Amos Oz, a loaded dice

Amos Oz, an israeli jew, received the Principe de Asturias prize in the literature category. This is the most prestigious award in Spain to scientists and artists. The jury considered that he had worked on the defense of the understanding between different cultures.

It is an strange decision for various reasons. This writer has participated in several wars in defense of his country, israel. I am still not sure how going to war helps understanding between people but i do understand how the Barenboim-Said Foundation helps in that respect.

Another strange aspect of the decision is that his book how to cure a fanatic starts with as frontal attack to european left-wing and its intellectuals. Because in Europe as in the US main parties are no longer divided by left and right, Oz's ideas apply to all parties with ruling options. He claims there is a fundamental naivety in their understanding of the conflict. Here there is no good guy, bad guy. What there is a conflict of two people with the same right to the same land.

I still don't understand how a government of the left would give a prize to an author making these claims. Not that i don't think politics should be independent of the jury's resolution but let's face it this is never-hardly ever- the case. So we have two options, either they don't know who was the recipient of the prize or they know and they don't care. It is hard to believe that such a government doesn't care about how he uses money and power so my guess- could be wrong- is that they didn't know. Which by the way is in line with the previous actions taken by ZP, Zapatero and Co.

But let's go back to the claim. The left in the EU doesn't understand the conflict. OK. Does the US understand the conflict? The US has been an incredibly stubborn supporter of Israel to the point that independent scholars have, not based on moral but on interest, criticized the US foreign policy. This book of course has met with strong opposition of jewish lobbies and academics that once again take the route of censorship to promote their cause.
Let me insist these are widely respected scholars.

In any event, it is impossible to deny the great sums of public money that the US sends to Israel. A big part of this money is military, eg, through reduced prices on weapon spending that is to be bought from the US. It is hard to compare this financial help to the tiny amounts that Palestine receives from the rest of the world. And still this writer, the pacifist that goes to war, criticizes Europe for thinking that making israelis and palestinians meet can solve anything at all. Maybe what he should be worrying about the effect on the conflict on continuous support to the strongest partner in this war Israel.

That is i think the point. Europe is the land where the poor are helped and not left in the street or without medical assistance. No matter the color of the government, this policies, with small variations are implemented across Europe.

Europe supports Palestine because it is the poor and the weak. Because not even their neighbors want them in their land as we have repeatedly seen. Because they have been expelled from their country and are not allowed to create their own state in their own land promoting the continuous expropriation of Palestinian land. With its policies, that Israel is a developed country is yet to be shown.

If you know about sources of information that compare foreign aid to both Israel and Palestine, please contact me. I would to post links on this and don't have the time to try to find them again.