Question

Hi Michi,
About three weeks ago I started writing some kind of “reflection” on the nature of evil in the world. Of course, you were one of the people I had in mind to send it to, and the more I tried to contribute something on the topic, the more I realized that before anything else I needed to share my thoughts with you. But the more deeply I thought and gathered information on the subject, the more I realized that in fact I wasn’t really saying anything new, and so I decided to leave the reflection—whose title was “On Evil in Our World”—in my drafts. And then today I looked through the “Departing Flights” section in the Haaretz supplement, and found there an interview with Prof. Jeffrey Kopstein:

I came to take part in a conference at the Hebrew University and also for a vacation. I love coming to Israel… I’m the head of the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. My research deals with ethnic-based violence, why certain groups get along better with each other, and why some get along less.

How do you define groups that get along?
For example, I found that it is very hard to get people to kill one another, but it is easy to get them to hate one another. All you need to do to keep people from harming each other is simply to get them to spend time together. That eliminates the chance that they will shoot each other. The problem is that nowadays people no longer do things together; they even go bowling alone.
How did you reach that conclusion?
Research and facts. Work has just been completed on my new book, which is being published this month by Cornell University Press.
You sound excited.
Definitely.
What is your book about?
“Intimate Violence” deals with the 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 did kill the Jews, but in the other places they did not. So I ask: why in this place and not another? It turns out that the Germans could not get Poles to kill Jews if there was solidarity and cooperation within the community—only if some kind of polarization already existed. This issue is very important to me. In the United States we deal quite a bit with the relations between different ethnic groups. It is better that we understand what happens when things escalate: is there a possibility of violence? Will there be lynchings?
What, in political science it’s allowed to make comparisons?
The Holocaust resembles other cases of ethnic violence, such as Rwanda for example, but of course it is not the same thing. Don’t get me into trouble. Still, it is important for me to say that political science does not deal with the Holocaust. Only historians study the Holocaust. In political science they study Cambodia and Yugoslavia as cases of mass violence, but not the Holocaust. And there are many reasons for that.
When I read these things I felt a huge “wow”; I was truly amazed that people are seriously working on the issues that trouble me so much, and that ought to trouble anyone who cares about what is happening in our world. The words speak for themselves.
So I wish you and your family a good week.