Avigdor Lieberman: A Response To
Offensive Ego And States Of Deficiency
By Eileen Fleming
03 April, 2009
Countercurrents.org
Once upon a time in Moldova, Avigdor Lieberman was employed as a night club bouncer. Today he is Israel's latest foreign minister and the leader of the hard-line party Yisrael Beitainu and national movement following in the path of Revisionist Zionism.
In 1998, Lieberman called for the flooding of Egypt via bombing the Aswan Dam in retaliation for Egyptian support of Yasser Arafat. Such an act could have resulted in a tsunami and drowning of all 80 million Egyptians in the Mediterranean.
Egypt is one of only two Arab countries with which Israel has so far managed to be neighborly with.
In 2002, Lieberman called for the forcible transfer of Palestinian citizens of Israel from their land stating there was "nothing undemocratic about transfer."
In 2003, Haaretz reported that Lieberman called for thousands of Palestinian prisoners to be drowned in the Dead Sea and offered to provide the buses to take them there.
In May 2004, Lieberman proposed a plan that called for the transfer of Israeli territory with Palestinian populations to the Palestinian Authority. Likewise, Israel would annex the major Jewish settlement blocs on the Palestinian West Bank. If applied, his plan would strip roughly one-third of Israel's Palestinian citizens of their citizenship and a "loyalty test" would be applied to those who desired to remain in Israel.
In May 2006, Lieberman called for the assassination of Arab members of the Knesset who met with members of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority.
Most recently Lieberman's offense was to tell the President Hosni Mubarak, to "go to hell."
Lieberman's silent acceptance into the Israeli government is a travesty of the name of democracy and a major step backwards for civilization. But, it also provides some illumination into the offensive ego and defense systems in a State of Deficiency; where wrong is right and holds power in Israel.
When ego structures are used for defense, walls against the other are as rigid as if they were cast in cement. Only when egos mature do they become less defensive.
A main ego defense is against the feelings or state of inadequacy, which is turned inside out into grandiosity. One believes and behaves as if they are the best, the strongest, most capable and most chosen.
This defense is nothing more than a delusion layered with denial of ones actual state of inadequacy and can be demonstrated in real time by the tunnels that persist in Gaza to import goods and export people. Despite Israel's recent brutal attempt to destroy them, the tunnels and the spirit of the people persist.
A mature leader with intelligence and integrity would also have compassion and understand that when ever people are penned in they will do all they can to liberate themselves and it is their inalienable right.
Another defense mechanism against the state of deficiency/inadequacy is the schizoid defense of isolation and withdrawal. The incapacity to interact with others as equal human beings results in having no true relationships at all. Defensive suspiciousness manifests in suspecting the motivations of others and is based on cynicism-on giving up and that is the antithesis of healthy skepticism!
Healthy skepticism is an openness coupled with a love for the truth-no matter how brutal- and not the invalidating, angry, attacking of reactivity when confronted and challenged by it.
The way out of this distress is by developing faith in the intrinsic goodness of ourselves and that always equates to having faith in the goodness of others-but NOT blind trust in it!
Faith that believes and trusts that every human being is equal to every other will always respect and rise up in healthy defense of one self and others. Even though an individual's humanity might appear so buried that they act out of willful ignorance, destructiveness and cynicism, a mature person responds by continually offering the olive branch; another chance and opportunity to reconcile and be kind and selfless.
A mature person has dealt with the death of some of their childhood ego defense mechanisms and chronological age has nothing to do with it while compassion does. Compassion is that sense of viscerally feeling the pain of another and being moved to do something to help alleviate it.
Ego is often a projection of what we feel we must be versus who we really are. Ego acts as a protective cocoon in the childhood of our journey in life and childhood is when we build up our ego defense systems.
In his Inauguration speech, President Obama reminded us that "in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness."
Truly audacious hope comprehends that "HOPE has two children. The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
That kind of hope is expressed best by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Maried Corrigan-Maguire, once again a featured speaker at the Annual Bil'in conference on Nonviolent Popular Resistance [April 22-24, 2009 www.bilin-ffj.org ]
On April 21st, 2007, in the West Bank agricultural Village of Bil'in, Mairead Maguire, was shot with a rubber-coated steel bullet by Israeli Occupation Forces an hour after delivering this message at a peace press conference:
"Thanks to the media here for telling the truth…Bring this truth to whatever country you come from. Non-violence will solve the problems here in Israel and Palestine. Often, the world sees only violence. But Palestinians are a good people, working towards non-violence. This Wall must fall! It is an insult to the human family and to the world– that we are building Apartheid Walls in the 21st Century! More than forty years of Occupation and Land Appropriation."
Since 2004, in Bil'in, every Friday afternoon after prayers at the mosque, Palestinian farmers, workers, mothers, and students, together with Israeli and International volunteers, have been braving teargas, beatings, bullets, arrest, and even death to rise up against the well equipped Israeli army with nothing more than their own bodies and audacious hope.
Máiread Maguire once wrote: "Hope for the future depends on each of us taking nonviolence into our hearts and minds and developing new and imaginative structures which are nonviolent and life-giving for all. Some people will argue that this is too idealistic. I believe it is very realistic. I am convinced that humanity is fast evolving to this higher consciousness. For those who say it cannot be done, let us remember that humanity learned to abolish slavery. Our task now is no less than the abolition of violence and war.... We can rejoice and celebrate today because we are living in a miraculous time. Everything is changing and everything is possible.
"While Governments can make a difference, in the final analysis it is the individual – that is each one of us – that will bring the dream of a nonviolent world to reality. We, the people must think and act nonviolently. We must not get stuck in the past as to do so will destroy the imagination and creativity which is so n a new future together…
"To change our world we need a spiritual and a political evolution. The political steps are often very obvious: uphold Human rights, and International Laws, demand our Governments meet their obligations under these Laws, support and reform United Nations, etc., However, all the legislation, resolutions, and fine talk will be of no use, if we do not as men and women evolve and become transformed, so that we, the human family, achieve a more enlightened and humane way of living together, and solving conflicts."
The change I hope and work for is the transformation of hearts and minds to put aside childish ways and eye for eye violent retaliations and instead see with new eyes that only justice; equal human rights for all can reap security for any.
Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7977395.stm
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_
content&task=view&id=128&Itemid=105
A.H. Almaas, THE PEARL BEYOND PRICE: Integration of Personality into Being: An Object-Relations Approach, and Facets of Unity: The Enneagram of Holy Ideas Shambhala, September 2000.
Eileen Fleming, is the Founder of WAWA: http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
She produced "30 Minutes With Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu" because corporate media has been MIA all during a Freedom of Speech Trial in Israel.
