One of the most dramatic consequences of applying the absurd BDS directions in academia, aiming at excluding Israeli academics from world universitities, is to deprive the world to fathom the diversity of the Israeli society. Israeli academics, and many prestigious intellectuals, do share very leftist positions, based of an old socialist and communist mindset, often shared by the founders of the state. Many of them do have a moderate position towards Palestinian statehood aims and are very critical towards the mixture of messianism and politics struggling to become mainstream. Many of them are also very critical of Netanyahu´s policies.
Prestigious historian Saul Friedländer observed with fine knowledge and detail, the tumultous last year, noticing the political events and mass street movements stirred by the judicial reform initiated by Netanyahu for self-survival reasons. While noticing the actors and stages of the crisis, he is smoothly sharing personal memories - including of a meeting with Golda Meir - as well as personal observations about the many rifts of the relationship between Askenazim and Mizrahim - some of the analysis of Shas as an identity political movement are very pertinent. +
It´s obvious that Friedländer, who is a resident of the USA, do have a clear bias and takes many of his information from left-wing publications such as Haaretz. On the other hand, he belongs to an intellectual tradition that do have his own mentality limitations, but whose clarity and secularist tendecies are very important for the democratic functioning of Israel. An Israel in turmoil who is still struggling to get out of a crisis that seems without an end in sight - the diary ends shortly before October.
Rating: 3.5 stars
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