The Yellow Wind, by David Grossman

As usual when I visit a country with whose literature I’m not familiar, I go to bookstores and search for books by national authors that can help me to get into the national mood and preferably enjoying good reading at the same time. And I’m very unfamiliar with Israeli literature, of which I only know Amos Oz, from several essays and the beautiful A Tale of Love and Darkness. So I perused the shelves of a couple of bookstores in Jerusalem, and bought three books, two by Jewish Israelis and one by an Arab Israeli.

The Yellow Wind, by David Grossman, is an impressive and disturbing account of the author’s dealings with people in the Occupied Territories in the late ‘80s, but probably it still applies to the present day. I had my opinion about the Israeli-Palestinian question before, and it hasn’t changed much after going to Israel or reading this book. But it’s always interesting and enlightening to read from different sources and to see some of the places one reads about.

I don’t feel like I have the right to take too strongly sides in complex questions that don’t concern me directly and about which my knowledge is always second or third-hand, and the Israeli-Palestinian problem is certainly one of those. But I have my opinions nonetheless. I think that, historically, and today, the main responsibility for not reaching a reasonable solution lies with the Arabs – from the unspeakably vain and conceited Al-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem, who maybe bears the greatest responsibility for the present situation, to the murderous and foolish Arafat and the terrorist Islamic organization Fatah, and a series of ambitious Islamic leaders, who undermined and lost a succession of opportunities through the years. Their intolerance never allowed for a reasonable solution, they keep denying to recognize the State of Israel, they were the ones who started all the wars, and they never did anything to improve the situation and lives of the Palestinian refugees, preferring to kindle their misery and hatred, which they use to their own political purposes. There is no “right to return”; especially after wars who were started by them – what about the millions of displaced persons after World War II? Should they have demanded the right to return to their former homelands? To think that millions were displaced, and the last refugee camps were closed in the early ‘50s, and the Palestinians keep living in camps 40 years after 1967… War is awful, but obviously the effects of their war are purposefully prolonged, and that’s unforgivable.

But I also stand here […] as a human being, rising up against this education in blind hatred, and against such tremendous energy being expended for the preservation of malice, instead of being spent in an effort to get out of this barrenness, this ugliness in which this kindergarten lies, these little children who are so good at hating me.

But I cannot condone either the prolonged Israeli occupation of the Territories, and certainly not the policy of the settlements. Israel is a democratic and admirable country, and it’s being corrupted by its behavior as an occupying power. In my opinion, they should annex whatever land they deem indispensable for their security and let go of the rest. I cannot believe it would be more difficult to defend the country, and their moral standing would be much better, and I believe they would actually be a model for the region, since I’m sure that Israeli Arabs live better than Arabs in any other country of the Middle East. I sincerely hope the younger Israeli generation will steer away from Jewish religious intolerant bigots and support the reasonable and morally right conduct – to end the occupation. I know it won’t be easy, no less for the absence of any credible and reasonable Arab Palestinian organization to deal with, but one of the things this book shows is we’re dealing with people, and human beings are much the same everywhere, and we must struggle for the basic rights of everyone to happiness and well-being.

… and that in any case I cannot be responsible for what was done before I was born, and that on the contrary, since today we see the results of earlier wars, we must take care not to bring about further injustice.