Anti-testament
George Gale
In the Land of Israel Amos Oz (Chatto & Windus £8.95, Flamingo £2.95)
Towards the end of last year Amos Oz, perhaps Israel's most celebrated writer, took a journey around Israel. He was, is, a member of Israel's left-wing, doveish, Israeli-born, East-European-descended, liberal, humane and Zionist-minded establishment, a product of a kibbutz, an adherent of the 'Peace Now' movement. He is exactly the kind of Israeli western liberals think all Israelis should be. In his journey he met a different kind of Israeli altogether; he listened to what was said to him with a marvellous ear; his book could be called '1 Am a Tape Recorder', except that he allows himself to talk at length. In the Land of Israel, a collection of articles he wrote describing what he heard, is a kind of anti- testament, His object is to damn his op- ponents by allowing them to express themselves, or so it reads — although he would argue that his purpose was less propagandist and was more to reveal the nature of those who, broadly, supported the government and policies of Menachem Begin.
Oz made his journey immediately after the September 1982 massacre of 800 Palesti- nians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatilla outside Beirut. The massacre was carried out by Lebanese Phalangist forces; but Israeli troops were occupying the area at the time and shared the blame. Ariel Sharon eventually was compelled to resign as Minister of Defence. Condemnation of Israel's part in the massacre was as vehe- ment inside Israel as outside. The country was flung into a moral uproar; and it was in the midst of this uproar that Oz made his journey into the heart not of the Israel he knew and loved but of another Israel he feared and hated. Although he makes it very clear he was never in any kind of physical danger — wherever he went, coffee and coca-cola were pressed upon him — it must nonetheless have been a terrifying journey.
He starts off in Jerusalem. His old gram- mar school has become a School of Tradi- tional Scriptures: they study the five books of Moses; history is the exodus from Egypt; and when Oz asked an instructor whether any vocational subjects were taught, the in- structor pointed to some Arabs repairing the school roof and asked 'And for what purpose did the Lord, Blessed be He, create them?'
Among the extreme religious zealots of Jerusalem the state of Israel is denounced and Zionism is repulsed. Oz moves in these streets as a stranger. 'What could not be found in these streets during my childhood? There was an entire world here. British of- ficers sat in a café. Two Finnish missionary ladies came to borrow books from my father's library. Mounted police and workers in Russian peasant blouses came to talk politics ... The offspring of communi- ty functionaries and clerks and teachers and scholars would gather in the woods outside the city at night for covert military training and preparation for "things to come", or meet in the fields of Sanhedria for camp-
fires and songfests. And everyone, each in his own way, expected that the establish- ment of the State would turn over a brand new leaf. "We have left yesterday behind us, The path to tomorrow is still ahead" they would sing here in those days. Now thirty or forty years have passed and we have left tomorrow behind us and yesterday is here upon us, with the smell of plucked chickens, of simmering fishes and tsimmes, with placards, in Yiddish, invoking excom- munication and expulsion and curses.'
If Jerusalem disappoints, worse, much worse, is to come. Oz goes to Bet Shemesh, which started out as a transit camp for Moroccan Jews and is now a sizeable town of instantly decaying apartment blocks. He sits down at a cafe and soon is deep in furious conversation. He is spotted as an Alignment type i.e. as a supporter of the Labour opposition. This is solid Likud or Begin territory. Is there such a thing as a Likud face, Oz asks. 'Now the table erupts, as five or six men talk at once, their faces distorted by hatred. One voice, of scathing ridicule, is heard above the rest. "A Likud face? Sure — black, a delinquent, Kho- meini. A punk. Violent. That's what Shimon Peres called us at his rally." ' Later, they are still furious: 'When you were on top, you hid us away in holes, in moshavim (settlements) and in development towns, so the tourists wouldn't see us; so we wouldn't stain your image; so they'd think this was a white country.' They are confident that the coalition between the religious parties and the orientals which Begin put together will last: 'You guys, your time is past. Even after Begin you won't make a come back ... You want to know what "Peace Now" really is? Begin is Peace Now. Wiped out the P.L.O. Clobbered the Syrians and put them on the sidelines for ten years. Before that he hit the Iraqis in their reactor. And he had the brains to take the Egyptians out of the game ... What's justice, anyway?'
In Tekoa, in the occupied Left Bank, he talks with Menachem and Harriet, a young religious couple: 'In their heart of hearts, the Moslems all know very well that this land is ours', says Menachem. And they will live under our sovereignty? And do the dir- ty work for us? asks Oz. 'Why not' answers Harriet. 'Isn't that the way it is in the Bible. Weren't there hewers of wood and carriers of water?'
'Z' is Oz's name for a man of about 50, strong and heavy-set, who will not disclose his identity. 'When you're fighting for sur- vival, anything goes. Even what's forbidden is allowed. Even expelling all the Arabs from the West Bank. Anything. That's right: Judeo-Nazis ... Listen, friend, a people that let itself be slaughtered and destroyed, a people that let its children be made into soap and its women into lamp- shades, is a worse criminal than its tormen- tors.' Z then took Oz inside, away from the mosquitoes, and offered him the choice of two whiskies.
He talks to some Arabs in Jerusalem and to a French Catholic priest. He meets an old man who was a mounted policeman during the mandate and who owns a stone house in an old village, Bat Shlomo, in the Sharon Plain, and some vines, a stand of fruit trees, a patch of vegetables. His wife, Sarah, says 'we've all gone out of our minds.' In Ashdod, a new town, a port, on the Mediterranean, Oz finds a better place, an ordinary place: 'A pretty city, and to my mind a good one, this Ashdod ... All those who secretly long for the charms of Paris or Vienna, for the Jewish shtetl, or for heavenly Jerusalem: do not cut loose from those longings — for what are we without our longings? — but let's remember that Ashdod is what there is.'
Yes, but there is also Bet Shemesh. 'The insult and the fury of Bet Shemesh are a result of the magnitude of the promise this land proferred to all who sought it, a pro- mise that was not fulfilled, and could not be fulfilled: not merely a land of refuge for emigrants, not just a house and yard and a
living and entertainment, but the realisation of all hope ... Perhaps it was a lunatic pro- mise: to turn, in the space of two or three generations, masses of Jews, persecuted, frightened, full of love-hate towards their countries of origin, into a nation that would be an example for the Arab community, a model of salvation for the entire world. Perhaps we bit off too much.'
Oz is on the right side. Let us hope he is not on the losing side. 'Patience, I say. There is no shortcut', is how he ends the ac- count of his journey, his pilgrimage to the farthest recesses of his country's soul. A good, civil place — is that how the Land of Israel will turn out? Or will it still be the place of the Messianic vision, of the Chosen People, of persecution of the Arabs and therefore of eventual defeat? There will be peace in Israel once the Israelis cease to be
Jews, but not, I fear, before. This seems to me to be the truth Oz seeks to utter, the dif- ficult conclusion of his journey in, to and into his homeland.
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