Blaming the Victim: Roots of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Blaming the victim is as old as the hills. It occurs when the victim of a crime or tragedy is held at fault for the harm that befell them. In other words, you had it coming to you. The great scholar Edward Said ruefully remarked that the Palestinians were the victims of the victim hence it was very difficult for them to generate support. Said quoted Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the “conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion…than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea.” From the Palestinian perspective in the wake of the Holocaust, they were paying for the crimes of Europeans.

Interviewed by David Barsamian.

Recorded at Boulder Public Library’s Canyon Theater.

Speaker: Richard Forer

Richard Forer has spent time in the West Bank and Gaza. He has orthodox Jewish relatives living in West Bank settlements. He is a former member of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the influential lobby. He is the author of Wake Up & Reclaim your Humanity: On the Tragedy of Israel-Palestine, winner of the New York Big Book Award.

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