All of which brings me to How to Cure a Fanatic by Israeli novelist Amos Oz. This short (95 page) book consists of two essays that were originally delivered as lectures in 2002, as well as an interview with the author conducted by a representative of the book's publisher. Oz is not only a novelist -- he has been actively involved in the Israeli peace movement for some 40 years. This does not, as he points out, make him a pacifist. A veteran of the 1967 and 1973 wars, he states in one of the essays that there are still a few things that he would personally go to war for.
The first essay has the thought-provoking title "Between Right and Right" and is a rumination on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Oz examines the on-going conflict by stating a few obvious facts:
- Palestinians have a legitimate, deep-seated attachment to Palestine/Israel;
- Israelis have a legitimate, deep-seated attachment to Israel/Palestine;
- there is no possibility of a lasting peace until each side recognizes that the other side has a legitimate, deep-seated attachment to the disputed land;
- there is no possibility of a lasting peace until both sides are willing to make painful compromises.
The essay's title comes from the author's assertion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not one of "good guys versus bad guys" but rather one of "good guys versus good guys". Both sides were ill-treated by the colonial powers, both sides were ill-treated by the other side, and both sides ill-treated the other side. That is what makes compromise so difficult and painful, and that is what makes compromise so necessary.
The second essay, "How to Cure a Fanatic", offers an interesting examination of the nature of fanaticism and what can be done about it. A self-described "expert on comparative fanaticisim," Oz confesses that as a child he was "a brainwashed little fanatic all the way. Self-righteous, chauvinistic, deaf and blind to any view that differed from the powerful Jewish, Zionist narrative of the time." Perhaps it is this background that permits Oz to go on to describe the fanatic as "a great altruist" because he "wants to save your soul, he wants to redeem you, he wants to liberate you from sin, from error, from smoking, from your faith or from your faithlessness, he wants to improve your eating habits, or to cure you of your drinking or voting habits." Fanatics, he argues, wish to incorporate everyone into their "mainland", when in fact cultures are "penninsulas". In the case of the Palestinians and the Israelis, he argues the penninsulas "should be related and at the same time they should be left on their own."
Oz offers suggestions, if not exactly concrete solutions. Because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is, at its heart, "a real estate conflict", he argues that the solution is an arrangement that would return to the pre-1967 borders. And how is one to cure a fanatic? He concludes the second essay by stating, "A sense of humor, the ability to imagine the other, the capacity to recognize the penninsular quality of every one of us may be at least a partial defense against the fanatic gene that we all contain." Perhaps his most concrete suggestion can be found in the transcript of the interview that is the book's third and final section. In it, Oz argues that the time is ripe for a new "Marshall Plan" to help solve the economic inequalities that sustain the on-going tension in the Middle East.
Oz's book will not be for everyone. It is just as likely to offend staunch supporters of Israel as it is to anger advocates of a meaningful Palestinian state. But if it does, Amos Oz is unlikely to be surprised. After all, he is the fellow who is arguing that peace will only come when both sides are willing to make painful compromises, and perhaps the first painful compromise will be for each side to recognize that the other side is making some valid points.
How to Cure A Fanatic by Amos Oz
Princeton University Press, 2006
ISBN: 9-780691-126692
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