The division friend/enemy is never just a recognition of factual difference. The enemy is by definition always (up to a point) invisible: it cannot be directly recognised because it looks like one of us, which is why the big problem and task of the political struggle is to provide/construct a recognisable image of the enemy. (Jews are the enemy par excellence not because they conceal their true image or contours but because there is ultimately nothing behind their deceiving appearances. Jews lack the ‘inner form’ that pertains to any proper national identity: they are a non-nation among nations, their national substance resides precisely in a lack of substance, in a formless, infinite plasticity.) In short, ‘enemy recognition’ is always a performative procedure which brings to light/constructs the enemy’s ‘true face’. Schmitt refers to the Kantian category Einbildungskraft, the transcendental power of imagination: in order to recognise the enemy, one has to ‘schematise’ the logical figure of the Enemy, providing it with the concrete features which will make it into an appropriate target of hatred and struggle.
And what the refuseniks http://www.seruv.org.il/defaulteng.asp have achieved is a reconceptualisation of the Palestinian from homo sacer to ‘neighbour’: they treat Palestinians not as ‘equal full citizens’, but as neighbours in the strict Judeo-Christian sense. And there resides the difficult ethical test for contemporary Israelis: ‘Love thy neighbour’ means ‘Love the Palestinian,’ or it means nothing at all.
Discussion
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