Amos Oz Quote

A prominent israeli writer, sami michael, once told of a long car journey with a driver. At some point, the driver explained to Michael how important, indeed how urgent, it is for us Jews to kill all the Arabs. Sami Michael listened politely, and instead of reacting with horror, denunciation, or disgust, he asked the driver an innocent question: And who, in your opinion, should kill all the Arabs? Us! The Jews! We have to! It’s either us or them! Can’t you see what they’re doing to us? But who, exactly, should actually kill all the Arabs? The army? The police? Firemen, perhaps? Or doctors in white coats, with syringes? The driver scratched his head, pondered the question, and finally said, We’ll have to divvy it up among us. Every Jewish man will have to kill a few Arabs. Michael did not let up: All right. Let’s say you, as a Haifa man, are in charge of one apartment building in Haifa. You go from door to door, ring the bells, and ask the residents politely, ‘Excuse me, would you happen to be Arabs?’ If the answer is yes, you shoot and kill them. When you’re done killing all the Arabs in the building, you go downstairs and head home, but before you get very far you hear a baby crying on the top floor. What do you do? Turn around? Go back? Go upstairs and shoot the baby? Yes or no? A long silence. The driver considers. Finally he says, Sir, you are a very cruel man! This story exposes the confusion sometimes found in the fanatic’s mind: a mixture of intransigence with sentimentality and a lack of imagination.