Here and Now: Letters (2008-2011) (16 page)

I lived most of my life in South Africa, where there were plenty of whites who spoke about blacks along the same gamut, extending from amiable condescension to outright contempt to visceral hatred, that one hears employed when Israelis—many, many Israelis—speak about Arabs. There are “good” Israelis (I have met some of them; they are the salt of the earth), as there were “good” whites in the old South Africa. But there is no comforting lesson lurking here. If the “bad” South African whites were defeated, it was not because the “good” whites persuaded them of the wrongness of their ways and led them to repentance. If the “bad” Israelis are ever to be defeated, it will not be because the “good” Israelis will have shamed them. It will be for quite different reasons, which are as yet invisible to us.

Because I am seen as being on the Left, I am asked to sign petitions on behalf of the Palestinians and generally to support their cause. Sometimes I do as I am asked, sometimes I don’t; always the decision demands soul-searching. In this respect I am sure I am not unique. Like many other Western intellectuals, including many non-Jewish Western intellectuals, I have divided feelings about Israel/Palestine.

There are two reasons why I in particular should feel divided. The first is that the Jewish element in Western culture has had a formative effect on me. I would not be who I am without Freud or Kafka, to say nothing of that aberrant Jewish prophet Jesus of Nazareth. Whereas Arab culture and Muslim religious thought, whatever their objective stature, have done nothing to shape me.

Of course Freud and Kafka mean nothing to Benjamin Netanyahu, who is the heir of the worst in the Jewish past, not the best. I have no qualms about hoping fervently for the downfall of Netanyahu and his cohort, and the arrival of a new leadership with the cojones to stand up to the Jewish Right.

But there is a second consideration. I have Jewish friends to whom the fate of the state of Israel means a great deal. If I have to choose between my friends and the principle of historical justice, I am afraid to say I choose my friends—not just because they are my friends but because I believe their commitment to Israel (which is not necessarily support for any particular Israeli government) is deeply thought out and deeply felt and at certain times quite anguished. I don’t share in that commitment, but as in love, where the beloved is right even when she is wrong, so too in friendship.

As for Kleist, I agree with every word you say. To open a page by Kleist is to have it brought home to you that there exists an A league of writers, which has very few members and in which the game being played is very different from the game in the more comfortable B league to which one is accustomed: much harder, much quicker, much smarter, for much bigger stakes.

(By the way, I recently watched again Éric Rohmer’s adaptation of Kleist’s
Marquise von O
. I see the film as a tribute on the part of civilization—Rohmer had so civilized a sensibility that I am surprised he made any headway in the film world—to the mystery of genius.)

All the best,

John

April 20, 2010

Dear John,

So sorry that the fax machine was unplugged. We are in the midst of repairing the front steps of the house, and one of the workers apparently used the outlet for an electric tool and then forgot to put the fax plug back in place. Then, when your letter came through yesterday, I discovered that the ink cartridge had nearly given out. The first two pages are perfectly clear, but there are fuzzy areas on pages 3 and 4. I believe I have managed to decipher everything you wrote, but just to be sure, I wonder if you could resend those pages when you have the time.

Needless to say, Siri and I are both delighted that we will be crossing paths with you in June. If I’m not mistaken, it will be our fifth encounter in approximately two and a half years. Not bad when you consider the distance between Adelaide and New York. Also (and this must be a record of some kind), each encounter will have taken place in a different country. Australia, France, Portugal, America, and now Italy.

As for the Debenedetti business, no, I have not kept up with further developments. Is there a site on the Internet giving out new information? I would be curious to have a look. The fake interview with me was published in a newspaper called (I believe)
Il Nazionale
. Apparently, he submitted a second interview somewhere else, but the editor was suspicious and refused to run it. I glanced at the one that was published, and when I saw myself comparing New York City to a woman, I knew beyond a doubt that the piece was bogus. I have said many stupid things in my life, but nothing quite that stupid.

For reasons that have everything to do with why we have been writing to each other, everything to do with why we persist, I was heartened by your response to my comments about Kleist. Yes. And yes. And yes to all you have added.

It turns out that Siri and I are leaving for Jerusalem on April 30th and will be staying there for eight or nine days. So your comments about Israel have come at just the right moment. (I include an article from this morning’s
New York Times
, read over breakfast an hour ago. Not a terribly profound piece, but it does seem to capture something about what’s going on over there—along with the depressing but unfortunately accurate words: “the shrinking political left.”)

You mention “tangled thoughts.” Given how tangled the situation is, how tangled it has always been, I don’t see how any other kinds of thoughts are possible. My joke solution to repatriate the Israelis to Wyoming is yet another example of tangled thinking—and also an expression of absolute despair, a conviction that the two sides will never be able to come to terms. As Amos Oz has said, “Make peace, not love.” But not even that seems likely anymore.

Tangled, and also, as you say,
divided
. Even I, a Jew born one year before the founding of the state of Israel, am no less divided than you are.

We all know why Israel was created, we can all readily imagine (or remember) the climate immediately after World War II and understand why so many believed a Jewish state was necessary. But that doesn’t mean it was ever a good idea. Sadly, there is no going back, and, as you say, what is done is done and cannot be undone.

There is no doubt that both sides have behaved badly. Israeli expansion into the West Bank after the 1967 war has created an intolerable situation, which only seems to become more intolerable as the years pass. The suffering and degradation of the Palestinians is an outrage. And as the right wing grows ever stronger in Israel, the galling thing to me is that many of the settlers are
Americans
—for the most part young, fanatically religious Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn who have moved over there to live out the cowboy-and-Indian fantasies of their childhoods. They are crazy people, beyond the pull of reason, and their very presence stands in complete contradiction to the kind of country Israel was supposed to be when it was founded: secular, socialist, tolerant.

For years, I have been saying more or less the same thing you expressed in your letter about the Palestinian leadership. If, instead of Arafat, there had been a Middle Eastern Gandhi to frame the political discourse, I am convinced the Palestinians would have had a country of their own twenty or thirty years ago. Then, too, there is the repulsive hypocrisy of the surrounding Arab countries, countries so rich from their oil revenues that they easily could have sent vast amounts of money to the Palestinians to help build a viable, prosperous society there. But they stand by and do nothing, preferring to let the Palestinians suffer as a propaganda tool against Israel.

Because of my tangled thoughts, my tangled feelings, I resisted going to Israel until I was almost fifty. Then an invitation came from the Jerusalem Foundation (run by Teddy Kollek) to spend three or four weeks as “writer in residence” at the Mishkenot Sha’ananim, and I decided to accept. So off I went with Siri and the nine-year-old Sophie in January of 1997. The awful Netanyahu was prime minister, and because I gave an interview in which I called him “stupid and evil,” I was attacked rather harshly by the right-wing press, particularly the
Jerusalem Post
. But no matter. I still stand by what I said, and the truth is that during our visit we only met the sort of people you would call “good Israelis”—and yes, we found them to be the salt of the earth, extraordinarily vibrant, thoughtful, sympathetic souls.

Nevertheless, the impression I came away with was that the greatest threat to Israel was not the Palestinians but the Israelis themselves, that the country was so split (roughly fourteen months after the assassination of Rabin) that there was a possibility of civil war. Now, I am told, a general feeling of apathy has settled over the population, nearly everyone is tired of politics, and the young people are altogether unengaged. In a little more than a week, I will have a chance to judge for myself.

More to follow . . .

With warmest thoughts,

Paul

May 11, 2010

Dear John,

We have returned from the Land of Torment. All the fears I had about going back to Israel after thirteen years have been borne out by what I saw and heard and felt there. Bad as the situation was in 1997, it is far worse now. The “good Israelis” (as you called them in your last letter) are living in a state of despair. The others are locked in a ferocious and obdurate denial.

The tragedy is all the more terrible because it is taking place in one of the most beautiful cities on earth. Jerusalem in flower, the May light, the gravity of the stones, resplendent colors everywhere. And yet, underneath it all, madness and hatred, the death of hope. As a friend who lives in Tel Aviv put it: “Jerusalem is no longer a city. It is an epidemic, a disease.”

Nevertheless, on the surface, life continues. The literary festival was well organized, writers attended from all over the world, the events drew large crowds. Intellectuals and artists seem to be thriving, and both Siri and I were impressed by many of the people we met. But no one—barring a few exceptions—has any interest in talking about the “Situation” anymore. Most seem worn out, sick to death of the whole business.

There were, inevitably, a few encounters with journalists. The first question they all asked was: “Did you have any doubts or second thoughts about coming to Israel?” And then, at some point, one would be asked to comment on the “Situation”—the same subject few Israelis have the heart to discuss anymore. It is the only country I know of where such a question is possible. A foreign writer visiting France or Italy would not be asked to comment on French or Italian politics. At most, one would be asked to comment on conditions in one’s own country. But the Israeli journalists I met had no interest in hearing me talk about America—only America as it relates to Israel. Again and again, I had to insist that Obama is not anti-Israel, that the demands he is making on the Israelis to stop building new settlements are the only way to prevent the country from pursuing its suicidal national policy.

All countries have their problems, of course. But no other country feels that its very existence is threatened, that annihilation is a distinct possibility. Fear blinds the Israelis, which makes them forget that they are the only military superpower in the region. Fear makes them self-obsessed, walled off from the rest of the world.

Putting aside the larger question of Palestine, the two-state solution, and the deadlock that has continued for the past forty-three years, what distressed me most was the attitude of Jewish Israelis toward Arab Israelis—who now comprise, I think, 18% of the population. When you consider that the United States is only 12% black and that those 12% play a significant role in the life of the country, it is shocking to see how little interaction there is between the majority and the minority in Israel. The Arabs are
citizens
, and yet their fellow citizens want nothing to do with them. At best, the Jews support the old idea of “separate but equal”—which, to my American ears, sounds grotesquely familiar. I would not go so far as to call Israel an apartheid state, but it is very close to a Jim Crow society, which is depressing enough.

Worst of all: the fences, the so-called security barriers. My heart sank the first time I saw one, and then I said to myself: this is a country invented by Jonathan Swift.

The principal reason for going there was to spend some time with our friend David Grossman. He and his wife are still mourning their son (who was killed nearly four years ago), but the meals and conversations we had with them somehow made the visit worthwhile, in spite of everything. By some lucky twist, it turns out that David will be going to the Mondadori/Einaudi weekend in Italy next month. Impossible to tell you how much I am looking forward to seeing you there, to spending a few days with you again.

With best thoughts,

Paul

July 4, 2010

Dear Paul,

Thanks for your letter of May 11, reporting on your visit to what you call the Land of Torment. I don’t sympathize much with today’s Israelis, or at least with those who voted Netanyahu into office, but having lived through the 1970s and 1980s in South Africa, I find the mixture of paranoia, belligerence, and pessimism that you describe all too familiar.

There has been, of late, a fair amount of work by South African historians exploring the way in which the South African government moved or found itself moved from Israeli-type intransigence to a more or less bloodless surrender of power. It would appear that there were intelligent people in the government and the armed forces who as early as 1980 realized that whites could not forever maintain their monopoly of power. What kept them from speaking out was a well-founded fear of being cast into a political or professional wilderness.

Thus a paradoxical situation developed in which the ruling elite came to include a growing number of people who knew that apartheid was a dead end but allowed themselves to be trapped in silence, while the actual exercise of power gravitated more and more into the hands of the last true believers, the extremists of the Right.