p49 How to Cure a Fanatic
by Amos Oz
William Leith1 November 2012
How to Cure a Fanatic
by Amos Oz
(Vintage, £3.99)
In these essays, Amos Oz, the Israeli thinker and novelist, gets to grips with the argument between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The situation is tragic, he says, because it’s not a fight between right and wrong. It’s a fight between right and right. Also, it’s a squabble between two victims. Israel and Palestine are “two victims of the same oppressor”. That oppressor is the colonial Europe of the past. Part of the current tragedy exists because both of these victims look at each other and see, not a fellow victim, but “the image of their past oppressors”. Beautifully put.
