Michelle Mazel's reviews my latest essay on Israel for the Jewish Political Studies Review.
A Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) publication, the Jewish Political Studies Review (JPSR) just published a review by Michelle Mazel, the noted analyst and novelist, on my latest book, Israël peut-il survivre ?
FROM MODERN HATRED TO BIBLICAL PROPHECY,
By Michelle Mazel.
Following the 2008–2009 Cast Lead operation in Gaza, French bookstores were
suddenly flooded with books about Israel, most of them accusing and condemning
the Jewish state. This prompted Jewish writers, both newcomers and seasoned
authors, to pen essays and books defending Israel. They bemoaned the perils
threatening the country and hinted at a catastrophic future for it.
Thus, in A State Too Many,(1) Fabien Ghez notes that today it is more and more
widely believed that, if Israel were to disappear, the world would be a better place
and peace would break out. In Israel: A Future Compromised, Olivier Burochowitch
and Richard Laub openly ask whether the demise of the Jewish state is inevitable.
(2) In A Name Too Many: Is Israel Illegitimate?, with a foreword by Pierre Andre
Taguieff, Jacques Tarnero wonders why so many people want not only the elimination
of Israel but even of its very name. (3) Taguieff himself recently published Israel
and the New Jewish Issue.4 These and other books highlight the miracle of Israel’s
renewal and accomplishments as well as the mendacious and virulent campaign
against its very existence.
Even in this context, a new book by Michel Gurfinkiel, his eigth, is of special
interest. A former editor of the French weekly Valeurs Actuelles and an occasional
contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Commentary, Gurfinkiel is the founder
and chairman of the Jean Jacques Rousseau Institute, a conservative French think
tank on political issues. As he said in an interview to a Jewish website, he had been
asked so many times whether Israel could survive that he decided to write down
his thoughts about it.(5) He also said in the interview that he believed in Israel’s
ultimate survival. The book itself, however, is not totally optimistic. Indeed, the
opening paragraph is gloomy enough: “The twelfth war of Israel will not happen.
Such is the hope of the Israelis. They are preparing for it. They know that, should
it break out, it will be difficult. And murderous.” (6)
Gurfinkiel discerns two main themes in the accusations against Israel. First,
« Israel is indicted for being a colonial state; an artificial state that came into being through arbitrary decisions…having been founded…at the expense of another state—a
natural one—Palestine; having expelled the Palestinians in order to settle
a new people, the Israelis; persisting in tricks and illegality while pretending
to maintain at all costs a Jewish national identity ». The Shoah would
be the one extenuating circumstance. It cannot, however, excuse everything.
Nor can its value last forever.
One by one, using lengthy historical arguments, Gurfinkiel refutes these charges
in what is by far the most persuasive part of the book. He then turns to the second
theme and to his main thesis. The real reason, he contends, behind the implacable
hatred directed at the Jewish state “is not so much the Middle East state called
Israel…as a transcendental and metaphysical Israel, that of the Bible, of which the
state, whether it wants it or not, whether it assumes it or not, is the heir and the
last carrier to date”. The emphasis here is less on Christianity—though it is
significant as there are still some Christians who view Israelis ( Jews) as a people of
Christ-killers—than on Islam. The latter religion, Gurfinkiel suggests, rejects the
very notion of a Jewish state because, first, there is an inherent theological conflict
between Islam and Judaism, and second, there can be no infidel state on what was
once a territory under Islamic rule.
Gurfinkiel elaborates on Arab hostility and its manifestations, the help it receives
from international institutions that should know better. He devotes, in fact,
almost a third of his book to the United States and its ambivalent attitude toward
Israel. He has harsh words for President Barack Obama, to whom he devotes a
whole chapter. He discusses Obama’s resolutely pro-Islamic 2009 Cairo speech
and his doomed efforts to bring a new harmony to the relations between the United
States and the world of Islam. “For Israel,” Gurfinkiel asserts, “Obama’s rise constitutes a major danger”. In a May 2011 interview with prominent French publicist Guy Millière, he went
so far as to say that “Obama is an absolute enemy of Israel.” (7)
Toward the end of his lucid, if bleak essay, Gurfinkiel turns to the biblical
prophet Zechariah to find grounds for hope. “Behold, the day of the Lord
cometh…I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be
taken….” But as the following verses say: “Then shall the Lord go forth and fight
against those nations…and it shall come to pass that everyone that is left of all the
nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up to worship the King, the Lord
of hosts….” (8)
In his conclusion, having asked again whether Israel can survive, Gurfinkiel declines
to answer by a simple yes or no. “Israel can perish by assassination,” he writes.
“Yet there is still time to prevent the crime and the disaster today, by adopting a
new rule of the game and keeping to it” .
This extremely well-researched and thought-provoking book has not benefited
from any significant media exposure outside the narrow circle of French Jewish
media, mainly the community’s many blogs and radio programs. Yet it should be
required reading for those who want to understand the complexities of the issue. It
should be noted, however, that recent events including the so-called Arab Spring
have somewhat changed the equation. More and more people are coming reluctantly
to the conclusion that Israel—and the Palestinian question—is not really
the one issue preventing peace in the Middle East. The brazen slaughter of thousands
of Syrian civilians while the world looks on, the electoral victories of Islamic
parties throughout the region, and perhaps the growing awareness of the looming
Iranian threat have opened many eyes.
Notes
1. Fabien Ghez, L’Etat de Trop (Paris: Editions David Reinharc, 2010).
2. Olivier Boruchowitch and Richard Laub, Israël: un avenir compromis (Paris: Berg, 2009).
3. Jacques Tarnero, Le nom de trop: Israel illegitime? (Paris: Editions Armand Colin, 2011).
4. Pierre Andre Taguieff, Israel et la nouvelle question juive (Paris: Les Provinciales, 2011).
5. http://www.aschkel.info/article-interview-de-michel-gurfinkiel-par-guitel-ben-ishay-
73706900.html.
6. “La douzième guerre d’Israël n’aura pas lieu. C’est ce qu’espèrent les Israéliens. Tous s’y
préparent. Ils savent que si elle éclate elle sera meurtrière” (9).
7. http://www.terredisrael.com/infos/?p=35696.
8. Zechariah 14 (King James Version).
Michelle Mazel is a graduate of Sciences Po (the Institute for Political Science)
and the Paris Faculte de Droit. She is a writer of both fictional and nonfictional
works and currently resides in Jerusalem.