(Amos) Oz v' Shalom - Strength and Peace (in Hebrew): Against the Fanatics

Amos Oz is visiting England…
1. From his talk on the Middle East and the prospect of future co-existence between Israel and Palestine on BBC’s Radio 3 Free Thinking Festival (45 min.) – available for one more year:

– We have to reach a livable compromise between Israelis and Palestinians, otherwise all of the work of bringing the two communities together will be in vain (in response to a question about the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra).

– The fanatic is a great altruist, he wants to change you for your own good. The fanatic is more interested in you than in himself. He wants to cure you of your voting habits or your smoking habits, or your praying habits; he is interested in you… He wants to change you. If you don’t change, he will kill you, for your own good.

– Even in moments of great despair I ask myself “What.. can… I… do?” – I believe that when an individual sees a great fire, he or she has three options: Option 1. Run away quickly and let those who cannot run, burn. Option 2. Write an angry letter to the editor demanding that those responsible for the fire are brought to justice. Option 3. Pour a bucket of water on the fire, and if you don’t have a bucket, then fill a glass and pour it on the fire. And if you don’t have a glass, fill a teaspoon with water and pour it on the fire. I know the teaspoon is very small and the fire is very big, but there are many of us, and a teaspoon, each of us has a teaspoon, everyone of us. So I ask myself, what I can I do, and…

even in moments of great despair, I fill my little teaspoon with water and pour it on the fire, and I will go on doing this as long as I live.

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2. BBC 4 had a panel with Michael Ignatieff and Mary Robinson – available for one more week (excerpts below).

– “There is no misunderstanding between Palestinian and Israeli: the Palestinians claim the land they call Palestine and rightly so, we Israeli claim the same land, and we are also right. It is a tragic clash between right and right… what we need is a livable compromise.”

– Close to 2 billion human being never seat on a toilet seat, maybe because they don’t have one, because they cannot afford one; maybe this is where human rights begin, afford a toilet seat for every human being on this planet.

– The twentieth century was a century of ideology. It followed centuries of certainty where every human being knew three things: where he is going to live (which is close to where he was born), what he or she was going to do (which is close to what their parents did), and what is going to happen to him or to her in the afterlife. Those certainties collapsed, then came the ideologies. When the ideologies collapsed came the age of gadgets, the age of self-centered selfishness. We cannot afford this anymore: poverty, fanaticism, despair, hopelessness are threatening from all directions. And the fanatic is a walking exclamation mark.

– Humor, imagination and curiosity are powerful antidotes to fanaticism. I have never seen a fanatic with a sense of humor.

– Europeans, who often despise Hollywood and Western movies, when it comes to international conflicts, they tend to always ask ‘who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, launch a demonstration in favor of the good guys, sign a petition against the bad guys and go to sleep feeling good about themselves. To some extent this is understandable, the 20th century was a century of black and white conflicts: fascism and anti-fascism was black and white, colonialism and decolonization was black and white, Vietnam in my view was black and white, Apartheid was black and white. The Israeli and Palestinian is not: here are no good guys and black guys. It’s a clash sometimes between wrong and wrong, not always between right and right… but I wish the Europeans will take a more complex attitude. Rather than wager that finger at this party or at that party, and tell us Israelis, or us Palestinians, that we ought to be ashamed of ourselves The real question ought to be ‘how can we help?’ Both Israelis and Palestinians could use every ounce of empathy they can get from Europe because they are facing a painful surgery: amputation for both. The partition of the land and the creation of two states, Israel next door to Palestine is going to feel like an amputation both for the Israelis and the Palestinians. This is time for empathy. You no longer have to ask yourself ‘am I pro-Palestine, am I pro-Israel, you have to be pro-peace.
– I think the Palestinians deserve the statehood. I think the attitude of the present government is wrong and dangerous, but also the attitude of the Palestinian fanatics, the Palestinian extremists. The clash is no longer between Palestinian and Israeli: it’s a clash between extremists on both sides and pragmatists on both sides. This is the real clash in the Middle-East.”
– There are good news and bad news. We all know the bad news. The good news is that the majority of the Palestinians and the majority of the Israelis are unhappily ready for a compromise, for a two state solution. If I could use a metaphor, I would say: the patient is unhappily ready for the surgery, the doctors are cowards.“

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3. From Amos Oz, from How to Cure a Fanatic.