Daniel Mendelsohn has written one of the most beautiful books about the lost generations of the Holocaust, “The Disappeared” (Einaudi), in which he reconstructs the fragments of a family history that is the story of the greatest tragedy of the 20th century, he is a classicist, Homer -Translator, professor at Bard College in New York, and a few days ago he signed (together with intellectuals, writers and historians such as Michael Walzer, David Grossman, Simon Sebag-Montefiore) “A call for Empathy”, a direct appeal to the much of the global left that has proven incapable of solidarity with the Israelis in the face of the October 7 attack. “I rarely take part in similar initiatives,” he tells us over Zoom, “but the Hamas action was terrible, I think it was specifically designed to bring back memories of the Holocaust and the pogroms.” These torture stories are similar to the stories , which I heard in my childhood.”
Why so little empathy?
“There is this double standard that I find shocking: We are always reminded that the Palestinians are not Hamas.” And obviously they are not. But when innocent Israelis are raped, killed or beheaded, the reaction is: Well, what did you expect, of course? As if these people were somehow equal to their government, which, as we know, has been very provocative towards the Palestinian problem for years. I am shocked, especially among intellectuals and academics, by the refusal to recognize that what was done on October 7th is a cruel, bestial and criminal act against the civilian population, against people who are no longer responsible for the actions of their government than I was for Trump. It is a refusal that betrays anti-Semitism. Let me be clear: I have no problem with people protesting the Israeli government’s response to October 7, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Palestinians. But when the protest takes the form of attacks on Jews around the world, attacks on Jewish property, then that is nothing other than anti-Semitism.”
Their appeal was aimed particularly at the “global left”.
“Yes, because for many years the intellectual left, based on Marx but also on Foucault, has formulated everything in terms of power. So Israel can only be bad because it is more powerful, and the Palestinians can only be good because they have no power. A great intellectual like Judith Butler even went so far as to describe Hamas as a progressive movement. It’s completely crazy: they fight against power and are therefore progressive. And even students are often “trained” in these patterns instead of being pushed to think critically. Israel is a military power, but for a historical reason: it is surrounded by peoples who want to destroy the Jewish state.”
On campus, Israel is accused of being an imperialist-colonialist force…
“Yes, the students repeat that Israel is a colonial power, but the people massacred on October 7th lived within the borders established by the United Nations in 1948, they were not settlers from the West Bank, and Israel has been for 18 years not Gaza.” . There is a lot of ignorance, big proclamations without knowledge of history: if Israel is a colonial power, then everyone is. The model of colonialism is now applied indiscriminately: Is Israel a colonial power, just as the British Empire was a colonial power? Obviously not. I say this as a leftist: the use of such a blunt instrument by the leftist intelligentsia for perhaps the most complex and delicate situation in modern history is frustrating.
Do you think that social media, the speed, the simplification it brings, prevents any possibility of understanding?
“Unfortunately yes, we are all in an echo chamber, we tend to only listen to those who think like us.” We relate to things in a childish way: I like it, I don’t like it, and we ignore the complexity. The result is that the discourse is very hardened, it is hardened, people take meaningless positions. I cannot remember an event that has sparked such a problematic and far-reaching debate. I feel like all the things we’ve been thinking about for a long time – the shortcomings of social media and traditional media – are coming together in the worst possible way, in what is already the most delicate political situation today. A perfect storm. And that, going back to your original question, is why I thought I wanted to sign this letter. I would like to have a bit of balance, or rather not even balance, but elasticity of thinking: you can have two ideas in your head at the same time.