Funny I was thinking Global Stockholm Syndrome too! Part of the article I have read:
Many psychologists have made the observation that equate the behavior of victims of terrorism or other abuses with the behavior of those captives who have come to define the Stockholm Syndrome. The comparisons are quite fascinating as they relate to our discussion. In an article entitled The Stockholm Syndrome: Not Just For Hostages, we read:
The Stockholm Syndrome is an emotional attachment, a bond of interdependence between captive and captor that develops 'when someone threatens your life, deliberates, and doesn't kill you.'… The relief resulting from the removal of the threat of death generates intense feelings of gratitude and fear which combine to make the captive reluctant to display negative feelings toward the captor or terrorist. "The victims' need to survive is stronger than his impulse to hate the person who has created his dilemma."… The victim comes to see the captor as a 'good guy', even a savior.
Should we be surprised then that the Stockholm Syndrome is at work in the terrorism plagued nation of Israel? George E. Rubin, in Commentary Magazine, May 2000 sees symptoms of the Stockholm Syndrome abundant among many in Israel:
After 50 years of unending conflict, most Israeli Jews seem to have concluded that the burden of maintaining their nation is just too difficult to bear. The country's secular leftist elites--who control education, culture, the news media, and the government--blame the Jews for the Arabs' desire to destroy Israel, and the majority seems to be afflicted with the "Stockholm syndrome": though the victims of Arab hate, they identify with their oppressors.
Rubin is not alone in this observation. Aharon Megged, an Israeli novelist mirrors Rubins comments:
We have witnessed a phenomenon which probably has no parallel in history; an emotional and moral identification by the majority of Israel's intelligentsia with people openly committed to our annihilation.
Even as psychologists and intellectuals have observed the Stockholm Syndrome present among victims of Islamic terrorism in Israel and elsewhere. The Tormentor will become the Savior.
The same can be said of Europe today and the U.S. following close behind.
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