Editions Eclectica

Terror and Humiliation

How do we deal with feelings of humiliation when they become overwhelming? How can we prevent humiliated people taking revenge on defenceless victims? Joint authors Gilbert Holleufer and Philippe Cotter provide new insights into these pressing issues, in a world thrown off balance by the demise of the great ideological blocs and by the 9/11 attacks.

The first part of the book examines the role that feelings of humiliation play in armed conflicts (Afghanistan, Israel / Palestine, Bosnia). It is based on the Harvard Reports following the People On War survey commissioned by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 1999.

"All the Israeli soldiers were intimately convinced that the Intifada shifted the base of power from a military to a psychological base, making it easier for them to agree, in terms that sounded paternalistic rather than military, on the necessity of 'putting the Palestinians in their place'. The soldiers confessed to acts they judged as being inevitable because it was the only way of showing their strength, their legitimate superiority as occupiers and, at the end of the day, the only way to command respect both as individuals and as soldiers"

Terror and Humiliation, p.34 and 36

"In the case of Palestine, the witness accounts of the origins of violence were of a very different nature. Many Palestinian respondents described with remarkable historical insight the two traumatic events that sparked off an escalation of violence: on the one hand, the creation by force of the State of Israel on their ancestral territories; on the other hand, the defeat and subsequent disaffection of the Arab states. Each and every painstakingly recorded offence represented one more drop in the collective vat of humiliations that encompasses every aspect of the Palestinians' life."

Terror and Humiliation, p.17 and 39

5 Shabbat day in Jerusalem.

6 Everyday life in northern Israel.