Gerald Cromer

Analogies to Terror: The Construction of Social Problems in Israel During the Intifada Al Aqsa

Studies of the construction of social problems suggest that claims makers only relate to the issue that they are trying to place on the national agenda. However, an analysis of the Israeli public discourse about a number of social problems during the Intifada Al Aqsa indicates that this is not the case. The external threat served as an inferential structure for understanding and explaining the countrys internal ones. Because of the centrality of the Intifada in the public imagination, claimants made a wide variety of analogies to the problem of Palestinian terror. All four areas of the discourse—about the severity of the problems, their causes, the rationales given for taking preventive and/or ameliorative action, and the solutions offered—were replete with references and analogies to the uprising. Clearly, the claimants believed that this was a particularly effective way of competing in the social problems marketplace, but the analogies may, in fact, have reinforced the existing hierarchy of priorities rather than lead to a significant shift in the public agenda.

Amalek as Other, Other as Amalek: Interpreting a Violent Biblical Narrative

This article, which takes the form of an analysis of Jewish portrayals of Amalek, suggests that the process of othering often consists of two stages. Throughout the ages, Amalek, the primary other in the Jewish tradition, has been depicted as the apogee of both physical and spiritual evil. Both these images are often projected onto other individuals and groups who are considered to be a threat to the continued existence of the Jewish people. These secondary others include external enemies (the gentile other), coreligionists (the Jewish other), and the evil inclination that exists within every Jew (the other self). In each case, however, the aim of the secondary othering is the same: to stigmatize existing foes by comparing them to the archenemy of the Jewish people.

Tales from the Underground

Summary This study of the propaganda of Lehi (Lohamei Herut Yisrael/Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) shows how it is best analyzed as a series of stories. Movement leaders tried to justify their resort to violence by telling four kinds of narratives: contemporary, historical, metahistorical, and biographical. After providing a description of these terrorist tales, the article draws attention to their internal structure, the interaction among them, and the way in which they were in dialogue with the prior religious discourse.

Gamblers Anonymous in Israel: A Participant Observation Study of a Self-Help Group

This participant observation study of the first Gamblers Anonymous group in Israel is designed to show (1) the ways in which the group helps it members rehabilitate themselves, (2) the three stages through which they must go in order to ensure success, and (3) the reason why some participants fail to do so. The article concludes with a number of observations concerning the extent of gambling in Israel and the different ways that should be developed for dealing with the problem.

The Rhetoric of Victimization: An Analysis of the Coverage of Intifada El-Aqsa in the Israeli Press

Using a number of concepts from John Bests work on the rhetoric of claims making, this article analyses the Israeli press of the Intifada EI-Aqsa. It revolves around two major themes — the severity of the Palestinian terrorist attacks and the undeserved fate of the Israeli victims. Reporters repeatedly engaged in the dramatization of injury and the dramatization of innocence. Bearing in mind the influence of the press on public perceptions of the conflict between the two peoples, it is clear that the extent and nature of the coverage, together with the almost total lack of attention to Palestinian casualties, reduces the chances of breaking the mutual cycle of victimization. The adoption of a non-monolithic stance and a dual-concern model, it is suggested, would help overcome the egoism of victimization that typifies this and other relationships between traumatized national groups.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Narratives of Violence

. . . in myth, legend, fable, tale, novella, epic, history, tragedy, drama, comedy, mime, painting (think of Carpaccio’s Saint Ursula), stained glass windows, cinema, comics, news items, conversations. Moreover, under this almost infinite diversity of forms, narrative is present in every age, in every place, in every society; it begins with the very history of mankind and there nowhere is nor has been a people without narrative. All classes, all human groups, have their narratives . . . narrative is international, transhistorical, transcultural: It is simply there, like life itself. (1977, p. 79)

“How could such a thing happen?” A case study of the Israeli reaction to middle class delinquency

A survey of the Israeli press coverage of the twelfth grade gang, a group of middle-class delinquents who were accused and subsequently found guilty of housebreaking and robbery, indicated that it led to a wide-ranging debate about the merits and drawbacks of Israeli society in the wake of independence. There were three major kinds of response: that the gang was atypical of the country’s youth (self-defense); that it was indicative of much more basic flaws in the nascent Jewish state (self-criticism); and that it proved the superiority of certain life-styles within Israeli society (self-congratulation). By giving rise to these competing etiology stories, the twelfth grade gang led to a deepening of the divisions within Israeli society rather than the creation of a united front against delinquency.

‘In the mirror of the past’: The use of history in the justification of terrorism

This article takes the form of a content analysis of the propaganda of Lehi ‐ the smallest and most extreme of the underground movements that fought against the British in Palestine. It suggests that the propaganda was based on a number of projective narratives, namely, stories that are not only designed to recall the past, but also to show how to behave in the present. Particular emphasis was placed on the lessons to be learnt from Jewish history in general and past examples of Jewish valor in particular. Attention was also paid, however, to other struggles for national liberation. In both cases, the struggle for legitimacy took place on two fronts ‐ the reconstruction of the past and its reenactment in the present. Only Lehi, it was argued, understood history and acted in accordance with it. And therein lay the terrorists’ claim to legitimacy. They, and they alone, are the true heirs of the past.

“The roots of lawlessness”: The coverage of the Jewish underground in the Israeli press

Abstract Previous studies have pointed out the different ways in which the mass media tend to denude terrorism of any ideological significance and relegate it to the periphery of society. However, an analysis of the press coverage of the Jewish underground found exactly the opposite kind of response. Emphasis was placed on the ideological motivation of those concerned and the different ways in which their actions were the inevitable conclusion of political currents at the center of Israeli society. An attempt was thereby made to delegitimize not only the terrorists themselves but also the ideology that allegedly nurtured them.

Drama as Catharsis and Catalyst: Two Ways of Preventing Delinquency:

Community drama has only recently been introduced into Israel. The first group was started in the Katamon, one of the poorest neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, in 1972. Since then, however, a large number of other workshops have been set up in the slum areas of the major cities and in various development towns. An umbrella organization (The Society for the Advancement of Community Drama) was soon established and has already achieved a certain degree of recognition by both government ministries and local authorities. Within a relatively short time, therefore, community drama has become an accepted part of the Israeli scene. The workshops were set up with two aims in mind. The most