What Barghouti actually means is that he wants to implement his understanding of justice and equality. This goes as follows: In 1947, the UN unjustly voted to partition historic Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. This was unjust because the population of historic Palestine was one-third Jewish and two-thirds Palestinian-Arab, and, besides, most of the Jewish population of Palestine were recent immigrants who had arrived against the wishes of the local population (one should never tire of pointing out that anti-Zionism began as an anti-immigrant movement). Thus, the Arab world was entirely justified in rejecting the partition plan, even before the nascent State of Israel unjustly refused to allow the 750,000 or so Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. In short, the establishment of the State of Israel was unjust, and the only just way to deal with the problems caused by its creation would be to dismantle it, which can be simply done by implementing one of the key BDS demands: implementation of the right of return.

This reading of the conflict is perfectly consistent and reasonable. For Barghouti, justice means that only the concerns of the original, native-born population should be taken into account, even 64 years after the Nakba. He does not even bother going through the motions of arguing for a genuine bi-national solution, for example by speaking out in favour of both people’s national rights being guaranteed irrespective of demographic differences. This is because he wants to replace Israel with a Palestinian-Arab state.

I don’t morally object to him having this desire, even if in the long run I think it will lead the Palestinians to further ruin. It is Barghouti’s prerogative, and, as I already said, I can’t fault his internal logic. What I do object to, though, is his insistence that all this is mere “justice” and “equality”, as if there was no dispute whatsoever regarding what those terms mean, and what their implementation would mean in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

With all that in mind, then, here is my reading of the conflict. In 1947 the UN justly voted to partition historic Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. This was just because there were two irreconcilable national communities present in the land (bi-nationalism may have been preferable, but – primarily because of opposition from Barghouti-types – it was always a non-starter). The Arab world should have accepted the partition resolution as the lesser of two evils, and bears significant responsibility for launching a war aimed at completely destroying the embryonic Jewish state (losing heavily does not confer moral legitimacy, even if we do live in a world that fetishizes victimhood). In short, the establishment of the State of Israel was just, and – given that the cause of conflict remains the conflicting national ambitions of Israelis and Palestinians – some form of partition remains the most just solution to the conflict (even if, as I hope to outline in the near future, it may not be the best solution), as it would be more equal than having one Palestinian-Arab state and no Jewish state.

Now, I cannot prove to Barghouti that my definition of justice is correct. It is based upon axioms that he probably wouldn’t agree with. But here’s the rub – neither can he. His understanding of justice is based on axioms that are just as unverifiable as mine. He declares that only [a selectively implemented version of] individual rights matter; I say that collective rights are equally if not more important. Some people agree with Omar. Others agree with me. But justice and equality are not hard sciences. They have and always will be deeply contested, at least until the messiah comes. For Barghouti to pretend otherwise is false. So, to answer the commissar’s question, “If equality and justice would destroy Israel, what does that say about Israel?”, my reply is that it means Zionism does not meet Omar Barghouti’s standards of justice. This is because we are not willing to commit national suicide. He is welcome to his justice and equality, and he is welcome to keep telling us that we are unjust, unequal, and racist. It is dirt off our shoulders. We would rather continue having the State of Israel.

Dear Alex,  I’ve found a flat. Finally. It was a real balagan, but it’s over now. Great location – downtown, just off Ben Yehuda. Didn’t you live there once? The rent’s cheap, too. One room-mate. He’s called Mohammed.

The whole process was worse than finding a job, or a girlfriend. First I saw a few places in Bakaa and Emek Refaim, but they were too far out for me. Besides, I don’t want to get into that Anglo scene – Ulpan was quite enough for me. I narrowed the search down to MercazHa’ir, Rehavia, and Musrara. And Nahlaot. Musrara was my favourite, though. Do you know it? It’s easy to miss, off behind the Russian Compound, next to Mea Sharim and on the edge of East Jerusalem (the Palestinian part). It’s full of old Arab houses – I suppose they were kicked out in 1948 – and was settled by Mizrahim. It’s where the Israeli version of the Black Panther movement began.

Why am I telling you all this? Surely you know it already.

Most of the population are underprivileged, but there are also some Haredim. There’s a lot of gentrification at the moment. Many of the buildings are being renovated and transformed into penthouse, duplexes, and studios. Living alone is beyond my means right now, so I stuck to the older buildings. They’re a bit run down but with lots of character. I saw one flat advertised on Homeless, called up, and was invited for an interview. It was like a semi-urban kibbutz, I mean they share all the expenses, even food. They’re all vegetarian and live rather frugally, but it was a great place with an atmospheric old courtyard, and really cheap – only a thousand shmeks.

There were three of them at the interview – the other flatmate was out. Two of them were students, at the Hebrew University I think, and the other one worked with disabled children. Someone else who had a spare room in a flat with Rehavia worked with disabled children; sometimes it seems that’s what everyone in Jerusalem does for a living. I was nervous because of my Hebrew but they didn’t mind me speaking in English. I told them about my background etc., and what I’ve been doing here. Thankfully they weren’t put out when I said that I worked for a left-wing organization (not like a religious guy in Talpiot – he was really into the idea of having me as a room-mate until I told him who I worked for). At the end I made sure to ask lots of questions, to show that I was interested, and then they asked if I was neat and tidy and whether I minded noise, because one of them’s a musician. I thought it went well.

They called me for a second interview with the flatmate who hadn’t been there that night. Then they rejected me.

Don’t you think it’s stupid? Anyone can pretend to be normal for half-an-hour. The only way you can find out what someone’s really like is by living with them for a few weeks. And if they’re so left-wing and egalitarian, why make such a big deal of the selection? They made it clear that they wanted someone who would contribute to the life of the flat, and wouldn’t just shut themselves off in their room every night, and I didn’t have a problem with that. It would have been good for me. Still, I thought it was a bit much, like I was being interviewed for a law firm or something. I left London because of stuff like that. Still, it doesn’t matter now. I’ve found Mohammed. Don’t know much about him yet, though, and I’m too tired to tell you about the place. Didn’t mean to get so carried away with the flats that rejected me, but I thought it might interest you. Anyway, hope you’re having fun in India. When you coming back? Did you find what you were looking for? We miss you here.

Take care,Dan

Dear Alex, I’m starting to settle in. I can walk to work each day and I’m round the corner from the shuk. I’ve been spending lots of time at Bolinat, just like you recommended. All the kitchen staff there are Palestinians and the waitresses are all Jewish but they all seem to get on and have a laugh together. It’s good to see.

I still haven’t met Mohammed. He wasn’t part of the selection process. It was all handled by his flatmate, the one who was vacating the room. An American called Sam who made aliyah a few months ago, although I didn’t really get what he was doing here. The room wasn’t furnished. He hadn’t bothered doing anything with it, and slept in a sleeping-bag on the floor. Don’t worry – I’ve bought a bed. The advert on Janglo emphasised the “French doors” and the “pleasant balcony” and the “excellent wifi service”, but not much else. The truth is it’s a bit run down. The bathroom is disgusting. There’s no shower curtain and you have to put your toilet paper in the trash can. The kitchen has a fridge, but no stove. Sam says Mohammed has been meaning to get one, but there’s no sign of it yet. I kind of wish I had made more of an issue of that before signing the contract. Oh well. At least he didn’t ask for three months’ rent up front!

The room’s big, and the balcony is decent. The street is noisy, but I don’t mind it so much. As long as the noise is consistent it doesn’t affect my sleep. I’ve bought a bed and a cupboard and a table, all second hand but in perfectly good condition. I haven’t entertained anyone yet – what can I cook with? – but I did meet someone the other night and I don’t think it will be long before I’ll ask her back to my place. I need to talk to Mohammed about this stuff first. Wait, I think I hear him.

He had already closed the door. Can’t believe I’ve been here ten days and we still haven’t spoken. I’m off to bed now.  D

Alex, I realised that in yesterday’s email I didn’t tell you anything about Mohammed. I think he’s around my age. He’s from the north, and he’s studying law at the Hebrew University. He works very hard. Sam warned me that he wasn’t very sociable, but this is ridiculous. Last night was only the second or third time since moving in that I had confirmation of his existence. I know I should have made my intentions clearer, but I thought we’d hang out a bit. Ulpan wasn’t my scene, and it’s hard making friends with Israelis. I thought this would make a nice change. I guess he’s Israeli too but you know what I mean. I’m fascinated to learn what life is like for a Palestinian-Israeli student at Hebrew U – I’m sure he’ll have loads of insight. I’ll have to be tactful, though. I don’t even know what he looks like.

Alex, Finally. I was in the kitchen making a sandwich and he was on his way to the toilet. It’s taken eighteen days, but I’ve finally met my flatmate. He looks like an Israel. Tall, well-built, tanned. Quite handsome, really. Smartly dressed, a little too smartly if you ask me, but I suppose that’s his background. I started talking to him in English, and he understood everything, but answered me in Hebrew. I offered him a sandwich but he declined. I don’t know what he eats – he never leaves anything in the fridge.

There’s nowhere to sit down in the kitchen and I haven’t bought a sofa for my room yet, so the conversation was doomed from the start. “We meet at last,” I said, and he mustered a smile and shook my hand. He apologised and said he had been really busy with university, but that hopefully he’d have more time at the end of the semester. He didn’t ask my anything about myself. I could see he wanted to go back to his room, but I said, “I hear you’re from the north,” and he wasn’t smiling anymore, I guess he thought I was interrogating him or something, and he sort of shrugged and said “Yes” in English, the first word of English he had said to me. I hadn’t been expecting it, and he used that opportunity to say, “See you later”, also in English, but quite slowly, like he wasn’t sure of himself, before returning to his room.

I have so much to talk to him about. I didn’t want to live alone.

Alex, Work is going well. I’m definitely doing the right thing. I’ve started seeing someone, a lovely girl, Debra she’s called…I see Mohammed at least every other day now, but I haven’t got much more to tell you.

Dan
Alex, Debra came back, and she was excited about Mohammed too, and then she saw him, on the way back from the shower. He was on his way to the toilet. It was pretty awkward. She was covered in my towel, and I had never asked him about bringing people back. But it all turned out OK. She introduced herself and giggled and told me he had been very respectful. Later that day I knocked on the door to apologise, but he said there was no need. I asked if wanted to come for a coffee with us, but he said he had too much work to do. He wasn’t apologetic about it. I guess he just isn’t a very sociable guy, or maybe he’s under a lot of pressure from his family. I better give him his space.

Alex, I couldn’t resist asking if he wanted to come to Sheikh Jarrah with me. He said he didn’t know where that was. I said it again, thinking I had mispronounced the name or something, and then he told me that he didn’t know the city so well, just the neighbourhoods near the university and the downtown area. “But you know about the protests?” I asked, but he just shrugged. It was very embarrassing. I could see he wanted me to leave him alone but I couldn’t leave it at that. I launched into a little schpiel about Sheikh Jarrah and the protests and the families who’ve been evicted and he listened politely but he didn’t ask any questions. It’s probably too hard for him. I asked if he wanted to come with, but he said that he had to study, that he hadn’t done so well in one of his exams and needed to take it again. Oh, before I forget, we finally got a stove last week. Second-hand.

Alex, I think I’ve worked it out. I should have known from the start. Sam said he had been trouble filling the room, but he didn’t explain why. I mean, the rent’s cheap, and it’s a good location. I bet it was because the roommate’s called Mohammed. It’s a massive problem now. You read about the Chief Rabbi of Tsfat? You were around then, right? It was lucky Sam found me – I’m happy to live with an Arab. I guess he’s very wary, what with all the racism and everything. I need to be more patient with him.

Alex, He bought a friend home today, someone from his course, also Arab. They were studying together. I heard them go to the kitchen to make coffee and I came out too. Mohammed introduced me to his friend, Mohtadi, who was very friendly. He was impressed to hear about my work and didn’t seem too bothered when I said that I had made aliyah (I immediately regretted using that word). I had hoped that Mohammed would join the conversation, but he kept quiet. Eventually, when we started talking about Jewish-Muslim relations in the UK, he said something in Arabic to Mohtadi, and then “We really need to carry on studying”, to me, in Hebrew.

Maybe they’re lovers. Perhaps that’s why he’s living in West Jerusalem. When I heard Mohtadi leave, I didn’t come out to say goodbye.

Alex, I’ve seen him a few times this week but he’s been quite rude to me. Curt and monosyllabic. It’s very upsetting. Debra doesn’t want to come here anymore, either. I think I’m going to confront him about it.

Alex, I did it. He was listening to some music (Radiohead?) and I knocked on his door and told him I wanted to talk. It was the first time he’d seen me so angry, and I could tell he wasn’t sure how to react. He invited me in, and I saw the extent of his room for the first time. It’s twice the size of my room and nicely furnished. We sat on the sofa and talked. I spoke in English. I said I was still new in the country and I hadn’t wanted to live alone. I said that we didn’t have to do everything together, but it would be nice if we socialised once in a while. I said that I understood why he had to study so hard, but surely he had some time to hang out? I said it was a shame that we hadn’t got to know one another yet. I said that he seemed really interesting, and gestured at  the bookshelves, but he said they were all for his law course. Then I shut up. I waited for him to say something but he didn’t speak, so then I said that I didn’t know many Arabs personally (perhaps I should have said Palestinians?) but I had met lots, at the protest, and that it was important that Jews and Arabs got on. He remained silent. I told him I had been surprised when I’d learnt his name was Mohammed, because in West Jerusalem you don’t expect to have an Arab flatmate, but still he didn’t speak. We listened to the passing traffic and the drip from the bathroom. He turned to me and said, “This place obviously isn’t right for you. But if you want to leave you’ll have to find someone to replace you.” That was all. I had kind of poured my heart out to him, and that was all he had to say. I looked at him and he looked right back. The conversation was over. “OK,” I said, and stood up, taking one last look at the lushly furnished room, thinking about the shitty state of the rest of the flat. Maybe it’s because the landlord’s Jewish. I walked back to the room, trying not to slump as I went.

Debra said she’s got a friend who’s moving out of his place. But who will I find to replace me? Who will want to live with Mohammed?

His comments have been met with predictable fury from members of the cabinet, who have asked why he didn’t express these concerns while he was serving as Shin Bet chief. Israeli leftists might well ask the same question. For Diskin’s remarks represent the latest example – Efraim HaLevy, Ehud Olmert, and Meir Dagan all spring immediately to mind – of a senior Israeli figure suddenly expressing left-wing views once freed from the demands of office.

However, instead of sinking into despair that these comments are always made too late for the interlocutor to do anything about them, those on the left should ask a more pertinent question. How is it that the likes of Diskin can get away with this kind of stuff without being subjected to the usual barrage of epithets other left-wingers get when they say similar things? What makes him immune?

Leftist is still a dirty word in Israeli politics. At best, left-wingers are seen as unpatriotic. At worst, they’re accused of collaborating with the enemy. But the reception to Diskin’s remarks proves that it’s not just about the content of the message, or who’s delivering it (although obviously it’s easy for a former Shin Bet chief to get away with leftism than – say – a refusenik), but how the message is delivered.

Diskin’s comments were rooted in pragmatism and national self-interest rather than ideology and idealism. There was no talk of justice or morality or guilt; only a clear, rational explanation of how the present government is failing to meet the pressing challenges that Israel faces. The emphasis was on what’s good for the country, which is how it should be.

Contrast this with much of left-wing discourse, with its focus on self-righteousness and self-flagellation. A good example of this was a post by Leehee Rothschild imagining what would have happened had Israeli-Jews and not African asylum seekers been targeted by last week’s horrific Molotov cocktail attack in which thankfully nobody was injured. Rothschild is right that the police should have alerted the media, and she’s almost certainly correct that there would have been far greater outrage had the targets of the attack been Jewish. But given that the police have quickly arrested someone, it’s hard to see what more should have been done. As much as I’m opposed to the anti-asylum-seeker camp, I don’t think they’re responsible for inciting violence.

The most effective arguments are those rooted in self-interest, and devoid of emotional blackmail and self-regard. No doubt Diskin had his own cynical reasons for saying what he did, and we’ll see what impact they’ll have in the coming months. But, as the Israeli left continues to seek a way out of the doldrums, it would do well to learn from the former Shin Bet chief, to stop laying on the guilt, to stop going on about its morality and the immorality of the fellow citizens who remain to be convinced, and to begin putting forward constructive effective, pragmatic, strategic arguments for its policies.

Early in World War II, George Orwell wrote that pacifism “is only possible to people who have money and guns between them and reality.” Much the same could be said of modern American liberalism, especially Jewish liberalism; that is, if Peter Beinart’s new article in the New York Review of Books, “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment” [1] is anything to go by.

Beinart’s missive is the latest in what is swiftly becoming a literary subgenre in its own right, in which liberal Jews express their agonizing moral struggle with Zionism and Israel in deeply emotive and despairing language. This is not, quite frankly, a particularly new genre, as liberally inclined Jews have always had a somewhat awkward relationship with Zionism; whose partisans have, generally speaking, come from either the socialist left or the nationalist right, both of which have found a certain kinship with Zionism’s recognition of the limits and drawbacks of traditional liberalism.

Beinart, however, never really defines what his liberalism actually is, though he comes closest when he calls it “a belief in open debate, a skepticism about military force, a commitment to human rights.” Obviously, this is something of a self-serving definition, since there are plenty of conservatives, communitarians, libertarians, and others that share those values, and in the case of open debate and human rights one could argue quite easily that liberalism’s commitment to these values is, at best, situational. Nonetheless, liberalism’s alleged decline in certain circles is enough to make Beinart declare that “Morally, American Zionism is in a downward spiral.” It is losing, he claims, its humanity. “Of course, Israel—like the United States—must sometimes take morally difficult actions in its own defense,” he writes, “But they are morally difficult only if you allow yourself some human connection to the other side.” Thus, Beinart calls for “an uncomfortable Zionism, a Zionism angry at what Israel risks becoming, and in love with what it still could be.”

It would take far too long to cover all the points in Beinart’s article. Indeed, the piece is so sprawling that it ultimately becomes nearly incomprehensible. Despite this lack of clarity and the piece’s overall tone—which is, quite frankly, embarrassingly hysterical—the piece does illustrate something important; namely, the very old and often bitter ambivalence with which liberalism and Zionism have always regarded each other. That this is coming to the fore once again is probably inevitable. The trauma of the Holocaust occasioned a brief rapprochement between the two ideologies, but it was bound to end sometime, and as the Holocaust fades from living memory, the old rivalries are beginning to reassert themselves.

It should be noted first that, ideologically speaking, Zionism is not necessarily opposed to liberalism; it does, however, assert that liberalism, in and of itself, is not enough. It is not enough to provide safety and security for the Jewish people, let alone the kind of cultural and political renaissance that Zionism sought to create. It is not a coincidence that Theodore Herzl was moved to found political Zionism by the Dreyfuss trial in France and the rise of organized political anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria. What drove Herzl—originally a liberal not unlike Beinart himself—was the realization that liberalism was failing, and inevitably would fail completely. The promise of liberalism in that era was that, if the Jews became good liberals, they would be left alone to pursue happiness as best they could. “But I do not think,” Herzl wrote ominously, “that we will be left alone.” For Herzl, the promise of liberalism, which for him was much as it is for Beinart, could only be realized for the Jews within the framework of a Jewish state.

That liberals then and liberals now find this uncomfortable should not be overly surprising. Liberalism has always been, generally speaking, a form of middle class secular messianism; an edifying millenialism for those with much money and many guns between them and reality. Once everyone becomes liberal, liberalism has always assumed, we will all be happy. Beinart, not unlike his predecessors, clearly believes more or less the same thing. Zionism asserts that not only will the Jews not be happy under liberalism and liberalism alone, but they will not even be capable of surviving the depredations of the modern world. For that, a stronger force is needed; namely, national independence and political sovereignty. Of course, there is a strongly messianic element to Zionism as well, especially in its religious form, but it is a competing and different messianism than that of liberalism. Liberalism asserts that for the Jews to be good and free, they must become liberal. Zionism asserts that for the Jews to exist at all, let alone be good and free—or liberal for that matter—they must first have a Jewish state.

It is worth asking what, one hundred or so years after Herzl, the verdict of history has been in regard to liberalism and the Jews. Despite the fervent belief of many Jewish liberals that liberalism is the one thing standing between them and the abyss, I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that liberalism’s actual legacy is decidedly mixed. More than anything else, liberalism has said much and done little at the moments when it really mattered. It failed to save Dreyfuss until a very belated and largely meaningless exoneration; it failed completely to stop the rise of anti-Semitism, Nazism, and the Holocaust; it took an equally belated stance on behalf of the Jews of the Soviet Union; it has tended to regard Israel with, at best, ambivalence (even pre-1967 democratic socialism, ironically, had a better record); and during the most recent outbreak of anti-Semitism it took two equally disreputable stances—first, that it wasn’t happening at all; and second, even it was happening, it was the Jews’ fault.

One could theorize for days about the reasons for this, and it may simply come down to the fact that liberalism, in the end, is essentially an ideology of ineffectiveness. But there is no doubt that it is the case, and those who subscribe to it do not like being forced to admit it. To admit that Zionism is a viable and just ideology would mean admitting that its critique of liberalism is, to some extent, true; and this would in turn require the kind of self-reflection at which liberalism has never excelled. It is easier, then, to see Zionism as the problem, to tell oneself that Zionism is “uncomfortable,” rather than admit that it is, to a great extent, an answer, and not a bad one, to liberalism’s own inherent failures.

And this, I think, cuts to the quick of Beinart’s argument. He claims, no doubt sincerely, that Zionism today lacks “a human connection to the other side” (although it is liberalism, I think, that finds it far more difficult to accept anything that is not itself). He is speaking, of course, about the Palestinians; but he could quite easily be speaking about liberalism’s own relationship with Zionism. Indeed, liberalism’s most glaring flaw is its inability to grasp the nature of “human connection.” Put simply, it cannot accept that a human connection is impossible if it is not reciprocated.

It is this reciprocity, and thus this human connection, which appears to be of no interest to Beinart. He refuses to even admit to the possibility of an uncomfortable liberalism. His article pontificates at length on the deference Zionism owes to liberalism, but nowhere mentions the deference liberalism owes to Zionism. A deference that is, I think, the simple recognition of liberalism’s own inadequacies. Without this basic reciprocity, no genuine human connection, and no genuine humanism, is possible. What we have instead is, as is far too often the case with liberalism, mere narcissistic hypocrisy.

Originally published in The New Ledger

With the ‘Welcome to Palestine 2012’ initiative, activists have inexplicably decided to challenge this status quo, by making the deceitful way they are forced to enter the country a bone of contention. This reflects the recent preference in activist circles for publicity over action, as reflected in the various flotillas and marches and other similar initiatives, and demonstrates the increasing solipsism of activists, who seem to be far more concerned with themselves than the people they are supposed to be advocating on behalf of.

One of the activists whose ticket to Israel has been cancelled writes: “Our plans consisted of such terrorist activities as laying the cornerstone of a kindergarten, repairing damaged wells, and planting olive trees.” If these activities were so crucial, why would you threaten them by trying to bring in 1500 people on the same day? Do you honestly expect Israel to allow you to make its flagship airport a space for your protest?

She continues with the lie that Israel has a policy of criminalizing mere travel to the Occupied Territories. If this is the case, why have some of the participants on the flytilla been permitted to travel to the West Bank? Durkay writes that one of the goals of the initiative is to highlight the fact that Israel controls all the entry and exit points into the West Bank. But this is hardly a secret. After all, the West Bank is occupied by Israel. Despite this, more activists than any other conflict zone in the world have consistently been able to get through. They have never had it so good. If they choose to jeopardize this by attempting to carry out pointless and solipsistic actions at Israeli airports, they are responsible for the consequences, not Israel.

The appearance of the transport policemen must have been a coincidence, but I was impressed with the quiet and dignified way the problem was dealt with, particularly the young woman, who firmly but without hysteria told the gang that their behaviour was unacceptable.

I tried to imagine a similar response to racism on a public bus in Israel, without much success. Israel clearly has a much bigger problem with casual – and indeed explicit – racism than the United Kingdom. I don’t know anyone here who hasn’t heard someone make a remark about how the only good Arab is a dead Arab or something similar. And sometimes, this racism gets even more sinister. Following the tragic bus accident in February, when ten Palestinian children were killed, a number of people drew attention to the celebratory remarks posted by a number of young Israelis on Facebook. Some responded by claiming that these were isolated cases. As a sober piece on Channel Ten television demonstrates, this wasn’t the case. Although the programme didn’t cite any opinion polls on the subject, it’s clear that many young Israelis, from all sorts of different backgrounds, responded in a similar vein to this tragedy. The Channel Ten feature was a thoughtful, carefully documented examination of the problem, complete with practical suggestions as to what to do about it.

Contrast this with the response of some of the writers at +972. Ami Kaufman draws readers’ attention to the video with glee: “I think the teenagers shown in the Channel 10 magazine below [he makes no mention of the fact that the video includes interviews with citizenship teachers and settlers who visit the bereaved families to express their condolences]…are actually quite representative of your average Israeli teenager. Nothing scientific on my part. Not backing it up with data, so you can go ahead and take a jab at me for that. Just backing it up with the daily doses of racism I see every day when I enter my social media, my supermarkets, my clinics, my kids’ ballet classes, my work place. So many places. These are my sources. Sources of disgust.”

Pre-empting a criticism in this manner does not make it invalid. Hysteria is no replacement for reason. Kaufman is rightly angered by the racism he witnesses daily; this does not justify his irrational response to this particular example of it. But his gauntlet was taken up by +972 colleague Dimi Reider. His piece begins reasonably: “The first thing that comes to mind watching the video…is that they [the teenagers] are no different from teens in any other area of sustained, protracted ethno-nationalist conflict.” This is no excuse – just as it wouldn’t be an excuse for Palestinian racism – but it’s a useful insight that might help us work towards a solution. Next, though, Reider quotes an email he sent to a friend in January 2008, having just finished his first night shift on the Jerusalem Post news desk, and having just finished reading a book about the Rwandan genocide, Shake Hands with The Devil. Even though he acknowledges “Israel’s relatively strong institutions” and “the renaissance of political and journalistic activism that so far culminated with the social justice protests” and “a strong backlash from other Israeli teenagers shocked by their own peers’ bloodthirstiness,” he comes to the conclusion that “if push comes to shove, if a population-swap goes awry, if the evacuees try to resist violently or turn on each other and someone somewhere panics and decides to take less “sentimental” measures, the silent build up toward active support or complacency for fully-fledged atrocities is already at work. The dry wood has been piling up for years now, and there’s no telling if we’ll be spared the spark.”

This prediction is based on an awful lot of ifs and not enough buts, particularly given that his source is radio talk shows and Jerusalem Post talkbacks. I don’t think the suggestion that racism in Israel has reached such levels that we could be on the verge of another Rwanda is worth responding to, but I do want to say this: in its clamour to denounce Israel, the Left has a tendency to make absurd predictions that should make reasonable people wary of taking them seriously. It is time that people are held to account for the wild events they predict. Readers should decide whether Channel Ten’s response is more effective than yelling genocide is nigh. Such dire predictions may make Messrs Kaufman and Reider feel better about themselves, but they do nothing to solve the very real problem of racism in Israeli society. In fact, they only exacerbate it.

Well, he’s right. The country is not homogeneous. Some aspects of Israel are more democratic than others. On what principle does Munayer believe that the undemocratic bits render the whole thing democratic? Why not the other way round? Or, to put it another way, some aspects of Israeli life are better than others. Rather than a “self-inflicted deception”, Liberal Zionists are doing what any good citizen would do – trying to defend the bits of Israel that are decent and change the bits that aren’t.

Second, Munayer declares that “Liberal Zionists talk about an always-approaching-yet-non-existent deadline for two states.” The contradiction here is that the rhetoric is always urgent – apocalyptic even – but the day never arrives. “But by never defining a deadline, by never demarcating a point of no return, that day never has to come and “Liberal Zionists” never have to confront the contradiction inherent in their views.” Munayer concludes that “by failing to draw a line (which in reality we have probably long passed) and by failing to make a serious effort against the Israeli state for its colonialist policies, what “Liberal Zionists” are effectively saying is that there is no Palestinian minimum (or Zionist maximum) they would not accept – there is nothing “liberal” about that!”

It is not clear how he draws this conclusion. The two-state solution remains viable as long as a majority of Israelis and Palestinians are in favour of it; this continues to be the case. Liberal Zionist warnings about time running out are primarily tactical. Nor does Munayer produce any evidence to support the claim that Liberal Zionists would willingly accept a Palestinian Bantustan – this must be what he means by “Palestinian minimum”. In any case, this has nothing to do with liberalism.

Third, we have the Nakba. Liberal Zionists “erase the Nakba from the history of Israel/Palestine”. Munayer says that “while “Liberal Zionists” are willing to condemn many of the human rights abuses inherent in the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the rights of refugees go ignored.” Liberal Zionists have no objection to Palestinian refugees returning to a future State of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They object to them returning to Israel, because – and we must never tire of repeating this – this would mean Israel being replaced by a Palestinian-Arab state. This may also involve abandoning the “moral and intellectual cowardice” Munayer accuses Liberal Zionists of, but it’s preferable to national suicide. He writes that “Zionism necessitates a Jewish majority”, but misses out the second clause dealing with Arab rejectionism. This is because he believes that Arab rejectionism – then and now – is entirely justifiable. But it is worth reminding ourselves that, at least before it became clear that there was no possibility of compromise over Palestine, there were strands of Zionism that didn’t necessitate a Jewish majority. Arab rejectionism made a Jewish majority necessary, and the Arab decision to violently oppose the UN Partition resolution (which Munayer no doubt believes was the brave and moral decision) was the primary cause of the Nakba. If this is liberalism, we need have no part of it.

Finally, Munayer directly addresses what he sees as the difference between Liberalism and Zionism: “Liberalism is by nature an inclusivist ideology; Zionism, by contrast, is an exclusivist ideology. While liberalism is associated with equal rights regardless to ethnicity or creed, human rights, and free elections, Zionism requires maintaining a Jewish majority over territory even at the expense of the non-Jewish native inhabitants of the land.” I will respond in kind: Liberal Zionism is by nature an equitable ideology; anti-Zionism, by contrast, is an inequitable ideology. While Liberal Zionism believes in Israelis and Palestinians coming to a consensus over how to divide the land between them (and in such a way that will guarantee both peoples’ national rights), anti-Zionism requires ensuring a Palestinian majority in order to destroy any last semblance of Jewish sovereignty in the land.” If Munayer is still bothered by this inconsistency, then he should take heed of the words of Emerson: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

Consider: An English family gather at a country estate just before the war. One of the children brings a friend home for the first time,  a compelling and attractive young man. The young man gets involved in an illicit fling with one of the children. The young man will die in the war, but the consequences of the fling will reverberate to the end of the century.

That’s actually a simplification of the opening part of Ian McEwan’s Atonement, but could easily be a summary of the opening to Hollinghurst’s novel as well. The Stranger’s Child begins immediately before World War I, and Atonement before World War II, but both contain mostly uncritical depictions of upper class English life. Of course, McEwan wasn’t the first English novelist to deal with this sort of stuff either, but it’s remarkable how little the scenery changes from novel to novel. It’s as if the average English novelist – Kazuo Ishiguro also springs to mind – thinks that Brideshead Revisited is the definitive modern novel, or perhaps they are simply aware of the commercial potential of anything that could be made into a period drama.

The Stranger’s Child (whose title is taken from a poem by Tennyson) has five sections, almost novellas, connected by the person of Cecil Valance, a secretly gay and openly mediocre poet in the mould of Rupert Brooke, who, while staying with the family of his friend George Sawle writes a poem, ‘Two Acres’, that goes on to have a similar impact on English literary culture as Brooke’s ‘The Soldier’, and has an even bigger impact on the lives of the characters in the book, right up to the year 2008, when the poem’s muse and the flimsy mysteries of the novel’s opening sequence come tumbling out of the closet.

The structure is decent, and I agree to an extent with Adam Hirsch’s observations regarding the novel’s “brilliant narrative economy”. Each section moves the story along by ten or twenty years, while mostly dealing with only a few days in the lives of the characters, and manages to squeeze a lot out regardless. The problem is that Cecil Valance is too central. Everyone is haunted by him. His former lovers gather to mourn him ten years after his death; the teacher at the local prep in the sixties is a huge fan; the arriviste bank clerk the teacher takes as a lover wants to write his biography. Only a book-dealer at the end of the novel seems uninterested in Valance’s allure. Fiction would be impossible without these contrived coincidences, of course, but surely it would have been much more interested had there been more characters who were indifferent to Valance and his work.

Paul Bryant is the novel’s most interesting character, particularly because he’s clearly cut from the same cloth as Nick Guest in The Line of Beauty. Paul is a small-town bank clerk who never tires from reminding us that he never went to university, but he reads Angus Wilson and fancies himself as a bit of a writer. Whereas Nick was the moral compass of The Line of Beauty, simultaneously demonstrating the allure and the horror of Thatcherite excess, Paul is rather more slimy. He falls in with Daphne Jacobs (formerly Sawle, now in her seventies) and her family, but it is the sixties and class relations are not what they were when Cecil Valance paid a visit to Stanmore. At first, Paul’s ambition is touching, but by the end he becomes the cliché of the sensationalist literary biographer, too easy a target for a writer of Hollinghurst’s calibre.  Or, as James Wood puts it, “Hollinghurst may at times have seemed to be secretly in love with the world of Gerald Fedden…but Nick’s lower-middle-class alienation from that priviliged world stiffened the book’s moral fibres.”

Homosexuality is one of Hollinghurst’s great subjects, particularly its role in the fomentation of upper class English culture. But there’s nothing interesting about it. I can understand his desire to bring previously repressed histories to the fore, but at times it does come across as – to borrow Theo Tait’s excellent phrase – “gay sex pastoral”. Modern England never went through a Kulturkampf, or a revolution, or a Holocaust. If it had, Hollinghurst’s efforts might have the poignancy of a Joseph Roth or an Isaac Bashevis Singer novel. As it didn’t, the terrain is desperately familiar, at least to anyone who knows anything about the reputation of English public schools.

“’Two Acres’ will be read as long as there are readers with an ear for English music, and an eye for English things”, is one of the key lines of the novel, uttered by a contemporary of Valance. The irony is clear, and by the end of the novel Valance will be all but forgotten. But the joke is surely on the author. England is still in thrall to upper-class culture, whether it be the national obsession with royal weddings or the boy from Eton in Number 10. The Stranger’s Child has been received largely uncritically because the English novel is still a narrow, parochial thing, where a sentimental epic dealing with the past – as long as it is sufficiently lengthy – is considered a classic. After brilliantly dissecting the Thatcherite era, in a novel that was about now, Hollinghurst has retreated into the past, and chosen to embellish a myth even further, rather than giving it the deconstruction it has been crying out for.

In +972, Sean O’Neill argues that BDS is on the verge of achieving widespread support. His evidence? Norman Finkelstein’s declaration of civil war on the boycotters. Demonstrating that the BDS movement remains habitually unable to deal with honest criticism, O’Neill declares the interview “a sign that the ground is shifting on Israel/Palestine issues”, without producing much evidence to back up this claim. The following is all he could come up with: “I recently witnessed BDS’s growing clout at a meeting I attended with a woman working with an Israeli artist helping set up a series of salons in New York to explore and question the Birthright Israel programs, and the idea of a “birthright” in general. The project sounds very interesting, and the woman was visibly frustrated at their inability to find people willing to work with them in the city. They are partially funded by the Israeli Consulate, and as a result have had the proverbial door shut on them by activists, artists, and professors, Arab and Jew alike. This would have been incomprehensible five years ago, when I first heard of the BDS movement at the annual Bil’in conference and it was, at that point, divisive even among conference attendees.”

An Israeli artist who davka questioned Birthright Israel and was shut out by BDS in NYC. And this wouldn’t have been possible five years ago! The equivalent of a middling football team winning  one match in ten away from home, perhaps, but certainly not evidence of a paradigm shift. O’Neill follows this clincher with a few more assertions, but once again doesn’t back them up: “Here is where things stand now. There is a paradigm shift in the works in how the Israel/Palestine conlict is understood and approached. There is an increasing consensus among Israel’s critics to see the issue as one of civil rights, rather than a conflict between two nations.”

He concludes that “Finkelstein’s sudden hostility is a symptom of this paradigm shift” because the guaranteed existence of a Jewish nation-state has “eroded a bit”. Without any evidence, he suggests that this is because Norman Finkelstein, the man who proudly saluted the courage of Hizbollah, is scared of the end of Israel and the glorious utopian future that will follow it.

The truth is that O’Neill, like most other BDS ideologues, is unable to confront the strategic implications of Finkelstein’s argument. Arguing in favour of replacing Israel with a Palestinian-Arab state does not have, and will not have, mass appeal, no matter how much you would like to pretend that it does. This is because most people realise that Israel, for all its faults, is not the equivalent of Apartheid South Africa. It is true that BDS has had some success, but this is mainly a result of diplomatic inertia on the ground, and does not justify the hysteria that follows every announcement of a cancellation by some band that nobody has ever heard of, or getting together 300 activists for a conference at the University of Pennsylvania. It is not a paradigm shift, and until the BDS leadership develops some basic self-awareness and self-criticism, fist pumping exercises by the likes of O’Neill are no different to Andre Villas-Boas pretending that drawing one all with Birmingham City in the FA Cup represents the dawn of a great breakthrough.