There is a sense of spontaneity about the writing of this work, of creative insight and courage which gives it its form, and I respond to the challenge to the best of my ability.
I approached this work hoping that it would give me better understanding about why Israel is the way it is, and why it behaves the way it does. I remain uncertain, but the exercise has been very worthwhile.
Some of the myths, which appear to be held by all Israelis and not just liberal Zionists, are as follows. The vulnerable child soldier who, no matter what atrocities he/she may commit, requires the protective excuses of the population. The besieged few surrounded by the inveterately hostile many. The victimising victim, from father to son, from Israel to its perceived enemies. The weak merciless father figure or authority figure for whose actions God will take responsibility. (Has Zionism replaced God with the United States for this role?) The learnt cruelty from past history and generations. The 'native' Jewish pioneer, pre-World War II, who has replaced the real native Palestinian. The European Israeli, the modern Jew, who requires the Arab Jew (and the Arab) to put off "backward' culture.
Such myths are in many instances interesting and helpful, but the question remains: why? Why, for example, does Israeli society continue to exemplify the story of Abraham who is prepared to bind and sacrifice his son unless a more caring God intervenes? Why is there so much emotional blackmail in the Israeli (Jewish) family and in Israel's approach to other nations of the world? Why do the sons and daughters conform to the blackmail and carry it on in their own later lives? (This must make the few young men and women who refuse to serve in the military among the bravest individuals in Israel). Why, for example, does the poor East European forebear (and holocaust victim) have to fill the modern Israeli with shame? Why not just have an interest in one's forebears without judgement?
Having carelessly misread the title of this work I began reading as if about the myth of liberal Zionism, but in a way the book is also very much about this topic. The author is to be commended for trying to crack a formidable nut, the liberal Zionist who passes himself off as a member of the Israeli peace camp. He illustrates the hypocrisy of three such high profile persons in David Grossman, Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua. These persons exhibit not only a lack of liberalism, if by this we mean civilised tolerance and compassion, but also subscribe to all the myths of the modern Israeli. The fear and hatred of Arabs - and the threat of their return - is self-induced and pathological.
These liberal Zionists, pretending peace, are the most difficult enemies of truth. They appeal to the same sort of pretenders in the West. The author indicates for me that the Left of the 1960s and 1970s who supported the Palestinian cause have been replaced by the Greens, who are pro-Israel. Even though in New Zealand we have a Green foreign spokesman who happens to be very good on the Middle East, I believe there is general truth in what the author says. For the Greens are essentially not an alternative radical party, but an alternative establishment party. Its followers tend to be comfortable people, more or less content with privatisation, tasteful and even precious in their brand of self-preservation.
The author indicates that The Holocaust remembrance is a recent development which allows Israel to take a seat among the world's elite nations, while allowing the Western world to put all the emphasis upon the victims of this one event and forget about the conditions and crimes within their own societies which allowed this and many other events, then and now, to happen. The Holocaust, besides being the only allowable holocaust to be remembered internationally and officially, is also the only allowable definition of evil. This allows the West and Israel to carry out contemporary evil unchecked.
Once again, how does it come about that the countries of the West fall over themselves to act in the same way toward Israel and holocaust remembrance? I can only think that it is a bit like all the copy-cat behaviour to implement unrestrained capitalism in the 1980s. The behaviour of mediocre minds all over the world, or minds with a low cunning rather than a decent intelligence. Or, worse still, are these negative changes, like supposedly positive ones, simply blowing in the wind? Does this then degenerate into believing that whatever will be, will be?
Having divested themselves more or less honourably of colonialist status the West now allows colonialist Israel to tap into this historical mind-set and find affinity there. The West and its establishment intellectuals are now able to turn their hate from the 20th century Jews toward the 21st century Muslims. Apparently for mediocre minds there always has to be a segment of humanity on the outer which can be treated as non-human.
A thought-provoking book.
Rating: Very good
