Books, Arts & Manners: A Question of Tolerance

In the Land of Israel, by Amos Oz, translated by Maurie Goldberg-Bartura Harcourt Brace, 257 pp., $12.95 In recent months Israel has witnessed a series of terrorist incidents perpetrated by Israelis against non-Jewish targets in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Of Israelis polled by the Jerusalem Post in February, 18.7 per cent approved of such attacks.

For many countries that figure might not startle us. But Americans by and large still think of Israel as a “light unto nations,” a victim rather than a user of terror. We seldom hear about it and we are tempted to close our eyes and ears to it when the darker underside of the Israeli scene shows itself Yet many Israelis are disturbed to realize that that underside is coming increasingly to the fore, and with Amos Oz’s In the Land of Israel, we too are unable to ignore it any longer.

KC

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Kathleen Christison

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In the Land of Israel, by Amos Oz, translated by Maurie Goldberg-Bartura Harcourt Brace, 257 pp., $12.95 In recent months Israel has witnessed a series of terrorist incidents perpetrated by Israelis against non-Jewish targets in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Of Israelis polled by the Jerusalem Post in February, 18.7 per cent approved of such attacks.

For many countries that figure might not startle us. But Americans by and large still think of Israel as a “light unto nations,” a victim rather than a user of terror. We seldom hear about it and we are tempted to close our eyes and ears to it when the darker underside of the Israeli scene shows itself Yet many Israelis are disturbed to realize that that underside is coming increasingly to the fore, and with Amos Oz’s In the Land of Israel, we too are unable to ignore it any longer.