...a clarion call, not to arms but to empathy ... So rare is it to hear an uncynical voice on the subject of Arab-Israeli relations that it’s tempting to dismiss this slim but intensely felt book as naive, a soft-hearted offering of the olive branch with no takers in sight. To do so would be a mistake, for Mr. Halevi is a fierce defender of Israel’s sovereignty as well as a clear-eyed observer of Palestinian obstructionism and disingenuousness ... Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor is a profound and original book, the work of a gifted thinker whose allegiance is not so much to a religious or political ideology as to a 'discourse of spiritual dignity.' It is, in its way, a shot in the dark, and if some readers will question its assumptions and its conclusions, none can question the humanity that characterizes its every page.
I hope the book reaches its intended audiences both in the Middle East and around the world. For Halevi, in the end, is still optimistic that there could be peace ... 'One of the main obstacles to peace is an inability to hear the other side’s story,' Halevi writes in a note to the reader, and he invites the other side to listen. 'For peace to succeed in the Middle East, it must speak in some way to our hearts.' Not in the language of politics, but the language of the spirit. It is, he believes, a language shared by both Muslims and Jews, two ancient peoples who have co-habited this tiny part of the world for centuries. Both are traumatized by history, both feel equal attachment to this land.
Unsurprisingly for one of our finest writers, he avoids the two tender traps Israelis and Jews writing about what is often nebulously called 'the conflict' too often commit: He is neither limply sentimental, apologizing for sins real and imagined, nor needlessly steely, harrumphing his truth to the exclusion of all other possible points of view ... The epistolary form is perfect for this sort of undertaking ... Halevi writes warmly, intimately, opening his mind and his heart to his imagined neighbor even when he acknowledges that same neighbor’s darkest biases ... All of that is enough of an achievement for a short and heartfelt book, but Letters, I suspect, will find readers very different from Halevi’s Palestinian neighbors (to whom the book, translated into Arabic, is offered for free online) ... We can ask for no better guide.
The argument of critics, though, is that the series of 10 letters addressed to an imagined Palestinian, all written by Yossi Klein Halevi...boils down to a one-sided correspondence ... Halevi, an American-born emigre to Israel, writes with a profound and palpable empathy ... His keen observations — deeply human in scale — ache with a longing to reach across 'the wall between us.'
Halevi’s story is both clearheaded and very much penned in the spirit of reconciliation. He seeks to strip away misconceptions ... Halevi is guilty of recycling tropes ... But he can also be refreshingly honest ... Halevi is, in writing to the Palestinians, both by design and necessity, making a more compassionate case.
The author proposes some truly radical solutions, including reparations for Palestinians displaced from their homeland ... More searchingly, Halevi urges that each camp look into its faith to determine where common ground can be found and, even more difficult, where in its doctrine barriers to peace are located ... The author’s reasoned if sometimes too hopeful suggestions for peaceful reconciliation are surely worth hearing out ... A good choice for any reader with an interest in Middle Eastern affairs, though perhaps unlikely to sway those whose minds are made up.
...a poetic and moving account of 'my experience as occupier' that asserts Israel’s legitimacy and evokes its emotional importance for Jews, but refuses to gloss over its flaws ... He frames his chapters as a series of letters to that neighbor that include both concise, balanced histories—of such topics as the history of modern Zionism and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza—and his own memories ... heartfelt, empathetic plea for connection and mutual acknowledgement.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
