Dr Michael Benjamin

First of all as a person. I have met a few Muslims living in the UK. From that you cannot generalise. None of us should. The three cameos so to speak were: A taxi driver all in white, sneering and subliminally jeering. At his taxi stand with his mates oggling lewdly birds. The second also a taxi driver. Very nice guy who wanted to learn from the Jewish community how to be a Brit and found it hard as his Dad was ’emotionally loyal to Pakistan’. The third a hearing aid technician. My hearing aid had packed in & they had give gave me a new one for free. It was understood I’d send it back from Israel. It was Ramadan. I told her about the Hezbollah and the grudging respect we had for them and Nasrallah’s leadership. I gave her 20 pounds to donate to a charity ‘from an old Israeli yid  who wants peace’. She and I were very moved.

From there to generalities is forbidden.
Next as someone who understands minorities, immigrants and second generation. There is an enormous crisis. Their parents ‘came from and are loyal to–‘ The kids are neither. And they hit both glass ceilings and glass walls. We Jews were doubly lucky. We expect that. It’s built in. So when we experience hostility and racism we accept like a hypochondriac who finally has an an illness diagnosed. The Muslim weren’t bred that way. Also we grew up sans the hypocrisy of PC. We knew that we were not liked. To keep ourselves to ourselves. Respect and suspect was our attitude to our hosts. But no allusions. The Muslims haven’t had the same treatment. They are told ‘cultural equality’, ‘melting pot’ , ‘racial tolerance’, ‘equal opportunities’. That’s what they hear and they are bitter at the con. Worst of all when it doesn’t work they are at fault. So you have a very bitter, rootless generation who don’t know who they are, what they believe, what is their role and where do they belong. And IS answered all the questions. That is your problem. It is hard for me to answer. As an Israeli we have integrate very difficult immigration waves. The latest are the Ethiopians. Success? Only partial but a large part. The second generation or first generation Israelis’ are targeted. National service is a great social leveler and is used as such. All soldiers are offered free education at any and every level. On the other hand the political – social leaders have a vested interest in maintaining a par. If not it’s like the Turkeys voting for Xmas. So nothing is perfect.
The nearest we have is East Jerusalem. Another erudite piece of Israeli stupidity that is a product of slogans and shallow politicians. We have now a generation of East Jerusalem Arabs who are not Israeli , not Palestinian, not working and very explosive. The Shin Bet will keep the lid down but the politicians can’t solve the problem. Having run up the wrong flag they are hoisted by their own petard.  Your politicians are following suit. Its’ not about bombs or boots. It’s about banality and balls. 
Balls to do what? For once the useless Bibi can serve as an example. For good and for bad. Bibi said outright not to enter deep into Gaza. But Gaza is not IS. Gaza is defined, enclosed and throttled by Egypt. [Not us]. We could destroy the three M’s–men. money and materiel . Bombs may do a bit to all three. But you need direct control of the area. We had it. You do not. We bombed the living shit out of them. You cannot for two reasons. The first being ability and secondly public opinion which was whipped up when we did it. Remember bombing causes cohesion amongst the bombed. Something the IS wants. It’s a social Stockholm Syndrome. 

Lastly lets look at the horror issue. We are inured to this. Again two reasons. Just about every religion has had a hand at it. All justifying it in the name of ‘good’ as defined by them. I say most and we are inured because often we were the ‘benefactors’ of the religious mayhem the ‘good’ inflicted. These things come and they go.
The real question is geo political. Ask yourselves what we do. What do we want and what do we care? Why? Because do you care enough to achieve what you want? Stop reacting to the tempo of your ADHD, impulse control challenged politicians. As an Israeli I can vouch that wars are fought for a real reason. Not to save some politicians bacon. Especially those who lead from behind or from their behinds.
I was asked as an Israeli. What would be my  point of view? I’d ask what we ask:  What do I want?– That they leave us alone. For us it was defanging. For you it’s the returnees. Stop them going. Stop them having receptive audiences when they return.  If you do not have social reform IMO you are seriously fucked. Do you care enough to lead the fight? Have you the ability? IMO definitely not. Go back to the old UK stratagem of  balance of power. Contain them. Back the Kurds to the hilt. They, Jordan and Egypt are your boots.Give then drones. Advise them. No more than that. Block Qatar and Turkey who are aiding the bastards. Talk hard with the degenerate Saudis. They cannot have it both ways. No more tacit support to IS or Quada or they are hung out to dry.
All this means being cool, calculating and honest. It means accepting what you can and cannot do. What you should and should not do. We haven’t the desire or needs to obliterate our enemies. We can not correct the middle east. Neither can you. So we look for allies. Influence and stay out till you are threatened immediately. You are not threatened.Then we work at strengthening the social fabric.
In short stop the bombing, get into the Muslim communities. Aid the Kurds, Egyptian and Jordanians to the hilt. It’s their fight not yours.

There is a big difference between interests and involvement. 
Do remember that I was specifically asked 

Sometimes, maybe most of the times, I feel like I am swimming underwater. Sounds are muffled. Visions are blurred.
Yes I loved politics. I followed US, UK, Israeli and neighboring Arab politics. From a child social abuser I have matured into a full grown cynical pusher and user.
With experience has come the despair.
The sea is populated by minnows with delusions of grandeur. Waders who sink out of sight. Grandiose divers who repeatedly belly flop. The minnows lead the whales. The sharks are everywhere. And the ubiquitous bottom eaters of detritus head the food chain.
Self-designed and designated fishers of men attempt to reap the harvest of social tsunami. Damage for which they have no solution. In their never ceasing narcissistic self-involvement they see themselves as everything and all. They are the beginning, middle and the end. There is but one thing they cannot see. What they truly are. The cause. And given the opportunity they so crave they will cause so many more disasters.
In America we have a President who has managed to disappoint even the most callous and cynical predictions about him. The vanity of a man who before the age of forty had written two autobiographies.  A man who’s all-pervading facileness has been exported worldwide under the logo of ‘Wrecks America’.
Israel its own intrepid narcissistic warrior. A man who fought a war fighting those who tried to kill us and failed. He fought under the slogan that we will not kill. And he failed. A man who craves for a need to satisfy his never ending craze for self-glorification. His self-image grotesquely bloated like any other hunger crazed disorder. A man who shallowly claims beliefs that he dispenses with in the name of expedience. The expedience being his vanity.
Around us a sea of a destitute self-proclaimed nations. All with the delusional heritages and narratives of opium smokers.  People hijacked and liberated in ever increasing repeating cycles. The kleptomaniacs, the religious zealots, the psychopathic murders replace each other ad infinitum. One becomes the other then is replaced by an upgraded degraded clone in a ritualistic blood frenzy.
And when all is lost they start a war. When the war is lost they start a peace. They succeed in neither.
And the people die. And the people live in poverty. And the people bear the pain.
The sea is murky and the currents unfathomable.
Like all addicts there comes a time when the addiction is spent. The destruction is irreparable. The drug induced lie that is hope is no longer to be evoked.

I looked long and hard. I decided once. Changed my mind. Thought again. Almost decided. And then I stopped.
After all they’re all against us? We try harder. Yet we get criticised the most. 
But I gave to Amnesty International. Here’s why:
The uncalled, for tax purposes, Gaza war was fought by two sides. Hamas who tried to kill as many as possible. And Israel who tried to kill as few as possible. Both sides failed miserably. What is better? To be alive by mistake or dead by mistake? What is more reprehensible? 
I fought my part in this war. A soldier on the Social front. An Internet warrior of great tenacity. I could answer every point. Except one…’But we expect you to be better. And you let  us down’. That ricocheted through my mind till this day. And that is why I donated to Amnesty International to investigate.
The honest truth is I have doubts. The concept was rickety and naive. Knock down houses and the homeless will do the rest. Well they didn’t did they? And the dwellers in the houses died. In their thousands. Never mind what, they died. Even more frighteningly I ask another question. If we have to issue warnings does that not mean that we knew there were inherent dangers? Are we absolved because the warnings were inadequate or unheeded? Especially when the process was to make the ‘newly born homeless’ politically aware? A failed policy with a failed execution. And deaths. Does no one answer? 
We have to ask about the ill named Hannibal Doctrine. In its name it says it all. Let the elephants loose. The HD says simply if a soldier is feared lost then use massive fire power to prevent him being held captive. It is the awful conclusion that we reached following the Schallit episode. There one kidnapped  soldier led to release of hundreds of jailed terrorist. But as so many things in Israeli doctrine one asks was it thought out? It may not have been.  Or so it seems. When a soldier’s body disappeared enormous fire power was directed at the area. It was a residential area. And no small part of a Gazan city was decimated. Which rules of fire were used? Was every target approved? The episode is suspect. It should be investigated independently. 
Many if not all Israelis, I certainly am, are rankled by the fact that we are investigated vigorously and our enemies are not. Worse yet, our Judges are often worse culprits than us. 
But is that the reason to refuse? No it is not. It is the reason to demand equality and impartiality? The lack of these does not give us immunity. 
We Israelis live in asymmetrical wars, asymmetrical peace processes, asymmetrical expectations and asymmetrical values. We enjoy as a result asymmetrical quality of life, asymmetrical achievements  and an asymmetrical standing in the world community.
We are expected to be a ‘light unto the nations’. Maybe it is part of the Tikun Olam we believe in. To do so we must accept an asymmetrical justice. 

https://donate.amnestyusa.org/ea-action/action

Junk in my mind just floating around
Resurfacing every now and then
In the grey seas a storm roaring
Pounding a little indiscriminate ship.
In the sky a dream is soaring
just a tin can , just a tin can.
The sea breaks the ship but not the man
Karlsen by name stays all alone
They beg him please leave
The sea will take you
Karlsen will not …
In sky a the tin can is sailing
From it mens voices talking
Hawser to the boat are sent and broken
In the tin can words are spoken
Men heard men for the first time in space
This little tin can with immaculate grace
Dante jumps from his tug boat across the sea
Together alone Karlsen and he
Two heroes together the world watched and prayed
Two voices talking with everything to say
The boat went down the two heroes were saved
The tin can broke contact that it gave
Both the tin can and the boat died that day
The junk lives on – it has so much to say
Man can touch man, man can save man
Just a tin can, just a tin can

Thank you: Flying Enterprise, Captain Karlsen, Tugman Dante, Telstar, Richard Dimbleby & Goonhilly Bank, for those memories

A child of the ‘60’s has a curse and blessing. We have musical ADHD. We think in terms of either song or film titles. Or at least that is my excuse.

Let me encompass my recollection my way. They are mine to encompass. They are personal. So, selfishly, I will present them to assuming that you too have my presentational preferences.

MOON RIVER: A song about a man and his river.

“Two drifters off to see the world. There is such a lot of world to see……………………

…But we are after the same, Rainbows end — it’s waiting round the bend —

Moon River and me”

Like a river we flow with our experiences.. Rocks like experiences become part of that river. We flow with it. Sometimes our river is placid. Sometimes it is a surging torrent casting all before it. Sometimes it breaks its banks. Experiences are forever entering the river. The river carries them along. Sometimes it does so with ease. Sometimes they cause eddies and turbulence. Sometimes the experience dams the stream. The dam causes flooding mud and devastation. Afterwards the stream is reduced in its vigour and richness.

But all in all the quality and richness of our river is the sum of our experiences and how we flow with them.As we navigate the river of our life we are aware that we may hit a rock. That brings me to my next point of departure:

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME: A Shakespearean quote used as a book and film title. It means so many things. But the bottom line concerns conceptualisation and reality.
At time of extreme stress we tend to a few things to cope.

1. In acute danger we survive. We do so by either running, freezing so as to avoid attention or crying for help. They are highly efficient mechanism. We survived the jungle with these gambits. They do not need changing. They are certainly not a cause of remorse, shame or self-rebuke. When your life is at threat that is what you do. We secrete massive amounts of adrenalin. The adrenalin turns off everything that is superfluous. This includes thinking. At this moment we react. Adrenalin turns on everything that we need. I speeds our heart, it cools us with sweat, and it prepares our muscles to run. It causes us to cry, literally for help. Crying is a highly efficient way of gaining attention and help. Screaming is even more so. Most important it changes our sense of time. Past and future al virtually erased. The present is as if slowed down.
At that moment our stream has stopped.. This stage is called fear. It is a distinct, well-coordinated reaction to a highly defined cause. Our life is in real danger.

2. Immediately after the danger there is a stage of recuperation. The danger has passed. The adrenalin is still highly active. Time is still slowed down. It is still hard to think in our usual logical way. We are still in a state of arousal. It takes adrenalin a good few hours to burn off. Afterwards there is a feeling similar to a hangover or ‘crash’. We feel tired and listless. We may feel sad. It is the adrenalin. That is all. Our appreciation of time is still not as it was. We can drift back to the event. But now it is a memory. We remember the event as a memory. The memory can be vivid. The memory of our pain and fear can be almost as if they were re-happening. But they are not. The sadness and pain diminish slowly but surely. We all remember when we lost someone dear. Maybe through death. Maybe someone you loved very much loved you less. But we have all experienced the first day. As if there will never be another day. But there is. This is a real pain. The sense of sadness and tiredness is real.

3. The recuperation becomes in the days to come a memory. It is an unpleasant memory. You have learned the hard way that your experience could have ended your life. A lesson learned the very hard way. You will be reluctant to remember. But you will be equally reluctant to endanger yourself in ant similar way. This is how we have not only coped but learned how to avoid danger.

Now what has this to do with “A rose by any other name”? Because these stages are blandly called ‘anxiety’, ‘depression’ or ‘adjustment disorders’. They most certainly are not. They are normal healthy reactions.

So what is anxiety? Anxiety is the fear of something unknown. Now I will say something that may seem odd. Please be patient with me. It is not the event that is the fear but the inability to know the likelihood of it happening. Anxiety is not merely the fear of something unknown. Anxiety is caused by the inability ascertain the likelihood of the event happening.

Let me give you an example. We all know that we will die. We are anxious obout death only when we are not certain that it is not imminent. Generally but always the sufferer can point to the cause of his anxiety. When he cannot as he has so many the same principles applies. The anxiety is the inability to say what the likeliness is.

We not only flow with our river of experiences. We navigate our river too. In our river here are rocks. We know that. They are only important when we do not know at what depth they are. If they are near the surface then the navigator is alert. He is anxious. If the rocks are defined then he suffers from ‘specific anxiety’. If he feels that there are undefined rocks but he cannot ascertain if they are not immediately imminent then the navigator suffers from ‘General Anxiety’. The shallower the river, the more it is blocked ‘upstream’ the closer the rocks are to the surface.

So what is depression? Depression is a sense of loss accompanied by grief and often anger. After, any event for better or worse, the river of your experience continues to flow. If you have left something behind that you wanted with you, there is a sense of loss. Your river of life has lost its richness and quality. This is true depression.

So you see life’s quality is about the depth and quality of our own river of experiences. How we flow with them. How we deal with events is called coping. Coping is a mixture of ability, expectation and complexity of the problem.

At critical moments when a bomb falls we can do but a few important things.

1. Expectation: By carefully explaining what is happening to the traumatized person one can efficiently and effectively change expectations. In the early stages[ hours to days] it is generally more than enough to simply explain to the person what is happening to him as it happens. In other words to minimize his criticism of himself. Avoid the ‘name of the rose’ mistakes. Avoid labeling.

2. Strengthen and enrich his ‘river of experiences’. Help him identify with the events, to feel actively involved in a struggle that he identifies himself with. To use examples in his past where pain passed.

If you can get into his river, help him enable the flow to restart then you have helped. To survive remember to get out of his river and back into your own.

Michael ‘Row the boat ashore’ Benjamin

.

Bored listening to this loser I looked up and day dreamed Looking through not too clean widows at a perfect Mediterranean sky.
Not even a good thief the stupid sod kept getting caught.
As with all good thieves he had started life early by being delinquent. Running away from home. Sleeping anywhere he could.
Teddy annoyed me. There was no need. His Mother had struggled and his Father had known nothing but surviving.
A family that had fought and had born every pain with varying degrees of success. Apart the shame from their thieving son.

It started before Teddy was born. Just after 1945 a young man wandered into a peaceful village by the forest in Poland. A quiet guy very good at fixing things. Kept himself to himself. No one was surprised when he married one of the village girls. No one was surprised when within 5 years they were a family of six.

Everyone was amazed when he told his wife that he was a Jew. Not a religious Jew. He had given up on God. God had given up on him. Life began with his footsteps into the village. Nothing before. It was all erased. The Germans wanted to erase every memory of all thing Jewish. Teddy father wanted to too.
Despite their efforts both failed.
Teddy’s wife then did the strangest thing possible. She demanded that this stranger took her and her children to a strange land and to live with strange people.
He was forced to come to Israel.
He insisted that they were brought up as Catholics. She reluctantly agreed but slowly the kids became Israelis. In the army they became Jews. But Teddy’s father’s past was locked.

No one knew his name. The family name was unknown. They did know that he went to bed only after he made sure that were a few slices of bred hidden away. Bread was never thrown out. Teddy’s father never really trusted anyone. Drifted in and out of jobs but provided. A tense closed man. Always angry and disappointed at Teddy’s behaviour.

So we sat as I heard some more inane explanations about how Teddy could beat the system. No shame no sorrow. I was drifting letting the hours pass by. Both Teddy and me were playing the Therapy game.
He came.
I listened.
Both of us knew that this was a waste of time.
But that was what I did. Not every therapy works.

Like every one else I got annoyed at Teddy. So annoyed I attacked him. Because I was annoyed and I am human.
‘If you’re such a good thief how the hell do you get caught so often?’
Spiteful but as I said I am human.

The answer was – well you judge. I’ll just say that I never expected it.

‘I like standing outside the house I’ve burgled, in the shadows and watch the Police arrive?’

‘You do what !?‘
‘I stand in the shadows under the trees and watch. I wonder if they’ll catch me.’

‘Just like in the forest. Teddy , you must really love your Dad if you want to be so much like him.’ That wasn’t spite. I was awe struck.

They say a picture tells a thousand words. Teddy face was a picture of revelation, a picture of amazement and then a picture of aching sadness. Shadows flitting across his face , winds whispering in his memories and emotions rustling in a breeze of feelings that were always there but locked. Thousands and thousands of words. None spoken. Just like his Dad. You can say so much by saying nothing.

Teddy never stole gain.

If this was a story I could invent that the father and son bonded. They didn’t. Teddy made a lousy marriage. He had two kids. He showed tremendous strength by bringing up his children on his own. Teddy’s a great dad.

Teddy’s mother died. She was buried as a non Jew. Around her grave were at least twenty children, grandchildren and great grand-children.
All of them Jews.
All because of her.
Beneath the ground a non Jew.
Above it, in heaven she was a great Jewess.

Before she died Teddy’s father told them all his story. Who he was, where he’d been, what he’d done and what he was called. They kept it to themselves.

Teddy’s dad has one person in this earth he talks to. Teddy’s nephew. One day Teddy’s dad was very ill. We thought that he was going to die.
He didn’t but he said some thing.
Teddy’s nephew is religious. He has a beard.
Teddy’s dad suddenly said ‘My grandson reminds me of my father. He was a religious Jew too. ‘

In the woods in Poland. In the echoes, if you listen you can hear the sound of a lonely Jewish child crying.

Where to begin?
Jokes about a Polish Jewish mother. Should I start there? My Mother really was and is Polish Jewess. May God allow her to be so many more years.
At the time the jokes weren’t funny. They were just part of the way it was.
Mum thought that we could survive by being prepared to run.
‘Learn medicine. So when you run you take everything with you in your head’.
‘When you run’. Not if you run. Even in the mid 20th century in Yorkshire, in the goyish of goyish places we had to be ready. It was coming again. We had to have clean under pants too in case we got run over. We cannot show Mum up.
A joke— ? No that’s the way that we existed. Ready to run. The day would come.

But my Father was anglicized. He knew we could have a better life. It was quite simple for Dad. ‘If there are 10 Jews you can make ‘them’ feel as if you are a 100 or 1. Make them feel that there is only one. Better still none.’ That was it. Just disappear – if you didn’t want them to get you.

Two parents one message camouflage yourself and be ready. Always be ready. Look out for other Jews, but if they draw attention to themselves avoid them. Remember that your behaviour can lead to them being gassed. Thiers could lead to you being gassed. Jews were unwilling guarantors to each other. And never trust a Goy. ‘Just scratch them. It’s under the surface. It’ll come out. Never trust them’.

But Dad had other ideas too. You could not let the goys walk over you. If you cringed and hid and did not go out provoking anti Semitism and you got it — then hit back.
That was the rules. They left you alone if you retreated into your mobile schtell. But if you got a pogrom hit back. This was our freedom. Rules on how to exist.

So when Barry Regan thumped me Dad went into action. Barry was my friend. A big goy who towered above me. I cannot remember why he hit me. But he did and hard. So home I went crying. What did Dad do? He threw me out. ‘The goy hit you. Go back and hit him. Don’t come back to you do. If not he’ll bully you as a weak Jew’.

So off I went to Barry’s house. Terrified and weeping I pressed the door bell. Barry opened the door and I hit him. He burst into tears. I ran. Still crying I raced home.

This is true. If it was a fable I would have had a positive experience. I should admire Dad for making me tough. I don’t. I still feel the terror. I wanted to be Barry’s pal. I ended being terrified of both him and my Dad.

So here I am in Israel. Nowhere to run to. But still not safe. Still sure that they’ll come and get me. Sure I can hit out. In fact I do. But wishing someone once would protect me. Someone once would be my friend. But above all just let me be. Let me be. Let mine be.

Dad’s dead, Barry is a memory but all the shadows and nuances live on in me and in the shadows that follow me.

I am an Israeli.