Gaza War: Desperate, gripping and enlightening

The country may be heading towards a major war,” historian Saul Friedländer feared in May last year. And then, as he has done many times before, he directed his criticism and anger at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, in order to avoid conviction for breach of trust, fraud and bribery, has joined forces with radicals, right-wing extremists and Orthodox Christians. An unfortunate, a disastrous cartel. “Netanyahu has poisoned the atmosphere so much,” says Friedländer, “that there is mistrust everywhere.” This is his verdict on the situation in the first half of 2023 after Netanyahu and his team take office again.

The Hamas terrorist attack on October 7th, the massacre of Jewish civilians, came five months later. Of course, there is no mention of this in this diary presented here, as it was published shortly before. And yet these notes from Friedländer about events in “his” country, as he calls Israel, are still very relevant. He has lived in the USA for decades. On the one hand, he speaks of “my homeland of Los Angeles” and yet is still wholeheartedly in Israel, speaks of “we” and “our” and “our society”. Friedländer escaped; he survived the Holocaust in France in secret; his parents were murdered by the German fascists.

Friedländer has the necessary distance from Israel and is at the same time independent, sovereign and very familiar with the country and its people, sensitivities and conflicts. In his diary, he avoids topics and terms that are taboo in the German public and therefore hinder debates about possible solutions. For example, what is anti-Semitism? And what is justified or unjustified criticism of the Israeli government?

“Israel is not the answer to anti-Semitism,” writes Friedländer, adding after the semicolon: “In some cases it actually reinforces anti-Semitism.” Not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic; anti-Semitism is “usually recognized by a tone (or an undertone) of pure hatred.” Friedländer also mentions racism in Israeli society. During the founding of the Jewish state, which he can remember, he experienced racism “against the immigrants from North Africa.” Today, “blatant racism of the worst kind” against Arabs, says Friedländer.

He uses terms that recently caused outrage in Germany. “Israel is on the way to an authoritarian apartheid theocracy, something like a mixture of the former South Africa and today’s Iran. Two groups are vying to achieve this goal as quickly as possible: the settlers and the ultra-Orthodox. An unholy alliance like it’s written in the book.”

The scientist doesn’t mince his words. He repeatedly criticizes Netanyahu’s alliance with four religious parties, ultra-Orthodox, radicals and extremists. For example, Bezalel Smotrich from the Religious Zionism party, now the finance minister and an avowed racist, states bluntly that there is no Palestinian people and that the Palestinians are “an invention that is less than a hundred years old.” And Itamar Ben Gwir from the Jewish Strength party, now Minister for National Security, is “the most offensive and disgusting figure in this entire gallery of crazy people,” says Friedländer. Ben-Gvir is in favor of the death penalty, wants to eliminate democracy in Israel in favor of a Jewish theocracy and, according to Friedländer, is considered a “declared hater of Arabs”. The Holocaust researcher exposes the financial supporters of the extremists in Israel and sarcastically notes: “Kohelet (…), the ultra-right libertarian organization (…) is apparently financed by two American-Jewish billionaires, Jeffrey Jass and Arthur Dantchik, who, among others financially supported the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Nice people.”

“Israel’s problem is not the army as such,” he notes, “but the decades-long occupation of the conquered territories.” He speaks of the “madness after 1967,” “and the ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories.”

Friedländer is skeptical and even pessimistic about the hope for a solution to the conflicts in the region. He is certain that the only way to get there is through a two-state solution. US President Biden also supports this. But there may currently be no political majorities on either side of the front. At the beginning of July, Friedländer judged that “the fight for democracy is the fight of a majority” in Israel; But he was not sure “whether the fight for a gradual two-state solution could unite the same proportion of the population behind it. In my opinion, that is our basic problem.”

However, Friedländer makes a bitter misjudgment in his diary, which shows how confusing and difficult to understand the overall situation is. In the face of firefights, the historian noted on May 12th: “It is interesting, by the way, that Hamas is not interfering in the conflict. It wants to protect the civilian population for which it is responsible, while jihad is focused exclusively on the military fight against Israel. Less than five months later, this belief is horribly dashed by the massacre of Jewish civilians.

Despite this bitter misjudgment, this detracts little from Friedländer’s diary of its importance. Here you get insights, analyses, comments and biographical notes that are irreplaceable and provide good orientation in a small space. The 91-year-old historian has written a fiery plea for reason and peace, analytical, desperate, perplexed, angry, captivating and enlightening. Lots of food for thought and debate.

Saul Friedländer: Looking into the abyss. An Israeli diary. A.d. English v. Andreas Wirthensohn. C. H. Beck, 237 pages, hardcover, €24.