Beating the wrong drum
JUST AFTER ISRAEL’S DISASTROUS 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Amos Oz went searching for internal enemies within his own Jewish tribe. The late Israeli novelist, former solider and long-term advocate of peace with Palestinians sought out not only Arabs across the “Green Line” but also fellow Israelis who regarded Oz as at best a naive peacenik or at worse a traitor.
Oz’s encounters with Jewish settlers on the West Bank aligned to the Arab-hating “Gush Emumim” or “Bloc of the Faithful” or the anti-Zionist Orthodox Hasidim are particularly memorable for the way the writer holds back his own disdain and allows their words to flow with barely an interruption. His two-month trek into settlements, towns and villages in the autumn of 1982 produced.
