책을 읽으며 (3)

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Colum McCann, "Apeirogon: A Novel" (2020)에서

 

After Smadar was born, her grandfather, Mattit Peled, sat with her in the garden and taught her English and Arabic both. The General liked the role of grandfather. It softened something in him. He brought her to meetings of community boards, activities, human rights groups.

   Until she was eight, he carried her around on his shoulders.

   ( ... )

   Peled said to [his son-in-law] Rami that he was not one to suffer fools gladly, least of all himself.

   He had been an architect of the Six-Day War. Lightning strikes. Bombing raids. The aura of surprise. He had become a general, revered all over the country -- one of the original Jewish idealists: socialist, Zionist, democratic, but after '68 he grew almost immediately wary of th Occupation. It jeopardized, he said, the moral weight of the cause. It took away from the sense that Israel was a guiding global light. He went to  meetings at the Knesset wearing a pin showing a Star of David alongside a Palestinian flag.... He spoke out on behalf of moderation, toleration, inclusivity, nuance. He was no lamed vavnic, he did not want to carry the sorrow of his country..... He had met with Dayan, with Herzog, with Rabin, with Golda Meir, with others, too. Holding on to the Territories was a mistake, contrary to a secure Jewish democracy. They needed to disengage. Get out.

   ( ... )

   After the war he launched himself into his studies again. Wrote his dissertation on Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian novelist.... Took a secret trip to Cairo to meet Mahfouz. Wrote impassioned editorials for newspapers. Talked with [his daughter] Nurit and her brothers about the primarcy of peace.

   He was aware, he said, that humiliation was a deep wound. We are Semitic, both of us, Israelis and Palestinians together. Your generation is in jeopardy, he said to Rami. There was a time for war, I admit it, he said, but no more.... The Occupation, he said, was corruption....

   In Israel the rancor grew. The right wing, the conservatives, the settlers. His home phone rang. Death threats.... 

   He went to synagogue with the two-flag pin in his lapel.... He was outraged by the Palestinian bombings too, the hijackings, the kidnappings, the moral cowardice, the rhetoric that came from the most radical elements, but nobody should keep his foot on another man's neck, he said. Peace was a moral inevitability. Neither side could keep the other from it. (pp. 193-5)

 

Israelis and Palestinians, 우리는 함께 다 Semitic이다. 이렇게 말하는 것을 팔레스타인 시인 Naomi Shihab Nye에게서 처음, 그리고 유태인 Matti Peled에게서 두 번째로 듣는다.

 

 

 

 

Matti Peled (사진: wikipedia에서)