Book Talk: Richard Forer, "Wake up and Reclaim Your Humanity: Essays on the Tragedy of Israel-Palestine"
An American Jew tells of his awakening to the facts about the conflict
A friend passed Richard Forer’s book on to me a few months ago. It was published in 2020, before the current genocide. I found it to be disorganized at times, and sometimes needing clarification, but it is a worthy study into Forer’s awakening to the truth about the Israel-Palestine conflict. It is perhaps more relevant because of his perspective as an American Jew who was sucked into Israeli myths such as the idea that the conflict is due to Arabs not accepting a Jewish state.
Forer states that while growing up as an American Jew, Israel formed a large part of his identity, to the point where if someone criticized Israel, it felt like they were criticizing him. Over the years he turned a blind eye to this criticism, and managed to preserve an image of himself and other Jews as being fair and humane. Consequently, he felt that Palestinian violence was a pathological expression of hatred, and not the reaction of an oppressed people. This led him to rationalize Israel’s brutal actions against the Palestinians as necessary for its security.
I can appreciate Forer’s book because his research is based on pure historical enquiry and factual knowledge. Up until 2006, he felt there was nothing more to learn about the conflict, but then a Jewish friend suggested he read some different books about it. He was at first reluctant, but eventually his curiosity led him to look at Norman Finkestein’s Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, which turned out to be the icing on the cake for Forer’s search for answers.
Finkelstein’s book led to a profound awakening because it challenged the Israeli narrative that Forer had embraced throughout his life. He came to the realization that up until then his worldview had been a product of “indoctrination in the illusion of identity”. This awakening led him towards a more balanced view of the conflict, with a clearer and more compassionate understanding of the Palestinian’s point of view.
Due to his awakening, Forer realized that throughout his life he had been fed misconceptions and falsehoods about the conflict. He now feels that many Jews have an attachment to ideas which mislead them and cause them to lose their humanity. One of the ideas is the Jewish belief that God promised the Holy Land to the Jewish people. This belief is part of their individual and collective way of looking at the world, and it results in their inhumanity toward Palestinians who they picture as obstacles to God’s will and therefore unworthy of His grace.
Forer is convinced that Jews and others need to be aware how their attachment to these ideas can mislead them into losing their humanity. At one time he was certain that Jews were more righteous and entitled than Palestinians, but now admits this kept him from fully knowing his humanity and the inhumanity of his perspective.
In the past, Forer believed that Palestinians posed an existential threat to Jews when they took a stand against Israel’s assaults. He supported consequent oppressive policies against the Palestinians, and then fell into the false victim paradigm when Israel was criticized for this oppression.
After studying the facts of the conflict, Forer now thinks that Jews should leave their prejudices aside and view the situation objectively. This will free them to be able to see that the Palestinians are entitled to self-determination as much as the Jews.
Forer mentions several traps that Jews fall into in their inability to see outside the box. One of these is the way that they brush off the idea that Palestinians could be victims. When hearing Israeli soldiers had killed Palestinian children, he and his friends would react with disbelief or denial. They would argue that since Palestinians embedded their soldiers within the civilian population, Israel wasn’t responsible for their deaths. They felt the Palestinians were responsible since they purposely sacrificed their own people to make it appear that Israeli soldiers were child killers.
Forer states that neither he nor his friends had evidence of this, but it seemed so obvious they knew it had to be true. There was no point wasting time by doing research about something they already knew. After his awakening he decided to do this research and found a small number of cases where Hamas and others used human shields but not to the extent that Israel would like people to think. He found that Israel has a long history of using civilians as human shields.
The lie that Palestinians willing use their people as martyrs and human shields is something I’ve discussed in previous Substacks. Unfortunately, Israel and their supporters continue to use this argument, especially people like Netanyahu who declares that Israel has “the most moral army in the world”.
Forer goes on to talk about many misconceptions that Jews and others have about the conflict, including Zionism, false antisemitism, anti-Palestinian racism, as well as stories of Palestinian suffering. One chapter explodes the idea that Israel is a democracy by examining proof of ethno-nationalism – democratic rights for some but not for all. This is a topic that would be worth looking at in a future Substack.
Overall, I think Forer is a brave soul for setting aside his biases and searching for truth and justice. He admits that he found it hard to research the topic and to come to grips with the fact that Palestinians were human beings deserving of rights. He cautions Jews and others that ignorance is the real threat, and not the Palestinians. Clinging to false beliefs when the facts are right in front of us damages an important part of our selves – the inability to feel the humanity of others. He is also able to step outside the Us vs. Them mentality by declaring that his new reality is neither pro-Palestinian nor anti-Israeli but pro-humanity and anti-oppression. He indeed encourages us to wake up and reclaim our humanity.