Antony Loewenstein is saying just what I’m saying about Israel’s crisis, but in Australia. The author of the book, My Israel Question, Loewenstein writes in The Age:
Israel is a nation in serious decline. Israel’s long-term future lies not with a superpower thousands of kilometres away, but in the Arab world. As a strong supporter of both the Israelis and Palestinians, I believe that only international pressure on Israel can bring a nation addicted to violence to heel and leadership on both sides mature enough to negotiate with honesty.
Loewenstein calls on Israel to negotiate with Syria. So does Israeli noveslist David Grossman, in his thunderous speech at the Rabin memorial last week, a speech that also described an Israel in crisis:
By our sword we shall live and by our sword we shall die and the sword shall devour forever… [to P.M. Olmert] If President Assad says that Syria wants peace, even if you don’t believe him, and we are all suspicious of him, you must offer to meet him that same day. Don’t wait a single day. When you launched the last war you did not even wait one hour. You charged with full force, with the complete arsenal, with the full power of destruction. Why, when a glimmer of peace surfaces, must you reject it immediately, dissolve it?
