I'm A Great Believer In Compromise. I

A Little More Than A Hundred Years Ago, "tel Aviv" Was Not A City. It Was A Title Of A Novel Written By An Author. The "return To Zion" Was A Name Of Another Novel. There Was A Bookshelf. There Was No Country. There Was No State. There Was No Nation. There Was No Physical Jewish Reality In This Country.

Sometimes, Recently Israeli-palestinian Conflict Is Indeed A Clash Between Wrong And Wrong. It Is Not As Simple As Fascism Was. Every Decent Man Had To Be Against Fascism, Period. It Is Not As Simple As Apartheid Or Colonialism Or Racism Or Misogyny. It Is Not Simple Because The Palestinians Have No Other Land. They Are Absolutely Right About This. The Israeli Jews Also Have No Other Land And They Are Absolutely Right About This. It Is A Tragedy Of Two Peoples Claiming The Same Very Small Country, About The Size Of New Jersey.

Not Now, For The Last Three Thousand Years, Hebrew Has Been Penetrated And Fertilized By Ancient Semitic Languages - By Aramaic, By Greek, By Latin, By Arabic, By Yiddish, By Latino, By German, By Russian, By English, I Could Go On And On. It's Very Much Like English.

Well, My Definition Of A Tragedy Is A Clash Between Right And Right.

Literature Is About Telling Stories. Now, The Gift Of Literature Is That, In Some Lucky Cases, Reading A Novel Or A Story Makes The Reader More Curious, More Open-minded. It May Open A Third Eye In The Middle Of The Reader's Forehead.