An Israeli settler in front of the Palestinian city of Nablus in the West Bank
Photo: dpa/Ilia Yefimovich
The Israeli writer David Grossman was honored with the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 2010. The reason: his commitment to the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. A narrow collection of texts and speeches by the 70-year-old writer on the current political situation in and around Israel confirms this: “Peace is the only option.”
In February 2017, as a guest at the Munich Security Conference, David Grossman raised his voice and made a formal, almost pleading, plea to the peace-loving world. This is how the collection of texts presented here begins: »We need your help. We, the Israelis and the Palestinians, who want to live in peace, who are against occupation and terror, who abhor violence of any kind (…) If peace and security are important to you, then do something to keep Israel and the Palestinians out of the cycle from self-destruction.”
Seven years have passed since then. And now, after October 7th last year? After the massacre of Jewish civilians? More than 1,000 people were murdered by the Islamist Hamas and more than 200 hostages were kidnapped. And the war never ends, the retaliation continues. Seven years ago, Grossman concluded his speech with the words: “How much blood must be shed before we realize that peace is our only option?”
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Six days after the terrorist attack, the FAZ published an article by Grossman, which is printed in the second half of this book. It is titled “Black Shabbat.” Out of the immediate shock, Grossman finds clear, unambiguous words: “The feeling of having been betrayed runs deep. The government has betrayed its citizens. (…) Has betrayed the most precious pledge that she was charged with guarding: being the national home for us Jews.”
Yes, Grossman is also angry with the extremist Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu. The writer sees his homeland on the brink of the abyss, laments corruption in leading circles, criminal energy, and the attack on democracy. But then he first turns his attention back to the pursuers across the border. “The atrocities of these days cannot be attributed to Israel. They are the responsibility of Hamas. “The occupation is a crime, but to overwhelm hundreds of civilians, children, parents, the elderly and the sick, and then go from one to the other and shoot them in cold blood – that is a much graver crime.”
In these four speeches and three newspaper articles, primarily from 2021 to 2023, a civil, peace-loving, reconciliation-minded voice can be heard. And the situation in the threatened country? Will mass demonstrations in Israel rally again to overturn the Netanyahu government? Grossman is skeptical, fearing that after the war the country will be “much more right-wing, more militant and also more racist.” These lines by a peace-loving writer who is worried about his homeland fluctuate between despair, skepticism and ever-flaring hope. The open question is whether and how the so-called realpolitik can be moved in this hostile region.
If you read the cool, sober book by the 80-year-old Israeli historian Moshe Zimmermann, all hope can be abandoned. According to this book, the politicians currently in charge in the region will not allow a peaceful solution. Unless a strong arm of reason from outside puts a stop to it, the killing in the turmoil of war will continue.
Zimmermann, like Grossman, is certain that neither the military nor occupation policy can pave the way to peace: “Israel’s security cannot be guaranteed with more military aid or more submarines, but rather through rapprochement with the countries in the region, especially to the Palestinians, based on the two-state solution.” Zimmermann describes the settlements in the middle of the occupied West Bank as an “apartheid-like system.” And emphasizes: The settlers are privileged, the Palestinians, on the other hand, are discriminated against.” Since 1977, the fate of the settlements has primarily determined Israeli policy, the historian believes, and Israel finds itself in a “hostage situation” due to the settler movement. In any case, there is no agreement in sight with the current government under Netanyahu. Zimmermann goes even further: “The right-wing radical government contributed a lot to motivating Hamas to attack Israel.”
The historian describes Israel’s right-wing extremist government as “kakistocracy – the rule of the worst”, which sees the state as prey and shamelessly uses it for its own purposes. “They are literally looting the treasury to promote a nationalist theocracy. The triple combination of kakistocracy, kleptocracy and theocracy is without a doubt the opposite of what Zionism stood for in earlier times. The Israeli historian fearlessly lists taboos that lead to the demonization of the respective opposing position in the German debate. “It was already clear to me before October 7th that the Israeli government was the greatest threat to the country and the region and that Germany’s tolerance towards this government should therefore be seen as a betrayal of the task of considering Israel’s security as German raison d’être .»
This formula that the state carries around like a monstrance – “German reason of state” – is nothing more than “a slogan, a bluff”, a lying, hypocritical commonplace. Because Germany is doing little to promote reconciliation between the warring parties. Shaking his head and indignantly, Zimmermann quotes from a submission from the Bundestag’s scientific service from March 27, 2020. It summarizes: “Ultimately, there will be no way around the fact that the parties to the conflict strive for a viable solution through direct dialogue.” But the analysis reveals that they are not capable of doing this at all. So Germany is powerless.
“How are we supposed to understand this logic?” asks Zimmermann. And he concludes: “The real conclusion for German politics, if this paper from the Bundestag’s Research Service is taken seriously, is: Hands off! Since Israel’s security can only be guaranteed through a conflict settlement via the two-state solution and Germany has to resign because it is ‘unsuitable’, the slogan ‘Israel is German reason of state’ remains a bluff and the path to the abyss is clear.”
Zimmermann outlines the complicated story in a very condensed, condensed and catchy manner in a very small space. In its analytical depth, the book is sobering and depressing at the same time. The devastating policies of Netanyahu and his extremist government, which are isolationist in nature, will continue as usual if resistance in the country does not gather again. “What I tried to offer in this book is what I call constructive pessimism.” With these words the historian ends his inventory. The reader is left dazed and uneasy.
David Grossman: Peace is the only option. A.d. Heb. v. Anne Birkenhauer and Helene Seidler. Hanser, 64 p., born €10;
Moshe Zimmermann: Never peace? Israel at a crossroads. Propylaea, 192 pages, hardcover, €16.
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