The title of this 599-page book does not begin to capture its scope and import. This is one of the most important books published in many years.
The Introduction and final chapters of the book are a devastating analysis of the Oslo “peace” process, as a textbook example of the delusion known to psychoanalysts as “identification with the aggressor” — most familiar in the “Stockholm Syndrome” (in which hostages respond to their situation by embracing the perspectives of their abuser), or in chronically abused children (who deal with their trauma by convincing themselves that bad things happened to them because they were “bad”). Douglas Feith once suggested explicitly that the
“[Many] supporters [of the
Oslo peace process] — like so many distraught battered wives — simply cannot be persuaded that there is no romance, there is no peace process. And despite Arafat’s cynicism, contempt and hostility they cannot be persuaded that their man Arafat — their ‘peace partner’ – is a gangster and a liar who is just no damn good. . . . This kind of irrationality is bad enough in a relationship between two private people. It can be disastrous if it dominates the national security policy-making of a state.”
Kenneth Levin approaches this subject with extraordinary credentials: a medical degree from the
But equally importantly, he also brings the knowledge and skills of a historian. He holds a Ph.D. in history from
And it is the combination of his medical experience and his expertise as a historian that makes this book one of the most extraordinary volumes in recent history.
Between the Introduction and final chapters is a history of the Jewish people under siege — from ancient and medieval times, through the European ghettoization to de jure emancipation, to Zionism and the creation of Israel, and through the decades of post-Zionism leading up to and through Oslo (and unfortunately beyond). It is an unrelenting accumulation of historical fact and psychological analysis that is simply overwhelming. You cannot read this book and remain unchanged.
You need not take my word for it. This is what Cynthia Ozick has written about this book:
“This remarkable work — part history, party psychology, part sociology, part burning prophecy — has the salubrious, cleansing, and transformative power to shame. It should shame Jews, it should shame Gentiles; it should shame
Europe, America, and the Arab world. It should shame every individual and every nation that pretends to own a conscience or claims an instinct for honest insight. In these extraordinary pages, Kenneth Levin writes — with uncommon clarity and brilliance — 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 may be the most important manifesto of our generation, an indispensable analysis that explains the present and may yet save the future.”
She is not a writer known for exaggeration.
You can read an excerpt here, or read Levin’s recent front-page essay in The Jewish Press. They are both powerful, but they barely convey the cumulative effect of the book, which is absolutely essential reading.