Eyeless in Gaza
Eyeless in Gaza was Milton’s description of the strong man Samson, blinded by the Philistines. Today there is much blindness surrounding Gaza. What might we psychologists do to try to counter the blindness asks Roger Paxton.
23 April 2024
There was some interesting amateur psychology in a recent article on Gaza in the London Review of Books (30 November 2023) by Jacqueline Rose. Rose is professor of humanities at Birkbeck and a well-known public intellectual. She emphasises her Jewishness because one of her points is how hard it is not to be firmly on one side or the other. She tries to see both sides. Her title is 'you made me do it', a reference to the familiar playground tactic by which responsibility is avoided and blame shifted. It is a tactic that has also characterised much of the lengthy rhetoric around Israel and Palestine.
The current and recent horror is of course a stage within an apparently intractable conflict, with a long history, or rather, different long histories. There is psychological literature on such conflicts. Typically, participants are eyeless, or rather, partially sighted - seeing only one side, and often they claim they were made to do whatever they did. To begin to think about it as psychologists we need to try to be fully sighted, looking at both sides, and we need to accept that all the actors have choices. Very rarely is anyone truly made to do anything. We must be aware of histories but we must mostly look forward. Rose advises a psychoanalytic approach, seeking to confront and resolve the political injustices by acknowledging and dealing with what she calls the psychic dimension of politics; the disavowal, splitting of good and evil, and the projection of unconscious guilt on to the enemy.
The psychological literature on intractable conflicts points to peace-building through de-escalation that starts when at least a segment of the population begins to wish for a peaceful resolution. This is the beginning of overcoming the blindness, and it is clearly enormously difficult. There is a great deal of blindness and many other huge obstacles to peace. But if there is to be progress, changes are needed in public awareness and public opinion in order to influence politicians. These are psychological tasks, and political psychology can help with them.
About the author
Roger Paxton is a chartered clinical psychologist and previous chair of the BPS Ethics Committee.