Bizarre Hamas Psychological Warfare Cartoon a Symptom of Collective National Pain-Body
It seems odd (and cynical, it goes without saying), but Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization that controls the Gaza Strip, has seen fit to release this video aimed at persuading Israelis — one supposes — to put pressure on their government to release 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, in exchange for one Israeli soldier — Sgt. Gilad Schalit, captured by Hamas in June 2006.
I don't think it will work.
One wonders how this kind of psychological warfare could have the positive impact upon the stalled prisoner exchange negotiations that Hamas apparently expects.
This bazaar episode is just another iteration, of course, of the Arab-Israeli conflict that began with international recognition of Israeli statehood in 1948 and has its roots in Semitic infighting that goes back as far as Abraham's sons, Ishmael and Isaac.
According to spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, this conflict — and conflict in general — has a deeper, more personal source: the collective pain-bodies of the participating nations.
On an individual level, Tolle teaches, the pain-body is "an accumulation of old emotional pain, caused by the unwillingness of the human mind to let go of the past."
This in turn causes the individual to act against his or her external world (including self-destructive behavior) in a vain attempt to remove the pain, which is actually internal. It can only be relieved by letting go of the past and focusing instead on the present moment.
In Tolle's view, the same scenario can play out on a "collective" level. In A New Earth, Tolle writes: "The pain-body, however, is not just individual in nature. It also partakes of the pain suffered by countless humans throughout the history of humanity."
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