JACQUES PIElRI
615
error; they are not alone. How severely the Western world condemns
Israel for its least mistake, while not reacting when Syria (socialist,
to be sure) massacred - according to the most moderate estimates–
ten thousand persons in February 1982 in Hama, or when the Druse
(also socialists) assassinated 1,500 Christians in September 1983 in
the Choufl
Two weights, two measurements: this seems to have been the
rule here . From now on, we must show a bit of consistency; the re–
treat by France from its allies in Lebanon, about which there is up–
roar, would be absurd. The French never have run the least risk in
the Christian zone; as to the rest-the howitzers and the assaults–
they have accepted these risks with a million other Lebanese! . ..
If
we refuse to help the only truly enlightened elements in Leba–
non, we ought now to take the necessary measures to receive hundreds
of thousands of Lebanese refugees fleeing totalitarianism. Among
them, there also will be moderate Muslims, numerous in Lebanon,
who, too, will be victims of fanaticism. By then; we will have forgot–
ten what Bechir Gemayel said in 1981, when he received a delegation
of leftist French radicals:
With France, it is difficult to reveal all the things
we share.
. . .
What long and profound cultural complicity which, for such a
long time, has allowed us to plot, in the same discourse, the same language, the
course of liberty!
Translated from the French by Edith Kurzwell
David Twersky
ISRAEL
When it comes to confused thinking about Israel, Ameri–
can intellectuals do not have a monopoly.
For most Israeli intellectuals, the gods never failed : only a small
minority embraced the Soviet Union and, significantly, even they
were never embraced in return. At most points during Israel's brief
history, the great divide was not between the pro-Soviet and the soc–
ial democratic lefts, but between the social democrats and the right .
The great majority of Israeli novelists, poets, and critics always re–
mained somewhere on the left: it was
de
n'gueur
for the life of the mind.
