Danielle Alma Ravitzki on how Amos Oz embodied the racism and contradictions of Liberal Zionist ideology: “Oz was a mirror image of the ‘Israeli left wing,’ and supported more than a few massacres committed by Israel in Gaza, and spoke in favor of apartheid soldiers. He fatuously believed in the misleading, dangerous idea of a ‘humane apartheid’, so archetypical of the liberal left ideology which adores masculinity, cherishes militarism, and idolizes white supremacy. Oz was a living example of this infamous, and insidious ideology.”

Marc Ellis on the passing of Amos Oz: “Like Wiesel, Amos Oz was a witness to the destruction and reemergence of Jewish life in the formative events of the Holocaust and the birth of the state of Israel. What they also experienced but couldn’t fathom was the formative event of Palestinian freedom as a demand on Jewish history. In missing the next question of Jewish life, while trying to deflect and demean those who did, Oz’s liberal Zionist witness became tarnished and, like Wiesel’s Holocaust consciousness, fated.”

Haider Eid reflects on Amos Oz, the Israeli writer who died at age 79: “Through his glorification of the kibbutz regardless of the fact that it is built on a stolen land belonging to native Palestinians, he became an active participant in, and defender of, the aggressive colonialist politics of his country. In his work Palestinians are (mis)reprepresnted as marginalized and passive characters, they are never active agents.  Oz’s literary work was truly a fusion of literature and Israeli ideology.”

Mara Ahmed attended a lecture by Amos Oz in late April and was interested to see how the liberal Zionist icon would frame his presentation in the context of the weekly Israeli attacks on defenseless protestors in Gaza: “He held up Jews as consummate rebels, whose anarchist gene forces them to doubt, argue, and perpetually reexamine the truth. Yet when I looked around the room, that’s hardly what I saw.”