Jerusalem — A phobia is an irrational fear. The threat terrorism poses to any nation is to transmute real fears into generalized irrational fears.
The statistical risk to tourists in Israel proper pales compared to the real risks we take without a thought. One is far more likely to be injured in a traffic accident than by a terrorist. Is anyone giving up driving?
The anesthetic risk in minor cosmetic surgery exceeds the risk of visiting Jerusalem. Yet the practice of cosmetic surgery is thriving.
The death rate from all murders, including terrorist murders, in Israel in this past month was less than one-seventh what it was in Milwaukee. We know in Milwaukee the safe places where the risk is least. The same is true of Israel.
In those places where tourists and youth groups now go in Israel, the actual danger of death or injury is somewhat lower than in equivalent places in the United States. Why is the perceived threat so much higher in Israel? Why is my recital of the facts so unlikely to influence anyone?
The answer lies in the illusion of great risk that is at the heart of terrorist psychological warfare. The image of the innocent teenager blown up while waiting a turn to dance by the beach has become transmuted into the reality we see for each of our children should they visit the Jewish homeland.
These are the lies that the terrorist wants to implant in your mind. The terrorist always makes war on the innocent pursuing the acts of normal life. It is only thus that the phobia is produced.
The mass media report on the front page the unusual and the dramatic, not the day-to-day murders, accidental deaths and drug deaths that make the United States statistically a far more dangerous place than Israel. The psychological fears have replaced realistic perception.
We play directly into the terrorists’ hands by bowing to these fears. They are rewarded and encouraged to try to kill more innocents.
The only effective answer to fear has been understood since Sigmund Freud’s early writing about the phobias. The phobic object must be confronted. The only thing that keeps fear from spreading and becoming all-consuming is courage and the will to stand firm.
Yet for the future of our people, there is a huge potential tragedy in the phobia itself. When one surrenders to a fear, that fear will pursue you until you are immobilized and hiding in your room.
What is the price of seeking safety from the terrorist war on the innocent? “How does the city sit solitary that was full of people!” (Lamentations 1:1). “The roads are empty of festive pilgrims” (Lamentations 1:4).
We have spent these past weeks of June traveling throughout Israel. It is a time of national shock as all realize that the dream of peace is a dream once more deferred. The overwhelming effort to sacrifice for peace has been met with a cacophony of lies and world cynicism.
I walked through streets of the old city that are usually crowded on Friday evening. I saw security forces protected by bulletproof vests and the very religious protected by their faith.
The city that was at the center of our parents and grandparents dreams and hopes is abandoned. When we diaspora Jews are most needed, few are in evidence. The hotels are empty.
Many Israelis thanked us for coming at this difficult time. Repeatedly they spoke in sadness and loneliness, not in anger. This brought us close to tears. It is the Israelis whose sons and daughters must stand guard in the areas of real danger in Judea and Samaria and Gaza
Any who sit in illusory safety giving in to the phobia Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat wants to produce place at risk the Jewish dream. If world Jewry can be deeply divided by a negligible risk, if Jerusalem can be left solitary because of fears planted by murderers, then that which generations have yearned for can be placed in peril.
>Every Jew who cares should find the means to go up to Jerusalem this year. Those who can afford to help others should help those who cannot afford to go.
Let this be the year of Jewish solidarity. This is not a year to let our money do the walking without us. Let this year be remembered as the year that a million diaspora Jews and their allies gave terrorism the only answer that can silence our enemies — ourselves.
Dr. Herzl R Spiro is a social psychologist and psychiatrist, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a long-time Zionist activist.
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