Oz's hope for Israel, and not his alone, always rested on the assumption that a humane Zionist state was possible. The reality is that it is not possible. Any state designed first and foremost for one ethnically and/or religiously defined group, and also having in its midst a sizable minority, must inevitably become discriminatory in its laws and practices. In the case of Israel this fact is reinforced by a Zionist ideology that demands such an exclusive state if Jews are to be "safe." This too is an illusion, for there are fewer places in today's world less safe for Jews than Israel.
As a writer, Amos Oz will long be remembered as a master craftsman of the Hebrew language -- a producer of very good reads. As a advocate of a two-state solution, he was ignored by the majority of his own people. As a moralist, his program was belied by the realities of a Zionist movement that had long ago turned its back on the values Oz held dear. Thus, in the end, Amos Oz was a great writer, and perhaps also a good man, born and bred to a bad system he could not bring himself to abandon.
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