Our Promised Land

If you want to know more about Israel, in all its complexity, this is a good place to start

I JUST FINISHED READING A BOOK called My Promised Land (published in 2013, updated in 2016) by journalist Ari Shavit. It’s a well-researched, well-written work of journalism and personal reflection, especially if you want to go beyond the knee-jerk view of Israel-as-a-colonial-oppressor and understand something of the complicated history and present of the country and its people.

I’m not the only one who thinks so. Literary critic and all-around intellectual Roxane Gay, whose work I admire immensely, gave the book 4 stars on Goodreads. I looked it up after I finished and was pleased to read her comments. But I was also dismayed to read this comment, added to her original review:

“Before any more of you talk shit to me, know that I am ALSO reading The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi among other titles. And if you think it is shameful to read WIDELY recommended books about Israel and Palestine that offer multiple perspectives go ahead and unfollow me.”

I guess it’s unpopular even for someone like Roxane Gay, a woman of color who speaks out on social justice, to want to learn about Israel these days. Which makes me sad. And angry. And leads to horrible incidents like yesterday’s terror attack in Boulder at a peaceful rally for the return of the Israeli hostages.

But to get back to the book itself: I learned a lot from Shavit’s narrative, which takes readers through 70 years of Jewish life there. Each chapter uses a major event of the time and as a lens through which to understand the particular time and place.

FOR INSTANCE, A CHAPTER called “Orange Grove, 1936” unpacks the growing orange trade in and around Jaffa, the relationships between Jewish growers and Arab laborers, and the mood of the Jewish settlers in the 1930s. “Now any reasonable person can see that Europe is becoming a death trap for Jews; and it is also clear that America would not open its gates in time to save the persecuted Jews of Europe,” writes Shavit. “Only a Jewish state in Palestine can save the lives of the millions who are about to die. In 1935, Zionist justice is an absolute universal justice that cannot be refuted.” (52)

Of course it didn’t save millions of Jewish lives, though it did save some, those with the wisdom to see into the future and the wherewithal to get themselves across the sea to Palestine.

There’s a chapter on Masada in the 1940s, which offers helpful context on the militarization of the Jewish settlers and the newborn state. “Lydda, 1948,” tells of the terrible decision to push the Arabs in the thriving city of Lydda out of the area, killing many along the way. “The Project, 1967,” describes a part of Israeli history I was unaware of, the development and building of Dimona, the nuclear reactor.

In “Gaza Beach, 1991,” Shavit recalls how it felt to him, as a reservist, to be sent to serve as a jailer in a Gaza detention camp. “It occurs to me that it isn’t clear who are the confined and who are the confiners,” he writes. “The entire camp strikes me as a grand metaphor for everybody’s imprisonment. Both Israelis and Palestinians are fenced in here.” (229)

Might it be that Israel’s collective psyche is no longer suited to Israel’s tragic circumstances?

In the last chapter, written a few years after the book’s initial publication, Shavit tries to make bigger-picture sense of the situation, laying out what he describes as seven circles of threat to Israel. First, the Islamic circle, the fact that the simple existence of a Jewish state in a part of the world sacred to Islam arouses religious animosity among many Muslims.

Second, the Arab circle, the fact that Israel is a tiny country in the heart of a larger and often unstable Arab world. Third, the Palestinian circle, which Shavit describes in words that feel eerily prescient ten years later. “Israel is perceived by its neighbors to be a settler state founded on the ruins of indigenous Palestine,” he writes. “If the present status quo continues, and Israel keeps ruling over millions of Palestinians (who make up approximately half the population of the land), we face two equally dire choices: either we grant them political rights and Israel ceases to be a Jewish state, or we continue to deny them these rights and Israel ceases to be a democracy.” (433)

The fourth threat, an internal threat, comes from the fact that Israel has not treated its Arab citizens well, destabilizing the country and creating what he calls a “dangerous situation of lawlessness” in some places. (434) The fifth threat is mental. Early Zionists faced down the challenges of a hostile environment and periodic wars out of the conviction that they were creating something necessary and new: a democratic version of communism that would save the Jews. Their sacrifices felt important, vital to the shared communal endeavor. But modern Israel, writes Shavit, is far more capitalistic and consumerist. The dream of communal life is gone. “Might it be that Israel’s collective psyche is no longer suited to Israel’s tragic circumstances?” he asks. (435)

Volunteers on a kibbutz in the 1970s. I’ll never forget my time picking plums on a kibbutz in 1974. Photo from https://magazine.esra.org.il/posts/entry/ex-volunteer-kibbutz-movement-wants-to-hear-from-you.html

THE SIXTH THREAT, according to Shavit, is the moral threat, the fact that a nation constantly at war can easily be corrupted. In fact, it’s what we’re seeing right now with Bibi’s corrupt and increasingly unpopular offensives. Shavit says Israel has managed to walk the line for a long time, but that occupation takes a moral toll, and the increasingly powerful far right Orthodox contingent has no respect for democratic values.

Finally, the seventh threat involves what Shavit calls Hebrew identity, a response to earlier conceptions of Jewish passivity and helplessness. Hebrew identity has cherished progress and secularism, determination and enlightenment, energy and success. It prioritized action and decisiveness and a shared sense of purpose. But the Israel of the 21^st century has necessarily become pluralistic, a conglomeration of 10 million people with different perspectives and values. “At the core of the Zionist revolution was an identity revolution,” writes Shavit. “Now it is all falling apart. Our new fierce identity is disintegrating into a multitude of identities, some of which are frail and confused. We are not sure who we really are.” (439)

What I appreciate most about this book is Shavit’s ability to embrace complexity. He doesn’t cherry-pick only the good aspects of Israel’s past and present. He contextualizes the decisions and actions taken 50 or 100 years ago as both necessary and devastating. He doesn’t excuse or rationalize.

He is, of course, an Israeli, writing from an Israeli perspective. He writes out of both deep knowledge and deep love for his country, but that doesn’t blind him to its flaws and challenges and uncertain future. “The Jewish state does not resemble any other nation,” he says. “What this nation has to offer is not security or well-being or peace of mind. What is has to offer is the intensity of life on the edge. The adrenaline rush of living dangerously, living lustfully, living to the extreme. Bottom line, I think, Zionism was about regenerating Jewish vitality. The Israel tale is the tale of vitality against all odds.” (451)

That certainly rings true to me. The Israelis I know are opinionated, strong-minded, active, questioning, funny. Like all of us, they can also be wrong-headed and stubborn, but that’s part of being alive and awake in the world. Right now, thousands of Israelis are back in the streets, protesting on Saturday nights to bring home the hostages and end the pointless war. This kind of protest in this country at this time is a true act of courage on multiple levels. (And if you want to support the protestors financially, you can do that here.)

Like Shavit, I feel hopeful despite the odds ranged against Israel: hopeful that the country will find ways to fruitfully address not just the strategic obstacles it faces but also the internal moral ones. It’s certainly not the only country in the world that needs to tackle these kinds of challenges.