good can direct our actions, and how even though we are scared and flawed, we can live by those ideas.

I started working with El-Sarraj back in 2005, when we began the Acknowledgment Project, a series of dialogues between Israeli and Palestinian mental health practitioners. The aim of our work was to enable Palestinians and Israelis to create a connection with each other that would allow them to grapple with their collective trauma. Specifically we sought to enable them to acknowledge having caused harm and injury and to recognize each other’s suffering, while being aware of the power asymmetry and the need to come together in opposition to the Occupation, rather than be separated by it.

In this work El-Sarraj encouraged me to stand for the recognition of all injuries while at the same time being clear that one side (the Palestinians) was coming from the position of the occupied and less powerful, whereas the other side (the Israelis) was occupying and dominating. Ultimately this is what is at stake in nonviolent resistance: all injuries have to be equally respected. Injuries cannot be used to justify retaliation and further violence, because using our injuries in this way is to place our injuries above those of others. In other words, all violence, regardless of whom it injures, is equally important. While this sounds easy, in practice it is difficult for us to give equal weight to the suffering of those who have harmed us or who have been portrayed as enemies and therefore as less human.

This practice of acknowledgment (the act of dignifying and validating others’ suffering with our attention) is often impeded by reactions of denial and dissociation. As a result, the very fact that some people are subjected to great suffering and helplessness makes them and their injuries appear less worthy to those who are safe. The challenge lies in working to overcome denial so that more people can acknowledge their own responsibility for that suffering.

How do we create a partnership between two sides that are so unequal but that both need recognition from the other? How do we understand the different needs of each, yet come together in a third space that honors the struggle of both?

The Psychological Position of the Moral Third

The psychological position of the “third space” transcends the oppositions of us/ them (doer or done-to). It is the position from which violations of lawful behavior and dehumanization can be witnessed or repaired. This is a fragile position that is hard for both individuals and collectives to maintain.

The moral third acknowledges violations of lawful behavior while it affirms the contrast between the reality of how things are and how they ought to be, holding the tension between is and ought, thereby fostering truth and affirming lawfulness while opposing denial.

The third position transcends binaries such as good versus bad and us versus them. It is a position in which we encompass the ordinarily split positions of perpetrator and victim, bad and good. However, “good” and “bad” refer to psychologically complex constellations, not merely righteous versus wrongdoing, but also clean, safe, and pure versus abject, contaminating, and dangerous. There is more implied in the ability to hold opposites than merely recognizing one’s own capacity for destructiveness or wrong action.

What makes this position of “acknowledgment” possible and what prevents it? One thing that prevents us from being able to occupy this third space is seeing ourselves as victims, which can interfere with our ability to identify with the suffering of others. When we self-identify as victims, the fear of not being recognized as such, and of being blamed for injuring others in the name of protecting the self, leads to a terrible dilemma. Overcoming this fear requires a trust or belief in the moral third, yet this trust is not always present for us; rather, we have to return to it, repair it, rediscover it. Holding the third in mind makes it possible to move beyond self-interest to identification with the other. Only then can we begin to imagine that both we and the other can share at a level that makes safety and compromise possible.

An emotionally grounded moral third maintains a sense of the multiplicity of our identifications and the ambiguity of the positions we take up. The less able we are to genuinely identify with all parts of the self, the more we give in to the temptation to identify with one side of the victim/perpetrator opposition, and the more likely we are to engage in mere moralizing rather than in cultivating the perspective of the moral third.

From an early age we all discard and project that which is abject and fecal in the human body, labeling all that is weak or disgusting as “other” rather than “self.” But to cultivate the position of the moral third, we must learn to accept bodily or psychological weakness within both self and other. Otherwise what dominates is the powerful impulse to project it outward onto a vile and dangerous other that must be excluded from the self’s group at all costs. Preserving the safe, pure realm of “us” against the impure, dangerous “them” makes violent action appear good rather than bad, thereby confusing the notions of right and wrong. Likewise, projecting all violence and destructiveness onto the other makes it seem good and right to destroy the other.

These considerations of purity and danger, bad and good, and righteousness versus destructiveness require a more complex notion of the moral third. It is necessary to carry the concept of the third further into the territory of other binaries shaped by unconscious fantasy and fears of bodily disintegration. The idea of recognizing the other needs to include transcending the binary between weak and strong, vulnerable and protected, helpless and powerful, and especially discarded and dignified.

In this binary opposition, the ostensibly positive values, e.g., invulnerability and triumphalism, are actually defensive. The projection of what is bad or impure inside the self thus accompanies the perversion of its opposite term, and, in its repudiation of the weak, vulnerable, discarded other, the self is made grandiose, self-righteous, and devoid of empathy. However, by the same token, the self that does not discard or split off weakness and vulnerability can bring dignity to suffering. In other words, the person in the “victim” position, which is usually seen as degraded, can maintain dignity through nonviolence — something Eyad El-Sarraj was known for doing even when threatened with violence himself.

The cultivation of the moral third position depends on not only asserting dignity but also embracing the primal identification with the split-off aspects of vulnerability and weakness. In this way the moral third crucially relates to weakness and strength — psychological categories that underpin decisions about power and violence.

The Importance of Moral Witnesses

The penetration of our psyches with these visceral binaries is as critical to understanding the outcome of collective trauma and failures of recognition as the global psychic position of “complementarity” between doer and done-to — the idea that only one of these two parties can live. “Only one can live” is the mindset that prevails when the moral third — and its certainty that “all deserve to live — is missing. Unlike most reversals of opposites, the reversal in favor of dignifying suffering has the potential for positive transformation.

The moral third’s idea that everyone can live has to be upheld by witnesses across the world who publicly acknowledge every violation. These witnesses must serve as the eyes and voice of the world by expressing condemnation and indignation over all injustice, injury, trauma, and agony endured by victims of all kinds. This kind of witnessing affirms the dignity of the suffering or death of the victims and affirms the value of their lives. Their lives are worthy of being mourned; in Judith Butler’s words, they are “grievable” lives. In other words, they are not simply objects to be discarded. Conversely, the underlying idea that “only one can live” is translated into “only one can be recognized.”

Victims the world over know whether their suffering is seen and regarded. They often ask in despair, “Why is no one paying attention as we die here?” The failed witness is a central component of trauma. Those who feel that the world has turned away often embrace the rationality of self-protection as if it were a justification for any action, no matter how destructive. The presence of a witness who embodies the moral third may make it possible for victims to begin to believe once more in the possibility of a lawful, caring world that does not leave people to be killed or discarded.

El-Sarraj expressed this idea in practice by arguing that the missing link in peace proposals was apology for the Nakba, a kind of recognition that he said caused even his Hamas opponents who believed in using violence to stop arguing and agree with him. Although not a substitute for political, juridical change, witnessing and acknowledging injuries and injustice — especially ones we have perpetrated — creates the conditions for change, as the effort to recognize suffering and injustice affirms the possibility of lawful social behavior and responsibility for fellow human beings. The social recognition of trauma should ultimately contribute both to an awareness of human interdependence and to an attachment to a social order, as well as to respect for individual rights.

Barriers to Acknowledging Trauma in Israel/Palestine

A major barrier to creating a culture of acknowledgment and witnessing in Israel/Palestine is the difficulty that most Israelis have in accepting their positioning on the side of the saved. Israelis continually invoke their victimhood, and this makes it impossible to confront the actual moral and emotional trauma of being perpetrators, of killing, and of risking the lives of so many young soldiers. Unfortunately the problem of being perpetrators who also suffer cannot be embraced unless Israelis renounce their justification of the harming and killing committed by their government, in a way that only some Israelis are willing to do.

The idea that “everyone can live,” that no one should be unprotected or discarded, is essential in the effort to reform Israeli society, which is founded on the untenable proposition that only Jewish lives matter. As long as only Jewish lives and safety matter to Jews, they cannot deeply believe that their lives matter to non-Jews and, hence, that they can survive without harming others. Jews’ demand for recognition, including recognition of their own need for safety, when counterposed to Palestinians’ need for safety, leads to an insoluble dilemma. By promoting only one side’s need for safety rather than everyone’s safety, the state has created a hideous mess.

The fundamental basis for nonviolence in Israel has to be this simple recognition: Palestinian lives matter. Without embracing that principle, with all the problems it entails, the moral center that is the basis for a lawful existence, however impaired and flawed, is missing. It is not merely the Occupation that must be overcome. Israelis must also overcome the idea that “only one can live.” An affirmation that everyone should live must replace a thousand-year-old system of tribal loyalty on both sides.

Historical movements in which victims become perpetrators, preserving the binary opposition between oppressed and oppressor, lead to endless repetition of violence. Although some form of indignation and anger is essential for one to demand justice, a victim’s moral indignation can become a manic defense, first repudiating identifications with the aggressor, then leading the victim to become an aggressor.

Nonviolence requires us to take seriously imagining a way out of the mindset that “only one can live.” It requires envisioning a world governed by the moral third, in which our attachment to all beings is honored as real. That vision of social attachment is a condition of the ethical position of the third. When we hear all victims’ protest, outrage, and testimony, we restore the lawful third, affirming the principle that we are all human. In so doing, we affirm that vulnerability and suffering must be honored and met with recognition.

Lessons from South Africa

Creating a possibility for mutual acknowledgment under conditions of great asymmetry — for example, the situation in Israel/Palestine where there is great power on one side and great injury on the other — requires holding many paradoxes. We all have to struggle in our own ways with the possibility of being the one who is not recognized, whose suffering may go unnoticed, as well as with responsibility for being a perpetrator of violence and harm. We must also struggle to give up narratives of justification and attempts at legitimation that deny the existence of others’ suffering and that stand in the way of emotionally embodied witnessing. Witnessing each other’s suffering is a crucial part of working together and overcoming the violence that has separated us.

Those of us who are working to create opportunities for this sort of witnessing in Israel/Palestine have much to learn from the South African tradition of ubuntu, which deeply informed South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. As defined by Desmond Tutu, ubuntu refers to the understanding that “a person is a person through other persons” and the idea that “my humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours.” In other words, a person with ubuntu “has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.”

Ubuntu means that our humanity depends on reciprocal recognition of each other and of our ineluctable attachment. The belief that one’s humanity depends not only on the respect that one receives but also on the quality of recognition that one gives is a more radical part of the ubuntu perspective. The ubuntu tradition’s idea that one’s own dignity is fostered by giving recognition beautifully represents the position of the moral third. In this way, ubuntu challenges the normal dissociation of the perpetrator’s suffering and need for rehumanization. By “normal dissociation,” I mean humans’ tendency to split off their awareness of pain, particularly pain that they cause, by denying that it is painful, denying their role in causing it, or denying that they can do something about it. Perpetrators especially may imagine that only the other suffers and deny their sense of being monstrous, but underneath they feel sullied, degraded, ashamed, and even remorseful for the harm they have done. Under certain conditions like South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, some can come to admit these “pangs of conscience” — this buried pain and fear of being no longer human — and can express the need to be forgiven and readmitted into the company of humans.

A New Approach to Victimhood in Israel/Palestine

I believe it is important to introduce new ideas about victimhood and perpetrator identity in order to change Israeli discourse. In the Acknowledgment Project that I directed with Eyad El-Sarraj’s inspiration and help, the idea of dignifying victimhood as a position from which to recognize the other emerged when some Palestinian members of our project were inspired to articulate in a powerful way how they as victims had the power to forgive, to be a moral force, to become agents. This idea of the politically weaker side having the power to give something the other side urgently desires — recognition of their efforts to repair and their pain at having harmed — was difficult to grasp in the midst of our dialogue project. It required victims of violence to recognize that being on the powerful side (whether as a bystander or as a perpetrator) compromises one’s feeling of humanity.

We found A Human Being Died That Night, a book by South African psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, to be an invaluable resource as we explored these ideas. Assuming the burden of responsibility for the perpetrator’s own feeling of humanity seems unfair to the victim, yet it is a liberating way of moving out of the complementarity of power-powerlessness. The vision of a dignified victim gestures toward the power of the third. It says that the victim has the power to humanize and release the other, to create the moral third.

For example, a Palestinian member of our project described going through a checkpoint in a car with his family. He was harassed by an Israeli soldier and forced to wait unnecessarily, despite having a VIP pass. When the soldier finally waved them through, the Palestinian man’s baby, who had been wriggling in the back seat, waved back at the soldier — causing a look of confusion and consternation on the soldier’s face. After a moment’s pause, in which he clearly tried to discover how he could be perceived as human in this moment, the soldier waved back to the baby.

A similar dynamic occurred a few months after the Gaza War of 2008–2009, when El-Sarraj spoke to a meeting of the Israeli group in the Acknowledgment Project. It was clear that he was speaking both personally and as a representative of victims, and he was speaking to those who saw themselves as representatives of the perpetrator group, even though they were very opposed to the war and in some cases involved in helping the Gazans. The Israelis in the group were paralyzed by guilt, helplessness, and despair.

El-Sarraj said of course he was very angry about the destruction, but, recognizing the terrible position in which the Israelis found themselves, he wanted to share his conviction that the only way to deal with our feelings of badness and helplessness is to accept that each of us has bad and good within us. He urged the Israelis not to be immobilized by the part of themselves that identifies with the fear and self-protectiveness that motivated their nation’s aggression. He said this sort of badness, fear, and potential for destructiveness is part of all people, including himself. And he advised that when we truly accept both sides of ourselves, we become no longer paralyzed — we become able to act again in a positive way. His simple speech seemed to release the Israelis from their grim despair. His modeling of self-forgiveness implicitly offered a form of forgiveness they could make use of for themselves. He modeled the relation to the moral third, including the capacity to see the subjectivity of the other, which liberates the potential for agency.

El-Sarraj’s speech came from a deep understanding that accepting both the perpetrator and victim sides of the self breaks down the fictitious line between those who deserve mercy (and hence deserve not to be condemned) and those who do not, between those who consign others to die and those who perish. These issues are explored in a dramatic way by two former Combatants for Peace in Moving Beyond Violence, a film for which I provided commentary (available at movingbeyondviolence.org).

For members of the perpetrator group, acknowledging the human bond with the victim may allow them to feel partially returned to themselves, to inhabit a human status in which their own vulnerability is included. I believe it is this sense of connection to the other that makes the possibility of forgiveness real and generates in us the ability to accept ourselves in all aspects of humanity. This may include accepting our very vulnerable sense of shame about harming, the feeling of monstrousness, the feeling of having blood on one’s hands, and the sense of being contaminated; all are part of the moral trauma. As we have seen in places like Rwanda and South Africa, this trauma is transformed in the light of the other’s acceptance or forgiveness — the other’s recognition of our humanity.

We all have a monstrous side that identifies with inflicting pain. In discussing clinical work with torture victims, researcher Martha Bragin speaks of the importance of the witnessing analyst also “knowing terrible things” so that the patient is not left alone with her knowledge of the atrocities others can commit, as well as her knowledge of her own violent identifications with the aggressor. We have to continually rediscover not only the remorse of failing to witness, but the fact that denial is based on an unwillingness to know these terrible things about ourselves. To reclaim the position of witness and restore the lawful third ultimately requires a tension between “I could never imagine doing such a thing” and “I could imagine doing it.”

Accepting badness is a part of the journey for those who expose themselves to human rights violations, collective trauma, and other horrors with the hope of witnessing or actively helping to change the consciousness of their fellow citizens. The solidarity of would-be enemies who become partners in peace can make it possible for us to bear this painful knowledge about ourselves, our lack of humanity, our desire to be saved instead of discarded, and our denial of reality that occurs because we cannot hold all the suffering.

Guilt and moral outrage too often constitute a reactive reversal against denial. As such, they do not help us witness, empathize, dignify suffering, or protect those who might be discarded. Psychologically, guilt often upholds the splitting between the discarded and the saved. Shamed at being on the monstrous side, the perpetrator denies that all are capable of destruction and that all are vulnerable. In the deepest sense, we are all both discarded and saved — and when we fail to realize this, we fail to realize our true humanity. By uniting in solidarity, we try to overcome this split and inhabit the psychological position of the moral third.