During the presentation by the TICP on May 6, 2006 entitled  The Psychology Of Terrorism: Psychoanalytic & Social Perspectives all 3 presenters, with varying degrees of relevance, were trying 'to understand', explain, analyze and to share their thoughts/insights on the inner dynamics of ... well … the suicide bombers mainly...

The last one, describing  the countertransference in her work with a 'borderline', homosexual artist displayed an array of dizzying fireworks of images of penises, inflamed and hurt anuses, her own vagina and esophagus (the throat apparently was not ambitious enough).  Juggling all these ... introjects I guess … she was focusing on the rage and hurt experienced by the Palestinians.  The puppet masters of terrorists recruit them among the Saudis, Pakistani, Yemenis, American-born Arabs and 'combatants' of all walks of life and cultures - everybody has different variations of either an overbearing, punitive, 'nailing', pinning down father; or, being fatherless, an overbearing possessive/neglectful mother....

Being quite inKLEINed to view human dynamics in this way, we had as well some (other than psycho, but still analytic) thoughts and, as promised, display it here.

Terrorism appears to be treated by almost everyone as if it were something new.  It is as old as the world. A group of people or some individual seeks revenge for whatever perceived humiliation, insult, or injury.  It has been different in different cultures, and usually had no end until one group of people eliminated another group, families, nations, peoples.

It is usually misunderstood that the Jewish law, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”, was a demand for vengeance and retribution. In fact, it was a progressive and more humane attempt to establish some fairness, and actually limiting vengeance to only one eye for an eye.

In about half a millennium after that, the Christian doctrine of ‘turning the other cheek’ was and still is misunderstood.  Basically it means ‘if it’s possible - do not respond to violence with violence’; ‘do not create more aggression and ill in the world by perpetuating the cycle of violence.’ But it never actually meant that if you need to defend your life or life of your close ones, you should not fight back. ‘To fight back’ is a typical and erroneous interactional mistake. ‘Subjective obviousness™’ justifies a ‘reaction’ to something the other one has done and is explained as a ‘cause of my reaction’.

Conflicts are usually between very similar peoples who present for each other a congruent screen suitable to project their own sense of badness that is denied in the self.  A suicidal terrorist’s self sacrifice seems to be different from suicide and murder only by the configuration of the events.  Every suicide is a murder of the introject(s), and every murder is a suicide – a Dorian Grey type. The old Japanese tradition was for one to hang himself on the gate of the offender, in retribution for an offence. All these circular events bring us to the ‘cause and effect’ of the so-called phenomenon of ‘9/11’.

The circular nature of oppression, rebellion, and revenge, is illustrated well by the description of how, in time travel, people from our time traveled into the past, where the people they befriended were oppressed by a cruel group. Our contemporaries were able to supply the oppressed with a machine gun. The oppressed then became the oppressors, and even worse, than their oppressors before. The systemic and circular nature of these events is well illustrated by the fact that in Russia the explosions apparently perpetrated by the Chechen terrorists, were actually arranged by Yeltsin’s operatives in the beginning of the 1990s and later continued by Putin’s “team”.

It continues to be directly or indirectly instigated by the political interests of people who are so remote of the actual location of the explosions that they do not even recognize that something is happening, being triggered by a domino effect of their actions ‘on top’.

In the ‘good old days’, there were two superpowers, but the seemingly separate military-industrial complex of the Soviet Union and the military-industrial complex of the United States were actually one system in which if one side invented something, it had to be allowed to be stolen by the other, so the respective side would go to their tax-payer and ask for more money so they could produce something new, because their old secrets were stolen by the others.  

“They say”  that there was a pact between Sharon and Arafat, in which Sharon would be allowed to go for his infamous walk in order to attract more voters (Arafat was apparently interested in helping Sharon to compete with his rival Netanyahu). Yet for some reason, Arafat evidently reneged on this pact, and that started a new Intifada.  Maybe he was setting up Sharon to begin with, maybe Sharon was setting up Arafat - we do not know.  The other quite well-known circular phenomenon is the ‘drug wars’, in which the drug - producing structures supposedly are opposed by the ‘drug enforcement’ agencies (this particular expression seems to be so telling, almost into the face of the culture, and yet it is used quite often).

It is remarkable that the oppressed prefers to commit murder-suicide underlining self victimization, while the oppressor opens fire on people. The Jewish settler, Goldstein, opened fire on the Arabs in the mosque, rather than to explode himself, or commit suicidal bombing.  The Palestinians were and still are marginalized by the seemingly informal system of powers consisting of very strange ‘bedfellows’ of Arab, Israeli, American, Russian and other interests. Several generations of people, whose ancestors lived in Palestine for two millennia were humiliated and treated as defenseless slaves since the beginning of the formation of Israel.  It was especially perpetrated by the settlers, very militant and arrogant individuals and groups, who saw themselves as being heroes, and ideologically demanding their rights for the land and supremacy.  Interestingly enough, settlers were in a very paradoxical position versus the source of Zionism.  “Shtetls” were the settlements in Tsarist Russia where Jews were allowed to live. They can be compared with the Palestinian territories; however a Jew then would only need to convert to Christianity or to enter into the Tsar’s army in order to obtain all the rights of the general population of the country.

As much as we are talking about terrorism and ‘the war on terror’ assigning it to the Muslims of the World, we often overlook that the epicenter of all these controversies is in Israel and, interestingly enough, it is historically connected with Russia. Not only did most of the Zionists and Socialists who built the country of Israel come from Russia, but it would not have been created in 1948 if it was not for two regimes: Hitler’s and Stalin’s. The Holocaust and subsequent guilt of the world community paved the way for the Zionism to create the country. At the same time it would not have been possible if it were not for Joseph Stalin, who, in his own interests, allowed it to happen without vetoing it in the Security Council. After the Second World War, Joseph Stalin was preparing to create a foothold in the Middle East. Stalin kept all the Jews in his army while demobilizing the others.  In 1948, practically overnight, he overturned the nominally multiparty systems of the Red Army occupied countries of Eastern Europe, starting with Poland and finishing with Albania, and established communist regimes.  All were obedient, except for  Yugoslavia, where Joseph Tito was able to resist Stalin's dictate. At the same time the government of the newly formed state of Israel headed by David Ben-Gurion firmly declined Stalin's offer to help with 'a brotherly hand'. Stalin's other hand was stirring up the multitudes of Arab countries in order to create for Israel a necessity to accept this 'helping hand'.
Ben-Gurion said 'thank you, but no thanks'.  Meanwhile Golda Meir, who was an Israeli ambassador in the Soviet Union, was preparing lists of soviet citizens who were ready to go to Israel – amongst them of course a 'fifth column' comprised of KGB operatives.  After Israel declined 'the help' she was sent back to Israel and the people who were on her list (except for the KGB agents) were sent in the other direction to Siberia. Throughout 1948 to 1953 Stalin's government carried out a severe campaign of anti-Semitism.  In 1953 it culminated in the so-called 'Zionist physician's plot', and three weeks after this crackdown on the Jews, Stalin met his own demise, most likely at the hands of his own cronies.