By Gilad Atzmon

The Times Of Israel reported today “Israel’s aid team to Nepal larger than any other country’s'

Video:

http://www.wibbitz.com/watch/?id=b529016edd6484075bfdd2012ac903dfd

We are familiar with this pattern. Israel is always fast to send its medical aid and rescue teams to remote destinations as soon as the news about a natural disaster hits CNN. Yet, peculiarly, it is the same Israel that inflicts tragedies that easily match the worst natural disasters on its next door neighbours.

How can we reconcile this clear discrepancy between Israel’s humanitarian enthusiasm and the collective lethal ambitions Israeli society inflicts on its Arab neighbours? Why are the Israelis so intent on displaying a global image of ‘caring’ while behaving in a murderous and heartless manner towards their neighbours?

Jewish identity politics can be seen as a dialectic struggle between self-hatred and self-love. Self-hatred refers to the acceptance that something is intrinsically wrong within the ‘Jewishness.’ This was the view shared by most early Zionists who agreed amongst themselves, at least, that the Jewish Diaspora identity was corrupted, capitalistic and morbid. They wrongly believed that ‘homecoming’ would save the Jews from themselves. Self-love, on the other hand, is the ability to fight one’s symptoms and convey an image of goodness.

Sending the biggest aid mission to Nepal and suffocating Nepalese survivors in Stars Of David is an indication that Israel has a lot of guilt to manage. And its remedy is an act of humanitarian virtue.

The Jewish State can be seen as a dialectic struggle between good and evil. But if Israeli existence is of a dialectic nature, it may well suggest that at least, politically and metaphysically, it cannot be resolved, it can only evolve.

This leaves the Israelis doomed to bounce between Gaza and Nepal or shall we say, evil and virtue, till they are redeemed from this impossible struggle Jews inflicted on themselves by their awkward nationalist project.