The Coffer Illusion and waking up after Oct 7th

Some people love optical illusions. Some people just find them frustrating and a useless waste of time and energy. As I struggled to see the circles in the Coffer Illusion, I could not help but find an association between optical illusions, in general, and political views. I will only relate to Israel as that is the only political environment with which I am familiar today. I have no doubt it can be extrapolated to other countries.

First, the Coffer Illusion. There are 16 circles in this image. Can you find them? (Solution at the end of the article)

We are more likely to see the squares than the circles because our lives are organized in squares and rectangles: doors, windows, electronics screens, etc. I wonder if Africans or Inuit living in circular homes would more easily see the circles than the rest of us.

Ethiopian hut. Credit: A. Davey from Where I Live Now: Pacific Northwest, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

And that is the point. As is often cited in explanations of why we see what we see in optical illusions, our familiarity with certain stimuli and our past experiences affect how we interpret these images.

Yet, once we have that “aha” moment, when we “get it,” we cannot unsee the other side of the illusion. Once you find the circles in the Coffer Illusion, you will forever see them, even if you have to squint a bit to do so. And you may find that you flip back and forth between seeing squares and seeing circles.

And here is where our experience with optical illusions differs from our experience with political environments.

My aha moment in Israel was the second intifada. A devout leftist until then, I believed in the viability of the two-state-solution. I believed that if our Palestinian Arab neighbours had the means by which to develop middle-class lives — with good jobs, education for their kids who will then have good jobs, travel and leisure activities that provide welcome breaks and enriching experiences, seeing their grandkids grow up healthy and happy — this would be the basis upon which Jews and Arabs could live side by side in mutual respect and dignity. But then I saw that many of the suicide terrorists were middle-class Palestinian Arabs who had attended university, grew up in houses larger than those of the average Israeli, yet seemed to prefer to kill Israelis than to live good lives. At that point, I started moving rightward in my approach to the “Israeli-Arab Problem.” I understood that it was not economics but ideology that determined their approach to Israel. I no longer believed in the two-state-solution.

In other words, I suddenly “saw circles.” My family and longtime friends were still seeing only squares. It did not matter that I pointed out the inconsistencies of what we were seeing and hearing from Palestinian Arabs and their leaders and what we believed to be true of them…..many Israelis still saw squares. And many others were, like me, slowly moving right. I did not expect my friends to suddenly agree with me, but I did expect them to be at least a bit ambivalent — to be questioning their basic assumptions, willing to contemplate the possibility that Israel did not have the key to changing the situation unilaterally.

Continuing the metaphor, I did not yet see all 16 Coffer circles. I still believed in the ability of the human spirit to overcome the desire to die just to kill a Jew. I thought that maybe Israelis who befriended Palestinian Arabs and Gazans would be able to affect the trajectory and perhaps move us toward peace. I had a bit of hope. Not much. But I believed in having hope.

Even when I saw the video of a mother whose young son had just been successfully operated on in an Israeli hospital in which she declared that she is proudly raising a future shaheed who will kill Jews. I hoped she was an anomaly. Even though this was not the only such video.

I understood the Jews who met Gazans at the checkpoint and drove them to hospital in Israel for treatment and back to the checkpoint. I saw that as an act of human kindness (and an opportunity to practise Arabic, if I were to join in that venture).

I never did, however, understand Jews who joined NGOs such as B’tselem, Breaking the Silence, Combatants for Peace, Women Wage Peace, Rabbis for Human Rights, the Parents’ Circle and others who put the “needs” of Palestinian Arabs above Jewish needs and rights, who believe that Israel is occupying so-called Palestinian land, that Israel is an oppressor, engaged in apartheid, etc. To further their goals, these NGOs would deliberately incite Jewish residents in Judea-Samaria in order to get videoclip evidence of “settler violence” when the Jews would respond to the encitement. I wrote a number of articles pointing out these cynical activities (for example, here and here and here). In spite of their duplicity, I did believe there must be Palestinian Arabs and Gazans who just want to live with us, alongside us, in peace.

Then came Oct 7th.

Everyone was in shock.

How to reconcile belief in the ability to overcome hatred and make peace with our enemies in face of the barbarity and psychopathological cruelty we saw on that day!?

Some people felt personally betrayed. For example, there was Batia Holin, who believed she was collaborating on a photography exhibition with a young Gazan only to find out, that day, that he used her photographs of her daily life to map out the kibbutz in preparation for the Hamas invasion. Her world was turned upside down. This experience was shared by other left wing peace activists, as reported in JNS.

One cannot say the same of everyone. For example, Avi Dabush, CEO of Rabbis for Human Rights, hid for 8 hours in his home in Kibbutz Nirim with his wife, her two teenage kids, and their dog as missiles whistled overhead and Arabic was heard outside their window. He told The Guardian that “It was very scary.” That seems to me quite the understatement. Does making light of that horrific day, correspond with the fact that he did not see Coffer circles after his close call? After all, he was a hair’s breadth away from being turned into a casualty or hostage, him and his family, by they very people he supported against what he saw as Israeli inhumanity.

No; Dabush still believes Israel is oppressing the Palestinian Arabs and he told The Guardian that

His organisation, Rabbis for Human Rights, sees a ceasefire as consistent with values of peace, human rights, justice and equality.

“We believe that it’s not about Jews against Arabs, or Israelis against Palestinians, or vice versa. It’s about the people who believe in those values against the people who do not.”

This is an interesting way to put it, that the conflict is about those who believe in the values he holds versus those who do not. Delving into this statement merits an entire article on its own. But relevant to the current piece, it shows that Oct 7th did nothing to move him from his view that there are enough Gazans who value peace, human rights, justice, and equality to make peace possible, in contrast with the Israelis who were shocked into seeing that (most? almost all?) Gazans hold to an ideology (Islamism) that values killing Jews and eradicating Israel more than anything else. That there is no relaxing. That if we do not stay vigilant, if we are not watching our backs, they will attack us at the first opportunity.

This latter is not a comfortable position to maintain. Yet there are those who can contain the ambivalence. For example, Adele Raemer, a well known peace activist had this to say after her close encounter with death or abduction:

I used to end every talk I gave about living life on the Gaza border by saying, ‘I’m sure the vast majority of people on the other side of the border want the same thing I do.’ But if opinion polls are correct, Hamas has educated an entire generation to hate us. I still believe in a two-state solution, but creating a Palestinian state right now would be rewarding terrorism.

In other words, Raemer is able to see both the squares and the circles. To comprehend the kind of work entailed in that, let us look at two other optical illusions.

1. These two circles are perfectly round. Not willing to trust that this is true without measuring them, I did measure them both. They are both round. Even knowing this, I still do not see round circles. This is not a matter of much consequence, but it makes it clear that what my eyes see and what is the truth are not necessarily in agreement with each other. Looking at this image makes me laugh, but when we are talking about what we believed about the general Gazan population and what we learned about them on Oct 7th, I am not laughing.

2. These two forms are exactly the same size. Why do they appear to be different? Because the short end of one is placed next to the long end of the other. Measure them (I did) if you do not believe me. Again, knowing this does not change how it appears to me.

Given our propensity to believe what we see for ourselves more than what we are told, to judge what we see based upon our backgrounds, early education, current context, and more, a natural question arises for me regarding the rightward movement of many Israelis following Oct 7th: How durable is it? Will distance from the horrors of that day dull the lesson?

Anyone who has been following my writing is aware of my bias. I believe that recognizing the Islamistic ambitions of our neighbours, the Palestinian Arab general population and not just their leadership, is a necessary precondition for devising the best strategy for our survival in this region.

Interestingly, as I write this I find that perhaps I can say that my distrust of Gazans (and all Palestinian Arabs?) has become the “squares,” the dominant thing I see. Will it now take something as dramatic as Oct 7th to jump me out of that and to see that peace is possible?

The value of trying to solve optical illusions

1. Challenges our assumptions about what we think we see/hear/know/remember.
2. Keeps us humble because we know we can be deceived even as we think we are sure of what our senses are telling us.
3. Reminds us that not everyone sees the same thing when looking at the same stimulus and who is correct?
4. Helps us remember to keep an open mind and re-examine what we think we know.
5. Keeps us honest if we are willing to acknowledge our biases.

The Coffer Illusion solution