Sublime

Israel, he says, ‘thought it was different because it was different: it constituted an egalitarian social system in the midst of stratified societies.’

Comme l’observait le poète hébraïque Haïm Gouri, un peuple ne peut être dit colonisateur lorsqu’en fouillant le sous-sol dont il est censé être l’occupant surgissent des traces et vestiges multiples de son antique présence. C’est sans doute à cela que tient l’impossibilité israélienne à penser le sionisme comme colonialisme : colonialiste de par le

Israel is guilty of many things, but it has attempted to make peace over and over again.

Israelis were seeking a new kind of redemption, one that would come not from courage on the battlefield or profound ideological intensity, but from a life of simple humanity. Many of them were seeking it in the texts and traditions that had shaped their people for thousands of years.

As Ben-Gurion had hoped, the reparations, combined with other foreign aid sources, got Israel on its feet. The money was used to improve housing, create an Israeli shipping fleet and national airline, build roads and telecommunication systems, and establish electricity networks. Reparations also helped finance Israel’s National Water Carrier projec