The Wrath of Jonah

By Rosemary and Herman Reuther, Harper and Row, 1989. 277 pp. List: $19.95; AET: $15 for one, $19.95 for two.

Reviewed by Fouad Moughrabi

The appearance of this book is a significant event in itself. It demonstrates the remarkable change which has occurred in the discourse about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Wrath of Jonah helps redefine key issues at a crucial moment in the history of the dispute and is also a solid work of demystification.

The book begins with the basic question, "What kind of repentance seems to be called for in order for Israelis and Palestinians to live together in justice and peace today?" The authors suggest that "one important step toward repentance lies in telling the truth about the history of both people." This is why a book of ethical and theological criticism devotes so much space to setting the historical record straight.

Israel is now brought back to earth and belongs to profane history. It is no longer the light unto the nations that its apologists had claimed. As a state just like any other, say the Ruethers, Israel "needs to be brought down from its theological heights of absolutized redemption from absolutized evil and seen as a human state with all its defects."

The book makes it clear that Israel, like other states, was born in original sin. The Ruethers have read and incorporated the body of historical revisionist literature produced by leading Israeli historians aboutthe 1948 period. The Palestinian refugees, says Benny Morris, did not leave of their own volition or because they were told to do so by Arab radio broadcasts. Most were driven out of their homes and the new occupiers destroyed their villages to make sure that the refugees would never return. The Ruethers document how other myths, so carefully cultivated in Israel and so long accepted in the West, are also being challenged. The late Simha Flapan revealed the truth about seven of the most important ones. It is simply false to say that the Arabs declared a holy war against the Jews in an effort to throw them in the sea. It appears that nearly all of the confrontation states were ready to come to a peace agreement with the new Jewish state, provided some of the refugees would be permitted to return. Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, said no.

The Palestinians also tried to salvage what they could and reach some agreement. However, the collusion between King Abdullah of Jordan and the Israelis was designed to ensure, then as now, that no Palestinian Arab state would be established.

The Ruethers flatly reject the practice by apologists for Israel of equating critical examination of any aspect of the Jewish state with anti-Semitism. "Frank criticism of political injustices in Israel is not anti-Semitism, " they assert. As for acceptance by Jewish and Christian writers that response to the Holocaust means uncritical support for the state of Israel, the Ruethers explain: "The proper response to any revelation of injustice is compassion for the victims, but also sorrow for the victimizers ... The point of authentic criticism of evil is not to justify more hatred and violence but to end the cycle of hatred and violence."

Human rights activists, theologians concerned about issues of social justice, scholars, laymen and politicians will benefit from a careful reading of this brilliant, clear and eminently fair analysis of the issues. This book addresses itself to the new and expanding constituency of peace among Christians, Jews and Muslims in East and West, whose work will be greatly facilitated by the expose of myths, half truths and taboos. It is the new manifesto of peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Dr. Fouad Moughrabi, professor of political science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, is co-author of Public Opinion and the Palestine Question. The Wrath of Jonah is available from the AET Book Club.