(2 of 2)
Grossman himself comes to see both sides locked in an "unbreakable prison of circumstance." Yet his understanding of that circumstance is frequently overshadowed by what journalists call the human-interest angle. Because they have been losers in the military struggles between Arab and Jew, Palestinians make good underdogs: the old woman in Deheisha who reminds the author of his exiled Polish grandmother; the impoverished Arabs who constitute a cheap and illegal work force for Jewish businesses. When satellites transmit television pictures of heavily armed Israeli troops attacking rock-throwing teenagers, it % is easy to feel that David has become Goliath. It is easier still to forget that the handiwork of P.L.O. terrorists once shocked viewers even more. Grossman describes the time-consuming and often humiliating security searches conducted on Arabs crossing the Allenby Bridge from Jordan. He sympathizes with a little girl who has her doll confiscated unnecessarily, but conveniently rolls over the fact that without these operations the young Arab demonstrators now on U.S. TV screens would probably be throwing smuggled hand grenades at civilians.
Grossman's selection of West Bank Jewish settlers is an unpleasant lot: intransigent, arrogant and frightening. "I fear life among people who have an obligation to an absolute order," he writes convincingly. "Absolute orders require, in the end, absolute deeds, and I, nebbish, am a partial, relative, imperfect man who prefers to make correctible mistakes rather than attain supernatural achievements."
Good luck. The part of the world that Grossman lives in made its name on supernatural achievements. Zionism was largely a social and political movement led by secular Jews, but its realization 40 years ago in Israel owes much to the strength of an ancient faith. Unfortunately, its enemies are also discovering the power of pious thinking. Spurred by the Iranian example, militant Islam is spreading in the Middle East, where religion and real estate go together like Cain and Abel. It will be no place for a nebbish.