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Jerusalem has a reputation for madness. Heck, we even have our very own syndrome. How many cities can beat that? (Go away Stockholm, nobody fights wars over you.)
I’ve often felt for better or for worse this is a city where common sense doesn’t apply. It’s part of what makes Israel so great, this stubborn refusal to go with the flow.
Palestinian activists destroy part of the separation wall in the West Bank village of Bir Nabala, near Ramallah, Nov. 15, 2013. (Activestills)
The world is a very different place from when +972 Magazine began as a blog in 2010. Benjamin Netanyahu’s now record-breaking stint in power was barely a year old; there was no coronavirus pandemic or reality TV star-turned-autocrat in the White House; and social media was not the fake news factory it has become today.
Yet for all that is unrecognizable about the world now, there are also many things that are all too familiar, not least in Israel-Palestine: the ongoing theft and settling of Palestinian land; a military occupation that has lasted over half a century; a choking siege on Gaza; racism against African asylum seekers and Ethiopian Israelis; and an abiding refusal by the Israeli state and large segments of its society to face head-on the legacy of the country’s founding, to name but a few.
Published date: 21 December 2020 12:54 UTC | Last update: 3 months ago
While Oz became an increasingly lonely voice in Israel calling for a two-state solution, Said was a spokesman for the cause of Palestinian liberation
Edward Said and Amos Oz (illustration by Mohamad ElAasar/MEE)
This month marks the second anniversary of the death of Amos Oz, perhaps Israel’s most internationally recognised cultural figure.
On the surface, Oz occupied a position somewhat parallel to that of the late Edward Said (who died in 2003) in Palestinian society. Both were respected literary figures, regarded as spokespeople for their respective political causes: in Oz’s case liberal Zionism, and in Said’s the struggle for Palestinian liberation.
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