'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Amos Oz on compassion

Yes! A great piece-- once again-- from Israeli writer Amos Oz. There was a small period there, at the beginning of the current intifada, when he got a little too accusatory for my taste. But this piece, from the newspaper formerly known as the Manchester Guardian, is truly a great one.

He writes:

This is the time for the rest of the world to offer both sides as much help, empathy and understanding as possible. This is the time for well-meaning governments and individuals to come forth with a "mini Marshall Plan" in order to resettle the Palestinian refugees in the state of Palestine. It is also the time to offer Israel the security guarantees it will need in return for renouncing the occupied territories.

This is time for compassion, not for historical accounting and not for blaming. Neither Sharon nor Abbas is likely to become a Nelson Mandela. But whether they like it or not it looks as if their sleeves are now caught in the cogwheels of the peace process...

Yes, yes, yes! (Sorry to get a little Molly Bloomish here.) But compassion exactly what I've been urging, for a while now.

I guess the only point where I'm a little wary of what Oz says is when he writes: it will be almost impossible for those two leaders to run away now from the peace process. Well, at least he qualified his forecast a little bit.

Gosh I remember all those oh-so-wise pundits back in the mid-1990s-- Rita hauser and Judith Kipper come to mind, but there were plenty of others-- who told us, "The peace process started at Oslo is irreversible!"

Irreversible, huh? Did those people ever read any history?

Still, I'll forgive Oz his "almost impossible." Firstly, because he did qualify it. And secondly because his main argument, re compassion, is such a great one.