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| President Reuven Rivlin attends the state ceremony marking 44 years since the Yom Kippur War. (Mark Neyman/GPO) |
Not a single member of Netanyahu's government saw it fit to
honor the memorial service to the fallen soldiers of the Yom Kippur War, held
at the military cemetery at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl, on October 1, 2017. When
contacted by the organization commemorating the fallen soldiers, the office of
the PM responded that the ministers are very busy.
Ehud Barak expressed outrage at the ministers’ absence,
“This is shameful and infuriating. This shames the soldiers who died. Where
were Bibi and his ministers? Too busy making political appointments or at a
political ceremony in Gush Etzion? This is a new low.” Ehud Barak further noted that a government that "forgets the fallen soldiers, will eventually fall and be forgotten."
Labor leader Avi Gabbay said, “A government that does not
respect its past and does not have an impressive present does not have much
of a future.”
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| empty seats at the 10 million shekel ceremony, Sept. 27, 2017 |
Netanyahu and his government did have the time - and the money, 10 million shekel - to arrange what they claimed to be a 'state ceremony', celebrating fifty years of settlements. They expressed outrage at the absence of the opposition, the High Court of Justice (as well as the President) from the ceremony, but managed to gather a merely 1600 attendees.
More than two thousand Israeli soldiers were killed in the Yom Kippur War, that began when Arab armies attacked Israel on October 6, 1973, on the holiest day of the Jewish year, and more than seven thousand were wounded. Considering that Israel's population in 1973 was 3,338,000, the number of killed would correspond to two hundred thousand in the US of today.
The following is an excerpt from The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel:
Inflated Strength and Denial
of Fear
Illusions of safety and self sufficiency were the result of
excessive reliance on strength with concomitant denial of fear following the
Six Day War. President Sadat’s attempt
to initiate negotiations in 1971 72 did not elicit an unambiguous Israeli
response, because there was no real feeling of need. The psychological frame of mind was such that
no one seemed able to pose a threat to Israel, or even evoke fear. Thus, despite Sadat’s repeated declarations
that the coming year would be one of either war or peace, the warnings were
foregone and the 1973 Yom Kippur War erupted in complete surprise to the
Israelis. As a consequence of such an
illusion of self sufficiency and invulnerability, Israel’s leadership was
unable to correctly interpret the intelligence at hand about imminent
attack. Like the entire Israeli
collective, the leadership was caught in the dangerous psychological condition
of fusion between the individual ego and the extended national or collective
self. Personal and collective identities had merged, they were as if
inseparable. The individual could (and, in fact, social undercurrents
encouraged him to) identify with the national image of strength, omnipotence
and fearlessness. Even death was
challenged. Nothing could inflict harm
or injury. This state of psychological
inflation affected the entire nation, including the political leadership, which
was unable to differentiate itself from the collective process. The leadership had fallen victim to the collective
self-image of invincibility, and was therefore unable to prevent the war. In striking contrast, following the
Declaration of Independence, May 14, 1948, when the people rejoiced and danced
in the streets, Ben-Gurion was gravely concerned with what lie ahead,
contemplating the possibility of the Arab nations’ forthcoming attack. In 1973, however, the process of redemption,
of the individual ego merging with the collective self, had attained its tragic
peak.
The position of strength, force, and power, disconnected
from its opposite pole of loss and fear of annihilation, collapsed following
the Yom Kippur War. Since any trace of
weakness might have threatened the sense of hubris, and therefore had been
denied, the gap between reality and self-perception had reached unhealthy
proportions. With devastating clarity,
the Yom Kippur War brought to light the weakness that lingered in the shadow
behind the persona of strength and self sufficiency, by which the collective
ego had become possessed. The war brought
forth the sense of loss and – again – the deeply rooted fear of ultimate
destruction. This, in turn, generated
the release of strength and the will to survive. The Yom Kippur War was the tragic outcome of
a complex having taken possession of a nation’s collective consciousness.
The Yom Kippur War and Its
Aftermath
From Ambivalence to Unconditional Ideology
The mood in the wake of the Yom Kippur War was entirely
different than the triumph and euphoria that had followed upon the Six Day War.
Israelis now found themselves depressed and in grief, the narcissistic illusion
of grandiosity and invulnerability had shattered. …
Contents
Preface The Beggar in the Hero’s Shadow
Chapter 1 Return to the Source
Chapter 2 From My Notebook
Chapter 3 From Dream to Reality
Chapter 4 Origins and Myths
Chapter 5 From Redemption to Shadow
Chapter 6 Wholeness Apart
Chapter 7 Myth, Shadow and Projection
Chapter 8 A Crack in the Mask
Chapter 9 The Death of the Mythical and the Voice of the Soul
Dedication of The Hero and His Shadow
I dedicate this book to those, all too many, whose voices were silenced by man’s evil.
I dedicate it to those, all too few, who raise their voice against fascism, who speak up in the struggle for peace and reconciliation, especially between Palestinians and Israelis, incessantly on the verge of yet another cycle of violence and hostilities.
I dedicate it to those who try to hold the vulnerable balance in that ultimate conflict of Abraham between Father and Son, divine and human, idea and implementation, past and future, ego and self.
I dedicate this book to the daughters and the sons whose future is endangered.
