We have waved goodbye to the painters, got the house back into some sort of order and I am now back with Amos Oz.
The writing is wonderful:
Quote:
|
Now you can hear the full depths of the desert silence. It isn't the quiet before the storm, nor the silence of the end of the world, but a silence that only covers another, even deeper, silence. I stand there for three or four minutes inhaling silence like a smell. (Page 294.)
|
As is the wisdom:
Quote:
In the lives of individuals and of peoples, too, the worst conflicts are often those that break out between those who are persecuted. It is mere wishful thinking to imagine that the persecuted and the oppressed will unite out of solidarity and man the barricades together against a ruthless oppressor. In reality, two children of the same abusive father will not necessarily make common cause, brought close together by their shared fate. Often each sees in the other not a partner in misfortune but in fact the image of their common oppressor.
That may well be the case with the hundred-year-old conflict between Arabs and Jews. (Pages 329-30.)
|
His harrowing descriptions of what happened after the UN vote certainly helps me to understand better the later history of Israeli/Arab conflict.
I feel privileged to be reading this man's experiences and thoughts.