But as much as the young Oz was enthralled by Jesus, the story of Judas irritated him. Not theologically. But rather “the little detective within me” was appalled by the Judas tale, which, Oz says, is a “vicious, ugly story”, arresting for being so badly written: had the gospels had a decent editor, he says, it would have been struck out.
Nothing about it adds up. Judas Iscariot is meant to be a rich man, yet he performs his great act of treachery for just 30 pieces of silver – “about £400 in today’s money”. A decent sum, but surely not enough to provide a motive. And why would Jesus’s pursuers need Judas to point him out via the unforgettable gesture of a kiss? The miracle-worker was already notorious in Roman Jerusalem, having caused such a commotion at the temple. None of it makes any sense, says Oz. [...]
Oz does not share the dead man’s politics – he stresses that while he may be a peacenik, he has never been a pacifist – but he knows what it’s like to be branded a traitor. He denounced the occupation of the territories Israel conquered in 1967 almost as soon as the six-day war was over, when his countrymen were still giddy with victory. A soldier in that conflict – and again in 1973 – Oz first came to prominence as one of a group of young kibbutznik writers who assembled a dissenting collection on the war just won: The Seventh Day. Long before it became a matter of international diplomatic consensus, Oz was advocating the partition of historical Palestine into two states – Israel and Palestine – alongside each other. And he was a founder member of the movement that became famous as Peace Now. [...]
Besides, he’s suspicious of those who are so insistent that the two state solution is dead. He points to the curious alliance of “the Israeli far right and the radical left in Europe, including this country [Britain]. Both are amplifying the same music, saying, ‘There’s no going back on the occupation, the only solution is to live ... in one state.’ I think this is nonsense.” He is especially impatient with the leftist vision of a single state, which he brands a kind of “kitsch”, imagining that the two peoples can forget the bloodshed and conflict of the last century and “jump into bed with each other, like in a lousy Hollywood movie”.
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