By Eran Mukamel
LA JOLLA, California–One of the Hebrew language’s most celebrated novelists, essayists and committed public activists visited San Diego last week to talk about Israel’s past, present and future.
Amos Oz came to UCSD as the Herman Wouk Chair of Modern Judaic Studies Lecturer, and he used the occasion to confess to his love affair with Israel — and especially with Hebrew, his “musical instrument.” Oz, whose best-selling novel/memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness describes his childhood in British mandatory Palestine, is fascinated by his mother tongue’s ancient resonance, its dramatic modern rebirth, and its ongoing maturation as a modern language. Hebrew, he suggested, is in a state of ferment like that of English in Shakespeare’s day. But Hebrew is also a glue that binds together Jews in Israel and the diaspora for whom religion, geography and politics are often divisive. In fact, Hebrew and the culture of text-centered learning and discourse form the core of what Oz calls the Jewish civilization.
The lecture, titled “Zionist Dreams and Israeli Realities,” touched on personal, historical and political themes, all with an intimacy and honesty that engrossed the 500 attendees in UCSD’s Mandeville Hall. The Price family generously sponsored the visit and lecture in honor of American Jewish author Herman Wouk, whom Oz said that he knew and admired even before they met by chance on a dark and stormy night in Washington, DC. (Oz’s lecture was full of such anecdotes that, as he said, make a fiction writer envy reality for its improbable coincidences).
The many passionate and utopian Zionist visions that competed with each other throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries set the stage for Israel’s founding. Every Zionist in the early days had his or her own particular dream, and Oz’s fascination with this chaotic and heady history has led him, he said, to “threaten” to write a trilogy on the subject.
Although Oz considers the original project of Zionism to have been accomplished with the creation of a state for the Jewish people, the legacy of the founders’ pioneering spirit and passionate dreaming lives on. If the early Zionists were divided by religion, politics, language and culture, the reality of Israel today is no less multi-vocal, Oz said.
A veteran activist who was one of the first Israelis to speak out in favor of creating two states for Israelis and Palestinians after the 1967 war, Oz mused that today “two states for two peoples” is widely accepted by both Jews and Arabs as the only realistic and hopeful solution for Israel’s future.
A secular Jew, Oz nevertheless loves order and he even has his own form of writer’s kashrut: To avoid mixing the sublime and the profane, he keeps two pens on his desk: a black pen for stories, and a blue one for “angry essays.” Although this habit provides a symbolic separation, his lecture made it clear that thinking deeply about literature can be a profound way of working through political problems.
Indeed, Oz’s stories explore the many varieties and forms of unhappy families – each, as Tolstoy observed, unhappy in its own way. Although political conflict is rarely a suitable metaphor for the intimate relations within a family, the opposite approach of considering political problems through the prism of domestic narratives can be profound.
As an example, Oz offered two alternative literary readings of the tragic history and current political impasse in relations between Israelis and Palestinians. Both versions are tragedies in that they pit “right against right”: both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs have legitimate and deeply held claims and aspirations, not all of which can be realized. Both peoples are attached to the same land; neither has another home.
If this were a Shakespearean tragedy, the resolution would see a stage covered with dead bodies while justice floats above, on high. Abstract virtue and moral principle would prevail, though the characters are destroyed.
A different possibility is that the conflict may be a Chekhovian tragedy, in which the characters wind up exhausted, miserable, bruised and broken – but alive.
In their hearts, the majority of Israelis and Palestinians are ready – reluctantly, warily, with clenched teeth – for the painful compromises required to end their decades-long conflict. Both sides will sacrifice mightily and both will grieve for the loss of cherished parts of their national dream.
Yet the peoples are ready to swallow the bitter pill for the sake of the cure. Unfortunately, today’s leaders are cowards, unable and too often unwilling to take the hard steps that will begin to build a more hopeful future for Israelis and Palestinians.
At the end of his talk, a member of the audience asked how Americans should support Israel. To answer, Oz again turned to the idea of a tightly knit family. Just as cousins might reach out to each other with both assistance and advice in a challenging time, Americans should feel free to support Israel with both their hearts and their minds – even if it means criticizing those actions and policies that we recognize as dangerous for Israel’s future security and well-being.
Oz recalled meeting an American Jewish leader who said that, although Jews in Israel are free to indulge in disagreements, those of us in the diaspora must present a united front. To this he replied: “A united front by all means – as long as we unite behind my views.” Like this joke, Oz’s visit to San Diego was an invitation to a continuing dialogue among Americans, Israelis and all who care about dreams and realities. It is a conversation that is strengthened by the sincere and thoughtful participation of each of our voices, no matter our disagreements. Oz seemed to relish the honest and blunt exchange of ideas with his San Diego audience, which showed off the writer’s talent for listening and connecting with people even without using his native musical instrument.
This is a good and balanced report, only tarnished by the author’s astonishing statement to the effect that “In their hearts, the majority of Israelis and Palestinians are ready – reluctantly, warily, with clenched teeth – for the painful compromises required to end their decades-long conflict. Both sides will sacrifice mightily and both will grieve for the loss of cherished parts of their national dream.” This certainly holds true for the Israeli side, but there is no evidence at all that the Palestinians (population and leadership) are any more inclined today to make “painful compromises” than they ever have, i.e. never. J Street’s insistence on slapping its vision of the future on a reality that is its exact opposite glaringly demonstrates its largely delusional approach. As such, it is doomed to slam repeatedly into the wall of Palestinian refusal – precisely – to make any concessions, to merely accept Israel’s right to exist in the first place, and to reject as preposterous the simple notion of reciprocity. Where the Palestinians see only a zero-sum game (they win it all and leave Israel nothing) that has led them predictably enough nowhere but downhill, J Street sees two equally half-filled glass. Whether it’s physics or optics, they are so way off base it’s laughable and pathetic at the same time. As a result, contrary to their misleading slogan of being a “pro-Israel and pro-Peace” organization, the sad reality is that they are in effect a “pro-Palestinian and pro-Conflict” one (by being in such deep denial of the Palestinian reality, they are contributing to the persistence of the conflict).