Dr Michael Benjamin

I was sat watching Rambo.

Now what the hell has Rambo got to do with you? Because Rambo really happened. I want to tell as many people as I can about the ‘accidental’ Rambo I met. I met Aric in October 1974. A tall almost emaciated Yeminite soldier. He was admitted into our Shell Shock Unit. He had been in a general Psychiatric hospital –where he had thrown the director into a decorative pool. To the directors credit he got out and threw Aric in the pool. Then he sent this misfit to our unit of complete misfits. The shell Shock Unit.| Aric was almost mute. All he would say was incomprehensible. We could follow nothing. So I gave him Pentothal. Until Aric we could always trace the cause of the trauma and recycle in a way that somehow made it ‘psyche-digestible’. But Aric just went berserk. In those awful long nights I was obsessed not by the mayhem that we were seeing. why was it not working? An injection then complete mayhem. Till then it had been the opposite. I had to get Aric back…. and I could not.. Then one night I reasoned like this:- Aric under Pentothal is virtually Psychotic. So why not give him an injection of antiPsychotic intra venously? At midnight I phoned up my boss and asked permission. Tomorrow I would inject both Pentothal and an anti-Psychotic. At eight in the morning we started. In went the Pentothal and we lost Aric again to his demons. In went the anti-Psychotc and Aric stated repeatedly : ‘Carol, how big he is. So small he is.’.That was it. Nothing more. But something. Like all successful Pentothals Aric woke up. But this time I was at a loss as to what had happened. I asked him what ” How big he was –How small he is.” meant? Who is Carol? Aric simply looked amazed. “How do you know?” “Did I say that?” . As in a very few other Pentothals we had gone to the wrong place in time. The ‘wrong trauma’. With Ephraim we had blundered into Auschwitz. With Mike, a hysterical blind victim we had found ourselves in a tank battle in 1971. With Shalom we were in a Moroccan prison. Aric had gone back to 1967— the six day war. ……. Aric had a son called Shai. Shai, his only son had died before the 6 day war started. In the 6 day war Aric was a non combatant. He was a driver of the Burial Corps. He was present when the Clergy tried to piece enough body parts to bury. Some times there was not enough. What there was they put in ammunition caskets and nailed that in the coffin and filled the rest was earth to make up the weight. Carol was Aric neighbour. There was barely enough of Carol, a very tall guy to put in the ammunition box. Aric sat by his neighbour, Carol’s, coffin all night. He asked Carol to look out for his dead son Shai when they met. He muttered to himself — well you know what….After all Carol was very tall and now there was not enough to fill the ammunition box. Aric and all his unit had sworn to keep the secret of what happened when preparing the dead that week. The Chief Military Rabbi then asked them made them swear an oath never to tell. Honour the dead and their memory. But Aric had told. Under Pentothal. Six years had passed. Inadvertently he had told us. This in his eyes was unforgivable. I want to jump forward a month. We worked a lot in Aric and made real progress. The Chief Military Rabbi in the Yom Kippur War visited us. It was a warm spring afternoon. We sat on thee grass and the Rabbi answered questions. Aric asked if what he had done was excusable? Aric was well known and respected. So there was a very heavy silence. The Rabbi turned to his two assistance. “I now declare this a Rabbinical Court and we are now in session. Aric Chatuka cover your head.” The rabbi then placed his hand on on Aric’s head. ” This court absolves you from all your oaths that you took in 1967. This court absolves you from all guilt” Aric said. ” Rabbi, these guys have fought hard for me , to help me, but no injection helped like this”. We were all in tears. But I have still to explain why Rambo? What happened in 1973? First a bit of history and a brief explanation. The Egyptian were helped by the Sudanese commando brigade as they crossed the Canal. In accordance with Soviet doctrine they were doped to their eyeballs with Ritalin. The Sudanese were the bane of our soldiers existence . They were big, fearless with bulging ferocious eyes. They were unstoppable. Well almost unstoppable. Aric stopped one. But at what a price Here’s how. …. Aric was a tank driver. They were trying to stop the Egyptian advance. They were surrounded by Sudanese. The Sudanese were unstoppable. They were like a swarm of locusts. They were everywhere. Aric’s tank commander was a greenhorn. This irritated Aric who felt he had a liability and responsibility. Aric wanted to get everyone home safely. He drove over Sudanese. He mowed them down. Aric was doing well. He was getting out of the mess. Then it went awfully wrong. The tank commander was sat half out of the tank. A Sudani killed him. Aric went after the Sudani. Aric got out of the tank and fired a machine gun at the Sudani. The Sudani kept coming . Aric was screaming at him “Die — you are already dead.” More rounds and still the Sudani is running. So with one long burst Aric cut the Sudani into two. But still the legs of the Sudani kept running. Aric past out and was mute. Months went by.The treatment was working. Aric then did something that no other soldier of mine did. He went back into reserve duty. My mistake maybe but also fate played a hand. Aric was posted to almost the exact spot where he had fought his Sudani. Then it was the demarcation line between the Israelis and Egyptians. Aric dissociated. He saw the Sudani and Aric attacked. Aric was running , weaving and firing as he advance on the now docile Egyptians. There was only one way to stop him. We ran Aric over with a command car. In the turmoil Aric was shot in the leg. There was an enquiry. There always is. This one was fair. The investigators told me that Aric was a few yards from starting the war all over again. There was grudging admiration for Aric’s soldiers craftmanship. My mistake was generously overlooked. The authorities let it pass. I went to see Aric in hospital. The Orthopedic Surgeon asked me if this was another faked malingerers suicide. I told him that it was not. No this was a real genuine fucking hero. Aric almost started another war. But his own never ended. The Sudani never left him. He drifted. Aric was in and out of trouble. Often they wanted to put Aric in a closed ward. I stopped them. But it was getting harder. Aric’s wife and neighbours were all suffering outbursts and wild behaviour. Then one day the Police phoned. It was three in the morning. They were laughing at this lunatic that admitted to a murder. “Did he murder someone?” I asked, a bit nervously. The reply was negative ” Only some Sudani” .Accompanied by more laughter. I said OK — tomorrow we’ll put him into the closed ward and I put the phone down. Then it hit me. So I phoned back to the Police. ” Are you sure that he said a Sudani?”—” Yes very sure” was the answer. At three thirty in the morning I got Aric out of the holding cells. ” You realise that the Sudani is dead — no more night mares”. I took him home. Nothing sensational. We were both very tired –of everything. Things got reasonably manageable but never any where like normal. Aric made a living as a Taxi driver. Very rarely I saw him. One day a journalist came to my clinic. She asked if what she had heard was true? —- A taxi driver had told her his story without identifying himself. He had picked her up as a fare by the clinic. How did she find me? Aric had said that whenever he felt bad he would drive by the clinic. He knew if things got really bad he always go in. That was enough for him. Aric’ s wife died of cancer. So did Aric. They are all together with Shai, Carol and the two Rabbis. Wars are fought and payed for by heroes. But heroes who did not ask to be heroes. Aric was an accidental hero and a great guy. I don’t know what this did to you. If you think on Aric for a minute — that is good. I sent this to people I know well, people I don’t know well, people that will understand and people that will not. If anyone is offended — well I am sorry. I simply wanted to share and honour Aric. I hope that you do too.

*’My oh my how did things get so crazy?
Did I get tired?
Or did I get lazy?’
Are more than lyrics.
Let’s see why………………….

I was born in the shadows of the walls of Auschwitz.
My Grandfather emigrated to the only country in Europe that managed to save its Jews, Britain.
As I grew up my Mother searched for the remains of his almost completely annihilated family.
From his despair my Zionism was engendered.

I know that this can happen again.
Only by Jews standing together can it be avoided.
The holocaust was not a crime against humanity.
It was crime committed by humanity against me and my people.
Wherever and whenever a nation, people or religion has had the opportunity and the means and opportunity to persecute Jews,it has done so. It will do so.

Israel was reshaped by the survivors. They built their dream by day.
They screamed their nightmares by night.
The lessons of the holocaust were to meld and form part of our national psyche.

A generation came and replaced these heroes who are all but gone from us. A generation that fought wars , lost its sons and fathers.
A generation that was once worthy to inherit the survivors.
A generation that blossomed.
But the blossom has faded.
The scent is of decay and decadence.
Ideals, that were meant to be, have all become mocking caricatures.
The survival of the reverent, revered and respected religious was won and lost
Where and why did they turn their back on their fellow non observant Jews?
The erudite, ethical and emancipated pursuers of Law and Justice won and lost.
Where, how and with who’s blessing did the judiciary hi-jack and impose their opinion?
The representatives of the citizens are neither represent nor are they civilised.
The Police are corrupt.
The Defense Force ejects Jews from their homes. Jews who are who are in their ranks.
Yet dare not touch the home of those who will kill us. Why?
Jewish parents now regularly murder their children.
How did this happen?
What has happened to us?

Protecting our fate from an imminent nuclear attack are an establishment that gave us:-
A serial rapist for a President.
A Minister of Treasury who stole from Holocaust survivors.
A Prime Minister who is a serial embezzler.
A Minister who marked his decision to send soldiers to war by sexually violating one of them.
A Commander In Chief who on the outbreak of war was deeply troubled by the future of his stock portfolio.
A Chief Of Police replaced because of criminality.
A future Prime Minister appointed by votes obtained in one Arab town and burnt in another.
A war that was fought with no plan.

Yet no one pays a price.
No one has to.
Incompetence is rewarded.
Deceit is the accepted norm.
Have we become Chelm?
Are we Alice living through the looking glass?
No we are not………………………

We are living in Israel.

In Israel to day there is no shame and no guilt.
There are certainly no mirrors.
No one sees themselves.
We see what is not their. Our vanity and inflated sense of self worth.

We do not see what is there.
We do not see ourselves.
We do not see our unmitigated blame.
We refuse to see where we are being led.

This is all our faults.
We are all guilty.
We are all sinners.

This Yom Kippur we cannnot say “I have sinned”
— we are continuing to sin=

We were all given our people and land to protect, preserve and pass on.
We are custodians. Nothing more. Nothing less.
We are failing.
There will be nothing left of either the land or the people.
Yet we are all letting this happen.

My prayer is not to ask forgiveness for what was.
Neither I nor you deserve forgiving.
We need to atone.
We must mend that that is broken.
We must start by becoming part of the blame.
We must start by being ready to be part of the solution.
The way is not complex.
The resolve is key.
If we accept our responsibility we can and will change all.
The time has come to do that.

As a non religious Jew my one prayer for Yom Kippor is that you accept this truth:-
You are at fault.
You are the answer.
Just ask, ” How?”

I’ll tell it the way that it was. No simplification or glorifications– just as it was.
As so often I was living in the partial guilt of a mistake I’d made. In itself not a terrible one. My brother Gerald laughed. Mum would have been very annoyed . I had broken a few cardinal rules. I’d have got her rebuking glance. A partial smile, saying ‘ you ninny’ , a glimpse of anger, a tinge of regret, a hint that she expected more , was really expecting no more, but hoped for ever more.
The Poles are masters of saying nothing and imparting everything. My father was of Russian descent. Born of a nation destined to talk. To talk for ever. My Russian dad spoke. My Polish Mum imposed. You can ignore Dad, Mum lives on forever. Selective attention let me escape Dad’s harangues and discourses. I didn’t miss much. Dad never changed his mind or attitudes. If asked I could have readily given the impression I was listening. Like being in the rain with a good raincoat. With Mum it was like being in a river. With luck you could keep your head above water. Only on swimming in the direction of the current.
But what had I done? Well the day before my little brother Laurence, in his terminally fastidious manner informed that the Rabbi and burial society wanted Mum’s wedding contract. We wanted Mum and Dad are buried alongside each other. To have similar head stones. But first he wanted to see the marriage contract.
On hearing this I went ballistic. I angered at the Rabbi and the burial society. I’ve inherited Dad’s long windedness. Yorkshire’s sensitivity to exploitation and manipulation are also of me. So the letter was terse, sarcastic and bitingly bitter. I demanded to know why? I enquired after the sanity of the Rabbi and burial society. I briefly but thoroughly delved into the morality of all in sundry. I wondered if they unhappy with the document would they dig one of our parents up?
In fact the letter was many things. Of one thing it most definitely was not. It was not my intentions that the recipients of my ire were to be the recipients of the diatribe. In this wonderful era of technology we are envelope free. There are no free meals. The bad taste left by licking stamps and envelopes has gone. On hitting the reply button to my brother unfortunately the Rabbi and burial society were blessed with my opinion of them. Thus replacing one bad taste with another.
I had broken the ‘golden rules’. Never make anyone feel ashamed or embarrassed. Behave like a gentleman. You kill more flies with honey than vinegar. The last aphorism was Dad’s favourite. It would appear anywhere and everywhere. So even if out of place here it would have been trundled out.
Mum and Dad would have been united. The ‘clot’ had done it again. The failed experiment that was their first born had run his predestined course of lunacy. They would have been delighted with their third attempt at perfection, my little brother Laurence’s somehow elegantly managing to diplomatically put some kind of gloss on the issue with a beautiful excuse.
So we ended the day united as one. Three brothers. My lunacies respected, Gerald’s humour loved and Laurence’s diligence and good sense loved and respected.
But fate did not let it pass at that…
I am a liberated Jew. I’ve been liberated from all the gibberish clap trap that observance demands. I don’t need it. God has something to say, then I’m here. I don’t ‘need’ an intermediary. Judaism is not a franchise. God is not McDonalds. So the years mourning after Mum’s death is not for me. I go my own way. That way, that evening was to a wedding .
Dressed to the teeth, one of my friends said I look like a funeral director. So I was overdressed. But I was there. At the beginning of the evening we have the ritual ceremony. The Rabbi did his bit. The groom did his bit. The bride did her bit. And God did his bit. He addressed me. Not directly but I was given a very stark message.
The Rabbi is our village Rabbi. Like most I cannot decide if I like him, if I admire him or even if I support him in his unending war of the Jews that involves his day to day existence. But I heard his ceremony patter before. But being fore warned was no to be fore armed.
The Rabbi told the young couple to keep their wedding contract and he blessed them with the prayer that they can forget it’s existence and just abide by its contents. The same wedding contract that had elicited my diatribe.
In my native Yorkshire the weather is not that of my native Israel. Squalls unexpectedly appear and drench you. Warmth is replace by an all pervading sense of misery. I was back in Yorkshire, sad and unhappy. I was in an Israel where I was observing a year of mourning. But more so much more….
In my minds eye I was at the wedding of the young couple that were my parents. I saw a composite that was my dear Mother as she went down the aisle. There she was on the arm of the one man she adored. Her father, the man from whom she adopted all his philosophies and attitudes. She made them her own. Pride, loyalty to the family, love of justice were her and then our DNA. But two things were overlooked. Dada was a fun loving man. He was impish and irreverent. Mum could only manage wryness and the occasional giggle. The other was Dada had let Mum down. When Mum’s mother had died when she was fourteen she had been cast aside. Subtly, probably less than she felt but it was there. Hidden under the carpet. Hidden from all except those who knew and they were bequeathed never to acknowledge. That was why the man she loved was leading her down the aisle to a man she would never love. Her husband and our Dad was to be respected, loyal to, obeyed and erstwhile , but only erstwhile, loved. Mum would never be let down again. One big unexpected disappointment traded in for one perpetual small aching disappointment. All under the carpet, but never to be acknowledged. In later years the couple would oppose any of their children if they wished to marry for love. A ‘tradition’ that I unwittingly maintained. But I digress. I saw me and Mum as a boy. How close we were. I bore the brunt of her angers and she was my perpetual confident. How I’d circle the kitchen table being debriefed after school. I simply loved my Mother. I knew she was unhappy. I used to have a fantasy. That I was her father and I could ‘fix’ her sadness. I became a shrink and as a surrogate I failed too. I married a wife who would never love me and, like Mum, never admit it. Imitation is the most sincere of compliments. Even inadvertent imitation. Mum had fears of death. Again never to be admitted to. She admitted to nightmares about the dead. They were there all her life. Only as she approached death did they cease. I felt that if I stayed young she would never age. Death would never take her. Even now I feel her still here. I still look to see what the weather is like in Leeds. Mum liked good weather.
This collage of memories and sensations all around the vows. Even in death they appertain. The vows are of all. Death does not us part.
I entered the wedding as a irreligious celebrator. I left the wedding as a chastened mourner.
I left alone.
I drove home alone.
I left with Mum.
I drove home with Mum.
She’s reading this with you.
I miss you Mum. It takes more than a year. It takes forever

Posted in Uncategorized at 7:42 am by admin
Unfortunately I am a psychiatrist.
Even more so I am an amateur history buff.
Compound this by being an Israeli.
Now listen to what I have to say.

Yesterday there was no doubt in my mind. By any standards anyone speaking in the tones of Ahminajaad  would be forcibly hospitilised.
The man is delusional, paranoid & megalomanic. His thinking is both rigid and rambling. His logic is unassailable and uncontestable.
The man’s themes are destruction and messianic redemption. Justified hatred and vindication of mayhem are his promised actions.
To allow this man any access to national might and indeed weapons of destruction is more than lunacy. It is a crass and criminal dereliction of duty.
The writing is plainly on the wall.
The writings were written in the hand of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot.
Yet world leaders,as led by Obama refuse to read the writing on the wall.
They insist on colliding full force with the wall.

In a conceit verging on delusional Obama refuses to hear or consider what is said. What is said is of no import to he. What he, Obama, thinks and how he thinks is the lingua franka of any and every mindset. Obama cannot and will not accept that his genius and persuasion will never stop the Persian lunatic. Obama cannot and will not gain any insight into anything that may suggest any flaw in his own divinity.
Obama has learned nothing.
Ahminijaad has learned everything.

If this was not enough both men are intertwined in an all encompassing obsession with the Jewish State. The Black hole that is Obama’s vanity has disposed  of the fact that the Palestinian cannot make peace. That Hamas are the legally elected representatives not Abbas and his Kleptocrats. That Hamas are the more powerful. That Hamas object to peace. That  Hamas object violently to Israel’s existence. That Hamas share with Ahminijaad  the vitriolic hatred of Jews and the justification of their eradication. That Hamas and the Hezbollah are armed to the teeth by Iran.
Both see the Jewish state and the Palestinians as the pinnacle of their preoccupations and delusions.
The proclamation of the gospel in the words of Obama
The missing Imman as discovered  by Ahminajaad.
Both will be performed in Jerusalem.
Both will arise, vindicated, from the Armageddon

The erudite professor did not notice that any attempt at making arrangements in the middle east can only start after the end has been promised before the start. Sadat, Oslo and the Jordanian treaty are the examples.
Obama did not realise that any and very failed process has led to violence that got out of hand and control. It took a year to realise that the settlement freeze was a fatal tactical flaw that only a neophyte could make. The Palestinians cannot negotiate without it and Israel cannot with it. Why, is not important. Who imposed it? Obama. Why? He doesn’t like Bibi.

So we are now in a process that cannot succeed any way with a built in detonator placed there by Obama. With a promise of an Iran precipitated mayhem when it inevitably goes kaput.

I have learned that obvious things happen. It was obvious that  a neophyte who by the age of fifty thought his life experiences were reason for not one autobiography but two would be dangerously ill equipped to be President. There was a vain hope that he would learn. He has not.
It is obvious that paranoid psychotics will act on their delusions.

Both players are encumbered and paralysed by a deep flaw which has taken over completely. Ahminijaad psychotic messianic paranoia and Obama’s all embracing narcissism.

The big bang meets the black hole.
The testing ground: Israel.

Obama’s intolerance of fools is noteworthy. Over this presidential incumbency he has honed his ability to hide his distaste, but not completely.

He was sorely tested once again by his nemesis Bibi Netanyahu. Obama, in spite of being blessed by a fratricidal Republican party has an intensely harsh re-election battle to face. The Jewish vote is essential. The Jewish vote has to be boosted not weakened. Nothing unites the Jews more than Holocaust fears. Nothing girds the Jews more than the twin boost of a new strength and the ability to stand alone. Bibi’s speech spoke to the Jews as Jews in a community of Jews. Obama needs the Jews as American Democrats.

Ah you ask doe that mean we Israelis, the new Jews, kowtow to America? Do we change our national interests? Do we risk extinction to keep ‘the boss’ happy? The answer is ‘No’. And here is the reason why….

It is in our vital national interest that the Iranian threat be eliminated. But this begs a question. What is the Iranian threat? The answer is not a nuclear bomb that may or may not come into existence The threat is the multiplicity of materiel and forces ranged against us. The bomb is but one. There are the vast arsenals and armies to the south & north. The dangers of which are compounded by a wounded Syria with its additional missile and chemical and biological technologies.

Iran is a cancer with secondary growths. Eradication of such a mortal threat involves reducing powerful side effects. Sometimes the side effects are more catastrophic than the cure. Before choosing the medication lets consider how do we take it and what does it involve.

Of one thing is sure. The price of oil will soar. Israel will be castigated mercilessly by a united worlds diplomacy. Cringing whining comparisons with the response to Syria’s barbaric acts will be of no avail. Is this preventable? Yes… but a regimen and plan must be in place. This involves having a functional Foreign ministry. A functional foreign ministry is a non sequitur when the Foreign Secretary is as a completely dysfunctional as is Liebermann.

We need American diplomacy. After the November election we will be faced by either an angry defeated Obama or an annoyed victorious Obama. If we attack before November Obama’s chances are severely curtailed. The damaged US economy, reeling under increased oil prices will be a probable death blow to Obama’s re- election attempts. In short Obama’s election plans include Bibi.

Obama played his only card. He gave Bibi the means to delay his attack. Bibi received the vital materiels and logistics needed by Israel. The ‘bunker busters’ and refueling capabilities are in Israel’s hands. Capability wise the US and Israel time frame are as one.

Today Bibi seems triumphant. But does today count? Apart from changing this weeks opinion polls today is almost irrelevant. Today’s relevance is that of its import on tomorrow. What does our tomorrow hold?

What are the conditions that we need to undergo our radical anti-cancer therapy? What will give us our best chance? What will give Israel maximum effect and with minimum cost?

Israel has four goals: To minimize the immediate efficacy of the Hamas, to reduce the efficacy of the Hezbollah, to reduce the efficacy of Syria and to reduce the efficacy of Syria. Israel has one danger: To avoid alienation of world opinion.

You may question the order and priorities. But in real terms with relation to immediacy of damage they’re are the right ones. The key to the first three lay in the hands of Turkey. The best way to arrive at a concord of interests with Turkey is via US diplomacy…. Obama. With Turkey aligning itself with Israel world fury after a strike with Iran will be lessened. Israel need Turkey ‘on board’— Obama can help deliver them.

Israel has to look carefully at the calendar. An attack before November will completely alienate Obama. He loses his economy and his Jewish supoort is eroded. The diplomatic costs will be immeasurable.

The answer is so simple. At least it was. It was in Israel vital interests to thank Obama. It is in Israel’s vital interest that Obama wins the election. At the very least a post November Obama must support an Israeli attack. If not we enter a period of inactivity till March. In March the incumbent Republican will declare ‘it’s too late— blame Obama’. No newly incumbent Republican President will bring his economic roof down on himself for Israel. No matter what his promises are.

A wise Bibi would have set up this deal: An attack after November if and when sanctions fail. Complete US diplomatic backing, US engendered reawakening of the Israeli – Turkish alliance of common interests. In return Bibi would ‘sanitize’ Obama’s ‘Jewish credentials’. Strengthen Obama electorally. Keep the Jews as active democrat supporters

In short on giving Obama a fighting chance Obama would give Bibi a fighting chance.

Bibi being Bibi decided that an improved fleeting popularity was of more importance.