George Steiner's Zionist heresies

[bemildred]

You really have to read it all, and even then ...
But it's much better than the conventional drivel.

The latest edition (no. 6) of "Keshet
Hahadasha" (an arts journal) carries the
Hebrew translation of a speech delivered in
Frankfurt by literary critic George Steiner on
the occasion of his being awarded the Ludwig
Boerne Prize for outstanding essay writing. For
anyone who is familiar with Steiner's doctrine
concerning Israel, the text of the speech will
come as a spectacular surprise.

---

It is the Jews' otherness, their alienation and the
absence of a territorial patrimony that explains,
in Steiner's view, their contribution to
civilization. The homeland of the Jews is the
book, not the soil. This is the reason for
Steiner's objection to Zionism, which
exchanged the book as homeland with "the
Golan Heights and Gaza." He considers the
state of wandering, in the absence of roots, the
telltale mark of high culture. In his words,
"Trees have roots, people have legs;" and
"People should collect passports like stamps."

The visa in his passport contains only one
sentence: "Nothing human is alien to me."

---

And then he makes the blunt statement: "Israel
is an absolute miracle, a dream out of the
inferno that was realized as though with a
magic wand. Now it is the safe haven for Jews.
Should trouble arise again - and it will arise -
one day maybe Israel will give shelter to my
son and to my son's sons."

Haaretz