I spent the last two weeks in Israel pretty much covering the country from Beersheba to the Sea of Galilee. So there was little time to post. It was a good trip-and I will have to post my pictures soon. I also, in my spare moments was attacking two different books. The first was, This is My God, by Hermann Wouk. I read this in a major effort to understand the modern tenants of Judaism-which I think is important to understand the link Israelis make as a whole of their Jewishness with their nationality. In no other religion is nationality so bound up in a particular faith. I do not understand it-even after finishing the book.
The second book was a re-read of a book I bough about 14 years ago, called Mandate Days by Dr. A.J. Sherman. Its an examination of the 30 years of the British Mandate and how the British tried to please both Arabs and Jews and in the end alienated them both. I found it especially pertinent after visiting the Etzel ( Irgun) museum in Tel Aviv. ( You can get a 2 for 1 ticket that works for both the Irgun and IDF history museums-the IDF museum is just across the street at what used to be the old Jaffa train station. Well worth a visit).
I found the Irgun museum more than a little disturbing. Because basically, it is celebration of outright terrorism-the same exact type of terrorism that Israel decries every day and has had to deal with. Yet in telling the story of the Irgun, it does not just lay out the facts, it glorifies the terrorist acts they committed against the British. And it ignores a basic fact, namely that the Arabs and specifically Islam were in Palestine for a longer period than the sons of Judah. The dome of the Rock has been on temple mount for 1300 years, longer than either the first or the second temples. And then, due to Zionism in the 20th century-along came waves of Jewish Immigrants-waving a Bible and the Balfour Declaration and demanding that both the British and the Arabs step aside.
That was the dilemma that the British faced in pre-World War II Palestine. After the war-the tragedy of the holocaust, coupled with the knowledge that the Allies, in general, and the US State Department in particular, had turned a blind eye to clear cut evidence that the tragedy was taking place. Actions could have been undertaken that would have saved lives-in particular going after the camps with bombing raids and loosening up US immigration quotas. The pressure to provide the promised Jewish Homeland was enormous.
But did that actually justify mindless acts of violence in response? I tend to think not. While I was going through the museum, I couldn't help but think-how would I react, if I were in Baghdad, and saw exhibits that glorified the bombings of Americans; stating that they helped drive out the American occupiers?
This is not to say I want to undo the past. Israel exists and it thrives today and has made Palestine on the whole a much more productive place than other nations in the region. But it also drove home to me that the historical story is not as one sided as our Israeli friends sometimes wish to portray. The truth, as it always is, just a bit blurrier.
Whatever-both books are worth a read, especially if you spend a great deal of time in Israel.