Dear Friend of FLAME:

This week's FLAME Hotline is one of the most important we've published in a long while, so I hope you'll read it through. Written by Hoover Institute scholar Shelby Steele, it lays bare the Palestinians' PR strategy of defining themselves as eternal, archetypal victims---and it's essential we understand this false mythology if we're to defeat it.

Before we get into exposing the Palestinians' victimhood ploy, we should note a few news developments that occurred in the last week. First, the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) and Hamas have been making new noises about reconciliation, though they already claimed to have merged some six months ago.

This new claim seems as bogus as the last one. P.A. president Mahmoud Abbas says the two groups have agreed on the following principles:
• Calm and a ceasefire will remain in place both in Gaza and the West Bank
• There will be no military, only non-violent resistance against Israel
• They will pursue a permanent solution based on 1967 borders (which were actually armistice lines)
• Palestinian elections will be held in May, 2012

Hardly had Abbas's statement been published than Hamas began denying it all. Top Hamas henchman Ismail Haniyeh asserted once again that "armed resistance and armed struggle are the path and the strategic choice for liberating the Palestinian land from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river and for the expulsion of the invaders and usurpers [Israel] from the blessed land of Palestine." Haniyeh then clarified, saying that Hamas agrees to a temporary solution based on the '67 borders as a first stage only.

Senior official in Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party, Abbas Zaki, recently confirmed that this remains Fatah's goal as well, but that "you can't say it to the world. You can say it to yourself."

Meanwhile, Israel and Abbas have agreed to begin peace talks again, this time in Amman, Jordan, under auspices of the King Abdullah of Jordan and the so-called quartet---the U.S., Russia, the European Union and the U.N. The parties seem as far away as ever, so little is likely to come of this charade. The fact that Fatah and Hamas do not agree on even the most fundamental of principles makes these talks that much more laughable.

Despite the Palestinians internal divisions and diplomatic recalcitrance, one thing they have done correctly---even masterfully---over the last six decades is to forge a narrative of victimhood. This mythology has captivated and mesmerized the world, especially liberals and the far left.

But, as Shelby Steele so compellingly points out, while victimhood makes a heart-rending poetic argument, it is also a poison that eats the purported victim's soul. If you believe you are the eternal victim, you will use that excuse forever to define yourself, which condemns you to a life of low expectations and substandard performance. Steele convincingly compares the Palestinians' victim narrative to that of black Americans.

Fair warning: Steele is one of America's leading intellectuals, and this piece requires concentration. But his argument is powerful and a valuable tool for anyone who wants to make the case for Israel. I hope you'll pass this issue on to friends, colleagues and family who would benefit from a stunningly enlightening analysis of Palestinian nihilism and how we can combat it.

Best regards,

Jim Sinkinson
Vice President, FLAME

P.S.

Let's face it: The Palestinians have created a set of false myths that the media and the political left love to embrace, and Israel usually comes out looking like the bad guy. But FLAME is committed to attacking these lies---every one of them---in its published hasbarah (clarifying) messages. In fact we invite you to preview our next position paper, which will appear in national media reaching more than 10 million readers, including college newspapers. It's called "Do Jews Have the Right to a State in the Holy Land? The question is not whether the Palestinians are an 'invented people,' but rather why Arabs deny Jewish history and Jewish rights to a state in Israel." Please take an advance look, and if you agree that these kinds of outspoken public relations efforts for Israel are essential, I urge you to support us. Remember: FLAME's ability to influence public opinion comes from individuals like you, one by one. I hope you'll consider giving a donation now, as you're able---with $500, $250, $100, or even $18. (Remember, your donation to FLAME is tax deductible.) To donate online, just go to http://www.factsandlogic.org/make_a_donation.html. Now more than ever we need your support to ensure that Israel gets the support it needs---from the U.S. Congress, from President Obama, and from the American people.

P.P.S.	If you only subscribe to one information service about Israel and the Middle East, I recommend you make it the FLAME Hotline. Won't you join us to start receiving this high-value email service? Just go to free subscription.

The Narrative of Perpetual Palestinian Victimhood
By Shelby Steele, Stonegate Institute, November 14, 2011

The following is excerpted from a speech delivered September 22, 2011 in New York City at the event "The Perils of Global Intolerance: The UN and Durban III," referring to the U.N.'s notorious "anti-racism" conference.

The Arab-Israeli conflict, is not really a conflict, it is a war – a war of the Arabs against the Jews. In many ways, this conflict has been a conflict between narratives. We who strongly support Israel have done a poor job in formulating a narrative which will combat the story spun by the other side. We can do better.

The Durban conferences, the request for UN recognition of a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood, and the general animus in the Middle East and elsewhere toward Israel and toward the Jews, what are they really about? Is the Durban conference and the claim that Israel is a racist nation really about reforming the people of Israel and curing them of their racism?

I think their real interest is to situate the Palestinian people within a narrative of victimization. This is their ulterior goal: to see themselves and to have others see them as victims of colonialism, as victims of white supremacy.

Listen to their language; it is the language of colonial oppression. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas claims that Palestinians have been occupied for 63 years. The word oppressed is constant, exploited. In this, there is a poetic truth; like poetic license, in a poetic truth a writer will bend the rules in order to be more effective.

I will give you one example of a poetic truth that comes from my group, black Americans. We make the following claims: America is a deeply, intractably racist society. It may not be as conspicuous today as it was before. Nevertheless, it is still there today structurally and systemically, and it still holds us back and keeps us from achieving the American dream.

To contradict this claim, one can come forward with evidence to suggest that racism in America today is about 25th on the list of problems facing black Americans. One can recount one of the great untold stories of America, namely, the moral growth and evolution away from that problem. This is not to say that racism is completely extinguished, but that it no longer prevents the forward progress of any black in the United States. There is no evidence to suggest that it does. Yet, this claim is still the centerpiece of black American identity – this idea that we are victimized by a fundamentally, incurably racist society.

Poetic truths like that are marvelous because no facts and no reason can ever penetrate. Supporters of Israel are up against a poetic truth. We keep hitting it with all the facts. We keep hitting it with obvious logic and reason. And we are so obvious and conspicuously right that we assume it is going to have an impact and it never does.

Why not? These narratives, these poetic truths, are the source of their power. Focusing on the case of the Palestinians, who would they be if they were not victims of white supremacy? They would just be poor people in the Middle East. They would be backwards. They would be behind Israel in every way. So this narrative is the source of their power. It is the source of their money. Money comes from around the world. It is the source of their self-esteem. Without it, would they be able to compete with Israeli society? They would have to confront in themselves a certain inferiority with regard to Israel – as most other Arab nations would have to confront an inferiority in themselves and be responsible for it.

The idea that the problem is Israel, that the problem is the Jews, protects Palestinians from having to confront that inferiority or do anything about it or overcome it. The idea among Palestinians that they are victims means more to them than anything else. It is everything. It is the centerpiece of their very identity and it is the way they define themselves as human beings in the world. It is not an idle thing. Our facts and our reason are not going to penetrate easily that definition or make any progress.

The question is, how do they get away with a poetic truth, based on such an obvious series of falsehoods? One reason why they get away with it in the Middle East is that the Western world lacks the moral authority to call them on it. The Western world has not said "your real problem is inferiority. Your real problem is underdevelopment." That has not been said, nor will ever be said – because the Western world was once colonial, was once racist, did practice white supremacy, and is so ashamed of itself and so vulnerable to those charges, that they are not going to say a word. They are not going to say what they really think and feel about what is so obvious about the circumstances among the Palestinians. So the poetic truth that Palestinians live by carries on.

International media also do not feel that they have the moral authority to report what they see. On the contrary, they feed this poetic truth and give it a kind of gravitas that it would never otherwise have.

Consequently, we need to develop a narrative that is not poetic, but literal and that is based on the truth. What would such a narrative look like?

It would begin with the presumption that the problem in the Middle East is not white supremacy but the end of white supremacy. After World War II, the empires began to contract, Britain went home, France went home, and the Arab world was left almost abandoned, and in a state of much greater freedom than they had ever known before.

Freedom is, however, a dicey thing to experience. When you come into freedom, you see yourself more accurately in the world. This is not unique to the Middle East. It was also the black American experience, when the Civil Rights bill was passed in 1964 and we came into much greater freedom. If you were a janitor in 1963 and you are still a janitor in 1965, you have all these freedoms and they are supported by the rule of law, then your actual experience of freedom is one of humiliation and one of shame. You see how far you have to go, how far behind you are, how little social capital you have with which to struggle forward. Even in freedom you see you are likely to be behind for a long time. In light of your inability to compete and your underdevelopment, freedom becomes something that you are very likely going to hate – because it carries this humiliation.

At that point formerly oppressed groups develop what I call bad faith. Bad faith is when you come into freedom, you are humiliated and you say, "Well you know the real truth is I am not free. Racism still exists. Zionism is my problem. The State of Israel is my problem. That is why I am so far behind and that is why I cannot get ahead."

You develop a culture grounded in bad faith where you insist that you are less free than you really are. Islamic extremism is the stunning example of this phenomenon. "I have to go on jihad because I am fighting for my freedom." Well you already have your freedom. You could stay home and study. You could do something constructive. But "No, I cannot do that because that makes me feel bad about myself." So I live in a world of extremism and dictators.

This is not unique to the Middle East. In black America we had exactly the same thing. After we got the civil rights bill and this greater degree of freedom, then all of a sudden we hear the words "black power." Then all of a sudden we have the Black Panthers. Then we have this militancy, this picking up of the gun because we feel bad about ourselves. We feel uncompetitive and this becomes our compensation. It is a common pattern among groups that felt abandoned when they became free.

This is the real story of the Palestinians and of the Middle East. They will never be reached by reason until they are somehow able to get beyond bad faith, to get beyond this sort of poetic truth that they are the perennial victims of an aggressive and racist Israeli nation.

Challenging their narrative with this explanation will enable us to be more effective. Until now, we have constantly used facts and reason and have not progressed.

Durban is a perfect example of bad faith because Durban is way of saying Israelis are racist and they are our problem. Durban really is a way of saying I am not free. I am still a victim. That is the real purpose of Durban. The Palestinian unilateral claim for recognition from the UN is also a perfect example of bad faith. If Palestinians proceed to the Security Council, they will very likely be turned down, and will respond by saying: "I told you we were victims. I told you the West is racist," and so on. It refuels the same sad identity.

The irony and the tragedy of all this is that it keeps these groups in a bubble where they never encounter or deal with the truth. This becomes a second oppression for all these groups. They have been oppressed once, now they are free and yet they create a poetic truth that then oppresses them all over again.

How are you going to have good faith if you are raised being told that the society in which you are trying to compete is against you, is racist? It is always the Palestinians who suffer, and will continue to suffer, because all of their energy is going into the avoidance of their situation rather than into being challenged by it and facing into it.

The strength of our argument is that it gives the Palestinians a way out. Development is the way out. The West can help you to compete. It may take a little while. But the alternative is a cycle of violence and hatred and poetic truths about constant victimhood.

The pattern of bad faith in certain places comes to embrace a kind of ethic of death. As Osama bin Laden claimed: In the West, you are all afraid of death, but we love death. Why would you love death? If you are not afraid of death then you are aggrandized; all of a sudden you are a big man. You are not a little, recently freed, inferior. Instead, you are somebody who manages, who conquers his world, who has power. For terrorism is power, the power of the gun. This poetic truth leads to a terrible, inconceivable fascination with death and violence and guns and bombs. It consumes a whole part of the world every single day – rather than the boring things that good faith requires, like going to school, raising your children, inventing software for instance, making money.

This is the way the narrative must be retold.