GROSSMAN, SHOWING THE BEST ISRAEL CAN COME FORTH WITH
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
I found in my Italian newspaper la Repubblica a text from David Grossman. Because mr. Grossman is an emblem of the better part, if not the best part of the people of Israel, we should read his texts very carefully. Here you find the link to the Italian document.
I found the English text in Haaretz - the link is
I do not know if that is the original place.
I hold David Grossman in high esteem, but I think this opinion of his on the Palestinian cause needs some comment. Hasbara, for example, could cite him, making their job a bit easier. Of course out of context, but not that much and with no need of fabrication
Had it been there in time Dershowitz could have underpinned his Case for Israel with something like
"Where David Grossman says: Obviously, the Palestinians cannot be let off the hook for their crimes ... they have other options for protesting and drawing attention to their misery than the launching of thousands of rockets against innocent citizens in Israel. (see etc.)." And these three dots are not inserted to hide a nuance which served to turn round the point Grossman is making.
Of course, no doubt about the intentions of mr. Grossman. But it is language we are speaking about. And how that fits with your point of view. How, from the very beginning, he put me on the wrong track.
So, following now are the comments I like to make. After commenting it I will rephrase the text.
GROSSMAN, SHOWING THE BEST ISRAEL CAN COME FORTH WITH
How can you not agree with an outcry for justice for someone who is stripped of his raiment, humiliated, wounded, left alone, more dead than alive. How not to be grateful to Grossman to show us that there are still about ten ... perhaps Lord, oh let not the Lord be angry that I speak, if there are ten of these brave men left there ... that we can believe in a world also filled with good Samaritans. To save Israel from the wrath of heaven.
But I will not rest my case. How pathetic his outcry. How naïve and full of self-pity. A neighbouring people is brought to the edge of the abyss, and an author is crying out how unbearable it is for him to cope with this horrible reality, how difficult it is for the Israeli people to navigate their way, locked into a negative spiral.
And above all: if the Palestinians had behaved like normal people - they had other options for protesting and drawing attention to their misery, but committed crimes and mistakes and acted with indiscriminate violence - if they had behaved well ... perhaps my people could have understood that our military might cannot be the primary instrument.
First my comments on his plea.
He begins with the story of Samson and the foxes. He sees the Palestinians and the Israeli as - well, it is not quite clear who to him are the Philistines and who is struggling for the promised land, whether one is the foxes and the other the torches or both are foxes with torches - dragging each other along despite the imbalance of power. I am not a believer. So to me the bible is what myths are to the Greeks. But, I never would have embarked on that story, because from all the people mentioned in the old Testament only the Jews and the Egyptians are about the only left, and surely there's no mention of Philistines as a people after David had finished them off. And what kind of concept is he thinking of, suggesting the Palestine dragging the Israeli?
When he speaks of the harm we are capable of inflicting on each other. Does he really believe there's equilibrium between the two.
So I would depart from the story of David and Uria. With the role of the brave for Grossman, being Nathan.
Grossman concludes that the last military success merely confirms that Israel is stronger than Hamas, and that under certain conditions it can be tough and cruel in its own way. Does unconditionally not express the situation more adequately?
He envisions a point where even the most self-righteous and sophisticated of the Israeli psyche's defence mechanisms are overcome. With Livni and Netanyahu competing for the first prize in the elections? If forty years (let me be generous and start in '67) not are enough, well, every occasion was an moment to ask with Primo Levi: Se non ora, quando?
Obviously, the Palestinians cannot be let off the hook for their crimes and mistakes. The Dutchman Van Randwijk worded the very concept, when he called for resistance in the Second World War.
een volk dat voor tirannen zwicht
zal meer dan lijf en goed verliezen
dan dooft het licht....
zal meer dan lijf en goed verliezen
dan dooft het licht....
(a people that bows for tyrants
will loose more than body and apparel
then the shining of the soul will vanish)
Grossman, as a member of a criminal organisation, like it or not, suggests that letting some petty criminal off the hook would be tantamount to belittling ... well how would you call that? Patronizing is a word far to positive. And if Grossman knows for sure that the Palestinians have other options for protesting and drawing attention to their misery then I would like him to mention one!
Speaking about violence will always be their sole response, almost automatically I would like to ask him: have you looked in the mirror? Do you know that in Texas, George W. Bush's home state, Israel would be a dead man, waiting for the execution!
The current confrontation has not shown that anyone in the Israeli leadership really grasps the critical significance of this aspect of the conflict may suggest that other confrontations bore evidence of the fact that they can grasp critical significance. Again, I like to hear a significant example.
He dreams of a time that we (the Israeli!) seek to heal the wounds we inflict today, but wonders How will that day ever come if we fail to comprehend just how graveness is the responsibility that lies on our shoulders. What is the range of comprehension he is speaking about. The awareness Finkelstein is talking about: Yes, we agree to the facts ... yes, we agree to the illegitimacy of having taken your land ... no, we do not give it back, we deny you the moral right.
Then he comes to the real point: when we finally admit that a whole country eagerly hypnotized itself, because it needed so badly to believe that Gaza would cure it of Lebanon-itis. How you call it, you call it. But a country, even self hypnotized, that turns on a weak member of the community to find rehabilitation of an indignifying blow elsewhere and calls that self-defence ... it is beyond my grasp of understanding.
Whatever the -itis is Israel is suffering, it is a self-inflicted -itis. Those who have taught us ... those who have convinced us ... are those who are the commanders elected. Yes, you have sort of a colonel's regime. But it didn't need a coup. It is as democratic as they could dream of. It is there as the result of an election. Every election.
No Grossman, the language of speaking to human beings is not a language as much our mother tongue as the language of planes and tanks. Perhaps for some individual, like in your books. Perhaps when you manage to write some decent lines. But not the language of your commanders, not the language of the electorate. I can't remember one occasion that one of your leadership spoke that language. Not even the noble prize winner Peres!
And then, at last, there's the learned lesson of three weeks of violence: we must speak to the Palestinians ... as a conclusion of the most recent round of bloodshed ... to take advantage of the new reality ... as part of a calculated strategy ...
What can one say?
Reality is not just the story we are locked into? (my question mark) Perhaps, it is a nice way of putting it. Perhaps he can use that phrase in a book. Perhaps he can write a tale: the Israeli government dreaming, locked into wishful thinking, left with nothing but very painful choices. As if they are not conscious, thinking strategically.
But they cannot dream of an other future. There is no such dream in which there are children, Palestinian and Israeli, playing together. Because that means dreaming of sharing land with others. Sharing the promised land. How did the Germans call it? Lebensraum!
And the Palestinians, Grossman, the Palestinians. They have no such glorious thing as candidates to the US presidency want to sell: choosing your destiny. They didn't choose for this reality. They had no choice. They were smacked into their reality. Locked into what a high ranking-member of the Vatican staff reminded him of a Konzentrazionslager.
So I think the text has to be rephrased a bit.
There was the rich farmer who, to celebrate the visit of a man important to him, instead of taking a lamb out of his own flock, took the only sheep of his poor neighbour. A king has always a poor neighbour, and a poor man is always hindered by a wealthy man. That was the case in history, when kings were kings, that is the way it works in democracy, the happy few exploiting the impoverished masses, and it will be for ever and ever.
And so, amidst the wave of nationalist hyperbole now sweeping the nation, it would not hurt to recall that in the final analysis, this last operation in Gaza is just another stop along a trail blazing with fire, violence and hatred.
As satisfied as Israelis are that the technical weaknesses of the Second Lebanon War were corrected, we should be paying heed to another voice - the one that says the Israel Defense Forces' successes in the confrontation with Hamas do not prove that it was right to embark on such a massive campaign, and are certainly no justification for Israel's mode of operation in the course of the fighting. These military successes merely confirm that Israel is overwhelming stronger than Hamas, and that, whatever the conditions or circumstances, it will be tough and cruel in its own way.
When the guns become completely silent, and the full scope of the killing and destruction becomes known, to the point where, as I hope, even some of the most self-righteous and sophisticated of the Israeli psyche's defense mechanisms are overcome, perhaps then some kind of lesson will imprint itself on our individual brains. Perhaps then we will finally understand how deeply and fundamentally wrong our actions in this region have been from time immemorial - how misguided, unethical, unwise and above all, responsible, time after time, for fanning the flames that consume us.
Obviously, we cannot hold the Palestinians responsible for what we call their terrorism. We better should remember those people who in Worldwar II stood up against the occupying power of Hitler and saved some of our forefathers from extermination. The inhabitants of the Gaza Strip have been "strangulated" in many ways by Israel, and found no other options for protesting and drawing attention to their misery than the launching of rockets against citizens in Israel, who, by the way, occupied the land they cultivated once.
We must not forget that. And if so, let there be a Nathan to tell us what we did to them, so we can pardon the Palestinians and treat them forgivingly. Violence was always our response, the one we embraced almost automatically - violence will always be their sole response to our deeds.
Yet, whatever the Palestinians act with - indiscriminate violence, when they use suicide bombings and Qassam rocket fire - Israel is so much stronger than them, that it has a tremendous impact on the level of violence in the conflict as a whole - and hence, if we want so, on calming it down and even bringing it to an end. And whatever the confrontation, there's no indication that anyone in the Israeli leadership will ever grasp the critical significance of this aspect of the conflict in any fully conscious or responsible way.
One day, after all, we are destined to heal the wounds we inflict today. How will that day ever come if we do not understand that our military might cannot be the primary instrument for carving out a path for ourselves in this region? How will that day ever come if we fail to comprehend just how graveness is the responsibility that lies on our shoulders by dint of our complex and fateful relations, both past and future, with the Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Galilee?
When the clouds of colored smoke dissipate from the politicians' claims of sweeping and decisive victory; when we discover the actual achievements of this operation, and how far they are from what we really need in order to live a normal life here; when we finally admit that a whole country eagerly hypnotized itself in an unprecedented assault on Gaza, because we needed so badly a healing of Lebanon-itis - maybe then we will settle accounts with those who, time after time, incite the Israeli public, whipping them into a frenzy of arrogance and a euphoria of power. Those who have taught us over the years to scoff at belief in peace and any hope for change in our relations with the Arabs. Those who have convinced us that the Arabs understand only force, and therefore that is the only language we can use in our dealings with them. Maybe we settle accounts with ourselves, because those who incited us, those who have taught us to scoff, those who were convincing ... those were the people we chose ourselves.
And because we have spoken to them for so long in that language, and that language alone, we have forgotten that there are other languages for speaking to human beings, even to enemies, even bitter foes like Hamas - languages far more better than the language of planes and tanks.
We must go to the Palestinians and ask if they want to speak with us. That is the most important conclusion from the most recent round of bloodshed. We must hope that we may speak to those who we denied the right to exist here. Instead of ignoring Hamas at this time, we would do better to take advantage of the new reality that has been created by beginning a dialogue with them immediately, one that would allow us to reach an accord with the whole of the Palestinian people. We must speak to them and begin to acknowledge that our reality is not one hermetic story that we, have been telling ourselves for generations. Reality is not just the story we are locked into, a story made up, in no small measure, of fantasies, wishful thinking and nightmares.
We must ask permission to speak to them, and find a way of speaking, begging, so that they will listen to us. We must learn to create, within this closed-off, deaf reality, the very possibility for speech. We must create this alternative, so mocked and maligned today, which in the tempest of war has almost no place, no hope, no believers.
We must speak to them, not as part of a calculated strategy, but conscious of our part in history. We must initiate speech, insist on speech, let no one put us off. Stubborn with our begging face, just as we were stubborn with our mighty guns. We must speak, even if dialogue seems hopeless from the start. In the long run, this stubbornness will contribute much more to our security than hundreds of planes dropping bombs on a city and its inhabitants.
We must speak out of understanding, born as we look out at the horrible devastation, as we grasp that the harm we are capable of inflicting on them, is so enormous and so destructive and so utterly senseless, that if we surrender to it and accept its logic, it will end up destroying us all.
We must speak, because what has happened in the Gaza Strip over the last few weeks sets up a mirror in which we in Israel see the reflection of our own face - a face that, if we were looking in from the outside or saw it on another people - would leave us aghast. We would see that our so-called victory is not a shade of victory, and that the war in Gaza has not healed the spot that so badly needs a cure, but only further exposed the tragic and never-ending mistakes we have made in navigating our way.
As satisfied as Israelis are that the technical weaknesses of the Second Lebanon War were corrected, we should be paying heed to another voice - the one that says the Israel Defense Forces' successes in the confrontation with Hamas do not prove that it was right to embark on such a massive campaign, and are certainly no justification for Israel's mode of operation in the course of the fighting. These military successes merely confirm that Israel is overwhelming stronger than Hamas, and that, whatever the conditions or circumstances, it will be tough and cruel in its own way.
When the guns become completely silent, and the full scope of the killing and destruction becomes known, to the point where, as I hope, even some of the most self-righteous and sophisticated of the Israeli psyche's defense mechanisms are overcome, perhaps then some kind of lesson will imprint itself on our individual brains. Perhaps then we will finally understand how deeply and fundamentally wrong our actions in this region have been from time immemorial - how misguided, unethical, unwise and above all, responsible, time after time, for fanning the flames that consume us.
Obviously, we cannot hold the Palestinians responsible for what we call their terrorism. We better should remember those people who in Worldwar II stood up against the occupying power of Hitler and saved some of our forefathers from extermination. The inhabitants of the Gaza Strip have been "strangulated" in many ways by Israel, and found no other options for protesting and drawing attention to their misery than the launching of rockets against citizens in Israel, who, by the way, occupied the land they cultivated once.
We must not forget that. And if so, let there be a Nathan to tell us what we did to them, so we can pardon the Palestinians and treat them forgivingly. Violence was always our response, the one we embraced almost automatically - violence will always be their sole response to our deeds.
Yet, whatever the Palestinians act with - indiscriminate violence, when they use suicide bombings and Qassam rocket fire - Israel is so much stronger than them, that it has a tremendous impact on the level of violence in the conflict as a whole - and hence, if we want so, on calming it down and even bringing it to an end. And whatever the confrontation, there's no indication that anyone in the Israeli leadership will ever grasp the critical significance of this aspect of the conflict in any fully conscious or responsible way.
One day, after all, we are destined to heal the wounds we inflict today. How will that day ever come if we do not understand that our military might cannot be the primary instrument for carving out a path for ourselves in this region? How will that day ever come if we fail to comprehend just how graveness is the responsibility that lies on our shoulders by dint of our complex and fateful relations, both past and future, with the Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Galilee?
When the clouds of colored smoke dissipate from the politicians' claims of sweeping and decisive victory; when we discover the actual achievements of this operation, and how far they are from what we really need in order to live a normal life here; when we finally admit that a whole country eagerly hypnotized itself in an unprecedented assault on Gaza, because we needed so badly a healing of Lebanon-itis - maybe then we will settle accounts with those who, time after time, incite the Israeli public, whipping them into a frenzy of arrogance and a euphoria of power. Those who have taught us over the years to scoff at belief in peace and any hope for change in our relations with the Arabs. Those who have convinced us that the Arabs understand only force, and therefore that is the only language we can use in our dealings with them. Maybe we settle accounts with ourselves, because those who incited us, those who have taught us to scoff, those who were convincing ... those were the people we chose ourselves.
And because we have spoken to them for so long in that language, and that language alone, we have forgotten that there are other languages for speaking to human beings, even to enemies, even bitter foes like Hamas - languages far more better than the language of planes and tanks.
We must go to the Palestinians and ask if they want to speak with us. That is the most important conclusion from the most recent round of bloodshed. We must hope that we may speak to those who we denied the right to exist here. Instead of ignoring Hamas at this time, we would do better to take advantage of the new reality that has been created by beginning a dialogue with them immediately, one that would allow us to reach an accord with the whole of the Palestinian people. We must speak to them and begin to acknowledge that our reality is not one hermetic story that we, have been telling ourselves for generations. Reality is not just the story we are locked into, a story made up, in no small measure, of fantasies, wishful thinking and nightmares.
We must ask permission to speak to them, and find a way of speaking, begging, so that they will listen to us. We must learn to create, within this closed-off, deaf reality, the very possibility for speech. We must create this alternative, so mocked and maligned today, which in the tempest of war has almost no place, no hope, no believers.
We must speak to them, not as part of a calculated strategy, but conscious of our part in history. We must initiate speech, insist on speech, let no one put us off. Stubborn with our begging face, just as we were stubborn with our mighty guns. We must speak, even if dialogue seems hopeless from the start. In the long run, this stubbornness will contribute much more to our security than hundreds of planes dropping bombs on a city and its inhabitants.
We must speak out of understanding, born as we look out at the horrible devastation, as we grasp that the harm we are capable of inflicting on them, is so enormous and so destructive and so utterly senseless, that if we surrender to it and accept its logic, it will end up destroying us all.
We must speak, because what has happened in the Gaza Strip over the last few weeks sets up a mirror in which we in Israel see the reflection of our own face - a face that, if we were looking in from the outside or saw it on another people - would leave us aghast. We would see that our so-called victory is not a shade of victory, and that the war in Gaza has not healed the spot that so badly needs a cure, but only further exposed the tragic and never-ending mistakes we have made in navigating our way.
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