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Twilight Zone / A prophet in his own country
By Gideon Levy
Tags: Gideon Levy, Israel news

Twenty-five faded, torn, yellowing and dusty envelopes, and a dozen important books - that is apparently what is left. I went down to the Haaretz archives this week to rummage through the envelopes and reread what I had read so eagerly in my childhood. I was just a little kid when Amos Elon began writing for Haaretz, and that was a long time ago, obviously; a time when children in Israel still read newspapers, or read anything at all for that matter - now just an archaeological era. Fania no longer works in the archive. She's been replaced by a bunch of younger folk, a whole new world. It's been quite a while since my fingers got all smudged from poring through the archive, now that everything is so computerized.

This week, I also wanted to examine the ravages of time: Did what impressed me as superb writing back then still meet that standard? Usually, such tests are extremely cruel: Hebrew has changed and Elon's Israelis (he may have been the first to call them that) have changed beyond recognition, Haaretz has changed, the country has changed and I, too, am no longer that young kid. And so I made my way down to the archives with an unsure step, as if steeling myself for a belated reunion with the object of my youthful adoration. As everyone knows, such encounters most often end badly. Very badly.

Drowning in the sea of clippings, I decided to focus on 1967, the most formative and fateful year for Israel after 1948; the year that Tom Segev, Elon's heir in many ways, described so well in his excellent book about the Six-Day War. But Segev wrote with hindsight, while Elon was writing in real time - a time that we now know was also a time of big lies; lies about the great danger that lay at our doorstep, a danger that was bogus or inflated; and lies about the territories that were temporarily "liberated" - only temporarily - to be "bargaining chips" for peace, which has yet to arrive and which we may not have really been aiming for even then.
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What did Elon write for us about that year in which the big nationalist and religious orgy erupted? An orgy that I too was part of, at age 14. For this reason, too, it is a cruel test: It appears that all of us, and I mean all of us, celebrated then at the sight of the sea of white sheets in the West Bank, in the face of popular lyrics like "We are after Rafah, as you wanted, Tal," "Sharm al-Sheikh, we've come back to you," "Nasser is waiting for Rabin, ay, ay, ay," and stirring announcements like "The Temple Mount is in our hands" and the military rabbi blowing the shofars. In Wikipedia I read that there was one unpublished article written by Elon during the "waiting period," in which he warned about the looming war, and about its potential consequences most of all. This article is not to be found in the brown envelopes, of course.

Now for the series of envelopes labeled "Elon, Amos, articles and reports." I, who sometimes think that everything I write is destined for the archives, and only for the archives, began to read thirstily. In the hours that followed, I couldn't lift my eyes from the black letters, from those bearers of good tidings: Apparently, there is such a thing as journalism that stands the test of time. Stands the test of time? Actually, whoever reads Elon's writings from 1967 will see that it can also improve with time. Not many other journalists wrote the way he did, with his lean but rich language, supported by a such an intellectual worldview and breadth of knowledge. In a time of false, self-serving prophets, Elon was a true prophet.

In early January 1967, Israel was preoccupied with a recession and with poverty. And Elon wrote as follows: "Humanity usually takes one of two attitudes toward poverty: A. Poverty is blessed, it is a constructive incentive that spawns positive attributes. The poor are good; B. Poverty is evil and dirty, it corrupts human nature, erodes a person's energies and pushes him into criminality. In Israel, after a shining decade of prosperity and over-employment, the debate about poverty is now resuming, in the shadow of recession and decline." Typically, that same day Elon also published an article from Stockholm: "The world of tomorrow in the far north." That's just how he was - whether in Stockholm or Beit She'an, so aptly describing both.

Two days later he reported from the Mapam council meeting - yes, there was once such a party. And this is what a party convention looked like in those days, in the eyes of this gifted writer: "The Mapam council meeting was approaching its end yesterday and the delegates were preparing to cast votes, when at last Meir Ya'ari also intervened in the heated debate over the question of whether to leave the government or stay in it. The admor from Rehavia, who has aged almost beyond recognition in recent years, his silvered head hunched over his stooped body, as if struggling under an unbearable burden, threw his voice into the ring. Unequivocally and steadfastly in favor of remaining in this government."

Do you see anyone like Meir Ya'ari today? Or, at the very least, a writer who could write like this about a party convention? Shall I mention names? Better not to.

In the ensuing weeks, Elon wrote a series of investigative reports about sea pollution, at a time when no one had heard about environmental and ecological issues; he wrote about the uprooting of trees long before mass uprootings became the crude weapon of lovers of Greater Israel; he eulogized Konrad Adenauer; he wrote an article expressing admiration for the kibbutzim and an article critical of agriculture minister Haim Givati's trip abroad - Just listen to this: "Once again a minister has traveled abroad and there is no convincing answer to the question: Is this trip vital?" - and this was long before we had the defense minister staying in a 2,500-euro-a-night suite accompanied by a flying entourage of dozens of people.

And from another equally incisive article entitled "Wanted: a generation of innovators": "Mr. Eshkol knows that in the universities these days they read Ha'olam Hazeh more than Hapoel Hatzair. He did not quote A. D. Gordon but looked to Sartre, when he said: In Israel there is a chance of attaining rare happiness, thanks to the natural combination of a consciousness of historical continuity with the joy of creating a new social entity. The big question in regard to Mr. Eshkol's words is this: Will the new generation of native-born Israelis seek this happiness as the French philosopher described it, or will it turn its back on historic Judaism and on the effort for Zionist fulfillment?" Such was the spirit of the times.

Elon also wrote about the Israel Electric Corporation and about the cancellation of a terrible nuisance - the need for visas when visiting Switzerland. And there is an article about "Mordechai Namir's parade ground" - i.e., Kikar Malkhei Yisrael, which was being built then atop the gravel lot where we used to play soccer, the goal marked by two tamarisk trees, now long gone; the place we used to light Lag Ba'omer bonfires, tossing on pictures of the Egyptian tyrant Gamal Abdel Nasser for fuel, the Nasser who waited for Rabin - ay, ay, ay.

One week later from Amos Elon, military correspondent: "On Monday afternoon, a few hours after the IDF moved into Sinai, I flew in a military helicopter to the front command center of one of the breached armored formations. A helicopter landed amid the cloud of dust. GOC Southern Command, Yeshayahu Gavish." Just like that, plain and unadorned, at a time when everyone else was worshiping and exalting and glorifying the generals.

Three days later, "Wine Lover" wrote (and one can depend on Fania the archivist that this was Elon): "One of the less controversial, more pacifistic, more mutually pleasurable fruits of victory afforded us for the first time since 1948 is to taste the excellent table wine produced at the monastery of the silent monks in Latrun. While experience shows that almost any wine will please a conqueror, the IDF is known as an army that likes soft drinks. The relative few who tested the Latrun wine were not disappointed."

Yes, Elon was among the few wine testers then. Two weeks later, he asked: Where to lay down the crocodile? "The political leadership continues to behave in the West Bank like someone who received a live crocodile for his birthday. It doesn't know where to put it - in the bathtub or the living room .... The time is coming when we will have to at least tell ourselves what we want and what we don't want: peace or new territories? The time has also come to make clear to ourselves what we expect from the defeated population, which will soon awaken from the psychological shock. What do we want, blind obeisance of hostile prisoners without choice, or sympathetic cooperation between free, war-weary people? They say that within six months there will be peace between the peoples of Palestine for the first time since 1918; or there could be a Vietcong movement in the large area between Jenin and Hebron. We stand now at a turning point. Temporary frameworks are giving way to permanent arrangements ... Israel has yet to clarify for itself what it wants. We have no plan. We're like a person who doesn't know where he wants to go on vacation but has already bought the plane tickets."

Predicting a "Vietcong" in the territories in 1967? Writing "Israel has yet to clarify for itself what it wants" - which is just as true in the summer of 2009?

With the word laundry overflowing and flooding everything with its dirty water; when hardly anyone ever travels anymore to the Aqabat Jaber camp; when the questions that were raised in June 1967 still echo and cry out for an answer; and when there is no one else who can so incisively describe the reality of our lives, I miss Amos Elon. We spoke for the last time when I tried to convince him over the phone, from the Tuscan village of his voluntary exile, to write an article about why he chose Barack Obama. Elon sounded weary. Weary and despairing, as he had sounded in recent years.

I think I know why.

This article is part of a speech given at an event dedicated to the memory of Amos Elon, which took place last Saturday night in Mishkenot Sha'ananim in Jerusalem.
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