This was a very hard book for me to read, and even harder to review, dealing as it does with a conflict I have seen up close and personal and a country to which I still have deep ties. Alice Rothchild is a Jewish American physician who has been active for the past 15 years in supporting Palestinian nonviolent resistance movements alongside Israeli peace activists. In trying to understand the origin of the Palestinian Israeli conflict she acknowledges that the State of Israel was established as a haven for world Jewry after centuries of Jewish persecution. She then, however, challenges the legitimacy of the state suggesting that Western powers gave away land that was not theirs to give because of a combination of guilt over having done little or nothing to save Jews in the holocaust, and a latent anti-Semitism – “the Jewish Problem” – that quite liked the idea of being able to get rid of one’s Jews.
Referring to the Zionist movement that initiated immigration to Palestine in the early 1900s, she asks, "does a national settler movement triggered by European anti-Semitism, that is grounded in the privileging of Jews and the belittling, dehumanization, or hatred of Arabs, inexorably lead to where we are today?"
Rothchild’s book, Condition Critical is based on her audio diary and blog maintained during multiple trips to the region. It describes the many forms of humiliation and suppression imposed on Palestinians in the conquered territories as well as on Israeli citizens ethnically Palestinian. She describes unconscionable callousness and brutality against civilians, and a systematic policy of suppression of building and other economic activities that could allow them to prosper. Being a physician and a woman, her exchanges with Palestinian doctors and women, especially about the blockade and bombardment of Gaza city, were particularly poignant and painful to read. God knows there is no shortage of oppressive regimes in the world, but she feels strongly that having suffered so deeply as a nation during the Holocaust, it is more incumbent on a Jewish state to exhibit compassion and empathy than other countries.
In describing the story behind the establishment of Israel, Rothchild writes of helpless Palestinians driven from their ancestral homes during the war of independence in 1948 and 1967 through brutal actions by Israeli military operations that were intent on ethnic cleansing of as much territory as possible in the establishment of a purely Jewish state. The alternative narrative, which she dismisses, is of idealistic pioneers tired of centuries of anti-Semitism and persecution returning to their ancestral home in the land of the Bible, hoping to become a nation state whose citizens can hold their heads up in pride; the growth of militarism and the fortress mentality were forced upon the Israelis by terrorism and the implacable enmity of not only the Palestinians but all of the surrounding Arab countries.
The sad reality is that both of these narratives are true. Both communities live in fear and distrust of the other and yet the citizens of both sides want only to live their lives out in peace. Where is truth and justice in this equation? Rothschild lays out the heart-rending plight of the Palestinian people with passion and eloquence. Where the book falls down, I believe, is in giving similar voice to the racial memory of persecution and anti-Semitism – think Inquisition, pogroms, Hitler, the Ayatollas, the KKK - and the determination to never again be the victim. Yes, the Holocaust and anti-Semitism have been waved in the faces of anyone in the West who criticizes Israel, even when its actions should be roundly criticized; however, the psychic wounds are real and deep, as are similar wounds kept raw by daily injustices toward the Palestinians.
In the absence of a modern-day King Solomon it is up to people of good will on all sides to bridge these gaps, and I applaud Alice Rothchild for articulating so movingly the moral dilemma facing the Jews, who now have might on their side, but might does not make right. I know she was trying to redress the balance she perceives as being so greatly in favor of the Israelis, however I think she does a disservice to her argument to ignore the legitimate rights and aspirations of both sides for a home in this ancient land.
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