 hanging fruit of ideas and sandbagging absolutely stops. I think he stops that happening. Now if you've seen online and in newspapers those photographs of lines and lines of Palestinian men being huddled together naked. The UN has spoken out against this but the IDF the Israeli Defense Forces have said no these are or Hamas fighters. That unraveled when somebody in the States found that his uncle or a relative who was a baker and a 13 year old and a newspaper so one of their journalists anyway long story short four of the people were already identified as not having nothing to do with Hamas but what it does is dehumanize the others and there's lots of ways all sides all sides and more dehumanize the other side to make it more quote unquote acceptable for politicians for generals for etc etc to we have to attack these people and they use terms that equating these people to these people to beasts and animals sandbagging is is fascinating on this subject and I'm delighted to say joins me now Sam thank you so much just reading doing some research behind what you're talking about really made me think again let's talk about some of the ways in war that one side seeks to dehumanize the other and why always always happy to see you Trisha just for fairness sake the Israeli Defense Force claims that they had to strip these men because they suspected them of um possessing weapons or carrying weapons we'll leave it aside whether these men should have remained stripped and naked for hours um and delve right into the topic that you have raised now war is a very interesting phenomenon because it brings out the best in us and it brings out the worst in us where war has been identified for millennia with masculine positive values such as valor heroism courage overcoming fear selflessness altruism self sacrifice for the greater good and protectiveness these are all absolutely positive values and me in an unmitigated unadulterated way but in order in order to emphasize all these elements of humanity this is what makes us human in order to emphasize them we need to render the other side a bit demonic and this is a defense mechanism a psychological defense mechanism known as splitting splitting or dichotomous thinking is when we cast the world in terms of good versus bad evil versus good black versus white we are all good the enemy is all bad so this is known as splitting in the enemies dehumanized objectified and demonized in a kind of morality play so the war becomes a kind of a theater production where there's the bad guy and the good the all bad guy and the all good guy and of course we are always the good guys we are never ever the bad guys now this is this is a kind of it's a kind of role play if you give me two two additional minutes i want to elucidate a few points this is a kind of role play it's adversarial it's rule-based but it's a game you know when you watch veterans on both sides meet when they meet after the war they are very convivial they're very cordial they're like best buddies it's exactly the way athletes shake each other's hands after a contest or something so there's a strong element of game or gaming or role-playing in in war still war is about winning and it's about winning because winning validates you it validates you as having been chosen it validates you as having been blessed those those of you who believe having been chosen or blessed by god and you know it's uh it's very awkward to mention it in this context but the nazi ss uh had an inscription on its buckles and on its daggers and the inscription was god meet us god is with us god is with us god with us yeah so winning the war means that you have been chosen and blessed by god's grace you've been elevated by god it's a bit of a protestant thing because protestants used to believe that if you were successful in business if you were a moneymaker that meant that meant that you were chosen by god you were blessed by god the same applies to war war is war is a cultural i was going to say with politicians though in order for them to get the money for war in order that for them to validate their decision to go to war uh to validate the actions that they take they need you not to see the other side as humans who bleed who cry like they need uh their constituency to see the other side as either good or bad one bad subhuman and also equate the people with the terrorist organization for instance all all of the and both sides have done it when we talk about what's happening with with uh between and garza in israel that they all must be this you know uh they for instance they said the settlers all of these settlers they're not really settlers israeli settlers they were really like yes or all of those men we scream they're all hummus and there's that equating ordinary everyday people with the the the boogie man the monster which then makes it okay for destruction to take place i think it's it's great that you raise the issue of politics because i think war is a collective cultural social activity war is a great way to bond it creates bonding war is a great way to foster intimacy among large swaths of the population war gives rise to identity which is often what we call in psychology negative identity formation it means my identity is everything that you are not i'm defining my identity in contra distinction and in contradiction to who you are we both are mutually exclusive and since i regard myself as human and all good and on the side of god and ethical and moral you must be the opposite because my identity is the exact negation of yours so this bonding the zintimacy this cooperation this innovation war is the greatest engine of an innovation literally all the technologies we use today have been invented during wartime or by military organization and that includes the internet so this is war and and it's very important to understand that war leads to a new order war is very cathartic it's a catharsis it's it cleanses it's kind of a cleansing operation after which there is an opportunity to create something new for example i think the current conflict between israel and hamas will finally give rise to a palestinian state i think the i do i think the yonkipur war in 1973 was a prerequisite was a precondition for the peace between israel and egypt and later the peace between israel and jordan we need war as as an engine of transformation shumpeter the famous economist called it a creative destruction or creative destruction not it's very politically incorrect to to talk about war in these terms as a positive force yes but but but but do you think please go ahead no i was going to say but the language the language as well that is used let's talk about the language because that's frequently used by newspapers to um to to promote that otherness as well calling the other side beasts or monsters i mean just looking at the you know the brief that you gave me and then i looked at the newspapers and you can the scales fall from your eyes when you keep reading various reports from various different sources and the various words that are used to equate the other side with animals i mean people there's a remark to hear well be like oh well you know the the dozens of just living in like animals you know in in the desert they weren't very um they weren't very developed there is that belief against that the more civilized in western concepts the more civilized the society the more i don't know post it to god or they'll be doing the other person their favor of course i'm going to be very sensitive to that because africa was taken over by people who saw everybody in africa as savages and need to be educated and we all know that god forbid when the bomb goes off we know who's going to the most civilized people will pass will go first so let's talk about that the language that is used to demonize the other side war war and the language the language of of war has to do with a fantasy space war is a fantasy defense in war you as an individual become immaculate become perfect i mentioned i opened my my conversation with you by mentioning all the values associated with war heroism courage protectiveness selflessness altruism self sacrifice these are positive values none of them is negative not a single one of them so there's a fantasy of who you are which is what we call in psychology a narcissistic fantasy and this is and this fantasy of the individual is a perfect being protected by god in effect even the ss the nazi ss believe themselves to be protected by god so under the banner of god you're a perfect being and obviously a society comprised of perfect being also happens to be a perfect society a city on the hill now you mentioned gaza for example and this is an excellent an excellent example of how fantasy takes over reality and suppresses it gassans have the highest literacy rate in all the arab world gassans are much more literate and much more highly educated than the egyptians or the saudis so gaza is actually an enclave of learning and erudition in the arab world they're definitely not uneducated peasants or you know they're exactly the opposite they are urban most of them are urban so here's an example of how we create in a fantastic space an image of the enemy that has nothing to do with reality that is counterfactual and then we continue to interact with that image not with a real enemy when we kill members of the enemy we are actually playing the video game in our minds and in this video game there's an internal representation of the enemy that is devalued to the maximum to the extreme to humanize demonize etc etc and this is exactly what happens in the mind of a narcissist the narcissist converts people converts external objects into internal objects then the narcissist either idealizes this object or devalues this object but in any case the narcissist continues to interact with the object not with the person that gave rise to the object so we could say that war is a narcissistic activity absolutely it's about narcissism no wonder that war is very anti-social and there are many psychopathic behaviors in war yes absolutely sad talking with you i just wanted to check how you are i wanted to say although it's a very troubled time so happy hanukkah thank you have you have you been able to get back to israel no i i haven't been there for i haven't been there for too long i i intend to go back next year hopefully when the fighting abates i did i served in the israel army for three and a half years i was in infantry and then in the air force so i know war intimately including urban warfare i've been involved in urban warfare i know war intimately there is no no more hideous spectacle than war all these values that are attributed to war that's post facto nonsense war is dirty and ugly dirty and ugly period there's nothing else there sam thank you so much thank you so much for speaking with us today oh it's fascinating uh to talk with you thank you for having another point of view and get people thinking sam back sam that was great thank you and thank you to all of you on x who are joining me let me tell you what's coming up we'll be talking with a herbalist about what she believes the power of her truly is plus a young man who's running from underground station to underground station to raise money for calm why he's doing that why he feels males mental health is so important as indeed it is his own story we'll be talking with him a little later but i i guess the spotlight has been very rightly on what's happening uh in israel what's happening in gaza at the moment we've talked with a very powerful talk work i know has affected all of us uh with our imam and um our rabbi who we've actually asked to stand by throughout the program in case we need them back in again we may well be talking to them before the end of the show again um also we've talked with julia samuels psychotherapist about the effects of uh seeing the pictures seeing the headlines what they the the the way it affects us viscerally uh my next guest is um what i'm very excited to talk with again um san vaknin is israeli he's in massadonia at the moment um he's a professor of clinical psychology absolutely fascinating and i'll tell you why he's joining me today it's to talk about conflict in particular the sorts of personalities behind the israeli palestine conflict at the moment sam thank you so much for joining me again um just reading through some of the notes you've sent me i'm like wow this is a totally different and a really interesting take on all of this let me start off by asking and i have asked all of my guests how are you how are you feeling because i i don't you know take lightly that you may well know people and and and what i have you and it would be how are you feeling i have hundreds of relatives in the in the war zones both in the north and the south i haven't slept a wink for quite a few nights now as you can see probably so i'm not in the best of shape but i i will give i'll give you whatever i can thank you thank you and i know you can't even get a flight back home at the moment because i can't get a flight back no israeli is is actually cut off yeah yeah you're when you look at the personalities and i think there are interesting ones involved when you look at bibi netanyahu who is what his eighth time around and many people are saying uh are pointing out that the reason he quote unquote took his eye off the ball is when you need power at any cost and you bring in cronies people who will back you up um you are often displacing people who are very very learned in their trade in insecurity in the military and what have you you're displacing them with your your buddies your political buddies what that it seems to me that the need for power underlines so much of the world's conflict and and i'm really fascinating to hear your your views on this the diseased leadership of both the state of israel and the hamas and i'm using the word diseased judiciously definitely clinically has to do with underlying factors which are actually not personal leaders leaders reflect constituencies the psychology of leaders leaders resonates very closely with the psychopathology of their electorates nations so here we have two peoples two nations and they are both exhibiting what we call in psychology a trauma response now we have four types of trauma response and the most famous of which is fight or flight so in this case we have fight both nations are traumatized and both are in a post-traumatic condition as you recall the jewish people has has just had in historical terms just yesterday the holocaust and the palestinians had something they call the natva which means in arabic the catastrophe which is the expulsion in 1948 uh from their territories which now constitute the state of israel so they're both traumatized and when people are traumatized they tend to perceive themselves as victims the victimhood their victimhood becomes their identity politics and this is called in clinical psychology competitive victimhood no i'm the bigger victim no i'm the bigger victim and they compete for victimhood and so when you compete for victimhood when victimhood is who you are you feel entitled to special treatment you feel much less empathetic towards the other party you feel egotistic yourself centered on your needs and priorities and so on so forth on recovery and many many victims true victims become very self-destructive unfortunately in both nations the israelis who are jews and the palestinians in both nations there's a founding myth of suicide in israel we have the story of masada masada was the resistance in a fortress in the in the desert against the roman army and then all the fighters that committed suicide when things were looked to be you know beyond hope the masada myth is a foundational myth of the state of israel every child learns it it's inculcated in us and the arabs have the concept of the muslims actually have the concept so concept of shahada shahada means martyrdom to be a martyr and to be a martyr is to die and to commit suicide in masada is to die this is this is a death ethos an ethos of death these are two death counts at war i know not politically correct no but what what what it what it what it speaks to then if you have an upbringing or if you have a society through which such a message runs all the way through your way or your your dialogue when we talk about peace dialogue and and often well right from the beginning of the the creation of of israel and what happened with you know with the 700 thousand palestinians being displaced it was people from other cultures parachuting in to draw lines either on a map either in the sand um with their western no knowledge of that this is what we need to do right from the days of balfour historically going all the way through so even jimmy garter um but but one of the things of my husband and myself are talking about is every time there's been a leader from those groups yeah they've been assassinated take it if they speak against that language if they speak one of peace and hope and i guess non-victim would they take it out yes that's because victim would as i said is an identity politics and like all forms of identity politics it involves a series of psychological defense mechanisms which lead inexorably to violence with your permission i will enumerate these defense mechanisms without going into too many too much detail the foremost mechanism is known as splitting splitting or dichotomous thinking simply means i'm all good my enemy is all bad i am perfect whoever disagrees with me is evil and must die this is splitting it's a defense mechanism that operates in individuals and in collectives then you have paranoid ideation it's me against the world as a victim i've been victimized means the world didn't help me so i have to rely only on myself and all the rest of the world are potential enemies i should be hyper vigilant there are conspiracies everywhere that's paranoia and then another form of defense is grandiosity especially if you have existential anxiety if you're not really sure that you're going to be here tomorrow if you have true enemies who seek to exterminate you eradicate you displace you whatever one of the main defense mechanisms we have as individuals and collectives is grandiosity it's a form of cognitive distortion it impairs our reality testing we don't perceive reality correctly anymore so israel for example has this misguided belief that it is untouchable invincible immune to the consequences of its actions this is a form of grandiosity of course and of course the the other party the palestinians have their own type of grandiosity they are the perfect victims no one has ever been victimized as they have that renders them unique and they're entitled to special treatment and special concessions and they have rights that impose obligations or others it's a form of grandiosity entitled grandiosity and then we have magical thinking if we just put our minds to it there is nothing we cannot accomplish our thinking our words our wishes and dreams and and hopes they are reality we have absolute influence and we can shape the cosmos around us our environment this is magical thinking it's not true but then something like this but then something somebody takes that action that changes that that friction between two similar ideologies if you like somebody just steps way outside of that i guess they have to do something horrific in order to what up the ante to become i'm just thinking what with with the hammers doing what they did that is a a massive upping of the horrific ante yes everything i've just described is known collectively as pathological narcissism and in pathological narcissism you need to be noticed your existence relies crucially on what we call external regulation feedback from the outside input from others regulates your moods your emotions your reactions who you are how you perceive the world and so but how are you going to be noticed in a rapid news cycle with two zillion social media accounts with cats with cats and semi-naked people all around how are you going to be noticed ostentatiousness so you need to be you need to become ostentatious you need to escalate your behavior and the more atrocious you are the more abominable and abhorrent and so on the more likely you are to garner the attention that you need this is by the way i was going to say just to let me remind people i'm talking with sam vaknen who's a professor of clinical psychology so sam just tell me and i from what you're saying then if you have to escalate things to be noticed to such a horrific level the media using lots and lots and lots of of uh photographs more and more and more and more and more that shortly feeds the monster yes actually um both parties abuse the media social media included mainstream legacy media social media all forms media all forms of access it's not only media it's access they abuse this to do something manipulative and it's called projective identification projective identification is when i force my adversary or my enemy or another party i force them to behave in a way which conforms to my expectations of them and also presents me in a good light so if i expect you to abuse me i will provoke you i will push your buttons i will escalate my behavior until you do abuse me and that would confirm my position that you're an abuser and that would also make me the good guy because here i am being abused by you being victimized by you and that's how they use and that's how they would use those the photos and the pictures and what have you um does what make them more well they are victims but it makes sure that you can't ignore that they are not saying in this question i i think that the problem is that people define themselves as victims victimhood is an identity being victimized is a series of events and behaviors or misbehaviors it doesn't make you a victim it means that you have been victimized yeah victimhood is a totally different thing yeah because it involves entitlement at the expense of another person and of course the media are harnessed and leveraged and used and abused by all the parties these are signals this theory is not in psychology a signaling theory the parties are signaling to each other via the media and use the media in order to induce and modify the behaviors of the other side in a way that would reflect well on them and would confirm their prejudices and biases regarding the other side and this is a form of aggression which involves gaslighting the alteration of of reality in counterfactual ways and also involves projective identification i'm going to make you do what i want you to do what i want you to do i was going to say where does anger is uh i mean not just um anger from the parties involved but anger from all of those watching from let me say like news commentators and what have you whenever i see shouting and anger around this it's a horrific issue but whenever i see colleagues in the media shouting and angry i see that as them fueling the flames um am i wrong i would beg to differ with the word anger not your fault by the way it looks like anger ah it's it's righteous indignation it's a form of virtue signaling it's ostentatious it has nothing to do with real anger because you see real anger is a good thing real anger is a way to affect your environment and to modify other people's behaviors so that you won't have to to be angry anymore this is not anger this is victimhood self-righteous sanctimonious 100% good while the other party is always 100% evil okay we've got it so we've got to take a break i'm going to come back and talk with you more i'm talking with san vaknin professor of clinical psychology uh back with more in just a moment welcome back and thank you for joining me i'm having an absolutely fascinating conversation with san vaknin who is a renowned international professor of clinical psychology usually based in israel as we heard he can't get back there he's in massedonia at the moment sam coming back to it when you've got two parties who see that almost as a competition of who can be the biggest victim what is the answer then how do you create peace when you've got two traumatizers you explain the the the jewish people with their trauma the palestinians with their trauma how you can't do therapy for for hundreds of thousands of people how and as we said before those people who have tried to create peace and come be goes to it yeah assassinated i mean historically um it seems that governments uh people's go back to and you said they made that point the leaders that they that mirror their grief they how much became a political party but still always have that it's like the ira when shin fain it's like with you know people forget that nelson mandela came from a once terrorist organization so you've got the the jews with bibi netanyahu coming back the jewish people yet he gets back again you've got hammers how answer what is the answer you can't do therapy for hundreds of thousands of people millions of people what is the answer the situation is calls for pessimism however there are two mitigating mitigating circumstances or mitigating mitigating aspects we distinguish between cultures and societies which look to the past and cultures and societies with a future orientation now the cultures and societies in the middle east the arab world the jews they are past oriented they their nourishment is based in the past not in the future they derive their sustenance their strength the resilience everything from the past so this is the first thing if we succeed somehow to change this orientation and to render it present or future orientation i think this would go a long way towards kind of pacifying both both peoples because they does that come from i was going to say because the traditions everything about both islam and judaism the traditions everything is as you say how you map out your day your week your month your years based in the past to change that orientation does that come from their face basis does that i mean if somehow you could approach and we had earlier on a fantastic imam and and a rabbi who have come together and are supporting each other and seem to be speaking of the future so is that possibly where that focusing and baiting themselves on the future is that a place from which it could come past orientation has to do with what we call learned helplessness the belief that everything is hopeless that regardless of your best efforts you will never be efficacious you will never accomplish long-term goals and everything that you do accomplish is transitory and meaningless so if we were to establish an environment and here the western world is a major role it's does china and so on if we were to establish an all encompassing environment which includes incorporates both the arabs and the jews in a way that guarantees them stability and safety and long-term prospects and economic development and jobs for all et cetera et cetera i think the hopelessness and helplessness will abate and with these the past orientation will be replaced with a future orientation that's a big ask it's a big ask because we're talking about territories it's been done before for example the marshal plan in europe yeah it's been done before in japan after the second world war the united states is spending six billion dollars a month a year in the middle east this money on weapons mind you only on weapons i mean take this money and use it differently same money no need for appropriations no need to negotiate with the republican party same money so this is the first thing the second kind of ray of light hope is the fact that societies in the middle east jews included are shame based reputation based the social control is exerted and channeled through shaming people humiliating them criticizing them in public damaging their reputation irrevocably so this these are the livers of social control now this is very bad because you need to save face and in order to save face you act irrationally like saving it's save face or die liberty you know liberty or death so saving face or death that's it literally people are willing to die to save face if we were to transition from a reputation and shame based society to a society of rule of law objective and neutral measurements and evaluations a society that doesn't shame people or humiliate them but teaches them and educates them and nurtures them then i think we will have removed another component of this endless seemingly endless and intractable conflict you see this is the cycle this is exactly the cycle the jews live in the past the jews live in the past the palestinians live in the past both of them have been shamed and humiliated now the hamas humiliated israel shame israel is israel acting rationally allow me to have my doubts is israel acting proportionately almost for sure it's not why because israel has to save face it has to restore its deterrence and the respect and the all that it used to be held in it's all about reputation it's exactly like the mafia exactly like a mob a mob mentality you know and i guess you could say the same about hamas they had to save face everybody say do you think it's time we've got to finish this interview but i part of me thinks this isn't it time that women took over i mean i'd say that glibly but so much of it is bound up in the sorts of things i guess we attribute to to men saving face muscle might aggression those are attributes that are a very male we're talking maybe about societies in which the man has a role that many would say is adhering more to the past because younger people as we've seen on both sides don't adhere as much to that so part of me thinks maybe it's time for the world to have a good go at women running it i mean can we do much worse this might be true in the west but progressively in these areas in the middle east and so there is full collaboration between men and women in perpetuating this state of affairs women have been co-opted women have been co-opted into the male patriarchy basically into the male structure well sam thank you as always it's it's fascinating talk to you and i i really am i send you my my warmest wishes it must be i know it's a very going to be a very very difficult time for you as well thank you thank you for your sentiments yeah and thank you i mean that because all of our guests that we've had from the area i'm like god how you lack of sleep and the churning of stomachs and all of those things going on and even be able to focus or gather their thoughts it's not something that i take lightly so i do thank you again i want to say one last thing i want to say one last thing this is a crisis definitely but it's also an opportunity in 1973 israel has been surprised there was a surprise attack on israel by egypt interior and it led four years later to peace peace with egypt later peace with jordan and so on this horrible atrocity committed by the terrorist organization from us could be an opening it doesn't need to end this way you could conceive of it and reframe it and leverage it to make peace unfortunately i don't see the leadership there to do this on either side it's sad sam thank you so much thank you so much for joining us today thank you for having you're you're so welcome we'll we'll definitely be talking with you again i know we will be in the future uh professor of clinical psychology sam vakmin there as you heard he's israeli can't get back to israel because there aren't any flights so he's in macedonia at the moment um lots to think about there lots to think about there uh we're going to take a quick break and after that we'll be back on a totally different subject our i believe segment where we hear from a herbalist back with that in a just a moment those of you who are married to narcissists or in committed relationships with narcissists have already experienced urban warfare so maybe there's nothing new i can tell you but more seriously israel has invaded gaza yesterday the forces are still there it is not clear whether this is the invasion that israel has been promising or threatening with in the past three weeks but at any rate their forces inside gaza and they're beginning to get involved in what is known as urban warfare how is urban warfare different to other types of fighting and what are the psychological implications of urban warfare warfare this is the topic of today's video and yes it is based on a few weeks of personal experience with urban warfare the first few months of my three and a half year service in the israeli defense forces so unfortunately i'm bringing personal insight into this as well as many other studies analysis by military experts by army psychologists trauma experts and so on so forth i've distilled everything put everything together as i usually do and to give you a as complete a picture of the aftermath psychological aftermath of fighting within dense human populations door to door room to room house to house hand to hand face to face you and the other person and only one of you will come out alive my name is sam vaknin i'm the author of malignant self-love narcissism revisited i'm a former visiting professor of psychology in southern federal university in russia i'm currently a longtime member of the faculty of seaps commonwealth for international advanced professional studies kenbridge united kingdom toronto canada and an outreach campus in lego's nigeria legalities aside let us delve right into the urban landscape first don't try this at home with your significant other i'm going to describe the features the military features of urban warfare and then i'm going to move on the second half of the video i'm going to move on to psychological analysis and analysis of the psychological impacts of urban warfare on mostly the attacker the military that is initiating the urban warfare now first of all the vast majority of armies in the world are not built for urban combat most armies in the world focus on what is known as combined combined arms maneuvers or combined arms maneuver warfare which is the air force the infantry tanks the navy all acting together and creating an envelope a containing envelope mostly for infantry soldiers the aim of traditional conventional armies is to overwhelm an enemy by concentrating speed and mass at critical points with an element of surprise so modern armies are highly mobile and they transfer forces where the enemy does not anticipate and the idea is to break through the fences and flanks of the enemy and somehow perhaps to surround the enemy at any rate to break the resistance of the enemy now this has been going on since Alexander the Great and Napoleon and others so there's nothing new in any of this but this is doubly so with modern armies modern militaries that include heavy weight elements such as tanks or fighter planes and and so in cities all the above means nothing all the above is actually a disadvantage the bigger the force that infiltrates the city the easier a target it becomes so cities force you to break down into smaller and smaller and smaller units sometimes only two people and you have to move slowly through side streets this moving through a main thoroughfare through main street big street is seriously flawed is seriously wrong you move through side streets through gates shortcuts above roofs and and so on and so forth in order to reach your destination this cannot be done with 20 000 people so you naturally end up breaking up to tinier and tinier units and you cannot with such a small force overwhelm defenders overwhelm your enemy you can do this in a forest you can do this in a desert you can do this in a field but you can't do this in a built environment and the irony is the more buildings you destroy the more defenses you provide to your enemy because rubble is optimal ruins can be booby trapped and serve as concrete covers so you're creating in effect your enemy's defenses by bombing buildings from the air as israel has been doing for three weeks now so you move in small units you're much more likely to end up in an ambush or a killing zone actually a well-prepared enemy channels your movement makes sure that you can move only along a certain axis or a conduit or a venue so that you end up where they want you to end up and then they kill you and then they kill you again the enemy is hidden you have to constantly guess surprises are the only unsurprising thing surprises are the only guaranteed thing and it's very shocking it's a constantly it's a percussion it's a constantly shocking environment and it involves hand to hand combat face to face eye to eye you smell the sweat of the enemy you're looking to their eyes their pupils dilating you see the veins in their necks pulsating it's very very intimate it's very intimate some people even say erotically charged it's a life and death dance repeated over and over and over again until you die because your chances to die in open warfare are much much higher than in open warfare the enemy is everywhere it is underground it is on the ground it shoots at you from tops of buildings so this is a three-dimensional death envelope you're enveloped by death and destruction and you begin to develop the belief that you're doomed that there's no way out of this and so you begin to behave accordingly as we'll talk about it later sometimes you become much less careful and cautious than you should be defined in your face defined death you know it's a grind open warfare is a grind there's no clear end well-defined goals mission success mission statement horizon it feels like it could last forever you start with an army starts usually with shaping shaping operations preparing the ground and then open warfare follows in the form of invading the territory and invasion but all the advantages in open warfare accrue to the defender open warfare is bloody it's slow it's complex that's why it's known in military jargon as the great equalizer it equalizes the poorly the poorly equipped poorly trained defenders with highly equipped highly trained attackers it equalizes because the defender knows the terrain much better than you do and so they can counterattack in very very unexpected ways and there's always civilian collateral damage civilian casualties are absolutely inevitable inevitable and that makes you the attacker the bad guy even if you are fighting a terrorist organization such as ices or hamas which is indistinguishable from ices even then you are the bad guy because you end up killing babies and children and pregnant women and women who could have become pregnant had you not killed them so you become the bad guy and there's no way to avoid this because terrorists fight from within populated urban areas and they very frequently use the population the civilian population as human shields they maintain their headquarters their warehouses their munition dumps their launching pads everything within hospitals and mosques and schools and kindergartens and shopping malls that's a fact that's a fact in Gaza as well where major hospitals are actually the headquarters of hamas operations and so civilians are going to die civilians are going to die and the idea is to somehow push the defenders or the terrorists or whatever you want to call them somehow push them into a sim demarcated location a boundary location and besiege them in these pockets but these seizures can last like years remember Stalingrad they can last years so this engenders a siege mentality it is like static trench warfare only trench warfare is in open fields and this is trench warfare where even the trenches are invisible and shape-shifting so there's a siege mentality of both the attacker and the defender they both feel under siege now you don't take prisoners in open warfare anyone moves you kill them you kill everyone in sight yes i know this is a this is a crime of war this is a crime against humanity and no military commander would admit to it and no military no army would admit to it but this is how it's done it's done this way because a prisoner with his hands up could be booby trapped a child coming out of a tunnel could carry a Kalashnikov you don't play games you don't take chances you don't speculate and second guess you shoot first you ask questions later so this is total warfare and as a soldier you end up killing children you end up killing women you end up killing civilians who are somehow allied with the defenders or the terrorists or whatever clearly allied with them because they emerge with them or from their hiding places and this is devastating mentally devastating even during the holocaust there have been Nazi soldiers and Nazi commanders and very high-level commanders who went bonkers who went insane having had to shoot civilian population on a regular basis now most modern urban warfare warfare is carried out at night it's a night operation because the attacker which is usually a regular conventional army has superiority of night vision technologies so most of these attacks are at night the warfare is asymmetrical in terms of technology material supplies munition air cover and so on and this asymmetry is at its peak at night where the attacking soldiers can see pretty well and the defending ones are blinded by the darkness all kinds of assets are used in modern urban warfare i'm talking about drones i'm talking about robots and this renders the fighting impersonal mechanical automated robotic the assets are airborne or they lead or they're involved in land warfare to clear rooms for example you would send the drone into the room send the robot into the room and blow them up if you see someone there so it's all very kind of video game war is a video game when you blow up a building in a contested urban warfare zone it's exactly like shooting someone in a video game and it dehumanizes it dehumanizes or objectifies the other person they're no longer human beings they are just characters in a video game and we've seen this in the recordings released by WikiLeaks recordings of of pilots American pilots and others fighting um bombing humans but treating them exactly as characters in video games now even in urban warfare there is a place for combined arms maneuvers infantry and commando units guide pilots fighter pilots bombers navy and artillery as to where to direct the fire but this leads to a lot of friendly fire incidents and so in truth fighters in urban warfare prefer not to they use air air power and artillery and so on are only very very rarely and scarcely because they're terrified of their own of their own military you're on your own in urban warfare you are all alone no one can help you no one has your back it's you it's you and only you there's been an interview that i read with with the top Ukrainian commander Kevliuk and he said that the heavily armed forces are followed by isolation forces we first to devastate destroy the whole area and then the next echelon next round next wave of army comes in um and kind of cleans these are the cleaners the clean after and he said the assault echelon carries with it a double supply of hand grenades disposable grenade launchers jet flame throwers anti tank missiles man pads combat medics in armored evacuation vehicles wait at a distance of visual communication just in case they're needed he says never walk the streets yards private buildings holes in fences and walls of way to victory he said that everything should be closed by the logistics the medical units the UAVs the the unmanned aerial vehicles the crucials the drones and the commander of the force of the assault force should be in control of what these drones are doing as well as feeding bomber pilots and fighter pilots with exact coordinates pinpointed coordinates in real time so airplanes are always above red waiting to attack and they usually do so within seconds Kevliuk mentioned something very important which leads us segues into the second part of this video which is the psychology he says urban warfare is personal responsibility he says if you don't have something in battle if you miss something it's your fault ballistic protection a first aid kit a tony kit preferably two you must have these things when you pack your backpack says kevliuk an extra pack of cartridges is much better than a can of food everyone should clearly identify their combat tasks they should know who is acting to the right and to the left of you they should know how to contact the commander the combat medic or the supper supper is a combat military engineer and this is the crucial element in urban warfare and the key to understanding the extreme psychological impacts of urban warfare you you are absolutely responsible for what's happening to you if there's no one to blame it's your fault 100% and no one has your back and no one supports you and you're on your own and it's life and death and it's hand to hand and it's knife to belly and it's just that the way it is and you must survive at all costs this of course creates post traumatic stress disorder in many veterans of urban warfare anywhere between 10 and 40% depending on the severity of the battle this is lifelong btsd is lifelong the sides in urban warfare are nothing like what you see in regular battle nothing the civilians the babies the slaughtered mothers the body parts the charred bodies the surprises the shocks the explosions the knives in the back your own people firing on you by mistake i mean it is absolutely devastating and that's why very few soldiers can survive more than a week or two or three in urban warfare and most urban warfare winds up in days or there is a kind of rotation involved because the attrition rate is enormous you see this in urban warfare very often there's no movement no discernible movement and there's no way to define your accomplishments it's like a bit of a frozen scene it's very surreal very nightmarish and gruesome death gruesome forms of death are your constant companion the stench the vision the visuals they they are you you wake up to it go to sleep to it if you catch some sleep very few are able to sleep and and this becomes your scenery this becomes your life this becomes your environment and you don't hesitate to step on bodies to eat next to a decapitated head or a dead baby you get desensitized if the enemy becomes so many body parts totally dehumanized by the way there's the same effect in the medical profession medical doctors often describe the same effect especially in specific departments like emergency emergency rooms and icu is and so you need to reduce the human form to an organ or a body part in order to survive simply to survive there's a constant sense of abandonment constant set sense of isolation oh my god i've lost my units or i'm stuck with only one body and he's wounded there's a constant sense of wandering off and never being able to find your way back it's very primordial it's like a tiny tiny infant in a shopping in a giant shopping mall having lost his or her mother there's extreme dependency on other people so there's an external locus of control you feel that your life is determined from the outside and there's nothing much you can do about it the next explosion the next mine the next booby trap the next knife in the back the next attack the next terrorist the next defender the next whatever freedom fighter whatever you want to call them where from up down under this room that rubble this child this woman what you're constantly on on the alert it's a it's a flight of fight response taken to extremes and this external locus of control is a form of surrender you give up on your life in effect you move continue to move continue to go through the motions like a zombie and there's a lot of splitting going on the enemy becomes diabolical demonic worthy of extermination extinction and eradication regardless of any human considerations let alone legal or criminal considerations i mean you just you just need to kill this thing out there that is no longer human in your eyes and threatens your life on a constant basis because it is evil this of course provokes alloplastic defenses inability to take responsibility for what you've done because if you do the trauma will be all consuming and destroy you from the inside so you denied wasn't my fault i had to do it i had to do it to protect myself to protect my buddies to protect the country whatever so there are a lot of alloplastic defenses involved at some point you simply give up on acting human and you defy you defy the defenders or the terrorists you defy the situation you defy your own commanders you challenge your fate and destiny to a duel say i'm going to do whatever the heck i want i'm gonna act out i'm gonna crazy make i'm gonna defy you i'm gonna in your face in your face challenge my own mortality let's see who wins this leads to behavior that is very risky and often leads to death at the point where you say i no longer care see if i care i'm going just i'm gonna i'm going out there and i'm gonna shoot like crazy everywhere i'm gonna spray the whole pump up i don't care the minute you say i don't care you're doomed you're lost and there's a moral collapse attendant upon it you're no longer a moral agent or a moral person you act more like a predator an animal all the veneer of civilization melts down dissipates and what's left is animal versus animal you look like an animal you haven't you haven't showered in days you're caked with mud and sweat and blood you're terrified inside your eyes pierced through the mud cake mask and they're demented you look like a deranged escapee from a mental asylum and all you can think of is how to kill kill kill you become a killing machine and you develop magical thinking there's all kinds of superstitions talismans mascots sentences you have to repeat to yourself a sequence of and this is a sequence of activities which will kind of isolate you offend you or defend you from bad happenings this is obsessive obsessive compulsive these are obsessive compulsive rituals the only defense you're left with primitive against the horror that you find yourself embedded in and perpetrating as perpetrating also bears a mental cost this ladies and gentlemen is urban warfare warfare should israel invade gaza full-scale invasion this is what awaits both the israeli army and hamas fighters none of them will be spared the agony of fighting and then the agony of recalling the fighting and the trauma that will never leave them for life another sleepless night there's thousands of innocent civilians are slaughtered and massacred in the most horrifying and graphic ways in israel and in gaza the latest round in a war that has been going on since 1882 when the first jewish settlers arrived from overseas in occupied land in what used to be at the time palestine joining an existing settlement of jews throughout the holy land we all acquainted with the trite and tired arguments on both sides the jews historic right to the land of the forefathers the arabs palestinian continued presence in the same territory the religious edicts of regarding a jewish state in the midst or amidst the muslim world in the front against god's cosmic order and will the jews as the last of the colonialists in israel is the only remaining colonial outpost in a world that has moved on to other forms of government and other organizing principles we all know the grievances who did what to whom repeatedly in dozens of bloody drones massacring slaughtering and killing each other sometimes with glee and joy and sometimes inadvertently and sometimes because there is no other choice but beyond the historical and the religious and the political scientific theoretical considerations of arguments and debates beyond the eggheads butting heads what do we have what is the psychology of this intractable conflict the longest ongoing conflict in modern history why doesn't it seem closer to solution at all and i'm talking about the conflict between israelis and palestinians not the conflict between israelis and arabs which is nearing its solution many arab states states have signed peace agreements and established diplomatic relations with israel i'm not talking about the conflict between judaism and islam that has never been really a real thing i'm not talking about any of this i'm talking about the conflict between israelis and palestinians both these peoples lay claim to exactly the same piece of land the size of new jersey in the united states and both of them demand 100 percent of this land and both parties are intransigent inflexible uncompromising devout in their dedication and commitment to maximizing outcomes at the expense of the other both of them regard the situation as a zero sum game because of this skewed viewpoint they are incapable of reaching any accommodation striking a deal of coexistence and perhaps perhaps mutual prosperity instead they kill each other's babies and women and the elderly and of course each other's military what is the military 20 year olds flowering the prime of their lives this is the military on both sides these young men and women are dying and they are dying because of the psychology behind this conflict and that is the topic of today's video my name is sam vacney and for a change i'm not only the author of malignant self love i'm not only a former visiting professor of psychology i am also in israeli and an analyst of international affairs i'm trying to balance these two as in israeli of course to some extent i'm biased although i'm highly critical of israel especially in the last 20 or 30 years under the criminal and demented regime of the authoritarian sudo dictator or quasi dictator been benjamin etaniao but i'm trying to balance the fact that i'm an israeli and a jew with my allegiance to the truth as i see it as an analyst and i hope i will succeed in this delicate delicate treading of the line in this video what goes on in the minds of the hamas of the islamic jihad of fatah of palestinian refugees in camps in lebanon and jordan palestinians in the diaspora what goes on in the minds what goes on in the minds of jews all over the world of israelis of military service age of older israelis what passes in the minds and what compels them to behave in ways which ultimately are self-destructive and self-defeating because this is going nowhere this is going nowhere this is leading to no favorable outcome this is not self-efficacious this is ruinous to both parties every decision each of the parties makes every such decision drives the deciding party closer to the edge of the cliff and very often beyond what is what is behind this essentially suicidal behavior it is very telling that both parties have their own suicidal myths suicidal ideation which is often coupled with religious righteousness Israel has the masada story a group of israel of of jewish far right extremist in today's terms who fought off the famed and celebrated roman six legion in masada and outpost in the in the desert and they succeeded to hold hold off the hallowed roman army for a very long time until they had no choice and under the siege they all committed suicide in a suicide pact that is one of the founding myths of israel as suicide similarly in islam religious righteousness is associated with shahada and jihad shahada which essentially means witnessing is conducting a life that is right in the eyes of god but it also means committing suicide in order to further military or political goals at least that's the interpretation of the hadith and jihad is striving to conduct your life in a way that is good and would incur god's pleasure and and approval but jihad is also a holy righteous religious war in which of course one dies as a shahid as a martyr so death and suicide are at the heart and core of the ethos and the myths that motivate both these people the jews and the palestinians the muslims the muslim palestinians and so it's a bad starting point on both sides there is a trauma response a fight response it's both parties the jews and the palestinians are in the throes or in the wake of trauma they are in a post traumatic condition israel is the product of the holocaust the greatest and most horrible genocide ever perpetrated the german skilled well over six million jews in an industrial heartless faceless process the holocaust is a major trauma the entire jewish people regardless of its origins regardless of its locations is heavily traumatized to this very day the palestinians have their nakba the disaster of the catastrophe of 1948 when they have been expelled from their homes by the advancing jewish army on the one hand and encouraged by their own by their own arrogant leaders to leave their homes because the jews will soon be defeated and thrown back to the sea where they came from these are two motivating identity defining traumas on both sides and so the israeli palestinian conflict is a form of competitive victimhood these are two victimhood movements there's a clash between two entitled and self-centered victimhood movements this competitive victimhood of course give rise to narcissism and psychopathy on both sides these movements zionism on the other hand the arab national movement on the other they were hijacked by narcissists and psychopaths which currently who currently constitute the leadership on both sides in the israeli side and in the palestinian side thugs bullies murderers dictators in the making criminals are in charge today of the state of israel and of all all major religious palestinian movements such as hamas like every conflict in israeli the parties it gave rise to specific dynamics psychological dynamics in the parties involved conflict triggers narcissistic defenses conflict also known as dissonance in clinical terms conflict creates cognitive distortions in the case of israel conflict led to the emergence of grandiosity a sense of immunity to the consequences of one's actions a sense of invulnerability and invincibility all of them of course counterfactual all of them have been falsified on october 7th but not only in october 7th on multiple other occasions the israeli army has been repeatedly defeated time and again and yet this is denied and repressed in the collective israeli consciousness refrained as victory similarly of course there are cognitive distortions on the palestinian side which also involve forms of grandiosity the belief that the palestinians are fulfilling some kind of godly or divine mission on earth the defied ease of cosmic proportions that it signifies some apocalyptic timeline these are all grandiose notions for a group of bedraggled unkempt terrorists who decapitate babies rape women and kill men in the beds especially elderly men both parties therefore have an impaired reality testing they're unable to grasp reality as it is because they need to deny it they need to repress it they need to reframe it in order to avoid narcissistic injuries and narcissistic modification in public both cultures the Jewish israeli culture and even more so much more so the palestinian muslim arab culture are based on shame on not losing face on maintaining one's reputation it's very much a mob a mafia mentality and so they need to ignore reality and to inhabit a fantastic space a paracocin in which they are perfect in which they can do no wrong in which they are always morally upright this impaired reality testing leads to wrong decision making erroneous choices it is a path to hell and a hell mutually imposed upon one another there's a lot of magical thinking in hope if i only ignore the palestinians they would go away if i if we only attack israel it will fall apart magical thinking my thoughts shape reality my words have power i'm going to magically wizardry sorcery of sorts i'm going to transform the world solve my problems simply by wishing them to go away somehow and i'm going to act and pretend as if they are no more these problems these issues i'm going to besiege the palestinians in gaza street well over two million people most of whom are refugees 1948 and their children grandchildren and grand-grandchildren i'm going to just ignore them i'm going to besiege them forget about them i'm going to annex territory territory establish illegal settlements everywhere because i can and i can because i want to and i want to because god is on my side so his history this is magical thinking and of course on the palestinian side there's even even even more magical thinking even more egregious magical thing you know magical thinking leads to gradual psychotic break a departure from reality and all activities and all operations are conducted within a mental space that is solipsistic self-contained self-sufficient and frankly insane both parties are demented both of them require medication on a regular basis they are so divorced from reality and from the mere fact of each other's existence and so this leads to reactance reactance is associated in clinical psychology with um psychopathy it's an antisocial feature it involves defiance consumatiousness the rejection of authority the others authority defiance against the other pushing back in your face see if i care i'm going to do it regardless of the cost both sides it's not limited to israel although it sounds a lot like israel and so the losses mount and they are enormous and the parties are unable to move on unable to move on israel has built thriving economy scintillating cultural sphere in life the palestinians have tried to hold under impossible circumstances but both of them are locked into this dance macabre both of them are unable to let go of the other because the other the pernicious nefarious malevolent other the demonized other has become has become a determinant of their identity palestinian identity is in opposition to the israeli the israeli is the other what doesn't mean to be a palestinian if not to hate israel and opposing in every way palestinian resistance is palestinian identity and there's no resistance without israel and israelis similarly the israelis came to define themselves via their conflict with the arab world and with the palestinians the two the two parties palestinians and the israelis engage in negative identity formation identity politics that relies on negating the other rejecting the other demeaning and debasing the other humiliating the other ignoring and denying the other and ultimately exterminating the other but not too fast because what would happen then to one's identity one needs an enemy in order to feel that one exists it's a form of self harm and self mutilation israel is committing suicide by palestinians and palestinians are committing suicide by israel it's a form of recklessness disregard for the consequences of one's actions no long-term foresight and planning no intelligence employed or deployed into any of these decisions and choices it's short term it's knee jerk it's impulsive it's crazy making it's acting out it's the compensation the loss of all psychological defenses which leads to violent externalized aggression and both parties of course react to this ongoing self-inflicted trauma the same way that individuals react to trauma smooth mobility elation and then depression there's emotional dysregulation emotional thinking and emotional decision-making people are driven by negative affectivities such as rage or envy or vengefulness and vindictiveness and hatred the parties to the conflict abuse each other and manipulate each other as the exclusive modes of interacting with each other they don't talk to dictate they don't communicate they posture they don't shake hands they shake guns they don't sit down to reach a compromise they sit down to engage in one upmanship it's a zero sum game in the sense that the others gains are your loss and your gains are their loss and it's a hundred a hundred to zero it's winner takes all it's your me this dichotomous thinking of black and white good versus evil a morality play the parties are like actors in a play scripted by a higher power of some kind power of history power of the own trauma perhaps god but they are actors they're not free they're not at liberty to determine their own script to control their own destiny to shape their own fate they've handed control to the outside they have an external locus of control and of course they have a lot plastic defenses they blame the other for everything that has gone wrong for every defeat for every failure for every mishap for every idiotic choice for every malicious decision and for the backlash and inevitable consequences and outcomes of such misbehavior and misconduct and the parties seek to manipulate each other exactly as abuses do they gaslight each other they try to cause the other party to doubt their own judgment regarding reality they try to cast the other as crazy insane unreliable demented to be shunned and avoided because they are no longer with us they're psychotic or they're religious fanatics so there's a lot of gaslighting going on gaslighting of the other Palestinians gaslight Israelis especially the Israeli left and Israelis gaslight Palestinians and there's gaslighting of the rest of the world of course also known as propaganda and there's projective identification the parties provoke each other to behave in ways that conform to their expectations and they need this these provocations are not accidental or incidental or unintended they're premeditated they're part of a plan they're part of a pattern there's a need to provoke the other in order to buttress one's self-identity in order to remove doubts as to one's misconduct own misconduct both parties at heart have a negative self-image they see themselves as somewhat inadequate somewhat bad somewhat wrong and the only way to get rid of these doubts self-doubts the only way to reassert oneself in opposition of 100 percent righteousness and right is to force the other party to behave in ways which remove the shame negate the negative self-image so if the other party abuses you kills you slaughters you besieges you then definitely you are the good one and this leads of course to splitting we are all good the enemy is all bad but how can we reassure ourselves that the enemy is all bad projective identification we're going to push the enemy we're going to provoke the enemy we're going to make sure that the enemy behaves in horrendous horrendous unacceptable ways we're going to make sure that the enemy is condemned by one and all and we are going to drive the enemy to behave this way we are going to dump our shame on the enemy we are going to recruit the enemy to help us feel to help us to feel that we are perfect to help us with our narcissistic defenses fantastic inflated grandiose self-image we need our enemy to help us with this so we need our enemy to act as an enemy and not only just any enemy an evil enemy an implacable enemy a god hating enemy and so both parties provoke each other to act the enemy in order to purge themselves of these bad objects internal bad objects the feeling that one is less than perfect this splitting we are all good our enemies are all bad is the exact reason why no meaningful dialogue is taking place why all the attempts at peacemaking have failed and why the compromise can never be struck the positions of both parties are maximal precisely in order to ascertain that they will never cease to be each other's enemies enemies and lovers as bachevi zinger once famously wrote hatred and love are flip sides of the same coin this is known as ambivalence you love your enemy because what are you without your enemy nothing your enemy defines you your enemy provides you with an identity a purpose a direction your enemy infuse your life with meaning makes sense of your reality you need your enemy had your enemy not existed you would have needed to invent it the united states is doing this very often so this is the tango in which these two parties are engaged barely on their feet wary dying at least morally if not physically and very often physically as well and yet unable to disentangle to stand apart to detach held in each other's arms they lean into the horror attempting to perpetuate it because that is the comfort zone that is the only thing they've known for decades now well over a century and a half they know no better and they know no different and the horrifying news is no one can ever teach them that the heart of all conflicts is the inability to empathize the incapacity to put yourself in someone else's shoes especially your enemy shoes the lack of will and wish to somehow attain objectivity neutrality the ability to observe impartially and to make decisions based on reality including the reality of your enemy wars and conflicts are the sad outcomes of our declining ability to empathize a decline that started thousands of years ago when the Palestinians see an Israeli they don't see a baby they don't see a mother they don't see a sister they don't ask themselves what common experiences do we have what things we share what do we share what makes us more the same than different they don't ask these questions the stereotype it's two-dimensional cartoon figures and they react to the stereotype they react to the cartoonish rendition of the other the enemy and similarly of course the Israelis tens of thousands of Palestinians work inside Israel almost a million Arabs Arab Palestinians are Israeli citizens and yet the Israelis never bother to get acquainted with the other's culture the other's world the other's life the other's point of view the other's pains the other's wishes and dreams including and especially broken dreams there's no interface between Israelis and Palestinians both ways Palestinians are as guilty as as Israelis in pretending that the other is less than human in dehumanizing and objectifying the other in a way both parties instrumentalize each other they use each other's tools to obtain political goals military aims and most importantly a sense of moral uprightness and superiority you can't do that if you even when you empathize empathy reduces aggression empathy prevents malevolence empathy is the antidote to narcissism narcissism is crucial in any conflict because narcissism helps you to pretend that this is a morality play in which you are good and fighting against evil fighting to eradicate it and eliminate it making the world a better place even the Nazis claim that exterminating the Jews would make Europe a far better place it's for the greater good they said this argument the most pernicious despicable abhorrent and abominable argument in human history it's for the greater good is a cover for the most heinous crimes against humanity and war crimes anything for that is for the greater good is evil because it overlooks the individual it overlooks the inner life of human beings human beings are relational they inhabit collectives they share of course many things in common common ethos a common culture a society within which they function that is all true but every human being every human being shares with other human beings much more than he or she shares with the collective every Israeli has a lot more in common a lot more in common with every Palestinian then it would ever have with the state of Israel and every Palestinian has a lot more in common with every Jew then it would ever have with Hamas collectives are not and should never be definers of identity identity is human we are first and foremost human beings this should be our primary and possibly only allegiance and affiliation we are members of the human tribe the human species we get up in the morning we are hungry we are thirsty we are terrified we are happy we are joyful we are laughing we are making love we are raising children we have dreams they get broken promises we experience pain and loss and we outgrow them and develop and become this is a universal experience of Palestinians and Jews and Sikhs and Russians and Ukrainians and Americans and Mexicans everywhere around the world who is bipedal everywhere around the world who is human is the same experiences 98 percent of what it is to be us humans the layers of statehood nationality citizenship history that's a veneer that's a veneer it's a coat of paint it's not who we are it's not our essence and quintessence and quintessence we are above all human and if we are given the possibility and the choice to empathize with other humans the very concepts of the very concept of enemy is dead capability to live together to collaborate rest heavily and sometimes exclusively the capacity to reimagine ourselves as the other as our enemy and it is through this reimagining through the inhabiting of the space of the other the world and life of the other the mind of the other the hopes and dreams and narratives and stories of the other that we come together as humans and this is what's missing in conflicts such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict the other is demonized stripped of its humanity the other is not human it's devilish it's evil it's vermin as the Nazis call the jews and if the other is not human then slaughtering the other is justified shouldn't provoke any moral indignation pangs of conscience consciousness and conscious killing the other should be as simple as eradicating insects in your kitchen this reduction of the other of the enemy into non-human form is at the core of the atrocities that people commit when they're engaged in conflict we must never let that happen whether you're Palestinian or an Israeli a jew or a muslim you must never let that happen remember the humanity of the other try to be your enemy for one day one hour one minute maybe it will stay your hand on the way to slaughtering a baby bombing the family maybe if you go through this exercise sufficient number of times the conflict will be over scott guggles jackobson has just returned from ukraine where he met with another collaborator of mine again was chenea of newsweek so today we've had an exchange about war war as pornography and war is a form of entertainment he started by covering familiar ground but then if you're patient enough to listen to the interview to his end i think he would be rewarded with a few politically incorrect insights to use the understatement of this century scott dotless jack jacob jacobson asked me actually said welcome back dr vagnin i returned from ukrainian territories visiting several cities in rapid succession over two weeks in late november and early december i have war on my mind which makes me think about the mind in war what is the nature of war and the aforementioned sam vagnin responded welcome back in one piece war brings out the best in us and the worst in us throughout the ages war has been perceived as the epitome and quintessence of masculinity even when women like the amazons had been doing the fighting so war was about valor heroism courage overcoming fear selflessness altruism so sacrifice for the greater good and protectiveness of the weak and the meek these are all allegedly masculine traits but violent conflict leads to negative identity formation defining oneself in opposition to the other by dehumanizing objectifying and demonizing your enemy most wars are cast as morality plays good our side versus evil the other side good guys versus bad guys wars amount to role playing to role playing in an adversarial rule based game this is revealed when for example veterans veterans on both sides of a conflict meet after the war is over and they are convivial and chummy that shows you it's all been a game winning a war validates the triumphant party the victors take it all and his proof of a divine blessing of having adopted right over wrong and of having been chosen and this is reminiscent of the Protestant work ethic which regarded success in business as proof positive of God's favor even the Nazi SS had got mit uns goddess with us carved on their daggers and belt buckles and finally war mediates the tension between individual and collective by the concept of self-sacrifice special ops may be the only exception the middle ground okay let's move on Jacobson asked what happens to human psychology around war at a distance a remote war when you witness war when you see war on television what's happening to you on the one hand i i answered there is the pornography of extreme gory battle war is perceived as the ultimate reality tv a video game come alive a horror film incarnate there is vicarious gratification in witnessing all this safely from the comfort of one's living room of having been spared the atrocities on screen there's a smug sensation of accomplishment of having gotten away with it somehow distant wars also legitimize aggressive and entitled virtue signaling and competitive morality a noxious self-aggrandizing and ostentatious form of self-imputed altruism and virtue and sanctimonious sanctimony there are of course those who empathize with the dying and wounded and the suffering and they do their best to help people without asking the attendant without seeking the attendant accolades of the professional du gouda Jacobson persisted what happens to human psychology in a war up close sam vagnin answered from personal experience war is a grind there is no clear end or horizon to it all war feels like it could last forever ptsd post traumatic stress disorder is very common and so is amounting and all-consuming paranoia a sense of extreme isolation and ubiquitous threat it is as if war is a giant gas lighting experience where the very fabric of reality is torn asunder and is suspect in many wars there is little movement very few accomplishments the scene is frozen surreal gruesome death and mutilation a constant companions there is an acute fear of abandonment of getting lost and an extreme dependency on other people an external locus of control so war regresses its participants to infancy they're like babies primitive psychological defense mechanisms take over splitting alloplastic defenses defiance acting out crazy making moral collapse magical or superstitious thinking Jacobson said what separates a psychology of a bystander in war versus a combatant in war i answered civilians in war are instantly and all pervasively traumatized they react with a form of trauma bonding or Stockholm syndrome civilians perceive soldiers even the world soldiers soldiers on their side as a looming inexorable hotheaded trigger happy demented and reckless threats who are hellbent on endangering all and sundry it is as if the civilians are caught in the crossfire between two rival criminal gangs they're wary of both parties of combatants and this radical loss of ability to trust and to feel safe this no secure base this yields terror emotional dysregulation and self-destructive acting out in some people in others there's a freeze response Jacobson when it comes to politics and its psychology before during and after war what characterizes the minds of the political class citizen from high to low status in each of these phases of war i answered all politicians regard war as a legitimate and integral part of the toolbox of human affairs and i must say justly so hostilities are always in the background of diplomacy violent conflict is ineluctable inexorable and periodic in many cases warfare is considered a superior form of geopolitical signaling and the only efficacious way to secure goals politicians are therefore fatalists they are resigned to war they're inured to it they comprehend it as a force of nature and the reification of being human Jacobson when it comes to politics and its psychology before during and after war what characterizes the minds of the non-political class citizen from high to low status in each of these phases of war i told him vociferous protestations aside people love a good war it is a prime variant of dramatic entertainment a kind of exalted sport they exult in it this state of mind comprises also extreme anxiety and fear every experience is rendered sharper more crisp and memorable in clinical terms war is a psychotic fantasy a mass psychogenic illness of sorts Jacobson what factors of human psychology increase the odds of war and what decrease the odds of war I answered nothing decreases the odds of war it is a myth that economic prosperity and democracy are bulwarks and defenses against the eruption of violent conflict they're not conversely literally everything in human psychology predisposes us to aggression even empathy makes us choose sides and aggress against the abuser on behalf of the victim du jour war is therefore the natural state of the human mind it caters to numerous deep-set psychological needs war cleanses establishes a new equilibrium war catalyzes the replacement of the old with a new for better and for worse Jacobson what are the positives and negatives of war in the advancement of human civilization vaknin war is a cultural social activity that facilitates intimacy bonding and cooperation it also brings about war brings about technological innovation and the emergence and the emergence of a cathartic new social or political order each and every time it's no exception war is a rite of passage a redemptive ritual an engine of progress and a demarcator of eras Jacobson what happens to the mass psychology of a citizen citizenry or a society of the original provoking power the aggressor and the defender in the long term from war after war in other words what happens to people who are exposed to war on a constant basis humans who are exposed to repeated violence i told him in wars in prison even in hospitals such humans grow insensitive to it they dehumanize and brutalize both the other and themselves they are suspended in a post traumatic state replete with infantile psychological defenses dissociation cognitive distortions such as grandiosity and emotional numbing Jacobson given the above what can be the coder the summative principle of human psychology at war to comprehend individuals and humanity vis-à-vis war my answer was succinct like climate change war is a human phenomenon rather than confront it self delusionally we better accept war and adapt to it it is not going away no matter what we do so why waste our scarce resources on its impossible elimination j Jacobson thank you for the opportunity and your time Sam you notice at the beginning I was Dr. Vakny I ended up as Sam the just as Dr. Vakny responds thank you for enduring me yet again Scott you're a brave man indeed