(As an aside: It is not clear exactly where Oz’s Israel would be without the contribution of Judea and Samaria to Israeli society. Who would fill the ranks of Oz’s settler-free IDF? The teenagers from north Tel Aviv who routinely opt out of military service? The children of Oz’s colleagues in Btselem and Peace Now, who routinely describe settlements and settlers as “criminals”? But I digress.)
No, Amos Oz no longer holds a mirror up to the Judea and Samaria community with a demand to maintain the moral high ground at all times. Sadly, Israel’s finest modern author is now a man who can be rejected out of hand as an irrelevant, pathetic parody of an Israeli. For if graffiti on a church, or slashed tires on an army jeep are today’s equivalent of Dr Mengele, there is truly no common language with which to discuss the issues and challenges that face Israeli society today.