The reward of restraint

Hey Miki
About 3 weeks ago I started writing some “musing” about the nature of evil in the world. Of course, you were one of my intended recipients. The more I gave on the subject, the more I realized that I had to share my insights with you first and foremost. But the more I thought about it and gathered information on the subject, I realized [?] that I was actually not reinventing anything, and then I decided to leave the musing titled “On Evil in Our World” in my drafts. And now today I was browsing the “Outgoing Flights” section of the Haaretz supplement, and I found an interview with Prof. Jeffrey Kupstein:
I came to attend a conference at the Hebrew University and also for a vacation. I love coming to Israel… I’m the head of the political science department at the University of California, Irvine. My research deals with ethnic-based violence, why some groups get along better with each other, and why some don’t.

How are groups that get along defined?
For example, I found that it’s very difficult to make people kill each other, but you can make them hate each other easily. All you have to do to keep people from hurting each other is to make them hang out together. That eliminates the chance that they’ll shoot each other. The problem is that nowadays they don’t do things together anymore, even bowling they go alone.
How did you come to this conclusion?
Research and facts. Just finished work on my new book, which will be published this month by Cornell University Press.
You sound excited.
definitely.
What is your book about?
“Intimate Violence” deals with a pogrom against Jews on the eve of the Holocaust. During World War II, we’re talking about June-July 1941, when the Germans invaded Eastern Europe, they told the locals: Now do whatever you want. If you feel like it, kill the Jews.
And what did the locals do?
In ten percent of the places they really killed the Jews, but in the rest of the places they didn’t. So I ask why in this place and not another? It turns out that the Germans couldn’t have made the Poles kill Jews if there was solidarity and cooperation in the community. Only if there was already some kind of polarization. This issue is very important to me, in the United States we deal quite a bit with the relations we have between different ethnic groups. It’s better if we know what happens when things escalate, is there a possibility of violence? Will there be lynchings?
What, in political science is it allowed to compare?
The Holocaust is similar to other cases of ethnic violence, such as Rwanda, but it is clearly not the same. Don’t get me into trouble. However, it is important for me to say that political science does not deal with the Holocaust. Only historians study the Holocaust. Political science studies Cambodia, Yugoslavia, as cases of violence against masses, but not the Holocaust. And there are many reasons for this.
When I read these things, I felt a huge “wow,” I was really amazed that they are working seriously on the issues that bother me so much and that should bother everyone who cares about what’s happening in our world. The things speak for themselves.
So have a good week to you and your family.